Our rent just functionally went up $200. They've decided to cease paying electricity (which is what brought us here in the first place) and we're going month-to-month. ($150 for electricity and $50 for mo-2-mo.) This is especially rubbing salt in the wound because we were sooo going to move out of here. We've gotten three erroneous eviction notices (one on my birthday, no less, which lead to an argument that ended a sorta relationship I was in), a pothole in the parking lot four feed wide and half a foot deep, and the last straw was when they towed JD's car on a registration violation (On January 3rd, his registration had been three days expired) most likely in return for a kickback.

However, because both of us are unemployed at present, we cannot leave.

But! But there are silver linings here:
1) We love the apartment. Despite the worst management we've ever dealt with (and our previous complex was analogous to the barrios), the apartment is cool in both form and function. The front side has a European decadent charm and the back makes this place feel like a giant tree house. The first floor (we occupy the second and third) looks like a little cave because it's half a floor below the elevated walkway. Though I'm not a dungeons and dragons person, the idea of cave and tree villages is conceptually cool and I was going to miss that.

2) As much as we loathe our management, they were quite entertaining today. They tried to explain that they were not functionally raising rent by no longer including electricity. "We're charging the same amount. Actually, this is the first time in a year our rent hasn't gone up!" When I explained to them it was still functionally going up, they looked at me like I was stupid and kept saying "It's still only $889 a month!"

3) I was also going to miss our neighbors.

4) If I'd been terminated a week later, we'd have turned in our 30-day notice and we'd literally have nowhere to go. If I'd been terminated a month later, I'd be saddled with a much larger lease (I was looking at getting a much nicer place, being comfortably employed and all).

5) It was quite possibly that Danforth was not going to be able to move with me, and as roommates we compliment each other extremely well. Even a week ago when I could afford to live on my own, I still would rather have living with him.

I want to thank everyone who has written, tried to write, called, or tried to call since the termination. For those of you I was unable to respond to, I apologize. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out where I'm going to go from here and until I have some semblence of a direction, I am completely at a loss as to what to say to people.

One thing about me when I am really upset or angry about something is that my immediate inclination is to look inward. Some seek to connect to other people and I can understand that (in fact, when the problem is not so seriously, I get a lot out of talking about it to other people), but my inclination is to find a proverbial treehouse in the woods, climb inside, and try to figure things out. Though this was not completely unexpected, the timing absolutely was and I am left a bit stunned. I will try to find something else to post before the week is out, but I'm not all that ready to talk about it yet and I can't find much else to really talk about. I am also technically still on their payroll as part of my whopping two day severence package for which I am expected to stay home and provide phone technical support for my replacement, who was waiting in the lobby at the time of my exit.

So, thanks again for the letters, messages, links, and emails. I really do appreciate the support, even if I can't verbally acknowledge it at the moment.

[Originally posted on the No-Lyfe Journal]

First: So why did you call us here?
Second: Yeah. What's up?
Third: I was relieved of my duties at work today...
First: Holy crap!
Second: Woah...
Third: Yeah.
First: So what now?
Second: Yeah, what now?
Third: What now?


[Go Back to Start]

[Originally posted on the No-Lyfe Journal]

Audrey: When was the first time the thought popped in your head that we might not make it?
David: That’s not the game.
Audrey: It's our first date, there aren’t any rules
David: I’m not sure
Audrey: Think carefully
David: What about the game?
Audrey: It’s over, I won. Look maybe it wasn’t a specific moment, maybe it was-
David: I had a nightmare. One night. I didn’t wake you up to tell me that it was okay. I think that was the first time. Does that count?

-David and Audrey Dunn, Unbreakable

The Second is at the campaign headquarters of the Phil Sudan for Congress campaign. I'm ostensibly covering it for a conservative publication that I worked for, but the publication's preference for Sudan's primary opponent precluded anything positive bring written about Sudan. I figured as much, but I went anyway because there was free food and it was a good chance to meet people. Sudan hadn't won me over, but I couldn't help but admire the man's history and social standing. Successful corporate lawyer turned congressional candidate. Sudan won the primary that night, so it was a rather happy occasion. Having rooted for his opponent, I was less than thrilled, but it was hard not to get swept in the excitement of a come-from-behind victory.

Third: Okay, I give, why are we here?
First: Do you feel the least bit false here? Celebrating with a candidate that you weren't in favor of?
Third: It's not like it mattered, really. Whoever won the nomination was going to lose the general election. Besides, Reiser got his chance last year and lost. Sudan also ran again up in Dallas and lost. In the end, it really doesn't matter so much.
First: That's beside the point. The point wasn't that you weren't being true to your convictions.
Third: What convictions? It literally did not matter one iota who won. I was invited to this party and I wasn't invited to Reiser's. They were interchangable, really.
First: *sigh*
Third: Why does any of this matter?
First: It's indicative of a trend. You just went with the flow when you were him [pointing to The Second]. You did things because you thought you should. Not because you wanted to.
Third: Sometimes you have to. Especially in cases like this where it doesn't really matter and you can just celebrate and be happy that you were, if tepidly, backing the right horse. There was a lot to admire about Sudan, if felt at the time.
First: Like he hadn't paid child support in two years?
Third: That hadn't surfaced yet. It would have been a different matter if it had. At the time, he was just a corporate lawyer - which I was aiming to be - with a tight family and ostensibly happy life. Wealthy, too.
First: Since when did you care about wealth?
Third: I did at the time. I was going to be a lawyer.
First: Why were you going to be a lawyer?
Third: A lot of reasons. I find law and policy interesting, for starters. It was also a good way to be successful and make money.
First: And why did you want to make money?
Third: There's nothing wrong with making money. It's the American way and all that.
First: But it's not what you wanted to do.
Third: Sure it was.
First: Then why didn't you become one?
Third: A lot of reasons.
First: Such as?

The Second hugs the daughter of Sudan's campaign manager goodbye. It's apparent that he has to go to bed. He has to head out to work.

Third: Looks like we're about to leave.
First: Indeed. We're not done yet, though.

When we get outside, it's not pitch black like it should be at midnight or so when I usually left for work. In fact, judging by the sun, it's still day time. Furthermore, as we drive down Westheimer, we're going the wrong direction.

Third: What's going on? Why is it day time and why are we headed down the wrong way of Westheimer?
First: We're on our way to the publication's office to meet the other editors. We're going to be there for a couple hours, then we're going down to the bus depot to pick up Brian. We're going to drop him off and get some sleep. We haven't slept in almost 40 hours.
Third: I guess some things never changed.

The semester this all came down was perhaps the most hectic of my college career. I had a full time job and a full time classload. Not only that, but all of my classes were on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so twice a week for a 36 hour span or so, I'd only be able to get brief naps (if that) for a 36 hour span as I went to work, class, and then work again. This was actually how I learned to stay awake for such long periods of time, a skill I unfortunately use regularly these days.

First: This is Friday. Do you remember what Friday this is?
Third: [thinks about it. nods]
First: So you know what's about to happen?
Third: [nod]
First: But we have some time to kill, so let's talk.
Third: About?
First: Let's talk about why you wanted to make a lot of money.
Third: Dammit.
First: So why did you want to be make a lot of money?
Third: American way and apple pie. Remember?
First: No, why did you want to be a lawyer and make a lot of money? You know the answers I'm looking for, so spill it.
Third: I wanted to be a lawyer to prove that I could. For all of the problems I've had in school my entire life, they seemed to be behind me. If I could have made it through law school, I'd have proven once and for all that I was undoubtedly a success. And the money was good.
First: And why was the money important to you? Remember, I know the answer, I just want you to say it so you will realize how silly it sounds.
Third: That's not going to work because it's not silly. I wanted to make a lot of money so that Anna could have her Whitlock compound. Her ambitions required a lot of money. She was never going to make that money, so I had to.
First: Did she ever ask you to go to law school?
Third: No. I brought it up.
First: Did she ever ask you to make a lot of money so that she could have the house and yard of her dreams? Did she ever ask you to get that for her?
Third: No, but she wanted it all the same. She was making plans for it and she was never going to make the money for it. She'd dropped out of college and was making $8 at PETsMART as a dog trainer. Something was going to have to give, so I started preparing for law school and taking the LSAT.
First: But she never asked you to do any of this. She only asked that you loved her and that you stay with her. You didn't.
Third: I did love her. She was the only reason I was so worried about money! I could have cared less.
First: But she never asked you to do any of this! Don't you dare blame her for this. You never asked her, never consulted with her, you just did it because you felt that was what was expected of you.
Third: I can't always do everything that I want to do.
First: I suppose not, but in a couple of minutes you're about to run a red light and another car is going to slam in to you. Why are you going to run a red light? Because you've been up for fourty hours, because you're on your way from job #1 to job #3. You're preoccupied with a thesis you have to write for an honors degree you don't need so that you can get into a law school to get a degree and make money for your girlfriend that never even asked that of you. Are you starting to see how out of control this is?
Third: Of course I see. Look, I'm not looking to return to those days. I am thinking about going to Phoenix and getting an MBA. That's a different matter entirely.
First: How so?
Third: First of all, I have no girlfriend to please. Secondly, no one expects nearly as much of me anymore. Thirdly, it's as good a thing to do as any. I've got to do something with my life.
First: Why do you want to get an MBA?
Third: To get a better job.
First: Why do you want a better job?
Third: To make more money.
First: What do you need more money for exactly?
Third: To support my wife and kids down the line.
First: But you don't have a wife and kids and you don't know what they'd want from you. Your track record in that regard leaves a lot to be desired.
Third: True, but it certainly wouldn't hurt my prospects on finding a wife to have kids with. Right now I'm just a glorified computer nerd. We're a dime-a-dozen
First: And middle-management is much better...
Third: It'll at least give me the outward appearence of being less of a nerd.
First: You're a nerd that is a prolific writer. That should be a draw for at least somebody out there.
Third: So far it's only been a draw for the Lisas of the world. Not something I'd really care much to repeat.
First: It always bothered you that Anna didn't appreciate your writing.
Third: She did appreciate my writing. She was the first reader of every draft of AHD that I wrote. With some constructive criticism and earnest applause.
First: Yes, but she couldn't relate to it. She's not a writer herself and so that you spent so much time and effort into creating stories and she couldn't be a part of that.
Third: Doesn't really matter, though. If I expected someone super-philosophical and a writer who could relate too closely to my weird mind, that would be a little... well.. weird I guess. I'm not looking for someone exactly like me, just a nice compliment to me. Anna was that, if not enough of one to make it last.
First: But how do you expect to find someone that can appreciate you at all if you pretend to be a middle manager? Be it someone romantic or just a friend?
Third: What's your point here?
First: My point is that you'll always have trouble socially if you continue to neglect your core being.
Third: Why do you keep saying my "core being"? I am what I choose to be.
First: Exactly what The Second thought. Now you're considering getting an MBA and making more money and then meeting someone under a false pretense -- that you are just a regular schmo like all the middle managers out there -- in the same way that you presented yourself to Anna as someone basically undriven by personal desires. If insanity is going the same thing over and over again expecting different results, you're quite clearly insane.

It was about then that that in the corner of my eye, I saw The Second's hand slip. His head falls back against the headrest in the seat of the car. He's blacked out. The light turns red just a second before we go into the Intersection. A car at the light in the opposite way sees his light turn green and slams on the accelerator, hitting us within seconds. The car spins around and The Second snaps out of it and jumps out of the car to make sure the other driver is alright. The First and I also get out and watch him scramble about trying to figure out what happened and what to do. Once the cars are moved out of the Intersection, The Second starts making phone calls. First to Dad, then to Anna.

Second: Anna, this is Alex. I know I was supposed to go over there this afternoon to sleep, but I've gotten held up. I'll try to make it over there as soon as I can. Might not be until late this afternoon. Sorry. I love you, bye.

First: You don't tell her what happened until you get there. Tonight you're going to have a nightmare about the accident and for the next three months, every time you're the first car into the intersection, your heart is going to skip a couple beats and you're going to have a low-level panic attack. You're never going to tell Anna about this and as you re-evaluate your priorities and back down from law school and cut down on your college hours, she's going to wonder what's going on. You're going to keep her completely out of the process and she's not going to know what's wrong until it's too late, leaving her angry and confused. Why? Because you can be anyone that you want to be, and you chose to be the time of person that doesn't share his problems.
Third: I'm well aware of the mistakes that I've made, thanks.
First: Are you?

[Part Four]

I got out of the apartment at around four, which gave me about an hour and a half to reach a Crawfish festival in Huntsville, starring a who's who in Texas artists (Django Walker, Phil Pritchett, Honeybrowne, and Reckless Kelly). I'd gone to Yahoo Maps to get directions. Since I don't have a printer (I have four computers, three monitors, three sets of speakers, a digital camera, a scanner, but no printer) I had to handwrite the directions on an envelope, which I promply left on my keyboard as I raced out the door. No matter, the directions were simple enough (North of 45, right on TX-19, left on Sam Houston Somethingorother) so I kept on trucking.

As I drove north on 45, I noticed that the other side of the road was horribly backed up. I wondered what it was, but reasoned that whatever it was would be solved or otherwise not an issue at 2:30 or so in the morning when I was on my way back.

I cursed myself for not bringing the camera when I passed the famed Sam Houston statue. I stop at a convenience store and get some coke. Realizing that I'm a bit low on cash, I try to use the ATM. It returns and error and the clerk tells me it's moody. Oh well.

When I reached TX-19 I got off and by a strange series of turns not denoted in Yahoo Maps I ended up driving north for about 15 minutes, then south. Then I was lost. So I went north again. Then south. I must have passed Old Sam Houston Rd. fifteen times. I know because each time I saw it I got excited, but then it was pretty apparent that OSH was not Sam Houston Somethingorother. So I finally went on I-45 to see if it was really TX-91, or TX-21, or TX-somethingelse. Nope. Only TX-19. So I decided to track down the college campus, figuring that Sam Houston Somethingorother was a major street, I'd find it that way. So I followed the sign that said, as clear as day "SAM HOUSTON COLLEGE CAMPUS THIS WAY." So I got off and... whammo. Nothing. Next thing I knew I was passing Old Sam Houston Rd. on gool ole TX-19 again. So I doubled back ("Hi Old Sam Houston Rd. again!") and then doubled forth, turning at the first junction after the Exit Sign to SHSU That Leads To Nowhere. So I was on some highway called US70.

"Hey look! It's Old Sam Houston Rd!"

Drive drive drive.

"Old Sam Houston Rd again! Hi!!"

Near as I can tell, OSH is shaped like a pretzel, and no matter where you go your going to pass it at least once.

Drive drive drive.

There's the campus!

Drive drive drive.

Double back. "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!" "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!"

I still couldn't find Sam Houston Somethingorother, though. Until I swore I saw it in an address in the corner of my eye. Was I actually on Sam Houston Somethingorother?

Hmmm...

Double back. "Hi Campus!" "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!" "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!"

I kept looking for some indication of the road I was on. Maybe I wasn't on US70 anymore. Maybe US70 is also Sam Houston Somethingorother.

Double back. "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!" "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!" "Hi Campus!"

Generally, when in this situation, I just look at an intersection and see what the road I'm on is by virtue of it telling the people crossing the road whether or not this was the road they needed to turn on. Funny thing, though, none of them were marked!

So I was apparently on the Road So Obvious It Doesn't Need a Sign. Since Sam Houston Whatsoever is a big road name without a location, I thought I might have had a match.

Drive Drive Drive. "Hi middle of nowhere!!"

Double back. "Hi Campus!" "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!" "Hey Old Sam Houston Rd!" (Yes, I know the joke is old, but it was old for me when I kept passing them over and over again, so suffer with me. That will distribute the suffering equally and thus lower my level of suffering as since the events have already occured, the sum suffering is constant, and thus the more ways divided the less the total sum)

I finally see a sign that says "JOLLY FOX CRAWFISH FESTIVAL" and a whole bunch of cars parked on the grass. Except no one was there. I did some investigating and found a key piece of evidence. It was a three foot tall sign that said "Joe's Used Car Lot" (or something to that effect). Turns out it was just an advertisement for Joe to line his pocket at the expense of raising false hope for out-of-towners who forget to print out there maps and get lost very easily. The good news is, though, that I confirm the Road So Obvious It Doesn't Need a Sign, US70, and Sam Houston Somethingorother are all the same road.

So I drive back down The Road With Many Names very, very slowly looking for the address I remembered offhand (2504, or 2405, of 2045 or 2054... maybe 4502... no, no, definitely 2504). First of all, I'd like to say that even though I am a libertarian in most respects, if I was a mayor I would pass a law saying that every building must have the address in big, gawdy white letters so that out of towners know where the hell they are address-wise. We can call it the Road Rage Minimilization Act because driving five miles an hour trying to decipher itty bitty address signs (where they exist!)on TRWMN brings out the rage in just about everyone else. And, without such laws, no one is inclined to put a sign with big gawdy white letters on it because they figure if they're the establishment you're looking for, you don't need to know the address and, you know GOD FORBID THEY ACTUALLY ASSIST DRIVERS TRYING TO LOCATE ANOTHER ESTABLISHMENT! They reason that there is no way anyone would ever want to find another address on The Road So Big And Busy It Has Three Names Four Including This One. Arrogant bastards.

However, despite the self-centered actions of the greedy establishments who forgo the white letters: Suddenly, there it is! Have you ever seen the movie The Shadow where concentrating hard enough makes this invisible hotel that the Asian baddude made invisible visible again? It was SO like that! Suddenly visible where it wasn't visible before. Might have had something to do with the whole driving 5mph on TRSBABIH3N4ITO.

But I digress. I pull into the parking lot and lo' and behold, there are no spots available. So I drive out and find a parking spot. I get out and before walking five steps, realize I need to go by the ATM. As I pass a Jack-in-the-Box I realize that I should probably grab a bite to eat so that I don't eat too much crawfish at $5 a bin. So I grab a bite to eat and track down a convenience store. For a road that busy, I am surprised at how few convenience stores there are. I swipe my card and it comes back with an error. I ask the clerk if there is anything wrong with the machine and he says there is not.

So I track down another store with an ATM. Error.

Well crap. I only have $5. I go to the Jolly Fox and ask them if I can pay with a credit card and they say they don't have a machine. I ask if I can go inside and pay and be right back out (I offer to leave my drivers license!) and he says that they're too busy to deal with a special request like that (and, in their defense, they are quite busy). So I go back to the second convenience store and ask if I can have them run my credit card through and give me some cash (and volunteer to buy something in the process). The fact that he denied my request wasn't odd. The way that he looked at me like I was the absolute scum of the earth was a bit offputting, though.

So I go to the other convenience store and make the same request. Again, denied but with a very, very dirty look.

I find a third convenience store and make the request yet again, against my better judgment. He not only declines and gives me a dirty look, he says "No, and if you don't want to buy something you need to go."

So I finally ask "why not?"

He said that "you kids never stop pulling this scam."

"This what? Look, I'm not asking anything of you anymore. I just want to know why I'm getting all these weird looks. I'm not from around here."

So he explains to me what's going on. Apparently it is common practice for college students in Huntsville (which, for those of you that don't know, is largely a college town populated with Sam Houston State University students) to run up their parents credit cards to get cash for binge drinking or other nefarious things. When their parents get $300 bills for what's supposed to be a gas card, they fire off letters to the gas stations who, though they get their money, have to deal with some irate parents they'd rather not have to deal with. Thus, he explained, establishments in and around Huntsville don't grant anyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cashing credit cards.

On my way out I see a lady ruffling through her purse at the pump. I start trying to explain to her my predicament to see if I can get $7 of cash off her for a full tank, but before I can finish I hear a tapping on the window from the convenience store. I look back and the clerk is giving me an eviller look than all of the evil looks I'd seen thus far.

Tired of evil looks, I just said "t'hell with it" and get back in my car.

"Hi Old Sam Houston Rd. Bye Old Sam Houston Rd!"

As I drive back down I45, I almost have to slam on the breaks. "What's the hold up?" I ask myself. Then I remember what I didn't see earlier. "The good news," I said to myself, "is that I'll finally get to see what's keeping up traffic... at this rate, in only two hours!"

Owen Courreges leaves some thoughtful comments on the "Santorum ad Nauseum" post below that are worthy of an entirely new post on sexuality. I'm at odds whether it belongs here, on the No-Lyfe Journal, or somewhere else. But since it was spawned here, here it will go.

On the subject of whether or not homosexuality is learned or genetic, Owen makes the following observation:

When I think of a great many people who do a great many things, I wonder how they could simply wake up one morning by deciding to do it. I wonder why pedophiles like children, and I wonder why serial adulterers like making committments and breaking them. Pointing out that there are negative consequences to homosexuality does not prove in the slightest that it is entirely involuntary.
...
On the theological point, however, I do agree but still have my doubts. After all, many people have genetic predispositions and disorders that do not preclude moral responibility for their actions, but nevertheless place a burden on them to control certain desires. Does this mean God places a special burden on some people, but not others? Does this mean God is hateful? You'd have to go into a serious debate over the nature of suffering and of moral obligation to sort this out.

Kudos to Owen for his honesty on this subject. Unfortunately, juxtiposing homosexuality and pedophilia, however intellectually, is often when serious discussion ends without the actual merits of such a comparison and contrast being made.

First, the similarities of pro-homosexual and pro-pedophilia arguments: Human sexuality ought to be realized. God, nature, or whomever would not have given us these desires if they were not meant to be realized. At a cursory glance, it may sound like that was an argument I was advancing below, but it is not. Same goes for adult heterosexuality, which is very often felt in contexts where it should not be realized. But on the subject at hand, homosexuality has only recently had its legitimacy recognized in many quarters (and it remains rejected in most) and though pedophilia is rejected in the great majority of contemporary western society, there are various movements underway to have its legitimacy recognized.

Except in the case of homosexual pedophilia, that's more or less where the similarities end. Men having sex with and wanting to have sex with other adult men and men having sex or wanting to have sex with female children are, in practice, very different things with different consequences. For information on my view of homosexuality and why I do not believe it wrong, read #1 two posts down so I don't have to repeat it here.

So, Owen reasonably asks, if God would not punish us by giving some desire for other men, why would he do it by giving some desire for children?

To answer this question, I believe that we must first make the distinction between attraction to young girls (and boys) of pre-pubescent age and young ladies (and boys) of later adolescence. I don't think many would argue that a man molesting a six year old and seducing a sixteen year old are on the same moral plane except insofar as they are both wrong and damaging to the younger party involved. The scope of immorality and damage, however, are worlds apart. So, for the sake of discussion, I will refer to pedophilic acts as Pre-Pubescent Pedophilia (3P) or Late Adolescence Pedophilia (LAP).

In the case of LAP, I believe the attraction to be the mere perversion of standard heterosexuality (or homosexuality). Having gone through puberty (or mostly having done so), they set off the same chemical reactions in men than do women their own age that capture their interest. People, all people, are generally attracted to a certain "type." For some people, this type includes highly energetic, spunky girls. Such a person would likely constantly find themselves attracted to the younger sort. The corrolation may be so strong that they trick themselves into believing that it is all they are attracted to, when in reality a woman their own age with these characteristics would just as easily be able to keep their attention. To the degree that is not possible, they are likely unable to deal with real women with unavoidable adult issues and he is a case of stunted maturity level that likely transcends their sexuality.

In the case of 3P, it is in my observation linked to one of two things: lost innocence and powerlessness.

In the case of lost innocence, their attraction to the very young is linked to a feeling of innocence or that they long to return to. It is less a sexual problem and more a root psychological one that becomes sexual by emotional confusion of callous decision. That is why, for instance, otherwise heterosexual men will molest young boys. It also helps explain the link to being abused as a child and growing into being an abuser. If a man loses his innocence at a very young age, when he gets older he is more likely to be attracted to the innocence they feel they were denied. The desire to return to that innocence, to become "one" with it, can turn sexual if left unchecked. It is, therefore, a learned behavior in my experience based in large part off of experience.

The other motivation is powerlessness of either a sexual nature or a non-sexual nature that becomes one. Sexual powerlessness can be motivated either by unwanted celibacy, being sexually dominated in childhood (which also explains molestation cycles), or an unhappy marriage (possibly related to unwanted celibacy). Non-sexual powerlessness can be attributed to dissatisfaction at work (powerlessness against boss), a domineering spouse (powerlessness against wife), over overbearing family or acquaintances (powerlessness against them). The percieved remedy is a sexual power trip, which can take many strpes. It explains 3P, but also LAP, S&M, prostitution, and sexual harassment. In the case of pedophilia, by virtue of experience and size, they have the ability to completely dominate their victims. Psychologically, physically, and emotionally. The assymetry of the relationship is an aphrodesiac of sorts. Like the 'lost innocence' motivation, it is largely situational and not biological.

So what situational motivations would make one homosexual? Some of the above could do it, but the corrolation just isn't as strong. If a young man is abused by his father, he may grow up equating men with sexuality. If a young woman is, she may grow up hating men. That may explain some cases of it, but it doesn't explain all of them. Many come from good, loving homes. A number of self-fulfilling reasons can be come up with to explain it, but they are transparent in the long view. "Well he's gay because his parents were really authoritarian and therefore they are rebelling" vs. "Well he's gay because his parents were really permissive and liberal." The weak corrolation between those that are gay doesn't explain very much. Some are feminine men and masculine women, but many aren't. Some have troubled youths, others don't. Some are at odds with the way they were raised, others aren't.

But here's a real indication of how different homosexuality is from pedophilia of all stripes: It affects men and women almost equally.

Pedophilia, on the other hand, is largely a male issue. While women are perpetrators in some cases, most offenders are male. The attentioned garnered to Mary Kay Laterneaux underscores that point. It was newsworthy because it was so atypical. This assymetry also lends creedence to the sexual power trip motivation of many abusers. Men often feel that they are supposed to be dominating and when they are being dominated are inclined to find someone to dominate. A woman under the same set of circumstances will react differently than does a man. That suggests to me that the degree to which it becomes sexual is, in large part, a decision by the sexual aggressor. It is the sexualization of a psychological problem and a reaction predisposed by men. Accordingly, men could choose to respond differently (as many do).

Homosexuality, on the other hand, is the solution to no psychological problem unrelated to sex and gender. The only exception that comes to mind are the stereotypical man-hating lesbian, but they are generally rare and there is the strong possibility that it is borne from being female and being uninclined to "fratrinize with the enemy." In other words, they are not male, they don't need or want anything from males, and therefore they are free to hate males all they like while boosting their ego. In other words, it is their lesbianism that feeds their contempt for men and not vice-versa.

Anyhow, I think that covers it. Keep in mind the above is my opinion and most of it will be forever unproven, but it is my rationale for why pedophilia and homosexuality are two different birds entirely and why I can find one repugnant and the other a valid expression of sexuality.

I intended to write more about human sexuality in general, but I'll have to save it for another time.

Let me be clear about something. I've never been a big fan-fiction person. Sure, I come up with a lot of stories involving other peoples' characters and so forth, but I've never felt the inclination to write them. Among many reasons, it puts me in bad company. Most fan-fiction is simply atrocious. Not to say that there aren't some great writers out there doing it, but I would hartily suggest that they develop their own ideas and put their talents towards something more productive. But hey, that's just me. As someone who works for a production company that rips off Japanese animation footage to create original comedies suited to the lowest common denominator (we love you, fans!), who am I to talk.

So via Warliberal I ran across an article about a lawsuit against the music group Creed for a doped up performance they gave last December. In it, it mentions some nasty things that Timberlake has to say about Creed.

Let me be clear about another thing, I am not what one would call "hep" with popular cultures. Sad, but true. Five of my favorite artists are Phil Pritchett, Jason Boland, Blue October, Dub Miller, and Bleu Edmondson. Who? Precisely. So a feud between Justin Timberlake and Creed is of the same level of interest to me on a personal level as is, say, the presidential election in some South American country I've never heard of. Less interest, actually, because who becomes president of Senegal may just matter some how some day. A feud between Creed and Justin Timberlake? Not so much.

But nonetheless, I was driven by morbid curiosity towards it the same way I followed the school district scandal in Florida while I was out there for a week one year. Morbid curiosity, boredom curiosity, whatever.

So I went to Google and did a search for: "Justin Timberlake" slams Creed

I look around to no avail, as most of the links seem to be just lists of bands for this purpose or that (venue schedules, top 40, whatever). Then I run across a site that appears to be in narrative format.

Narrative format? Narrative format. Why would there be a story about NSYNC in narrative format? Who would be privy to this scene:

The next morning, Justin stands up in the lounge of the bus and says, "I'm breaking up with Britney." Lance looks up, surprised.

Joey looks at Justin, wearing one of Lance's t-shirts stretched tight across his taller frame and boxers, a small hickey on his neck. "Really? I'm shocked. You two seem so close."

Justin gives him the finger. "No, you know what I mean. I'm gonna break up with her in public. Not a big public fight, I mean, like end it so everyone knows."

Chris looks up from his Sports Illustrated. "You told her that yet?"

He shrugs. "It'll be okay."

Joey shakes his head. "That's cold, bro."

It took a few minutes of reading through it before it sunk in. Oh. My. Heavens. NSYNC. Fan.Fiction.

Somehow, I doubt we have all that many NSYNC fans in our readership, but if you're just dyin' to hear Justin Timberlake say, all up close in personal, "What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Want."... give it a read.

It might be good. I don't know. I can't take the concept seriously enough to wade through it. It hasn't sunk in yet. If I write a post at 4 in the morning asking "WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?!" you'll know that it's sunk in. Right now, though, I'm about to go out and see Roger Wilko (Who? Exactly), meet up with Kevin and company, and have a blast.

If anyone knows about the whole Justin Timberlake-Creed spat, drop me a line or leave a comment.

Same if you're privy to the most recent elections in Senegal.

If they even have elections.

Some day I'm going to put my mediocre application programing skills to work and I'm going to make a game.

It'll be a simple one with only one bad guy. It's going to be that daggone Microsoft Office Paperclip. You're going to have several weapons from which to choose and the object is going to be to kill that little pest in as many new and inventive ways as possible. It won't be a hard game, as he won't even fight back. His lines will be something to the effect of:

"Well, I see that you chose the scepter. Would you like a long, tedious explanation for how to use the bla-OH MY HEAVENS PLEASE NOOO-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

And then you click a button, and you get to play again. As many times as you want.

Then bazillions of people will flood my tip jar with lots and lots of money and I'll make me a million dollars.

Let me count the ways Santorum is wrong.

1) An old friend of mine used to date a guy I'll name Stone. I never much cared for Stone, in part because the way he treated her. He didn't mistreat her necessarily, but he was always rather distant, even after a year together. I took that as a facet of his personality and a facet that I didn't like. During their breakup, some odd stories started floating around about Stone. Sort of. It was an uncomfortable flux between rumors and dead silent loyalty to him. It wasn't until the breakup was complete that the details started coming out. Stone had cheated on her with another guy. The more this theory was floated, the more it made sense.

Stone's father is a pastor in the Church of Christ. For those of you unfamiliar with the CoC, it is a self-described fundamentalist sect that takes the Bible very literally and very seriously. They are also so confident in their interpretation of the Bible that they believe marrying outside the sect out to be discouraged, if not outright forbidden (this was in fact what we thought the problem might be as my friend is Catholic). To say the least, the CoC holds homosexuality in very low regard. So much so that Stone, to this day, remains closetted skipping between serial monagomy and his very close (and not-so-closetted) male friend.

Though I never cared much for Stone because he hurt my friend, I can't help but feel very sorry for him. He will always be at conflict with himself and his father, whom he admires greatly and has always sought approval from. I can't imagine him ever being happy. When I think of Stone, I simply cannot imagine that he woke up one morning and decided "I'm going to fuck up my entire life by liking other men!"

Recently, conservatives opposed to homosexuality have change their tact. Instead of arguing that it is a choice, they argue that maybe it it genetic, but they should fight it. I believe God is a loving God, having sent Jesus Christ, his only son, down to redeem us. Though there is much unfortunate suffering in the world, I believe it is man-made. By saying that God took a small but significant section of the population and told them that they'd never be allowed to be romantically satisfied, conservatives of this ilk are suggesting that there is misery that is not man-made, but rather purely the province of God. That quite simply is not the God that I believe in and it strikes me as logically circumspect that would be the God that would go to such great pains to redeem and save us. As such, I believe the position of many conservative Christians is very misguided in this regard.

2) Even if I did believe that homosexuality is wrong, I would still not support laws forbidding it. I believe that adultery is wrong, but it is not the province of the government to meddle in the private affairs of the citizens. In the case of adultery, the only victims are the perpetrators and their spouses, who are victims emotionally and not physically. It is not the domain of the criminal court system to defend people against emotional torment. If it were, the courts would be bogged down hearing the case of every emotionally scarred adult who'd been handed down one too many megaweggies. So, while I may agree that such laws are constitutional, I do not agree that what is constitutional is right and what is morally wrong ought to be outlawed. Santorum speaks of a slippery slope, but that is more of one than legalizing the private acts of consenting adults could ever be. While such laws may be constitutionally permissable (or perhaps not, as Inc. commenter Ulysses brings up the equal protection clause, and there is a case to be made there) they are not necessarily a good idea.

3) Even if homosexuality were wrong and things wrong should be legalized, Santorum's logic was seriously flawed on a rational level. He suggests that the slippery slope of legalizing gay intercourse could lead to, among other things, polygamy. As someone who opposes polygamy on both a moral and legal plain, I have to take issue with that view. Polygamy is a matter of law. Whether or not the government accepts multiple concurrent marriages between individuals is necessarily the government's business. As mentioned prior, making sure that a man only sleeps with one woman is not. So we're dealing with two distinct issues. One is what the law will allow and the other is what the law will condone, sanction, and codify. One could argue that gay marriage (which I do support) might lead to polygamy (which I don't), but favoring the former and opposing the latter suggests that I don't buy it. I don't think many others will either accept as a mechanism to rationalize the double standard allowed to straights and gays when it comes to legal, financial, and social benefits of marriage.

As such, despite my earlier defense of him, I feel that I should reiterate that I believe Santorum's views are religiously, philosophically, and logically wrong.

They are. Consider it reiterated.

Son: So anyway, the wedding is going to be on the 15th and we're going on a honeymoo-
Father: Son, I need to tell you something.
Son: What?
Father: I cannot, and will not, have any part of your intended marriage.
Son: Huh? Why not?
Father: It is incompatible with the church's teachings.
Son: What are you talking about?
Father: You are divorced. Under the church's teachings, you are not permitted to remarry.
Son: What do you mean? She left me, Dad!
Father: I've talked to our paster and I've consulted the Bible. When you signed the divorce papers, you consented to a divorce.
Son: But we're not Catholic, divorce is okay, isn't it?
Father: Divorce is fine, remarriage is not.
Son: But Dad, don't you understand? I love her. My first wife left me in pieces, but my fiance has managed to put them all back together again. She's managed to put me back together again.
Father: And I want to be happy for you, but I can't. The Scripture is clear.
Son: What if we get married by the Justice of the Peace?
Father: It doesn't matter. What matters is that when you consumate your marriage, you will be committing sin. Every time you consummate your marriage, you will be committing sin over and over again. As much as I love you, I cannot be a party to it. I can't encourage that.
Son: But I love her! We make each other happy! You understand that you can't stop me from doing this, right?
Father: I do, but refraining from involvement is the only tangible way I can express my disapproval. I cannot approve of this.
Son: So you're not going to have anything to do with my marriage? We're going to have kids, Dad. By doing this, you're not even going to be a part of their life.
Father: If that's your choice, I'll have to live with that, but I have to stand with what I believe is right.

There are two levels to Rick Santorum's recent comments about homosexuality. The first is legal, which I will talk about in a minute. The second is moral, which I've tried my best to illustrate above.

Does the father above care about his son's feelings? Some will say no, but I believe that he does. The father above believes that sin is a degradation of the soul and, despite the fact that his son is in a near-impossible position according to his church's teachings, any other option than remaining celibate the rest of his life is the equivalent of living in sin and will assue that his son will go to Hell. More than anything else, that is what the father seeks to avoid.

It's quite possible that Rick Santorum hates gays.Only he knows for sure. He does hate sin, though, and he equates homosexual activity with sin. By doing so, he leaves homosexuals in the near-impossible position with the only option to avoid a life of sin is celibacy. He may be fine with that because he hates gays or he may be fine with that because he views that as their only way to avoid a life of sin. As I said, only Santorum knows for sure. And, to a degree, that is true of everyone that believes that homosexuality is a sin.

For what it's worth, I don't believe that at all. Nor do I believe that remarriage is a sin. I don't believe that either the son or gays should be forced to live a life of celibacy to be okay in the eyes of God. Rick Santorum and the father are wrong. That being said, it does not follow that Rick Santorum hates gays anymore than it follows that the father must hate his son.

Liberals are deriding the "hate the sin, love the sinner" philosophy by saying that you cannot seperate a man from his sexuality. Depending on whether or not you believe homosexuality is a choice or a predisposition, that may have credence or not with any given person on the subject of homosexuality. The question, though, is whether or not someone can love (or tolerate) someone that they view is perpetually doing wrong. I believe that it is possible, though it puts such people in a rather awkward position, as demonstrated by the stammering of conservatives that believe homosexuality is wrong but do not believe that homosexuals are worthy of hate by virtue of that one sin.

John Scalzi says the following:

Saying that you have no problems with homosexuals but have a problem with homosexual acts is logically equivalent, for example, to saying that you have no problems with Christians but have a problem with them accepting Christ, or that you have no problems with Republicans but have a problem with them registering as Republicans, or that you have no problem with Marines but have a problem with them enlisting (or receiving commissions in the case of officers). Each X' is an affirmative act of association and identification, without which the identification of X cannot exist.

The way to check this is to determine whether the condition of X can exist without X'. So, to go back to our examples -- can you be a Christian without accepting Christ? Pretty much not. Can you be a Republican without registering as a Republican? Not really. Can you be a Marine without enlisting or being commissioned? Can't do it. In each case it's absolutely possible to manifest an outward appearance of each group -- lead a Christly life, vote Republican, or swagger around saying "Semper Fi" to people -- But until you get baptized, register or enlist/are commissioned, you're not one of the members of these groups. The act matters; thereby, having a problem with the act means you have a problem with the condition because the only way to the condition is the act.

I have to disagree. You can love a Christian as a person but hate the fact that they believe what they do. You can love a Marine but hate the fact that their job. You can love a Republican but hate the way that they vote. To put a point on it, if someone were to say that they hate conservatism or Christianity, my immediate assumption would not be that they hate me personally, but rather that they hate that aspect of me. If they were to say that they hate Christians and hate Republicans, that's when it starts to get personal.

Here's the thing, though: Santorum has not said, at any point, that he hates gays. He has compared homosexuality to other acts he views as deviant, but he is comparing acts, not people.

Daniel (who I seem to be picking on today) infers that homosexuality is integral to a homosexual. Maybe so. But if being a Christian is integral to me, and if someone compares Christianity to fascism, they are expressing hatred or disdain to a part of me, not the whole of me. They view a part of me as evil and while that may hurt my feelings, it does not mean that I would be correct in going around saying that they hate all Christians because while they may mean that, they may not mean that at all.

In a way, it breaks down to semantics. However, when it comes to semantics, it's the speaker's intent that is more important than their wordage. So if you don't see a distinction between hating who someone is and hating what they do, you should at least note that they do view one and, in the interest of intellectual honesty, try to see things from their point of view before going around and suggesting that that they hate people solely based on their sexuality. Hating what someone does is not the same as hating who they are. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. For all you know, someone they love is gay and they are in the same awkward position as the father above. Wrong as all heck, but earnest and well-intentioned nonetheless.

So does that mean that those of us that believe that gays should be able to do whatever they like with their lives without being condemned just sit back and say nothing? Absolutely not. They may be well-intentioned, but their still wrong and their ideas still cause harm. But that's not what's happening. Instead, liberals are using this as a battering ram to suggest that Santorum, and thus all those that view homosexuality as a sin, of bigotry on the same level as bigotry based on skin color, which unlike homosexuality or Christianity, is a physical trait and not an act embarked on or a religion embraced. They, as much if not more than Santorum, are the ones making this personal. That's where the comparisons to Trent Lott fail. Blacks are unquestionably and inexplicably born that way. There is no room for debate there. One cannot stop being black if they chose. One can stop being a practicing homosexual, and as out-of-reach as that option seems to be, that's one more option than racial minorities have.

The second way that the comparison to Trent Lott fails is what they actually said. Lott expressed approval for a putrid 1948 platform that Strom Thurmond ascribed to. These were concrete laws used to indignify and oppress blacks for decades. In regards to Santorum's personal view that homosexuality is wrong, that does not necessarily translate into law.

Except that it does, of course, in a way, because he said it in the context of a court decision of a law that is the manifestation of his view.

This brings us to the second level of Santorum's comment: the law.

I believe the Texas sodomy law is wrong on a legal and moral level. I oppose the law and if Democrats were to run on repealing this law and laws like it in 2006, I'd likely vote for them. That is how much I disdain these laws.

That being said, Santorum was arguing about the constitutionality of these laws. He asked, quite plainly, if we say taht there can't be laws against homosexuality because it is a private act in the bedroom, whether that mean that all consensual private acts in the bedroom are therefore inherently justified by the constitution. It's a valid question that makes many liberals, and even libertarian-minded conservatives like myself, uncomfortable. Unfortunately, Santorum may be right. If the constitution protects the rights of gays to have consensual sex, it protects the rights of anyone to do so. I personally don't believe that the constution necessarily protects that (and thus laws could be passed against all non-procreational sex, or for that matter sex altogether) and still technically be constitutional. That being said, I believe that all such laws violent the spirit of freedom and personal liberty set forth in the Constitution. I don't believe there should be laws against adultery, even though I consider that morally wrong in a way that I don't consider homosexuality not to be. In other words, because something is Constitutional that does not make it right. It's a lesson both liberals and conservatives would do well to remember.

So there is room here to debate the issue at hand. There are issues on what degree to which morality can, and should, be legislated. That's where Santorum is most wrong and that's where Democrats should hone their energies. It's also where Republicans like me need to speak up, which I have done and will continue to do. We need to try to convince those that believe homosexuality is morally wrong (which is more people than many liberals would like to believe) that it should still be legal and to remind them that there are those that believe contraception should be illegal and ask them how they would react if that were legislated into reality. Santorum used a few degrees of hyperbole to illustrate his point and we can do the same. Just as there are NAMBLAs on the left that unfortunately discredit the gay rights clause, there are many puritans on the right that would want to legislate so many things into law 95% of Americans would suddenly become criminals. To get the attention of legislators, we only need half of those people.

By making this about Santorum, the debate itself has been sacrificed at the alter of political point-scoring. By making this about the Republican Party, it's made moderate Republicans more defensive rather than giving them to join a common cause that would make the views of Santorum and Nickles obselete.

Or you can just paint all Republicans with a super broad brush, paint everyone with misguided views of homosexuality as haters, and keep potential allies at bay.

Your choice.

Jane Galt has a great post on what the procedural difference is between a tax cut and increased spending is. Namely, that the latter considerably outlast the former:

What's going to happen when the Democrats control at two out of three of the Senate, House, and Oval Office? Those tax cuts are going away. Don't believe me? Tax rates have fluctuated by as much as 50% between presidents in the last half-century, maybe more. Just one example: Reagan cut 'em, Bush/Clinton raised them, Bush II cut them again. Projecting deficits from these tax cuts forever and ever is stupid, because we're only one election away from seeing them reversed.

Daniel Goldberg has been very tough on the Bush Administration for increasing spending and cutting taxes, thus increasing the deficit. Rightfully so. As someone who would very much like a near-balanced budget, I am concerned about the growing deficit and hefty interest payments that we will be paying for some time to come.

However, that's where my agreement with budget hawk liberals ends. My problem isn't with the tax cuts, it's with the spending increase. I support the Department of Homeland Security (though I would do it differently, if I were in charge of it), but Bush's failure to contain spending in other areas is quite unsettling and the education bill he passed in his first year in office was absolutely odious.

So does that mean that I regret voting for Bush and/or will vote for his Democratic rival in 2004? Absolutely not. The alternative to Bush's dubious financial policies are Democratic calls for more spending which, in the long run, is much worse, because once those are instituted, they won't be going away until fiscal restraint is the only issue of the day, and that just doesn't happen very often. In the 90's, it took a mentally unstable Texas businessman winning 20% of the vote to catch the major parties' attention to make it happen.

The economy going down the crapper and the deficits aren't so much a reason that I shouldn't have voted for Bush, it's actually the reason that I did.

Up until late 1999, I had planned to vote for Al Gore. I was almost excited about the prospect of it. "He's Bill Clinton without the gross immorality," I reasoned.

At some point, I jumped on the John McCain bandwagon and, had it not been for what became a deeply personal discomfort for the man, that's likely where I'd still be. Loony views on campaign finance reform aside, McCain advocated very modest tax cuts, decreased government spending, and paying down the national debt.

That was, and remains, the perfect platform to win my vote.

Once Bush won the nomination, that no longer became an option. The choice, as I saw it, was tax cuts that might lead to deficits if the economy turns sour, or a cash givaways to seniors (whether they need it or not) that might also lead to deficits.

In the end, I had to conclude that in the long term, Gore's views were much more dangerous to our fiscal health. Bush's tax cuts might backfire, but they could be retracted. Of the last four presidents, two raised taxes and two lowered them. If Gore were to get elected on his Free-Prescription-Drugs-for-Everyone-and-their-Dog platform, it would take a lot more political courage to tell seniors (in which everyone is or hopes to be one day) that the government is going to stop giving them what it once did. That's too much money to too many people ever to reverse.

So, the question is, when is Bush going to retract his tax cuts? I expect that to be a year or so after never. So does that mean that I will vote for someone to raise taxes to balance the budget?

Yes, actually, that's exactly what that means, so long as it is met with corresponding (and equal would be nice, but not necessary) cut in spending. Show me the Democrat that advocates a balanced budget over a brand-spanking new prescription drug plan and throwing federal money at education like confetti at a parade, and chances are (assuming his foreign policy is kosher) he's got my vote.

Yeah, I'm not holding my breath either.

Every day on my way to work, I pass the building for Cotton Companies. Below their orange and white sign, they have one of those electric marquees with various messages on them. It's the sort of thing where you'd expect to see "Half off on all widgets!" at an electronics depot or, in the advent of some heady event, "Pray for the troops" or "Columbia will always be remembered."

About a week or so ago, the sign had a very peculiar message:

"You are a champion, Tom!"

Not knowing what the sign could have possibly been referring to, my imagination went to work. Who is Tom? Why is he a champion? Why did Cotton feel the urge to post a sign expressing his champion status? So I started to create a character named Tom who was a champion. I named him after the sign: Tom Cotton.

Since it appears to be a personal message and not one to some superstar named Tom, I made him a regular Joe. About 5'10" or so with reddish hair (probably derived from the orange Cotton sign) and a face with light freckles that were darker when he was younger. But he's not young anymore, he's 35 or so, I decided.

So why is he a champion? Being an unassuming guy, I decided that he was a champion in the everyday sense. He has two daughters that he cares for and a loving wife. That, in a way, makes him a champion. To his family, anyway. And to his friends, since people are explicitly declaring his greatness. He has a lot of friends and is pretty popular, but still in an unassuming way. The kind of guy who is always smiling and whistles as he walks down the hall to get his morning cup of coffee. Decaf, of course, because he's trying to take care of himself.

But what makes him a champion? Perhaps he is a particularly good worker for his company. Being an affable guy, perhaps he is a salesman and won the highest commission of anyone in the department. He is king of his own fishbowl, champion of the sales division. Ask him, though, and he'll say that if he's a champion at all, it's because of his family. Naturally, he'll have a picture of them on his desk and he'll look at it every day to keep him going.

But what, if anything, makes him unique? If I've already defined him as unassuming and humble, what attention-garnering thing would have people proclaiming, on a sign that can only carry one message a day, that he is a champion? Maybe, I thought, he is going through a rough ordeal, people know it, but he's still whistling and smiling as he walks down the hall. Like a champion.

Sadly, I was right.

Today as I was passing the Cotton building, the message on the sign had changed:

"You can beat cancer, Tom!!!!"

I don't know what, if any, of the above about Tom is true. But whoever Tom is, he needs all the support that sign can garner and much, much more. I hope that the sign is correct and that he can beat the cancer. Tonight, I'll pray for that to happen. To anyone out there that communicate with God on a regular (or irregular) basis, I ask that you do the same.

Even before his adventures in totalitarianism, it has always frustrated me to no end how many on the left admire or even tolerate Fidel Castro. It's one thing to oppose sanctions on the grounds that it merely tightens Fidel's grip. It's another to try to say "Well, as bad as Cuba is, at least it has national health care" and make some insinuations and America's democratic and free system's superiority to the dreck rule of Fidel is subjective. As James Lileks onced asked, would you rather be poor and in need of emergency medical help in the United States of Cuba? I'd take the US any day. Considering the hundreds that have died trying to escape that island to make it here, I suspect that I am not alone. Many in the media try to portray the Cuban refugees in Florida as maniacs and fascists but they fail to ask why it is that those who know the most about Cuba also hate Castro the most. We are a nation of immigrants and most of our immigrants take great pride in their homeland. Irish Americans want us to appreciate Irish culture and Mexicans theirs as well. The Cubans want us to kick its leader's butt. For many on the left, it seems, all that matters is that Cubans lean rightward and Fidel is left and they immediately sympathize with the latter.

To their credit, with the exception of ANSWER and their ilk no one against the war has made excuses for Saddam Hussein. Those opposed to the war tried to convince us not to engage in it because they felt it a disproportionate response to a very minor threat or because it would make the rest of the world angry or a myriad of other reasons. None of which were "Saddam isn't so bad." For all the voices against the war, only the fringe ever actually defended Saddam on any moral or idealistic level.

Why is that? In a remarkably well-written post (go read the whole thing), fellow Houstonian Angie Schultz pinpoints the answer:

Your big mistake, Saddam old man, was not calling yourself a Communist. You could have had exactly the same power, exactly the same control, gassed exactly as many Kurds, and the Julie Burchills of the world would've defended your regime to the end. All you had to do was fly a few red flags and put up a few posters of Lenin. Maybe salted your rhetoric with a little "glorious workers' revolution". Would that have been too high a price to pay?

A while back, I attempted to delineate between geeks and nerds. Configsysboy, who speaks from experience as one might be able to tell from the handle, has a lot more to say on it. Though he doesn't do anything in the way of distinctions between nerds and geeks, he defines geeks quite adeptly:

Thirdly all Geeks share an abiding fascination with pop culture. For some this manifests in a substantial DVD collection, for others it is towers of CD's stacked to the sky. The forms are variable but the passion remains across all boundaries. Whether the Geek in question can quote every joke from the Simpsons, recite all of Chris Knight's witticisms, or act out the entirety of the Holy Grail by themselves all Geeks share a devotion to popular culture and to the classics that define it. Any failure to show interest in such exposes the pretense of a would-be Geek who cannot claim real brotherhood with the souls who suffered for their love of these timeless treasures.

Lastly all Geeks share a propensity for collecting and often displaying trophies to their Geekiness. In some Geek households this is reflected by stacks of posters while in others it involves cherished toys lovingly mounted and cared for. Some collections are merely trinkets that have no meaning to anyone outside of the Geek's circle of friends. In all cases the collected items are an eclectic reflection of the specific categorical interests of the Geek in question. Some collections are openly displayed, others privately held for personal enjoyment, but rest assured all Geeks have a collection of some sort.

I don't know that I would say "pop culture" as many off-pop culture interests can often be included. Does one consider Anime to be pop culture? I don't personally because, kiddy cartoons aside, it's relegated to the Cartoon Network and other channels that might as well be called GeekTV. He also states earlier on that a love of technology is paramount to geekdom and I'm not sure that's the case, either, though there is a strong positive corrolation, to be sure. Actually, I can't think of any geeks that I know that aren't absorbed in technology, but I mostly run in techie circles, so it's likely that I wouldn't.

What really fascinates me about CSB's article is his explanation for why geekdom has moved more into the mainstream. It's something that I hadn't really thought of at all, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense:

More important however to the emergence of Geeks as the new 'in-crowd' was the maturation of the daughters of the Geek-fathers.

You see it is human nature for us to look for mates who remind us of our parents. Young men seeking a wife often look for certain traits found in their mothers and young women likewise look for men who remind them of their fathers. It is one of the primary reasons that breaking the cycle of abuse is so difficult. Girls from abusive homes instinctively reach out for abusive men. Likewise girls who lived with affectionate fathers will look for men who display affection in similar fashions. And therein lies the magic.

At the same time that we boys of the first Geek generation were becoming valuable corporate assets the Geek-daughters were beginning their search for life mates and just who is it that they started to suddenly find attractive? None other than the same outcasts they ignored in high school. Now not only were Geeks getting rich and famous, we were getting the girls too and as everyone knows that is the key to being cool. The money and the fame are nothing if you don't get the girl.

The more I think about it, the more true it sounds. Even non-techie girls that I know with techie fathers seem to have a lot more respect for what I do than do most people. I'd still attribute a lot of it to the fact that knowing computers is just a lot more useful than it used to be. Something akin to being good with car mechanery in years past. Except computer technicians are the new, better paid, information age handymen.

We still need to work on the whole "macho" thing, though...

TPB at Unbillable Hours has perhaps the best Easter post that I've ever read.

Though I'm not a lawyer, I can relate to the skepticism that he refers to. Faith is a difficult thing for those of us inclined to question everything. Before falling back into the Christian fold, I spent three years wading in agnosticism. It's easy not to believe in anything, but it's a defensive posture, in many ways. Whether you are cynical about God, politics, love, or humanity in general, it's often easy to derive comfort from that. A feeling of superiority and remaining "above" it. Naivete is certainly not an admirable trait, but neither is hiding behind the cloak of "objectivity." Without the ability to believe, you often lose your directional compas and just drift.

Not long ago, I was casually dating someone who was a self-professed agnostic. That never bothered, though what did come to bother me was the fact that she didn't seem to believe in anything. We got into a discussion on morality and her stance was, more or less, morality is what you make of it. If you value someone's opinion of you, you treat them well. If you don't, then don't sweat it. There is no higher Truth or right and wrong. While on a purely rational and self-interested level, that might make sense. But without a higher sense of purpose and without an ideal to strive to, I'd be left questioning the value of life. Whenever I think of her, I have a hard time figuring out what it was precisely that she lived for. That, to me, is sadder than any idealism and more foolish than even beliefs and convictions I don't share.

I'm actually thinking of a longer post on arrested murder suspect Scott Peterson, but for now I'll ask you to take a look at this picture and answer a question.



Is it me, or does this look like Ben Affleck playing Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow?

[Originally posted on the No-Lyfe Journal]

At the end of every Friday night, assuming that I'm sober enough to drive, I drive down to Seabrook and sleep at my parents house so that I can get up early on Saturday morning and have breakfast with my father. So, naturally, when I'm woken up, I assume it's him. I mutter something about being ready for breakfast in about ten minutes.

Second: I'm not waking you up for breakfast.
Third: bdbdbdhuh?
Second: Come on.

He pulls me out of bed and gives me less than a minute to wake up. He pulls me into the computer room, except that it's not the computer room that has existed for the past few years. Come to think of it, I wasn't sleeping in the bed they put in my room when I took my old one to my apartment. I was sleeping in the bed now at my new residence, a few dozen miles away. The First is sitting at the keyboard, taking sips out of a Spiderman cup.

Third: What are we doing here?
Second: We're watching something.
Third: We're watching The First at the computer keyboard. No offense to him or your interest in this intended, but this isn't not very exciting. In fact, it's going to put me to sleep. In fact, that's where I'm supposed to be right now!
Second: Just watch.

First: No! Dammit!

Third: What's his... my problem?
Second: He's talking to Ora online.

I look at the Spiderman cup, which is accompanied by a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon and a pitcher of lemonaid. Suddenly, I remember this scene all too well.

Third: Okay, so I know where we are and what's happening, but why are we here?
Second: We're witnessing my birth.
Third: Your "birth"?
Second: Yes, it's here where The First finally let go.

First: No!

Third: Was I really yelling at the monitor?
Second: Of course. She wasn't actually there for you to yell at. You wanted to have this conversation in person, but she insisted on knowing what was on your mind. You told her and ruined everything.
Third: It was inevitable. I was going to make my move to tear her away from Nick, she was going to stay with him, and I was going have my heart broken. What does it matter that this all happened online instead of in person?
Second: It's emblematic. Consider how much time you spend online back then.
Third: Okay, considered. I still don't see the point.
Second: Conversations with her that you should have had in person you had online. This is merely the apex. You took this all so seriously when it wasn't. It wasn't real. It was people typing at a keyboard.
Third: Oh, give me a break. It's not like she and I never saw each other or that she was in Manitoba. She was 45 minutes away and I actually didn't fall for her until we met.
Second: Doesn't matter. What matters is that while you should have been going out with people from Clear Lake High School, you were going out with people from Sharpstown or Katy-Taylor. Like I said, it's emblematic.
Third: You know as well as I do how much I hated Clear Lake High School. The fact that I never dated anyone from there is a mark of pride.
Second: That's the sound of someone who was rejected one too many times. You didn't like Lake because Lake didn't like you.
Third: I didn't like it because it was chalk full of rich snobs.
Second: Do you have something against the wealthy?
Third: Only those that see something wrong with being anything else.. Maybe our family wasn't poor, but we weren't of their ilk. The same thing happened to David. Once he got to UT, his social life took off.
Second: Being wealthy is a mark of social status.
Third: You're still upset that I never went to law school, aren't you?
Second: Not necessarily.
Third: ... and you still haven't explained why we're here.
Second: Look [points at First as he buries his head in his hands]
Third: If you think I'd somehow forgotten about all this, you're mistaken. I just don't hold it so close to my heart anymore. I let it go a long time ago. That's a good thing, isn't it?
Second: Not necessarily.
Third: So I should just go around being heartbroken and say, "Woe is me! Woe is me! When I was a kid I had my heart broken! Woooooooe is meeeeee"
Second: [warningly] That's enough.
Third: Then why are we here?
Second: We're here because this is where it all began.
Third: Isn't that how half of movies start? Like in those old detective ones? [impersonation] "It all shtarted with this dame, y'shee..."
Second: I wasn't refering to that. Ora is of only tangental importance. What is important here is that this is when you discovered that you didn't have to be this way.

First: [Muttering...] I will never, ever let this happen again.

Second: And you didn't. Not while I was in charge, anyway. You took what could have made you bitter and instead it made you better.
Third: That's not what I remember. Do the words "emotional coma" mean anything to you? Or are you still too oblivious to see it?
Second: I'm not talking about that stupid vow to never allow us to be hurt again.
Third: Oh, so you admit the vow was stupid.
Second: Stop talking about the vow. I'm not talking about the vow.
Third: Then what are you talking about?
Second: I'm talking about Eddie.
Third: Eddie Vee?
Second: One and the same.
Third: Okay, so what about him?
Second: Remember when we woke up the morning after this? Remember how though we knew things would never be the same, we didn't know how they would be different. So we looked to Eddie for inspiration. We aspired to be as much like him as possible.
Third: Yeah, but we weren't Eddie. We never will be. We fall short in some areas, but we're better in others. We can't live our life trying to be someone else.
Second: Says who?
Third: Says me. Why should I want to be Eddie? I'm smarter than he is. Don't get me wrong, I loved the guy to death, but, well...
Second: I didn't say that you should try to be Eddie. I just said that you learned something from that experience. Over the next year, we became more sociable. We became the most popular person online. Bar none.
Third: Only because Eddie was breaking up with Blare and he wasn't online so much.
Second: That's beside the point. Even if we couldn't be as popular as Eddie was, I was more popular than he [pointing to The First] ever was. More popular than you are, too.
Third: So you're saying I should try to be Eddie. I should continually ask myself "What Would Eddie Do?"
Second: No, I'm not saying you should be like Eddie. Eddie was a mark of the times. He put everything into his friends to the point that he couldn't hold a job and couldn't even make car payments. That's not an acceptable gauge of where you should be at this point in your life.
Third: So then what should I be?
Second: It's a good question and one worth exploring. There are many aspects of Eddie that it would be worthwhile to incorporate. He's still, bar-none, the most sociable person you've ever known. More sociability would be a good thing. The missing link, though, is to become someone that everyone respects. Embrace your job or find a better one. Don't spend the money on a video camera, spend it on nicer clothes and a better car. Get a maid. Live your life so that any given person you meet will consider you a success.
Third: A success at what?
Second: Life, I suppose.
Third: You make me sound like a failure. I'm not one. I've written two novels over the past year. I contribute to a handful of online journals that are read by scores of people.
Second: I didn't say you were a failure, merely that you're using the wrong gauges of success. If you meet a given person, they may be impressed by being as prolific a writer as you are, but they won't understand it or relate to it. Therefore, they will never truly appreciate it. A Camaro... now that they'd appreciate.
Third: Except I don't want a Camaro. I think my Escort is pretty cool. It gets me from Point A to Point B anyway. That's not what's important.
Second: Of course it is. People deem it important and thus it is so.
Third: So I should gauge my success on what others think of me?
Second: It's as good a gauge as any. Better than most, actually.
Third: Wow.
Second: Hmm?
Third: I don't remember ever being that shallow.
Second: Oh please, you weren't. I'm not. You will always find time to be you. I'm just suggesting that you don't devote your life to that end. The less you do that, the more you'll actually get what you do want.

First: [pours more boubon-aid] Fuck!

Third: Can we talk about this somewhere else?
Second: Is he bothering you?
Third: Somewhat.
Second: Then you're exactly where you need to be. You need to remember what it feels like to not be enough.
Third: If you're trying to rub salt in the wound, it's not working because the wound is long-since closed. It doesn't hurt anymore.
Second: No, I'm trying to illustrate a point. Take a look at him... and who you used to be. He was true to himself at the expense of everything else and look what it cost him.... everything else.
Third: What a delightful thought.
Second: Well, it illustrates my point quite clearly.
Third: What point is that?
Second: He has no future. This is the last day of his life. When he wakes up tomorrow, it won't be him anymore. It will be me. Within a year life will be at our fingertips. We're not here to depress you. We're here to celebrate. In two years, Ora will come back to Houston and want more than anything to be with me and we will hurt her as much as she ever hurt us.
Third: [blink]
Second: Yes?
Third: Is this supposed to make me feel better?
Second: Yes.
Third: It's not working.
Second: [shrug]
Third: I never wanted to hurt Ora any more than she wanted to hurt me.
Second: Granted. The point is not that we got to hurt her, the point is that we were in a position to. I could have had what he [points to First] wanted more than anything. That's significance.
Third: But you didn't want it. You had Anna. Even if we hadn't had her, you still would have deferred.
Second: The fact that we didn't want her made it us all the more appealing. The more that we have and the less we need people, the more people we'll have around us.
Third: [sarcastically] Which is, of course, the most important thing in the world.
Second: It's as good a goal as any.
Third: Which brings me to precisely what your problem is. You have no goals. You didn't actually want anything. That's your catch-22. You can have anything as long as you don't want it. Wanting something would have cost you your faux-easygoing nature. When the going got tough, all you ever did was internalize it or run away from it. That was the mess I had to deal with when I took over for you. You talk about goals, but the only real goal you ever had was to never fail and never be scared.
Second: No, it's not fear.
Third: It's the only thing I can think of that explains why I kept myself so bottled up for so long. Say what you will about the eleven months I wasted on Audrey, at least I've learned how to accept my limitations and... and....
Second: Accept failure?

The First turns off the computer and stands up. He starts pacing back and forth, trying to figure out life and the universe... or at least how he got there. I can see him mouthing the words of the questions he's asking himself. The questions I once asked myself. He's not going to be able to answer any of them tonight. In fact, for the next two weeks he's going to be a zombie. He's going to cut off Ora tomorrow. Within a week, his friends will be so angered at his reaction that more than one of them will threaten to give him the silent treatment that he's going to give Ora. The battle lines are drawn and when they divy up their mutual friends, she's going to get most of them. They liked her better anyway. It will take at least three months for things to get patched up... when The Second takes full command.

Second: You know as well as I do that the Ora situation couldn't have ended any other way. It wasn't what you did wrong, it was who you were. It was your limitations. Are those the limitations you wish to accept? So is that the failure you wish to accept?

[Part Three]

Main Entry: awk·ward
Pronunciation: 'o-kw&rd
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English awkeward in the wrong direction, from awke turned the wrong way, from Old Norse ofugr; akin to Old High German abuh turned the wrong way
Date: 1530
4 a : lacking ease or grace (as of movement or expression) b : lacking the right proportions, size, or harmony of parts : UNGAINLY
5 a : lacking social grace and assurance b : causing embarrassment
6 : not easy to handle or deal with : requiring great skill, ingenuity, or care


Main Entry: fuck
Pronunciation: 'f&k
Function: verb
Etymology: akin to Dutch fokken to breed (cattle), Swedish dialect fokka to copulate
Date: 1503
2 usually vulgar : MESS 3 -- used with transitive senses
(Main Entry: mess
Pronunciation: 'mes
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English mes, from Middle French, from Late Latin missus course at a meal, from missus, past participle of mittere to put, from Latin, to send -- more at SMITE
Date: 14th century
3 a : a disordered, untidy, offensive, or unpleasant state or condition b : one that is disordered, untidy, offensive, or unpleasant usually because of blundering, laxity, or misconduct <[the movie]g is a mess, as sloppy in concept as it is in execution -- Judith Crist> )


Main Entry: fucking awkward
Pronunciation: 'f&k-ing 'o-kw&rd
Function: verb
Etymology: Another experience survived!
Date: 21st Century
12,945 b: Spending an evening in a group with a certain person whose (now ex-)girlfriend you inadvertantly pursued while they were together.

Thanks to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for the clarification.

Dear Person-Who-Is-Probably-Still-Hungover-From-Friday-Night

Let me first extend my sympathies. It was clearly an injustice for you to be summarily ejected from the Firehouse. And for getting drunk at a bar, for chrissakes! Unbelievable! It's not like you intended to vomit all over the floor! It's one of those things that just happened. Oh, and when you just stepped into it while aimlessly stammering about? Of course that wasn't an attempt to dirty up the floor some more, you just didn't notice where you were walking because you were having such a good time! When you brandied your 3/4 full beer bottle around to cheer Phil Pritchett on and ended up spilling it back and forth? You were just trying, in a roundabout way, to alleviate the putrid smell of whatever it is that you regirgitated. Beer certainly smells better than that!

So, in conclusion, I'd just like to say that it's an absolute crime that those two cops forcefully escorted you out. When you said that there was no sign posted forbidding you to have a good time, you were absolutely right about that. No sign at all. What an injustice!

Best regards,
The Person Whose Journal You Do Not Read



Dear Firehouse Saloon Operators,

I suggest you post this sign as soon as possible.



Best regards,
The Person Whose Journal You Do Not Read

The Nigerian scam artists have a bank. In their unceasing attempts to bilk foolish westerners out of money, they've set up a web site for those with the brains to be uncomfortable with putting up money to a total stranger to get obscene amounts of money back that they never earned. Here's now the new strain works.

Looking over the site, it's well done. Allied Trust Company sounds real enough, the web site is bare, but complete.

Persistence. Dedication. Ambition. Web designing skills. They've got it all.

Tis a shame they use their powers for evil, and not good.

On another note, take a look at the site and let me know what parts raise flags with you. There are a few suspicious items in my observation that a skeptical viewer would likely see. I'll post them in the comments section and we can compare notes.

I don't know the first thing about Collina, but I do know that I want this shirt:



It's just badass. Then I can look cool for being all "continental" and knowing about a soccer referee.

Or is being "continental" uncool now in the current political environment?

The creative process is often an elusive one. It's also sometimes very cyclical. During any given novel, I will run through a number of stages. At first, there will be the euphoria of actually beginging a novel. At best, this generally lasts twenty pages or so. Unfortunately, the novelty of it all runs out and you're left wondering: What happens next? My harddrive is littered with the tattered remains of ideas that never reached the twenty-first page because I was never able to answer that question. When I'm able to answer that question, I press forward. At some point, the direction will become obscured again and I'm left asking myself that one question over and over again. As the questions become harder, the doubt becomes more pronounced and I begin to doubt my abilities. Before long, I'll be cursing myself as a talentless hack. Then it will come to me and I'll find new direction and new inspiration. Eventually, that well runs dry and I just don't know how to get from where I am to where I need to be for the next chapter. Up and down, round and round it goes.

Sometimes, the questions are insurmountable. I just don't know what to do and, in reality, without a major overhaul there isn't anything that I can do. The idea itself becomes corrupted and exposed as the shallow story that it is. Sometimes this occurs without me having written a single page. Sometimes the concept itself, while lending itself to countless great plot points and character development, just has one problem with it that I can't move beyond: Yes, this is the story, but what is the point?

I initially discovered this when writing my first attempt at a novel, The Slaughter Chronicles. It had scenes that I thought were glorious, but I just couldn't figure out how to make it more than just a story. Without that, I lacked the inspiration to press forward. I aborted it after sixty pages or so. Ideas later came to me, but I just couldn't find myself truly inspired.

It happened again a few years later. I had a superb idea for a novel that took place entirely in a chat room. I started writing it, but only got twenty pages into it. Even though the dialogue was going to be great and the characters were going to be great, I just couldn't make a compelling story without genuine human interaction involved that wasn't behind the safety of a keyboard and monitor. Ideas later came to me, but I just couldn't find myself truly inspired.

A couple years back, my friends at No-Lyfe Productions were talking about making a movie. The initial idea was deemed too ambitious so I was able to think of something we could concievably make. At the time, it was called Headcase and it was the story of the conversation in the mind of someone pushed to the brink of suicide, inspired by what had recently happened to someone close to me. Unfortunately, though the idea was "doable" it was not something that could inspire me to sit down and write it.

About 15 months ago or so, I went through a major heartbreak. Some months later, I wanted a way to be able to express what I had learned from it all. The problem was that every idea I came up with was too similar to my first novel, At Heaven's Door. I couldn't come up with what made this story truly unique. The story in my mind was written, but I couldn't derive a point to it all.

While I was coming up with the idea after the heartbreak, I was able to revive Headcase, the earlier movie script idea. Though I was nowhere near the brink of suicide, if I were to take a character that was more troubled and write it from his point of view, it could help me get a lot of the pent-up anger and resentment out of my system. Headcase was renamed Surviving Allison and it became a story of making sense of the incomprehendable... or at least trying to. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for Allison, I was able to get over what had happened a lot quicker and easier than I had thought possible. When I told Adam that it looked like it wasn't going to happen, I could only explain "It just doesn't hurt so bad anymore."

Instead, I found new inspiration in The Slaughter Chronicles and, much to my amazement, wrote the first book of what became a series. What's funny about it is that the idea had very little to do with what was originally concieved several years ago. But there were aspects of it that I just didn't want to let go. Ideas that had come to me but had not yet inspired me. The old was supplanted by the new and though I had to toss a lot aside, the story was much better as a result. I needed the time and distance to determine what made an idea close to my heart interesting and intriguing enough to be close to the hearts of others.

Last October I ran across a challenge to write a novel within a month. I'd finished the first Slaughter book, but I didn't want to rush through the second. So I needed an idea. Almost a year past the heartbreak that I wasn't able to put to paper, I was able to look at the situation much less passionately. I was able to remove the parts that were unique to me and make the story something of its own. Once I was able to create a main character that I could write without being constrained to writing about me and what happened to me, the ideas came rushing forward. The characters took on a life of their own, independent of their inspirations. That, of course, because my November Novel, aka Something So Perfect, linked to your left on this page.

Among the many questions I've been asking myself lately is what to write next. My editor is about to return his final edit version of SSP and I can work on that. Or I could write the next installment of Slaughter. I also had a breakthrough with the online idea from some years ago and suddenly that unworkable idea became workable.

It's amazing how that happens. It's like a dam being opened and water comes gushing out. Instead of a lack of ideas, you have so many ideas that the challenge becomes to sort them out. You have contradictory ideas that you must reconcile or choose between. You have characters that become living, breathing entities. The challenge is no longer to write it, but to refrain from doing so until you have it all figured out in your head. I say "you" but I'm talking about me. Maybe other writers do it differently, but when the dam is released I have difficulty thinking about anything else.

Last night I was talking to my roommate JD about financial matters. It occured to me that I have a couple thousand dollars more in the bank right now than I said I'd need to get the ball rolling on making a movie. The problem, I told him, was that all my ideas were not suitable for a first project and the one that was, Surviving Allison, just didn't inspire me. I had no desire to resurrect that heartbreak for the sole purpose of inflicting it on a fictional character and then exploiting his woes just to make a movie. Earlier today I was talking to a friend who is helping to organize an Anime convention. I mentioned an idea that I had about making a movie during a con about characters at a con and asked if that would be possible at the one she is helping to organize. She was quite excited about the idea.

The problem was, and is, that making a short movie in the course of a weekend may be possible with enough work, but only for the experienced. In other words, this couldn't be a first movie for its creators. So during lunch today I started thinking about Surviving Allison and looking for inspiration on it or, at the very least, figure out why I felt so uninspired.

Then it hit me.

I don't even know what idea came first, really. But within half an hour, I'd not only developed a completely new central character, but I'd redefined who the conversation in his mind was between. I believe that in part I have this blog to thank for that. While it's not a First, Second, and Third like I wrote below, it nonetheless gives a more firm identity to what before were only one-dimensional "aspects" of a personality. The character, instead of a carbon copy of the once poor and sad little me, took on a life completely of his own (which, incidentally, is a must regardless of how "personal" a writing project is) . And since it was no longer about a reckless hearted girl, I had to rename it once more. Surviving Allison was dead, long live Seven Voices.

The ideas have been rolling like thunder since and I don't see an end in sight. Maybe I'll run dry soon enough, but right now I can taste it.

I'm not entirely sure what comes next. I can't start anything until I finish recording my lines for Adjusters, but once I'm done I can hit the ground running.

The bad news is that soon I may have to cut down on my blogging during the script-writing portion of it all.

The good news is that right now it seems that I, with the help of my friends and whomever else volunteers, might just be making a movie.

Which OS are You?

"You just get used to it, you know. You get used to living in a house and when you wake up, someone being there next to you. Maybe she was never a very good cook and you weren't home enough, but it's your life and you get used to it and even when you complain, you like it. And you never know that one day you're going to miss it more than anything in the world." -Confederate Jake, frequenter of the truck stop where I eat lunch, named so for the confederate emblemed helmet always hanging on his motorcycle when he stops by.

You may or may not know that I am a scholar of MBTI Typology (ENTP, ISFJ, etc). I've intended to post on it before, but I've never gotten the chance. I've read four books on the subject and have four more books just waiting for me. I've found it to be the best guide for understanding human behavior available. Nonetheless, I'm interested in alternative theories and thus have a Carl Rogers book and take tests to find out which fantasy land elf-god I am. Earlier this week I gook a test on the competing personality type test RHETI. Here's what I got:

free enneagram test

To me, the best way to gauge the accuracy of a test is by reading the "Drawbacks" portion of the test. After all, most people like to attribute positive characteristics to themselves, but if one describes all your problems, there's a good chance that it's on to something because you are only likely to identify with problems that you have, if those.
So let's take a look:

Can be highly dogmatic, self-righteous, intolerant, and inflexible. Begin dealing in absolutes: they alone know "The Truth." Everyone else is wrong: very severe in judgments, while rationalizing own actions. / Become obsessive about imperfection and the wrong-doing of others, although they may fall into contradictory actions, hypocritically doing the opposite of what they preach. / Become condemnatory toward others, punitive and cruel to rid themselves of "wrong-doers." Severe depressions, nervous breakdowns, and suicide attempts are likely.

Now, I am not nutso like this description, but if I was nutso, this is the kind of nutso I'd probably be.

Now, since I'm not nutso, I look one section up into the "average" section.

Average: Dissatisfied with reality, they become high-minded idealists, feeling that it is up to them to improve everything: crusaders, advocates, critics. Into "causes" and explaining to others how things "ought" to be. / Afraid of making a mistake: everything must be consistent with their ideals. Become orderly and well-organized, but impersonal, puritanical, emotionally constricted, rigidly keeping their feelings and impulses in check. Often workaholics ? "anal-compulsive," punctual, pedantic, and fastidious. / Highly critical both of self and others: picky, judgmental, perfectionistic. Very opinionated about everything: correcting people and badgering them to "do the right thing"?as they see it. Impatient, never satisfied with anything unless it is done according to their prescriptions. Moralizing, scolding, abrasive, and indignantly angry.

That's about as good a cursory description [of my shortcomings] of me as I've come across to date. Not as thorough as MBTI, of course, but that's cause I took the freebie test.

But it still feels incomplete. I'll have to read more on my runner-up types.

I'm tempted to pay for the real shebang to compare it to my much-beloved Typology. I'll have to think about it.

Go take the test and tell me what y'all think.

More on this later, but I gotta head on to work.

UPDATE: I've edited the contents of this post slightly. I've added bold to point out the parts I really agree with and strikeout lines through the parts I don't. Also, for your reading pleasure, I'll put down the positive aspects of my personality from the site:

Conscientious with strong personal convictions: they have an intense sense of right and wrong, personal religious and moral values. Wish to be rational, reasonable, self-disciplined, mature, moderate in all things. / Extremely principled, always want to be fair, objective, and ethical: truth and justice primary values. Sense of responsibility, personal integrity, and of having a higher purpose often make them teachers and witnesses to the truth. At Their Best: Become extraordinarily wise and discerning. By accepting what is, they become transcendentally realistic, knowing the best action to take in each moment. Humane, inspiring, and hopeful: the truth will be heard.

I would highlight and bold what I really agree with, but seeing as how I have a generally positive self-image, I agree with all of it, more or less. Like I said above, we're all more open to not-entirely-accurate complimentary descriptions than not-entirely-accurate negative ones.

[Originally posted on the No-Lyfe Journal]

I am standing in the middle of nothingness, except that I am at a crossroads. However, instead of there being two paths in front of me, there are an infinite number...

I am sitting at my computer, typing this.

I am sitting at a table, surrounded by darkness except for the light at my center. There are two others at the table. The First, across and to my right, is me at the age of sixteen. Energetic and passionate, but also angry and obstinate. My hair comes down just past my ears. I've lost a little weight, but I could stand to lose more and, before long, I will. I wear a smirk because I don't know how to smile. The Second, across and to my left, is me at the age of twenty. My hair is short and I'm wearing round-rimmed glasses. I've learned to smile, but there is a tightness where my cheeks meet my eyes and a hollowness and distance where my eyes meet my cornea. I am taller and much thinner. So thin that if I weren't sitting at the table, you'd see that the bones at my waiste slightly protrude. When asked, I'd merely point out that I am at what the BMI says is my ideal weight. Sitting in my chair is The Third, me at age twenty-four. My hair neither as long as the First's nor as short as the Second's. I'm no longer clean-shaven. I smile, but the smile masks an uncertainty. My eyes are deep, reflecting a philosophical curiosity. I may or may not be wearing my glasses, depending on the day.

Second: This can't continue. There are decisions that have to be made.
First: For once, I'd have to agree with him.
Third: I'm not arguing with you. That's why you're here... and why I'm here.
Second: So then make a decision.
First: The decision is obvious.
Second: Not at all, there are an infinite number of possibilities to choose from. What Third fails to understand is that he must choose one.
First: Except that the choice is obvious.
Third: If it was obvious, I wouldn't be here, would I? I would have made it.
Second: He's quite right about that. He is here for lack of a clear decision. We're here to help him wade through it and make one.
Third: Then let's go. Since you have a firm idea of what I need to do, you go first... errr... First.
First: Okay, our current situation is the product of the fact that you've not been true to yourself. You've been hedging your bets, trying to avoid what you know you need to do.
Third: Which is?
First: Be true to yourself. Do what you want to do.
Third: I don't know what I want to to.
First: Of course you do. You want to be true to yourself.
Third: Which would consist of...?
Second: A complete disregard for everyone else.
First: Not at all. It consists of expressing yourself freely. It consists of putting an end to the lies you tell yourself and the feelings that you mask.
Third: And what lies do I tell myself?
First: That you have your act together. That you are a perfectly happy, contented individual who wants nothing more than what you have.
Third: But I am.
First: See?
Third: How am I not those things?
First: Because you're single, you have a job that leaves a lot to be desired, and you are keeping everyone at bay.
Third: But I like being single. I like the freedom to be able to do whatever I want to do without having to worry about a girlfriend.
Second: But do you actually do anything with these gifts?
Third: Huh?
Second: If you're happy being single -- and I'm not saying that you're not -- and your reason for being happy is to be able to do whatever you want, what are you doing that you wouldn't be able to if you were with someone else?
Third: I go out to music shows. I can take road trips whenever I want to wherever I want. I can move out of Houston if I want to without fear of leaving anyone behind.
Second: But you're still here. You haven't gone to a music show in a couple of weeks. When's the last time you left town? When's the last time you went to San Marcos?
Third: It doesn't matter so much whether I do these things or not. I like being able to. I am also free to write.
First: But what have you written lately?
Third: I've written on the blog. I'm plotting the second Slaughter novel. I'm not writing a novel at the moment, but at least I'm free to. Last year whenever I was dating someone it severely impeded progress on the first Slaughter installment.
Second: But First has a point. If you're not writing, then what good is the freedom to write? You could write on the blog and have a girlfriend at the same time. It doesn't take that much time out of your day. In fact, it would give you more to write about.
Third: Except I don't write about my current relationships on the blog. If I write about them at all, it's always after it's done.... or after I know that it's bound to end.
First: There's no rule that says you can't write about relationships, or whomever you like. That's something you choose to do.
Third: But I don't want to write about my feelings for someone as I am feeling them.
Second: He's right about that. It's opening the door to trouble. Once things are established, then it's appropriate to give them a pseudonym and include them in the Adventures of Alex.
Third: Two out of three can't be wrong [grin]
First: Okay, so then let's talk about your job.
Third: What about it?
First: You hate it.
Third: I do not hate it. It's the source of a lot of amusement.
First: Bemusement is more like it. Laugh to avoid screaming.
Third: Maybe I would like a better job, but the job market is zilch right now.
Second: In Houston perhaps, but there are a lot more opportunities in Dallas.
Third: I don't want to move to Dallas. I like it here.
Second: Why?
First: Because it's home.
Third: Yeah, because it's home.
Second: But why must it remain home?
Third: Because... because it's where I am. For all the problems I have here, which First are not enough to keep me from being happy, most of them would just travel with me to Dallas. In fact, I'd likely have more because I at least know people here.
Second: But with the exception of Kevin and the date every now and again, you don't actually spend time with anyone. You spend most of it at home, writing, or at the Firehouse keeping to yourself and enjoying the music.
Third: But I do enjoy the music. What's wrong with that?
Second: You're not meeting anyone new.
Third: And I won't in Dallas, either.
Second: Granted, you would have to go there with a new outlook, and perhaps you could do that in Houston, but here you have your little pocket of zen that doesn't motivate you to. If you lived in Dallas, you'd have no choice but to.
Third: Or stay in my apartment and write.
Second: Which is why your attitude needs to change.
Third: Even if I enjoy it?
Second: Yes.
First: No!
Third: Okay [to Second] why, and [to First] why not?
Second: Because you're not improving yourself. You're not striving to better yourself.
Third: I'm becoming a better writer.
Second: But it's not doing you any good from a social standpoint.
First: So what if it isn't? If Third likes writing, then he should write.
Second: Earlier you said that he was unhappy being single. Staying at home and writing is unlikely to change that.
Third: Guys, I am happy with that.
Second: For how long?
Third: Until I'm not anymore.
Second: Then what?
Third: Then I'll go out and meet people.
Second: Except that you'll have been out of the game for so long that you'll have forgotten how to play. Furthermore, by being a writer you automatically have a lot less in common with the general female populace. Continued writing would only exacerbate that.
First: He should find someone he has things in common with in the first place. There's no point in having a girlfriend if they don't have things in common.
Second: Okay, First, first you say that he shouldn't go out if he doesn't want to and now you say that he should only pick those most like him. How exactly is he supposed to meet these people?
First: He will eventually. In the meantime, he has something to strive for.
Second: Without actually doing anything towards those ends?
First: The striving is enough. It'll fuel the writing and make him a better writer.
Second: But writing is only a means to an end.
First: How so?
Second: Writing is a desire for acceptance. If it weren't, he wouldn't feel the need to show people his writing.
Third: I write because I enjoy it. It's an outlet for my pent-up creativity.
First: And pent-up emotions.
Second: Writing and expressing emotion are only means to an end.
Third: To what end?
Second: A higher quality of life.
Third: As defined by?
Second: The acceptance of others.
First: But being accepted by others is only a means to an end.
Third: And what end would that be?
First: Being happy... by being the most of who you are... [to Second] not by being the most of who you are not.
Second: Let me put it this way, Third. If I told you that you could be a best selling author writing whatever you want, but the cost of this would be spending the rest of your life alone, would you do it?
Third: No.
First: Okay, what if the deal was that you could be happily married with children, but none of them would ever truly know you because you are withholding yourself from them by pretending to be something you're not and by not writing or expressing yourself in any form whatsoever because it's not "productive"... would you take that deal?
Third: No.
Second: Then what do you want?
Third: Everything.
Second: Okay, let me put it this way... how do you plan to meet your future wife if all you plan to do is sit around writing and going to music shows and not talking to anybody?
First: Or how about this... how do you plan to get to know anyone if you if you don't get to know yourself first?
Third: The answer lies somewhere between those two extremes.
Second: There you go again...
First: ... failing to make the obvious choice...
Second .. failing to make any choice.
Third: Why do I need to make a choice now?
Second: Because it's been two years... two years of failing to make any decision.
Third: What are you talking about? I make decisions all the time. Maybe not the big ones... but I need to know more before I make those decisions.
First: You can't know unless you know yourself
Second: That's beside the point, the point is that you aren't truly making any decision. You're constantly hedging your bets.
Third: How so?
First: You romanticize emotions in your novels while never embracing them in the real world.
Second: You cling to a conservative political philosophy while internally couching them in liberal terms.
First: You write about feelings, yet then demean their importance.
Second: You continually pursue those with which you are least compatible with, shy away from those you are more compatible with, and all the while know in your heart that you cannot endure the frivilous relationships you consistently seek out.
First: And hold on to a job that saps you of all your creativity.
Second: Looking to the future, yet clutching to the past.
First: While conservatively analyzing the present, but never living it.
Second: Disregarding the future for the present
First: And disregarding the present for the future
Second: While looking to the past as a guide for both
First: All to avoid making a decision.
Second: All to avoid any sense of permanence.
First: Any sense of core being.
Second: Any sense of firm direction.
First: This can't continue.
Second: I agree, and two out of three can't be wrong [grin].

[Part Two]

For Eric's response to my response on the abortion topic, click here.

You know, when I started this, I don't think getting into a cross-blog debate about abortion was anywhere on my agenda. I'm not generally the kind of person that likes going around telling people what to do. At the same time, I hold strong beliefs about a great many things and I have to hold on to them* even when it's not comfortable to. Even when it's not easy. Even when it means telling someone you love very deeply that you believe their morals and values led them to the wrong decision because they asked. Eric's values differ from my own as he puts more stock in the degree of happiness or unhappiness of the living and I put more stock in the born-or-not-born status of the potentially living. Neither of us changed each other's mind, but I'm still glad we had the discussion. It's always good to have a civil discussion with the more reasonable people on the other side of the argument because it helps remind you that there are sensible and moral people whose views differ from your own. It keeps us from getting too high on our horse.

In my response to Eric below, I forgot to link to his article. I've added that below, or click here.

For Eric's wife Dawn's take on the discussion, click here.

For a different perspective from Health Welfare Warfare (say that ten times fast), click here.

I'll pass on commenting on those for now.

*- I'm not suggesting holding on to them for the sake of holding on, but holding on to them because you believe them until you are convinced otherwise.

Houston Chronicle:

The only person who has said he won't support us is Congressman [John] Culberson [R-Houston]," said Steve Lufburrow, president of Goodwill Industries in Houston and a resident in Culberson's district.

Goodwill Industries is seeking $200 million for a nationwide capital project that would include five new locations in the Houston area. The organization provides job training and employment to otherwise unemployable people -- including recovering drug addicts and released felons trying to rebuild a work history to return to mainstream employment.

"We've been taking people that the community has given up on. We're doing the federal government's job, putting people to work," said Lufburrow.

Culberson disagreed, emphatically. He said Goodwill's request is "absolutely wrong" and something he will "vigorously oppose," even if the request is submitted by others on the committee.

...

To say Culberson has strong beliefs would be an understatement. His colleagues have called him aggressive, energetic, ideological, earnest and overeager. He has a youthful charm that is unique on Capitol Hill.

But his approach to the appropriations process, and attempts to get Houston-area institutions to rely on him, have upset the usual order.

"I don't view the Medical Center as just mine. I view it as belonging to the entire state and want statewide support for it," said Bell, whose district includes almost all of the 740-acre Texas Medical Center campus. "So it makes no sense to turn it into a turf war."

...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas' only member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she uses her privileged place on the panel to secure as much money as possible for worthy Texas projects.

And Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco, the House appropriations panel's only Texas Democrat, added: "Once a funding level is agreed to, to not ask for support for a project in my district doesn't mean that money will be saved and go back to the Treasury, it means it will go to some other part of the country."

But Culberson has committed to supporting a measure by an Oklahoma Republican that would add up money that would have been spent on rejected appropriations, and send it into a fund to pay down the debt.

Members of both parties say the plan is unworkable because federal spending levels are budgeted through separate debates and votes. The appropriations battles only decide where the budgeted money is going to be spent. That's where seniority and connections give certain lawmakers an advantage.

To change that may be too much of a challenge for a third-year member of Congress. But Culberson, always an optimist, said he won't always be so junior.

As sympathetic I am to the points that Edwards, Hutchison, and the like are trying to make, pork starts at home. It is absolutely hypocritical for us to deride pork (and always, of course, criticize the other party for it) and then turn around and vote for someone because they're going to bring more money into the area.

After spending most of my life in Tom DeLay's district, I finally live in a district with a congressman I can wholeheartedly support. From the same congressional district that Bill Archer and George H. Bush served, he is in good company.

First "Chuck" points me to a site about tomatoes, and now I got some spam about the patented "Texas Tomato Cage"

Such a pity I can't respond, no?

Okay, okay, I made the "Chuck" link to "Rotel tomatoes" up cause I needed an example of some of the boring stuff that MT people pointed to other MT blogs about... but still! What services have I signed on to in order to get spam on growing my own tomatoes? Not only do I not like tomatoes, I don't even have a yard to grow them in!

Proceed to Part 1.

Fact 8: There are limits to the definition of "anything" given in Fact 7.

Lisa: Hey, you there?
RAW: Yeah
L: Yeah, it says you're online... I just figured you were asleep.
RAW: Ahhh, no, I'm awake.
L: Whatcha doing?
RAW: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have not been this bored in a really, really long time. There is nothing to do. Nothing. My mind isn't awake enough to be able to read anything, but my eyes aren't tired enough to sleep. So I'm caught in flux, in dire need of anything to do.
L: Oh really? Wanna talk?
RAW: Sure!!!!!!
L: So I met a new guy today.
RAW: Really? That's great!!!!!!!!
L: Are you okay?
RAW: Yeah!!! Why do you ask!!!
L: Youre acting wierd.
RAW: Huh?! No, I'm fine!! Just a little tired!!!
L: Uh okay. So I met this guy. He's really nice. Too bad someone like that could never fall in love with someone like me.
RAW: You don't know how he feels, so stop speculating!!!
L: It's true, though. It seems like lately every time I meet someone that actually wants a relationship, they arent interested in me. It used to be the complete opposite. they wanted a relationship and I didnt. You changed that and now I want a relationship but everyone that wants one doesnt
RAW: Did you ask him if he wanted one? NO! You are just assuming!
L: I dont have to ask him. I know he doesnt want a relationship because people like him dont want relationships with people like me. You should know that more than anyone. Hes a lot like you
RAW: Hey, I gotta go. I'll talk to you later, okay?
L: Bye

Fact 6: There is an inverse corrolation between the amount of time one has been awake and the ability to remember that really cool web site that had all the really cool links that you couldn't read at the moment because they were all on Blogspot.

Fact 7: There is a linear corrolation between the amount of time one has been awake and how desperate they become for something, anything, to do.

404
404
404
404
404
404
404

[Hmmmm... is my internet connection working?]

[Hmmmm... sure is. Why aren't any of the blogs working?]

404
404
404
404
404

[Wait a minute, I think Blogspot is down. Let me check and make sure]

404
404
404
404
404
404
404
404
404
404

[Sure enough, I think Blogspot is down. Let me go find some non-Blogspot sites that are working.]

[Dammit. I went through all my rotation sites earlier and all of my infrequent sites are blogspot. Wait! I know of a Movable Type site that I haven't checked in a while]

Welcome to Chuck's Site Of Links That Are All On Blogspot Ha Ha Ha

[Let's see what old Chuck is up to.]

Chuck: Everyone has to check out this link right here! It has a proposed solution to lower taxes for everybody while eliminating the deficit and giving lolipops to little babies everywhere -- and their would-be thieves -- without anyone gaining a pound anywhere!

404

[DOH. It's Blogspot.]

Chuck: Woah! Check out this site. It's the funniest thing EVER!!!

404

[Dammit!]

Chuck: I am not often amazed, but this link truly amazes me. I can't tell you anything more except that my life will never be the same again...

404

[FUTTING BULLCKITT!]

Chuck: Bill?s site just moved on to Movable Type so on the off-chance that you are surfing this at 4 in the morning and Blogspot is down, you can still read what Bill has to say on...

[Yes? Yes??]

Chuck: ... the extensive history of the evolution of Rotel tomatoes

[DAMMIT!]

Chuck: Meanwhile, this site, which isn't even a blog and is therefore assuredly not on Blogspot, is an interesting document that is very long-winded that you would certainly be interested in but not so interested that you will be able to remember where to find it... but interesting enough that you'll know that there was this really interesting thing that you can't seem to remember, therefore leaving you to curse yourself for all eternity.

[{shakes fist} DAMN YOU!!!!!!]

Chuck: Hey, cool. John seems to have quite plausibly figured out the meaning of life on his site.

404

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!]

Scene: R. Alex manages to drive up to the convenience store to track down some aspirin. R. Alex gets out of the car and walks up to the door of the allegedly 24-hour convenience store

Clerk (outside, sweeping): I'm sorry, we're closed.
RAW: Closed?
C: Yes sir.
RAW: Alex: No.
C: No?
RAW: No. The sign says 24-hours.
C: I'm sorry, but we're closed.
RAW: NO! It says "Open 24 Hours!" I've thought this through very extensively. I was forced to conclude, very reluctantly, mind you, that the sign is either lying or deliberately misleading. In any case, it says 24 hours...
C: Well I'm sorry, but we're closed.
RAW: NO! It says 24-hours. That means, in laymen terms, that it is open from midnight to midnight. Or, 12:00:00AM to 11:59:59 PM. [looks at watch] It is 3:30. That counts.
C: Listen...
RAW: NO! YOU LISTEN! Even if you go by military time, that means that it's between 0:00 and 23:59:59... and it is, in military time, 3:30. 3:30 is greater than 0 and less than 24. I know these things. I have a degree in a math-related field.
C: Are you on drugs?
RAW: No! But I want to be! That's why I'm here!!!
C: Sir, if you do not leave, I will call the police...
RAW: I will leave when I have my drugs!!
C: Hold on a second. [runs to street and flags down a passing cop. Officer rolls down window. Clerk points to me. Officer gets out of car and walks over in my direction]
O: Sir, is there a problem here?
RAW: YES! [points at clerk] He is the problem! He will not give me my drugs even though three and a half is DEFINITELY greater than zero and less than 24. I know this because I have a math degree.
O: Alright, sir, come with me. I think you need to sleep it off.
RAW: NO! Wait... did you say sleep?
O: Yes, sir.
RAW: [being dragged into the car] I AM KING OF THE WORLD!!!!

Clerk: Sir? [snaps fingers] Are you okay?
RAW: king... of... the... huh?
C: Are you okay?
RAW: Actually, I have insomnia and a headache that isn't helping it.
C: I'm sorry, but like I told you, we're closed.
RAW: Look... could you just help me out here? The sign on the window says 24 hours and... I really need some aspirin.
C: [thinks about it] Okay...
RAW: I am king of the world.
C: What?
RAW: Nothing.

Fact 1: Even when one has insomnia, the chances of actually being able to go to sleep respond with a linear corrolation with the amount of time spent awake, until eventually the chances of falling asleep equals 1.
Corrolary 1: Above statistic only holds true if you count death as "sleep" which, for the sake of anything-is-better-than-this-insomnia, will count towards the logisticological exploration of this post.
Corliary 2: If I am still awake in 24 hours I'm going to be asleep all day at work on Monday, which it being a payroll Monday, is not advisable
Corralary 3: There is an inverse corrolation between the hours spent awake, and the ability to spell "corrolary"
Corrolerrry 5: There is an inverse corrolation between hours spent awake and the ability to count.
Corolary 6: There is an inverse corrlation between hours spent awakie and the ability to remember that 1 is equal to 100%, cause a percentive is divided by 100 and 100 divided by 100 is... I'll have to get back to you on that.
Corrlary 7: There is an inverse corrolation between hours spent awake and the ability to divide.

Fact: When faced with insomnia, the chances of falling asleep in the short term respond in an inverse roccolation with the severity on an onsetting headache.
Corrolary 1: Headache increases with lack of rest
Corrolary 2: I'm fucked.

Fact 3: In the present situation, the short term matters in greater proportion to the long term.
Corrloary 1: Fact 1 is therefore more applicable than Fact 2.
Corrlary 2: Goddammit.

Fact 4: Even though "corrolary" sounds like it could be an "ology" it most definitely is not.
Corrlaty 1: Ability to remember this fact is inversely corrolated with the amount of time a person has been awake.

Fact 5: Ability to remember where the Aspirin is is inversely corrolated with the amount of time a person has been awake.
Corrolary1: Shit.

Lun: [blah blah blah something really confusing blah blah blah]
RAW: I'm too tired to understand confusing language. Say that again next time I'm more awake! :)
Lun: yea like Im going to be able to understand that when I am awake
Lun: makes perfect sense now
RAW: hahaha
Lun: $) (sleepy smile)
RAW: sleepiness sounds good... I need some of that
Lun: maybe we should go to bed..... I think I am going to give it a try anyways
Lun: turn off the comp,, ,maybe you will too
RAW: I can't turn off the computer. That's where the music comes from
Lun: have to sleep with music on?
RAW: Yeah
Lun: I used to, too =)
RAW: How did you ween yourself off of it?
RAW: (and why?)
Lun: when I moved into my first apartment I had my radio in the living room. i would have had to leave it on loud
RAW: Hmmm... why didn't you get another radio?
RAW: Interestingly, I can't listen to the radio. That doesn't work. It has to be a familiar set of music... or else my mind tries to stay alert and if a song I don't like comes on, it'll keep me up to wait for a better one
Lun: just moved into new apartment, other priorities. Plus I knew I needed to
Lun: You just think to much
RAW: that's why I have to listen to music, actually, so that my mind doesn't wander.
Lun: I dont know. maybe you should just turn it off and think of somethign happy
Lun: =)
RAW: Yeah, but then I will start analyzing said happiness, figuring out what it is about that that makes me happy and how I can make the situation happier by working whatever happiness I have to its maximum value.
Lun: Then I recommend heavy sedation.

If so, don't read this post.

MSN writes the following about the new Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez gosh-aren't-they-a-cute-couple romance movie:

Tough Love has had its name changed from "Gigli," had its release date pushed back four or five times and had a $5 million rewrite after test audiences were left unimpressed. In fact, the original ending had Ben's character dying, but since audiences hated that, the studio had to re-shoot a new ending.

So they take a unique title and change it to a bland one and they take an interesting ending and wuss out.

This reminds me of Someone Like You. I've only heard about the movie second-hand from Jason. From his description of it I don't particularly need to see it. Here's what Ebert has to say in his review of it:

This is, you will have gathered, a pretty lame premise. The screenplay is based on Animal Husbandry, a novel by Laura Zigman, unread by me. As a movie, it knows little about men, women or television shows, but has studied movie formulas so carefully that we can see each new twist and turn as it creeps ever so slowly into view. Will Ray return to Jane? Will she begin to like Eddie? Can Eddie settle for one cow? What about the identity of Ray's mysterious girlfriend?

Students of my Law of Economy of Characters will know that movies are thrifty and have a use for all the characters they introduce, and so the solution to that mystery arrives long, long after we have figured it out.

I don't know if the novel is any better than the movie (not having read the former or seen the latter), but I'll at least give it credit for having a more original title. Nor do I know if they changed the ending for the movie, but at the end of the day don't the end of all these movies smell just a little bit like Ebert's description of this one?:

The chances of a production assistant standing in front of the star of a TV show and talking for several minutes are approximately zero, especially since, let's face it, she's babbling: Her speech reminded me of something in a barnyard. It's not a cow, although it's often found close to one.

No wonder I avoid Hollywood movies these days...

These cards used in Iraq for the soldiers to reference on the Iraqi most wanted list remind me of our middle school trip to Space Center Houston. When we first got there, they gave us a pack of trading cards... and trade we did. The cards had paintings of photographs of various astronauts or missions on them. It had the Apollos and the Geminis. Being trading cards, they were completely random in that we didn't get a complete set. In fact the number of cards seemed endless. So while we were waiting in line for the various attractions, we'd trade cards and see what the best deals we could get on the cards we wanted.

Some were worth more than others. The ones depicting older missions were slightly more interesting than the shuttles, so they were "worth" more (ie you had to trade more cards to get them). Ed White's card was worth a lot because many of us went to Ed White Elementary School. A first mission became analogous to a rooke card, so Gemini I was a rookie card. The Apollo 13 movie hadn't come out yet, but if it had I'm sure that card would have been worth quite a bit. Well, quite a bit of other cards.

We were all so bored that the trading became pretty ferocious and eventually more interesting than whatever they were actually telling us about. We all became real proud of our connections. Excellent young capitalists, we were.

Until the next day at school when reality set in and we had better things to do. Cards were flung around the halls at school. Cards that we would have given an arm and a leg (or a Gemini rookie and Buzz Aldrin) card for were laying on the floor, folded up and stepped on. I ended up giving my entire collection to Jason. Heaven knows what he did with them.

For a day, we loved those cards. For a day, the janitors at Seabrook Intermediate School hated them.

The original item meanders a bit, so be forewarned that the clips below are not in the order in which they originally appear.

J. J. Marshall asks "where's the outrage?"

"My sons are 25 and 30," Representative Barbara Cubin (R-Wyoming) said on the House floor a few days ago. "They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean if you go into a black community, you cannot sell a gun to any black person, or does that mean because my ... "
...
And really, where is the outrage? It's difficult to see how anyone without pretty *#$%ed-up views on race could have said that, even as a slip. But what's really important as far as the public square is concerned is not so much the rancid views people may have in their hearts but that they keep their mouths shut and publicly repudiate this stuff when it slips out. This Cubin seems completely unwilling to do."

Yep, what she said was racist. Yep, she's a racist. Racism is bad. What she said is bad. I shook my head when I first read about it. But might it be that we are a little distracted at the moment? Might it be that there are bigger things going on? Might it be the same reason that you confess distracted you from posting on it sooner...

I've been so taken up with the war that I haven't had time to make any mention of this yet.

There ya go. Might have something to do with it.

In all seriousness, there are a couple things I do take issue with in his column.

"The House later voted 227 to 195 against striking Cubin's remarks from the record on the basis of their being inappropriate. No Republican voted in the affirmative.

This insinuates that the Republicans agree with her or approve of her comments. I'm not sure that's the case. I don't agree with her or approve of what she said, but I'd have voted against it, too. If she doesn't want it struck from the record, then that's her unfortunate decision, in my view. I don't believe everything said in congress should have to be "appropriate" because the definition of the word varies too much from individual to individual. I'd suggest that she not say such things in the future and suggest that she ask it stricken from the record, but chances are it wasn't a prepared comment and she didn't want it stricken.

If I were Trent Lott, I'd ask for a rehearing of my case, because the rules for this sort of thing seem to have loosened considerably.

There is a difference in my view. Trent Lott wasn't some backwood congressman, he was the Senate Majority Leader. He was a leader of one of the two dominant political parties. That was what made me so outraged by it. The same, to a lesser extent, can be said of Jim Moran (D-VA). He had a leadership position in his party, but a small one, and thus I was not inclined to demand he be tossed out of congress. Congresspeople, by their nature, represent the people. Many people are racist and/or tolerant of racism. It would stand to reason that they would elect racist people. If the people of Wyoming want to be represented by such a person, that's their problem. If I lived in Wyoming, I'd be going ballistic right now, but I don't and if I became outraged every time congress said something stupid, I'd be a very busy person.

Let me be clear, though, what she said was reprehensable. It was wrong and it was bigotted, but most of all it was tragic. She didn't say it to be mean to be blacks. Her logic wasn't "blacks shouldn't be able to have guns because they're all druggies," it was "we shouldn't stop druggies from getting guns cause then we'd be stopping all blacks from getting guns."

Read that sentence. Read it again. It's not mean-spirited, it's ignorant. I'm less angered and more saddened. In her warped little mind, blacks are druggies. Druggies are black. And she can't, for the life of her, see what the fuss is about. What's so depressing about that is that there is no cure for the depth of that kind of ignorance. I don't know Mrs. Cubin. She may be a really nice person or she may be a real witch. But I know so many nice people who hold that view. I know some older people who would say to a black acqaintance "You know Jim, you're alright. It's the rest of your race that I have a problem with" and mean it in the nicest possible way.

Part of me wants to scream, as loudly as I can, how wrong that is. I could yell until my face is blue, but they wouldn't get it. They never will. It's too late. All we can do is wait for them to die off and hope that their children know better (thankfully, in my experience, most of them do).

If I lived in Wyoming, I'd vote against her if I could.

But, by all means, condemn it. It deserves it. Marshall and the Washington Post are correct. But forgive me if instead of screaming at the top of my voice on this, I just bury my head in my hands instead.

Across the way from my apartment is a sister complex with a dead end gate. There are a few cars scattered in a mostly empty parking lot. To the apartment complex, it's doubtless a tragic sign of a dearth of attendants in a strip of apartments where only half seem occupied by my observation. To one family and their friends, though, it's their back yard and their playground.

As near as I can tell, there are three residents in the apartment itself. A blond woman in her late twenties or early thirties and two blond little girls. Make that four if you count the chow mix dog that never leaves the little girls' side. They ride their little tricycles up and down the lot as the pup chases them about. I've never seen a dog with so much energy or so much obvious affection for its family. It always keeps up and never, ever, ever wants to stop playing. When someone passes by the emergency exit gate, the dog charges over, not to bark or protect its ground, but to say hi to the new person and maybe get petted. A couple times one girl or the other would have the dog on a leash and be riding the tricycle or roller blades and would get the ride of her life. They love every minute of it.

Sometimes they'll see me up here. "Hi Mister!" they'll yell. "Hi!" I'll yell back. We'll wave and then they'll proceed doing all the little things that they do.

On many nights, there are half a dozen other little girls: a chubby Hispanic girl, a skinny little black girl, and a few dark haired white girls. Sometimes another mom shows up. They play "ring around the posey" and laugh and giggle as they run about. They climb the wooden fence just to jump off and yell. The neighboring girls sneak up on the dog when its distracted and yell. The dog chases them down and, should it be fortunate enough to catch them, they'll get a tongue lashing and end up with a bit of slobber on their face. It's a price they're willing to pay. One girl doesn't like dogs so much and the dog leaves them alone.

Tonight, as she sometimes does, the mom pulled her van into the middle of the lot, opened all the doors, and turned on the radio. The girls proceeded to dance. As did the dog, sort of, jumping about trying to figure out what all the excitement is over. They danced and partied for almost two hours before it became 9:00 and their bed time (I wish my bed time was 9:00 when I was there age!!).

Whenever I'm feeling upset or angry or blue, I love to go out there and watch them play. I can't remember what I was like when I was their age and if I had as much fun. I probably did without even realizing it. I don't know if it reminds me of that or if I just love watching such a high amount of per-capita fun. Whatever the case, I can't help but start to feel better.

In a month or two, I'm going to be moving out of the apartment. I believe I'm going to miss them the most, even though we've never exchanged more than a wave and a greeting, jubilantly yelled across the way.

Stuart Buck writes about a pet peeve he has with ambiguous sentences:

Here's an example (meant to be surrealistic): "Jeffrey is not invisible because he is Samoan." Another example: "Jack does not love Jenny because she is blond."

What irks me about these types of sentences is their ambiguity. Jeffrey is not invisible because he is Samoan -- he's invisible because he's Hawaiian. Or, Jeffrey is not invisible because he is Samoan -- and everyone knows that Samoans are always visible. Jack does not love Jenny because she is blond -- he loves her because she plays the harp. Or, Jack does not love Jenny because she is a blond -- whereas if she were a redhead, sparks would fly.

I generally only use is/isn't because when I mean that they are or are not and because is the reason that they are or are not. If I mean that they are not because they are something else, I try to phrase it differently. I read your sentences the same way I write them. Took me a moment to realize the origin of the ambiguity.

It really shouldn't have. I ran into a very similar problem not long ago when I was working on Surviving Allison, my moribund screenplay. The line, as currently written, goes like this:

Shane: [puffs cigarette, shakes head] Why do you think she's been hanging on my shoulder? It ain't because I'm better lookin' than you. It's because I don't give a shit whether she's around or not.

Shane is not better looking than James (the character that he's talking to). The ambiguity here is particularly troublesome, since in my plan to make the movie myself, I play Shane (a relatively small part) and the actor we had in mind for James (the lead) is a strikingly attractive person. Writing a script in which a misunderstanding might occur whereas I utter the lines that I am more attractive than the obviously more attractive lead (James) makes it not only look sloppy, but damn conceited. The point is that even though James is more attractive, Shane gets the girl (at least temporarily) because he's an ass. But does that come through? Does the viewer believe that Shane believes himself to be the more attractive of the two despite all evidence to the contrary

That is a pretty hard point to get through in Shane's snide, sarcastic voice. I moved on from writing the script before I cleaned up the line, but always intended to for the reason that Stuart cites. Except in my case I know how it "should" be used (ie how I read it and what I mean when I write it) and that it was being used in a different way bothered me to no end.

One language ambiguity that I find frustrating is: [subject] [verb] [adjective], if not [more strongly worded adjective].

For instance: He's a really good, if not great, voice actor.

Well, is he great or not? By saying "if not great" do they mean that he is definitively not great and just good, or do they mean that he may or may not be great, but he is definitely good? The difference in connotation is quite large if you're really interested in knowing the latter. For instance, imagine hearing from someone that you have been trying to get into a relationship for some time saying "We're definitely more than friends, if not a couple" is that a sign of hope or not?

I personally would garner hope from that. I would hear it as being "We're definitely more than friends, maybe even a couple" and not "We're definitely more than friends, though not a couple" In the first case, it means to me that he may well be a great actor.

Do you hear what I hear or the opposite? I'd be interested to know.

[scene: One pissed off RAW, one computer. Sadly, no guns.]

It is TOO part of the aggregate function! It is it is it is!! Stop saying that and just load the damn query?. NO! Stop saying that! It?s right there, see? It?s right there! Mr. Date Field, meet Messr?s StartDate and EndDate. I?m sure you?d get along because you?re GroupBy Totals, you both are the date/time data type, and you all have the word ?Date? in your name. Oh wait, that?s right, you?ve met before because you're all a part of the aggregate function!

Now, I know, I know, you come from two different data sources. Date, you come from the Work Hours Table and SD and ED come from the Contract Toolkit. But we must overcome our differences in the name of tolerance and diversity and realize that as co-members of the aggregate function, you can talk to one another! You must! It's your damn job!!.

Main Entry: 1 ag·gre·gate
Pronunciation: 'a-gri-g&t
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English aggregat, from Latin aggregatus, past participle of aggregare to add to, from ad- + greg-, grex flock
Date: 15th century
: formed by the collection of units or particles into a body, mass, or amount : COLLECTIVE: as a (1) : clustered in a dense mass or head (2) : formed from several separate ovaries of a single flower b : composed of mineral crystals of one or more kinds or of mineral rock fragments c : taking all units as a whole

Function
Main Entry: 1 func·tion
Pronunciation: 'f&[ng](k)-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin function-, functio performance, from fungi to perform; probably akin to Sanskrit bhunkte he enjoys
Date: 1533
1 : professional or official position : OCCUPATION
2 : the action for which a person or thing is specially fitted or used or for which a thing exists : PURPOSE
3 : any of a group of related actions contributing to a larger action; especially : the normal and specific contribution of a bodily part to the economy of a living organism
4 : an official or formal ceremony or social gathering
5 a : a mathematical correspondence that assigns exactly one element of one set to each element of the same or another set b : a variable (as a quality, trait, or measurement) that depends on and varies with another ; also : RESULT
6 : characteristic behavior of a chemical compound due to a particular reactive unit; also : FUNCTIONAL GROUP
7 : a computer subroutine; specifically : one that performs a calculation with variables provided by a program and supplies the program with a single result
- func·tion·less /-l&s/ adjective

Aggregate Function ?
Main Entry: 1 ag·gre·gate func·tion
Pronunciation: 'a-gri-g&t 'f&[ng](k)-sh&n
Etymology: Microsoft Access / SQL database programing language
Date: Recent
1. That's you, you petty little asshole cheap imitations of wannabe fields! Now kiss and make up and make my fraggin' database work, dammit!

It has come to my attention that when it comes to complaining about psychologically unstable femaliens, I ain't got NUTHIN' on this guy.

Heretical Idealist Alex Knapp has a post that should look familiar to those of you who read my work here and elsewhere.

'Bush is a moron!"
"Kerry's a traitor!"

"Our anti-war rally had 1,000 people!"
"Oh yeah? Our pro-war rally had 2,000 people!"

"Neocons want to rule the world!"
"Liberals want to replace elementary schools with maddrasses!"

'Hey, this website is funny--it shows that all conservatives are racists!"
"Hey, this website is funny--it shows that liberals don't care about the rights of women in the Muslim world!"

and on and on it goes...

Obviously, I'm not against debating aspects of the war. I believe that the time for debating whether or not we should be engaging in it has past. There will be time again when Iraq is free or, six months later, we still haven't succeeded. Right now we're two weeks into the war and some want to prove that we should just pack it in while others still want to justify what's barely begun and continue a fight that they've won.

Enough, already.

Is this the attire of a rebel?

Sugarmama posts up five rules to good fashion, and, alas, I break four of them with varying regularity. After a careful and thoughtful analysis of what she has to say, Ima gonna keep on doin' it.

Rule 1: Do Not Wear Pleats, they give the appearence of an additional 10-20 pounds.
As it happens, I rarely do. The one pair I do, however, are one of the most comfortable pair in my collection, despite being a size too small. As it happens, I don't get to pick and choose my pants. Given my dimensions (38-34), I buy whatever I can actually find. Do they make me look like I weigh an additional 1-20 pounds? No clue.

Rule 2: Golf Shirts are Bad
My dress includes a golf shirt 40% of the time or so (40% button-down, 15% t-shirt, 5% other). I could wear button-down every day to work except that I don't want to wear the same thing to work day in and day out. Yes, yes, I know I can wear a blue one on Monday and a black one on Tuesday, one with a design (not broad plaid, of course!) on Wednesday, and... no. I don't want to wear the same thing day in and day out.

Rule 4: Iron your Clothes
Once I can get my hour workload down to 40 hours a week, we'll talk.

Rule 5: Boxers, not Briefs
Unsurprisingly, this generated the most comments on the post. For once, I'll have to side with former President Bill Clinton here. I go both ways, here. The adamance of respondents on this one may change my mind, though.

(for what it's worth, I couldn't agree with Rule 3 more. Annang salons are idiotic.)

Anyhow, My vidpost is going to touch on the subject of my attire, so this one isn't. Instead, let's talk about the significance of fashion, shall we?

Fashion should, generally speaking, serve two purposes: (1) Allow us to look as appealing as possible to the targetted audience and (2) Serve a utilitarian purpose of keeping us covered, warm, and allowing us maximum comfort and flexibility.

The two purposes are, of course, not always (in fact, only rarely) conducive to one another. Generally, what looks most appealing is least comfortable. Furthermore, #2 is specifically is so subjective as to be problematic. Let's explore it further:

1) Allow us to look as appealing as possible to the targetted audience.

The most general indication of what we find comfortable is what we wear to sleep and when we're lounging around the house on weekend mornings or sick days.Girls generally wear pajamas and guys generally wear underwear (particularly if they wear boxers) and a robe. Obviously, these are not things that we can wear out in public, whether a formal environment or not. We'll call this Level 1 Formality.

Next to what we wear when we lounge around our abodes, the next layer up the formality layer is what we wear when we're doing physical labor. For most people, this is a t-shirt and shorts or jeans. Tennis shoes and sandals are fine. Just about anything you can mess up guilt-free is no problem. Only exception being 300 lb. people who insist on mowing the lawn without a shirt on. I live in Houston... but there's still no excuse for this. This cannot be emphasized enough. This will be called Level 2 Formality.

A couple rungs up the ladder is what we wear in formal environments. For men, this will generally include dress pands and a dress shirt. It may or may not include a coat and tie. For women, this will include a dress and possibly high heels. The confort level seriously starts diminishing here, at Level 5 Formality.

The peak of formality is, of course, a black-tie event. Men wear tuxes, women wear nice and devestatingly uncomfortably tight dresses with girdles where appropriate. There is no comfort in the land of Level 6 Formality.

I skipped over Levels 3 and 4 because they are where most of the problems occur.

Level 3 is what we wear when we go out in public but there is nothing necessarily expected of us. For guys, this can include anything from a t-shirt and blue jeans to a button-down shirt and... well, blue jeans. Maybe shorts if the scorching heat demands it. For women, this can be a skirt, stockings, and a tight shirt (pretty please?) or simply jeans and a t-shirt, sweater, or whatever is weather-appropriate. Tennis shoes are generally fine here and sandals are okay for women. Since nothing is really expected of you, it's difficult to go wrong here, lest you be that pudgy guy always wearing a Hawaiian shirt, in which case still the only disapproval you're likely to meet with is the rolling eyes of your wife.

Level 4 is for dressing up casual. For me, this includes what I wear to work: Slacks, a golf or button-down shirt, and boots. Nice jeans are okay some times but not others. Some people wear Level 5 to church, others don't. You might wear it to a party where kegs chugalugs are not going to occur or on a first date. There is a lot of lattitude here, though tennis shoes and sandals are not generally considered appropriate.

The problems occur with Levels 3 and 4 because that's where we have the most freedom. In 1-2, 5-6 the only real way we are going to do wrong fashionably is to dress at the wrong level. It can happen, but one hopes that offenders will learn from their mistakes and correct them. Levels 3 and 4 on the other hand are all about personal style (and utter lack thereof. See accompanying vidpost). These are primarily the areas that Sugarmama addresses and where I, and many or most guys, are the biggest offenders.

This is also the part where I start to get defensive because my tastes are not in tune with society-at-large's. For instance, during our brief time together Lisa chided me for wearing navy blue shirts with black slacks. Seeing as how I have many navy blue shirts, this fashion faux-paux is not an infrequent occurance with me. I happen to believe that the two look great together. I also happen to be practically the only one in the world who believes such. It's also a matter of utilitarianism for me. I have these navy shirts and nothing I can really wear them with. Am I supposed to wear them with navy blue slacks? Vidpost aside, even I know better than that. Here's the other thing: I hate khaki. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. And seeing as how I've been told never again to wear my bright red 80's style slacks in public again, all of my slacks are navy blue or black. I could get brown, I suppose, but I don't expect that would be a great improvement.

So Lisa informed me of my fashion crime, and I asked her what was so criminal about navy-on-black.
"It doesn't look good."
"Why not? Sports teams put these colors together and it doesn't cause any problems."
"That's different."
"Why?"
"It just is."
"How very helpful."
"I try."
"YOU'RE NOT HELPING!"
"Sorry."

I finally got her to give a reason.

"Because it makes it look like you can't tell that they're different colors. It's the same problem with blue-on-different-shade-of-blue."
"But I do know it's different."
"But no one else knows that."
"So it's not that there's anything inherently wrong with it, just that people don't think I know what I'm doing."
"Right."
"But I do know what I'm doing."
"Doesn't matter."
"Why not? I can't do it because other people that do it are doing it because they're color blind?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"But no one I know wears that color combination."
"Because they, unlike you, know better."
"So no one wears navy/black because anyone else wearing it must be wearing it because they don't know that they're not the same color, except that no one is actually wearing it in the first placed based on the fear of it that is totally unfounded because no one wears it to be color blind on it in the first place?"
"Maybe."
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

Which brings me to something I really dislike about fashion in general: It's based on false assumptions. It's based on assumptions that everyone "knows" what looks right and what doesn't. Just like I'm sure there's a society that thinks sagging boobs are sexy I'm positive that there is one that doesn't have an inane problem with navy-on-black because of some fictional people somewhere that only wear it because they're lazy, except that no one does and I am not supposed to because of these made up people and the assumption that other people will have that I am one of these fantastical band of fashion outlaws.

Got it.

Sugarmama suggests that guys shouldn't wear pleats and golf shirts because they make guys look heavier than they are. Maybe they do. Whatever the case, it's a better reason than the mythical fashion outlaws in navy-on-black. As it happens, weight is and always will be an issue with me. I've noticed that I generally don't look as big when wearing a button-down shirt as a golf shirt or a t-shirt, but it's all relative. Outside of self-proclaimed workoholic Sug, how much does the appearence of (as opposed to the existence of) an extra 10-20 pounds matter? It can certainly make a difference when the clothes are tight or off, but can we not adjust our appearence when we know they're wearing something that gives the appearence of extra pounds (such as a sweatshirt on women)? I do, but then again weight (within 20 pounds at the very least) is not a paramount issue in regards to my attraction to someone. Maybe our society's fixation on weight is to blame for this faux paux.

Of course, first impressions are important. So two people side-by-side may recieve very different glances from someone of the opposite sex depending on what they're wearing. Maybe this is where I am disconnected with society at large. First glances don't generally mean much to me. In fact, of the ones that I've had the most passionate feelings for, I don't know if I was attracted to any of them at once. Discounting people of the opposite gender that I may or may not be interested in (with one exception, more on this later), I really don't care what people wear. Why would anyone? The stereotypical notion of women talking about the fashion mistakes of other women behind their back is completely alient to me. I can only think of two times that I've ever commented negatively about a guy's choice in attire, and in both cases it wasn't so much what they wore, but they wore the same thing every single day for months. Not the same articles of clothing, but the same combination (for instance, a MegaDeth/Metallica/Black Sabbath black shirt and jeans).

Which brings me to my objection with fashion rules in general, they inhibit any variety in Levels 3 and 4. Cut out polo shirts from Level 4 and we're left with button-down shirts every... single... day. I had the same problem with dress codes in high school. particularly rules against wearing shorts and caps. Personally, I wear neither. But some people look good in them and like them. What's the point in banning them? Because it "distracts" from the academic environment? Then why are they allowed in college, where academia is considerably more important?

Is there anything so wrong with this? Don't answer that!

Not that all uniformity of dress in K-12 can be laid at the doorstep of the administration. I know this, you see, from experience. When I was a kid, I hated the feel of jeans. Hated it. I hated it so intensely that I wore slacks to school every day, much to the detriment of my popularity. Slacks were more comfortable, dammit! The person that could explain that to the likes of Carl Antley and Darrin Duplantis (you doubless are unfamiliar with the name, but do I need to explain who they were?) is the person that could sell a snow plow in Laredo. But they were bullies and idiots. Darrin started out a grade ahead of me, but when I graduated he was two behind me. Things improve in high school (peer-wise) and then college is great, and then the gates start to close again.

To be sure, I have no desire to color my hair blue and wear a dog leash around my neck, to the extent that I ever did. This all, however, brings me to the second purpose of clothing:

2) Clothing serves a utilitarian purpose of keeping us covered, warm, and allowing us maximum comfort and flexibility.

Key word there is "utilitarian" which describes how, in a perfect world, I would go about dressing.

If I go to Che Expensiveshit, I can spend $50 on a button-down shirt. It'd be a really nice one. Might have a logo of something important on it. Oooh. Ahhhh.

If I go to Walmart, I can spend $15 on a button-down shirt. It'd be a pretty good one. No logos to speak off. Boo hiss or something.

If I go to Thrift Nation, I can spend $5 on a button-down shirt. It's likely to be a bit faded. Might have a logo on it, though. I have one that says Tommy Hilfiger on it. That makes me important.

If I go to the back rack of Thrift Nation, there'll be a rack of button-down shirts for $.50. They'll look alright. They won't say "Tommy Hilfiger" but rather "Tommy's Motorcycle Repair and Porn Rental" and some Spanish or Arab name or something. We're no longer in Level 4 range anymore. That's fine. But we're not in Level 3, either, even if it doesn't say 'porn' on it. No, we're busted right down to Level 2.

That's actually why I bought the shirts to begin with. I used to deliver the Daily Cougar at UH and they were perfect for it. The shirts are perfectly good from a utilitarian but I can't wear them anymore!! I don't have a lawn to mow or a paper route to deliver. Why? The daggone fashion police, that's why! In college, it was a good way to meet dopeheads, but that is not my thing anymore was never my thing. If I were to wear this while running chores to the supermarket or something and should I happen to meet a female-type of interest, she'd probably assume that I was a dopehead, or really poor, or some other thing based entirely on the superficial excuse of my wardrobe. Is that right? Is that fair?

In fact, the entire Level 3 is bullshit. If something is wearable and provides what is necessary (ie covers necessary parts, is comfortable) then why should we discriminate just cause it says "Castaneda" of "Pepe's Garage" on it? (btw, anyone who can help me track down a shirt with the name "Habib" on it will be graciously rewarded, fans of Married With Children everywhere will admire me!). I like those shirts! I want to be able to wear them without consequence, dag nabbit!! You know that chubby guy in the Hawaiian shirt I mentioned earlier? He likes that shirt! So stop rolling your eyes, Mrs. Hawaiian shirt! Those shirts are comfortable and they make the wearer feel all Bohemian!

Anyway... so where was I?

Other than demonstrating quite clearly why I'm currently single and seem to only attract weirdos?

Over on Joshua Claybourn's blog is a powerful letter from a reader about the Red Americans that disproportionately serve in our military:

No, the people of Alabama didn?t ask ?why did this happen?? on 9/11; it never crossed their mind. They knew that they had to kick some ass, damn it, not because they wanted ? in that predictable, lazy stereotype that, when Ted Rall connects ink to paper to memorialize it in caricature, must seem like a moment of sheer f***ing ingenuity ? to scalp an Arab?s head and ?avenge? the deaths of a few thousand fellow Americans (a lot of them, it should be noted, from the Upper West Side), but to prevent the murder of countless thousands, maybe millions, in the future, many of them Arabs.

When I heard the story of Private Lynch, prior to her heroic rescue, it tore my heart out. Yes, she enlisted for the education, but also because of the 15 percent unemployment rate in her West Virginia hometown. My father has been employed for a quarter-century now; can anyone who has shared that lifestyle possibly attest that he really ?feels? recessions, or high unemployment figures? Only, perhaps, in the narrow sense that someone can ?feel? the suffering of Somalians who would probably die from the shock of eating just what the average, flabby American considers not a meal, but a ?snack.? But I think I feel it now. And I think others do too.

Read it.

8:35 -- Wake up with call from Office Manager, there was a problem with the morning time processes. Error says "Time does not exist." She doesn't understand why her computer never works. Walk through the steps with her to discover problem.
9:05 -- Discover that she did not move the file to the appropriate directory. Turns out it says "File Timedat.txt (the one that has the time in it) Does Not Exist or Cannot Be Located." Get off phone.

9:15 -- Call from Office Manager, Company President wants the ability to run an invoice in my absense. Wants me to explain to her everything that I do to produce one so that she can put it in writing.
9:25 -- Invoicing Database produces an error. Walk Office Manager through troubleshooting.
9:40 -- Explain to Office Manager, again, how to navigate through Windows using Windows Explorer.
9:55 -- Discover that when you said "Rename the file to Invoicedata.mdb" she renamed it to Invoicedatadotmdb.
10:20 -- Finish conversation, get off phone.

10:45 -- Receptionist calls, asks if I had any daily costing assignment sheets completed for yesterday. I explain that I was unable to complete them before I left yesterday.
10:50 -- Receptionist explains that she needs costing assignment sheets so that she can make the appropriate changes because it's important because she doesn't want to have to do it all at the end of the week. I explain to receptionist that it's already the end of the week and that I'll be glad to play catch up and make the changes myself.
10:52 -- Receptionist explains that she doesn't want to have to make all the changes at the end of the week so it would be good if I had them ready for her. I explained that I did not get to it that and that I'll be glad to play catch up and make the changes myself so that she doesn't have to.
10:54 -- Receptionist explains how important it is that the costing assignment sheets are important and that she wishes that I'd been able to complete them before I left.. I explained that I am sorry about that but that I was on the phone with the DSL company for the better part of the day so I couldn't get to it and that I'll be glad to play catch up and make the changes myself so that she doesn't have to.
10:57 -- Receptionist laments that the costing assignment sheets aren't done and that she's going to have to do them at the end of the week and she hates doing that. I stop bothing to tell her that it's already the end of the week and that I'll do them myself. "I know, J*," I tell her. "I appreciate all that you do for us."
11:10 -- Get off the phone with Receptionist.

11:45 -- Shower
12:00 -- Get out of shower. Cell phone tells me "1 missed call."

12:15 -- Talk to Production Control about an error with the PDDP Reports. Tell him that I'll get to it on Monday if he sends me an email about it.
12:30 -- Get off the phone.

1:30 -- Go out to lunch and shopping, leave cell phone in room.
2:00 -- Return from work. "6 missed calls" "2 voice messages."

2:10 -- Listen to voice messages. First from Receptionist about a problem she's having with her computer.
2:18 -- First voice message ends. Second begins. It's working now.
2:25 -- Second voice mail ends. (yes, seven minutes later)

2:35 -- Call office back to make sure none of the other calls were important. Office Manager says server is down. I have heart attack.
2:40 -- Discover she means SMTP (outgoing email) server is down. I chastise myself for my previous heart attack. They always do that. I always have that heart attack. Neither of us ever learn. Office Manager forwards me to Purchasing Manager.
2:41 -- Purchasing Manager explains that Purchase Order Log (ie VERY IMPORTANT FILE) is "gone."
2:50 -- Discover that the file had been moved within the directory and AutoArrange put it back where it belongs. It was only "gone" insofar as there was a blank space where the file should have been.

3:45 -- Recieve call from Receptionist. All of the Purchase Orders have been "deleted." "All?" I ask. "Well, all but four or five", I ask to be forwarded to Purchase Manager.
3:48 -- Purchase Manager says that they're there. I explain receptionists predicament. Purchasing Manager explains that since they passed the 21000 mark, all the 20000 POs are now archived. Ask to be forwarded to Receptionist.
3:57 -- Explain to Receptionist concept of "not in thie folder anymore or any folder within this folder. I try to explain how to navigate via Windows Explorer but give up. End up having her open the file via Run Command.
4:15 -- Get off the phone.
4:30 -- Take nap
7:30 -- Wake up. 4 Missed Calls.

Well, it beats the $120 cell phone bill I had last year on my trip to Florida.

This is a bit old, but Slate did a good write-up on Marvel Comics showcasing gay comic lead, Rawhide Kid. It brings to bear a lot of the problems I have with comic treatments of characters that aren't in Superman or Batman's demographic. In DC-verse, it's almost comical. Every black character is either a stereotype (jock) or a blunt counterstereotype (athlete). Increasingly, they are made to be both. Even when they don't start out that way, they get put in the hands of a lazy writer who makes it so. Or they get twisted around to try to be everything. One character, Amazing Man, was a very natural character until he became a spokesman for the aggrieved black man at the hands of the criminally lazy writer(s) of the Extreme Justice title some years back. After the cancellation of that series, the character was never heard from again. That's the case with many characters, but seems especially true of niche ones.

A long time ago, on a discussion board, I asked (in a question directed at minorities) what the best way to write a minority character was. I said that if I make a black man an athlete from the inner city, then he's a stereotype. If I make him upper middle class from the suburbs, then he's whitewashed. Am I, as a white male, therefore disqualified from writing about a black one?

Surprisingly, they came to a consensus pretty quickly in their response. First, if the black character is in the lead, design a substantial part of his background picturing a white guy. If you don't want to write about someone from the inner-city, don't make him from the inner city because he's black. In fact, if one of your first defining characteristic is his race, you're going to end up writing around a subject you know little about (ie actually being black). Once you have that, then give him his racial demographics and then start writing around it. For instance, if he's from the suburbs, integrate whatever alienation he might feel into the character. Since his personality is all set, he won't be "driven" by the fact that he's black but by making an effort to put yourself in his shoes, you're at least including it. You're not "whitewashing" it. Secondly, if they're just members of a cast, have more than one and make them different. They don't have to both be big characters, just a background one.

I took an idea I was working on that took place in Barton, a fictional town in Texas about the size of Lubbock.So I took a non-essential character that had already been somewhat created (the mayor) and changed his race. One I did that, surprisingly, many of the other changes became more natural (a pro-business Democrat whose constituency is largely made up of blacks and people who migrated out of the big city, a coalition-builder by temperament since Barton was not a black-majority town, open-minded, but in a sense wishy-washy, trying to please too many people and not always sure how. Confident in his abilities, but not as much in his direction, and so on).

Since he wasn't the lead, I needed another. But instead of asking myself "What should I make the other black character" I asked myself "Where else do I NEED a character?" It wasn't an easy question since most of the cast was already picked. So I thought about it and determined that though I had the Sheriff determined, I a deputy could prove quite useful. Particularly a deputy caught up in an ongoing feud between the Mayor and the Sheriff. So I created the deputy, gave him a demeanor and definiing characteristics (independent, apolitical but very aware of the politics that surround him). Then I inserted the race into the character and saw where it went (from the poor side of town as most blacks in Barton are, got through college on an athletic scholarship, is outside both the black community by virtue of being a cop and of the Sheriff's Department by being the only one of the same race as the mayor).

I may not have done it perfectly and maybe I shouldn't have made the cop an athlete or bent more or away from the characters' races, but I did something write because they, like the rest of my characters, wrote themselves. I never actually got to write the story, but I actually became so enamored with the cop that I have a solid idea for a story in which he is the star.

Those characters probably took more effort than the white portion supporting cast combined, but in the end it was worth it. I used it for a couple Hispanic characters and it turned out just as well (one turned out to be a 5th generation computer wizard and the other a 2nd generation police chief). If I'd gotten to write the series, I probably wouldn't have mentioned all that I knew about the characters (because they weren't that prominant), but it still wasn't a waste of time. It was an exercise in many ways and writing minority characters has been easier ever since. They, like the rest of us, now come in my writing in all shapes and sizes. Some stories have many, some have none.

I don't think many viewers cared that Ellen was a lesbian, but it's interesting to note how quickly that series floundered after that came out. Closed-minded audience? Not judging by Will & Grace, which despite the greater prevalence of homosexuality never made that any more integral than Friends does the heterosexuality of its characters. If it's not a big deal to the writers, it won't be a big deal to most heterosexual white males such as myself.

That's my two cents, anyway.

It seems to be becoming popular among many on the right to lay the recent French troubles on the doorstep of the government. Chirac and company denounced the graffiti on the graves of the British WWII liberators and the response seems to be "You can't feed the flames then complain about the fire."

Now, I'm not one to defend the French. In fact, I'm not going to. I am, however, going to tentatively defend the government. The underlying principal is that since Chirac was so vocally, obstructionally against the war, people taking anti-war sentiment to the next level are, of course, to be blamed on Chirac. To test this, leave our distaste for the French aside and take the inverse of the statement and see if it holds.

Let's say that there was a rash of killings against Arab Americans and immigrants in the south as Bush declares war against a Muslim country. Is Bush "feeding the flames of anti-Arab hatred"? I'm certain many French and others in Europe would say so, but let's get real here. A leader of a free nation only has nominal control over its people. Bush has his reasons for pursuing the war as does Chirac in his reasons for opposing it, but it has nothing to do with persecuting Muslims or defacing graves in France (or, for that matter, the unfortunate violence against Jews going on over there). What Bush has said about the evils of extreme Islam was tailored in speak about Islam being the "religion of peace." What Chirac has said about American (and British) aggression and unilateralism is a message of restraint, which the vandals certainly did not show.

To be sure, I am very angry with Chirac and hold no personal goodwill towards the man. I wish the (Socialist candidate) Lionel Jospin, who I was rooting against in their last election, had won. Jospin would have been more adamently opposed to the war than Chirac, but his opposition would have been more honest. I am also unhappy with the French at-large, who seem to be undecided as to whether they would like the liberal democracy or brutal dictatorship to win. Then again, I'm sure the hostility is mutual, so oh well.

All these thing being said, the goverment's condemnation was immediate and did not tuck any deflections such as "I'm sorry the American hostilities have provoked..." I don't know what the future holds for America and France, former and possibly future friends. Maybe we'll be able to mend our bridges or maybe we're just too far apart to be able to do that. Whatever the case, lets at least save our debates for important issues and not waste them on tarring an entire nation and its government on the actions of a few. Let's accept their apology as we'd hope that they'd accept our apology if someone were to ransack the French embassy.

The issues that lay ahead are more important than this. Not to say we shouldn't be angry. I'm furious. Nor is it to say that we should let it slide. On the contrary, we need to make sure that Chirac backs up his words with actions. But Chirac is sitting on a powder keg of Europeans and Muslim immigrants, left with the derision of the only other local nation with a serious army to speak of, and isolated from the most powerful nation on the planet. This is all, quite literally, Chirac's problem.

This began as a reply to a post on Bert's Blog (no permalinks available, search for "posted about regrets"), but I've decided to revise and extend my remarks here. Read my original comments here.

One of the most oft-uttered lies in human relationships (at least encompassing agest 14-35, I'd like to think it stops and some point) is "I don't want to ruin the friendship by trying for something more."

What they mean is "I don't think he/she digs me so I'll pathetically try for something more" or "I don't dig him/her but he/she is so nice I don't know how to tell them that."

Sometimes faux-friendships carry on for some time because they both say it and one means one and the other means the other. I say "faux" because that's not really a friendship. It's more like a symbiotic alliance. Let's say that he thinks she's not interested and she thinks he's right. Out of this, he recieves what he wants most in this world: access to her. He wants whatever he can get and if he can just be friends, then he'll deal with that because he loves being around her so much. She, on the other hand, gets an admirer. Perhaps she is affectionate towards someone else that is not interested or maybe she's just been single too long. In any case, if he likes her and she knows it (and she almost always does) chances are she keeps him around for a reason. Otherwise, the tension is not something she would embrace.

As time progresses, he's likely to become increasingly frustrated. He won't be able to understand why she's not interested in him when they're so obviously perfect for one another. Instead, she seems interested in people who are... just... less than as perfect for her as she is. Eventually, this will manifest itself. He'll start becoming jealous of some guy she's interested in and it'll just pick at the scab. "But dammit, he's less than as perfect as I am for her!!" or he'll become increasingly smothering. "I know we hung out last night and the night before, but I have this new something-or-other you have to see!" and when she rightfully claims that she has a life independent of him (and just for sadistic kicks, mentions a time or two that "it's not like there's anything between us.")

She, meanwhile, will become increasingly turned off. Not that she was ever interested in him before, but the passive-aggressive ways she might have been interested in him before. For instance, if he were to meet someone else she might feel jealous and be caught scarfing down ice cream with a friend, lamenting that she never returned his affections. Now when he finds someone (or, more likely, pretends to in order to see if she'll get jealous), she'll be happy for him. That will drive him utterly insane.

She will also wonder why this always happens to her, completely oblivious to the fact that it took two to make this situation. She assumed that those nights that she spent on the phone destressing and releasing her problems on him in the song-and-dance of the relationship that it wasn't but she wanted to feel like it kinda sorta was for a moment that she assumed meant nothing to him as they did to her even though she knew of and was flattered by his affections for her. Those flirts that made her feel better that were less innocent than a pick-me-up at the long term expense of the all-too-willing flatterer. This is the point where she will find some other guy, someone she is interested in, to talk to about her slightly obsessive friend. She will unconsciously play up his interest in her to make him jealous.

He'll wonder why she's spending all this time talking to the new guy instead of hanging out with her when, after all, they're so perfect for one another.

And then things blow up. He makes his move or she finds someone else (and he blows up). Maybe he gets stuck with one of the girls that he strung along to make her jealous. Maybe he realizes she isn't all bad. Whatever the case, their beautiful "friendship" is exposed as the lie it was by virtue of the fact that when it went, it wasn't about the friendship at all. It was about his broken heart, his feelings for someone else, her being creeped out by his affections, or her having met someone else. By the time it's over, he'll never really care to talk to her again and she'll wonder why.

Anyone thinking I'm bitter? Actually, the "he" in this story is not me. Maybe it was at one point, I honestly don't know. I do know that I've seen variations of it play out countless times. Sometimes I've been the guy she uses the poor sap's affections to impress. Sometimes I've been a friend of the sap and sometimes I've been a friend of the girl in question. There have been times where I've had unrequited affections, of course. Unlike the chap in this story (and all it's million variations, worldwide) I tend to be very upfront about what I'm looking for, to the point that I literally responded to one such person (whose affections for me were waffling) who said she "values our friendship" that "we have no friendship. That's not what this is"... things ended not very long after. In any case, if she's not interested and I know that, it's fine and I stop wanting it (for reasons other than "the friendship") or I distance myself from her. Make a decison and go with that decision. Don't tempt yourself endlessly by fooling yourself into thinking that you can friend yourself or nice yourself into a relationship.

And if you're inclined to think that your friendship is so good that you can forgo even trying anything else, think about it this way: If you're friendship is that strong, why can't you be honest and open about your most important feelings for them?

That said, I do understand that there are cases where you really do like someone as a friend even though you might be interested in more. Particularly if you think that she is interested. Or he. Whatever. That's obviously the case for Bert and I was in a similar situation once (more similar than just that aspect, I digress). Even when that is the case, though, you've got to clear the air about it. Let's face facts: Friends come and go. Friends are easily replaceable. I say that even as I believe I have some of the best friends in the world. But they're people I've known for some time. You can cultivate or not cultivate a friendship and whatever you do it does not come at the cost of other friendships (unless they're not the kind of friends worth having). Relationships are best cultivated one at a time and, most importantly, when it's all said and done we'll remember former lovers a lot better than we'll remember former friends.

Or look at it this way: Think of your friend and know that in three years, it's unlikely that you will still be very close to this person. I know you're not inclined to think of it that way, but it's true. If you get into a relationship, it will likely fail (as most relationships do). If you don't get together, they'll fall in love or you will, one of you will get married first and them move from the singles table to the married table, leaving the other one behind. Now, knowing this, would you rather look back on it as a former relationship that just didn't quite work out... or a friendship that went out with a wimper long after you both no longer harbored the spectre of a relationship that could have happened if you'd just taken that chance?

Three packs of sugarless bubble gum: $3.18
Four Metabolife pills: $1.39
Eight Aspirin: $.85
Total: $5.42

One pack of Doral cigarettes: $2.09

UPDATE: Adam gets props for mentioning it, though I'd have to give my former co-blogger Poster Girl for putting it in a language I can understand: A graph. She asked questions, pumped in numbers, and ta-da!