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Tuesday, July 31, 2001, 10:20pm Sucks to your threes and fours. I'm happy with my two. I passed, and that's all it's gonna say on my academic transcript. Damnit, I had difficult topics, and I wrote as best I could on what I had. Too bad my topics sucked horribly. They sucked so horribly, in fact, that I don't even remember which one I finally settled on. They were so horribly awful that I sat for a good fifteen minutes taking notes for three of the four trying to decide which was least horrible. I finally chose one, wrote on it, and I can not remember a bit of it. That's how bad it was - I'm not normally one to forget something I write about, especially in such a setting as Macon State Hellhole - I mean College. And, for the record, I scored an 80 (or was it 81?) on the reading part. I'm a bit disappointed, but it isn't all my fault. A lot of it asked for definitions of words that I had never heard of, in which case I could only guess. Either way, I passed, and despite disappointment that my scores weren't higher, I don't care too much, because these scores will allegedly never necessarily be revealed to anyone else. So anyway, my girlfriend Claire could be moving to Seattle this winter. Her father got a promotion that, if he takes it, requires him to move to Washington State. Claire does not want to leave her family, but she does not want to leave her friends. If she leaves Georgia, her family pays out-of-state college fees for a year and Claire loses the Hope scholarship that pays tuition (up to $3000 per year). So basically it comes down to her parents wanting her in Washington and her wanting to stay in Georgia. And then there are outsiders like me that don't want her to go but don't really have much of a place to say so to either of her parents. I've let her have all the arguments, and I only attempt to offer my reasoning when asked. It's an odd situation when your girlfriend's parents ask for your input. Do you realize how difficult it is to offer an honest, straightforward answer while also trying not to be selfish? It's damn near impossible. I deserve an ice-cold beverage for the effort... So, anyway, I'm telling you this a couple weeks late, but I figured it deserved mention, as it's a pretty significant situation for me right now, and that's more or less what this web site is here for... More as it develops, which should be in several months. Gran Turismo 3 progress: 50.5%. Monday, July 30, 2001, 12:30pm Don't you hate it when you catch the last half of a movie? Especially when it's a new movie that you wanted to see when you got the chance. So, now I know how Sweet November ends, and I hate it. Now I've got to watch the movie just to figure out why the characters ended up how they did, and I won't be surprised at the end! Ugh. Also, as sad as it may be, school seems to be approaching at blinding speed. I think I'm down to three weeks of summer. At least I'm not still in high school - they're going back on the 10th. I anticipate spending about $400 on books, which really sucks quite badly, but maybe I can avoid buying all of my books at full price. I guess I would need to scout the bookstore and get book titles and prices if I were seriously to go for that. So anyway, off to Macon I go. Maybe I can convince my boss to give me more working hours or something. I'm only working about 20-25 hours before my job allegedly expires, and I wouldn't mind the opportunity to make just a little more money, you know, so I can actually afford school, my car, and my life in general. I'll figure those things out though, so don't worry about it. Especially if you're a parent of mine! Oh yeah, I was warned about three weeks ago that I had incorrectly linked to July's archive. Well, there's the link for those of you that care for it, and it's been corrected in the archive. Gran Turismo 3 progress: 45.6%. Monday, July 30, 2001, 12:06am I love it when I fall asleep early and then wake up in the middle of the night and update my web page. It really screws up my sleep. Oh well, I still got about seven hours last night, and I plan to get about nine tonight. Maybe. Plans mean nothing anymore. My life isn't my decision, it seems. Either way... Good night to you, and I love you! Gran Turismo 3 progress: 39.8%. Sunday, July 29, 2001, 1:34am Today was my first day at an "official" job ... like ever. I woke up at 7:00am, arrived at work at 8:30am, and left at 1:30am. Five hours at $5.50 per hour is good for $27.50, I suppose, assuming the government doesn't take it. You know, it really pisses me off that nearly everything is taxed. The government has to get its grubby hands on every little detail of life. It pisses me off that they tax transactions. All we're doing is moving the money - not spending it on any good or service - and the government wants four percent of that. SCREW YOU. When you come to Warner Robins, Georgia, and earn that money in my eyes, then I'll happily pay you that four percent. Until then, I hate you. I hate you badly. And you're killing yourself, so you know. But, um, anyway. The job was simple. I directed about 250 people. I handed things out. I boxed things up. I moved things around. I ran around and collected signs. I did just about everything I could for my first day, including many things that should have been left to my boss or other higher-ups. Things were so swamped that I was left alone downstairs in the lobby, so I had to take care of everything in there. So, rather than sticking near the main table as I was supposed to, I had to float between the main table and the seating/waiting area to make sure everyone knew what they were doing there. All in all, it was a productive day and an enjoyable day. It should be worth more than $27.50 though. Such a thing makes me wonder... If everyone doing those crappy little near-minimum wage jobs that were really unsatisfied with the pay all quit at once and demanded a raise, and everyone else refused to be hired for such wages, do you think they would give everyone a raise at once? Heh. That's a good way to kill an operation, or a business, or something much larger, depanding on how many people "everyone" is that I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. Gran Turismo 3 progress: 37.0%. Image. Thursday, July 26, 2001, 11:59pm It has come to my attention that Claire was not the mastermind behind the surprise family dinner at Mikata's last week. It was the World's Greatest Sister™, my sister Jenny, which actually makes more sense, seeing as a birthday dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Macon is all but traditional for our family. So, thanks Jenny. And thanks to anyone else who contributed to the lies that set up some of the best birthday surprises I've ever had! Thursday, July 26, 2001, 11:20pm Many things on the agenda. That happens when you forget that your weblog exists. You see, there is this wonderful creation called Gran Turismo 3 that I like to play while everyone is at work or at school, and when I'm not playing that, I'm actually preparing for work and school. Work, I say? Could it be? McCord said the word work in a manner that would mean that McCord would have some form of positive income? Take it how you will, but I'll say it bluntly: I have a job. Not a demanding job, mind you. Not one that pays $30,000 per year or even $200 a week. But a job nonetheless, and one that will help to provide funds for what few resources and other items I may need, crave, or both in the next few months. Basically, I am working for my school, Macon State College. (Don't click that link. The web page really isn't that great.) No, I'm not working in the business office or the financial aid office or in the library or anywhere else important like that. I am doing what could easily be the most and least fun job of all of them, depending on the students I encounter. My job: Orientation Guide! I see it as a fun job, because I get to deal with all the new students and tell them how wonderful life is at Macon State, so I basically get to lie to them. My job is simple, really. I give the kids a notebook full of stuff regarding Macon State and their potential program(s) of study, get them organized, and ship them to the "advisers" that would rather get them through and out of their way instead of truly advising them. (Currently, advisers are faculty members that must see that all students are taking "proper" classes. I think student advisers would be a much better for the school in general, as the students know what needs to be taken from experience, whereas the faculty members only know how the system should work ideally, which - by the way - is never how it works.) So bright and early Saturday morning - the 7:00 kind of bright and early - I drive thirty minutes from my home to my school for my first on-the-job experience. Sure, I've had little things done at random offices around town, but never anything official. Never an official paycheck. So wish me luck. Hopefully, I won't burn the school down on my first day (though that is rather tempting...). Remember I said many things on the agenda. That was just one of them. The second thing on the agenda is that wonderfully fun trip to Six Flags that took place on Tuesday. To start, I had stayed at Tony's Monday night assuming (mistake) that I would be riding with them in the van to Macon. I soon realized, however, that my brother did not know how to get to Claire's (our meeting place), and so after playing Gran Turismo 3 and watching the classic Dr. Strangelove and not falling asleep until about 1:00am, I got up at 6:00am - before the crack of dawn - and headed home to take a shower and such to prepare for the trip. My brother, Daniel (friend visiting from North Carolina), Jonathan, and I left in my car to pick up Leigh, which happened to live in exactly the opposite direction that we needed to be headed, which is precisely why I was driving. My brother would likely have sped like, um, someone fast on his way to Macon, thereby putting his carload in a higher-risk situation than, say, I did. *grin* Meanwhile, Nathan and Tony were zipping around town loading the minivan full of Six Flags-goers, including Mike. You know, the Mike that said, "Don't call my house because my parents will be sleeping; I'll be up." Back in my vehicle, I was discussing with my brother and all of his friends how Mike had this tendency to be awakened by his fellow travelers' arrival more often than not. We eventually arrived at Claire's about fifteen minutes late, at which point Claire informed me that Nathan and Tony were running about forty-five minutes late with the van because, well, they woke Mike up. Sometimes I hate being right. Skipping along... We finally set out an hour late at about 9:00am. Nathan's '96 minivan makes the light; Claire's '89 minivan doesn't. So we wait for about four minutes on the light change, and we finally hit the highway. We find out that they're about four miles ahead of us, so I plot to drive around 80-85 for about fifteen minutes in order to catch them. Little did I know that Nathan ordinarily drives his van that speed anyway, so we actually did not catch them, despite speeding quite horribly, until we got off of the interstate at the Six Flags exit. (Talk about timing!) Six Flags itself was awesome. The first thing everyone did was ride Agrophobia, the "most extreme ride in the park" which raises a load of about forty people to a height of about 200 feet, tilts them 15° to look down, and then accelerates downward at about four times the normal acceleration due to gravity. In short, they went really fast. The machine slams on brakes about twenty feet off the ground, giving the average person a nice crick in the neck. And by the way, I only watched. I refuse to ride those "pick you up and drop you" rides. I love roller coasters, but I hate that initial acceleration that slams your insides against my spine. I also hate wooden roller coasters, because they just seem more fragile, and they're a helluva lot more bumpy - the Georgia Cyclone gave me quite a headache! Either way, Tony and I rode Thunder River at about 10:30am, and we got soaked. I don't think I dried off until about 4:00pm, after riding about eight roller coasters. We basically walked around Six Flags for eleven hours riding everything in site. Nathan and his crew left around 7:00 and Claire's van and my crew left at 10:00. Oh, and a friend of ours had his van towed for parking at the abandoned Sam's parking lot next door... Oops. So we had fun, and Six Flags is a blast. The Batman and Georgia Scorcher are the best coasters in the park, and the Mind Bender and the Viper (way too short) are good too. Now if we could just have a theme park with nothing but roller coasters - like twenty of them - that would be a place worth visiting over and over again! Ah, less thing on the agenda: Gran Turismo 3. I have to thank everyone again for such a wonderful gift. First of all, I probably annoyed the hell out of some of you when talking about it, and I never expected such a thing for my birthday anyway. You guys are the best friends and family anyone could have! I've enjoyed playing the game for the last few days while I could, and, for those that care, I'm currently 25.9% through the game and loving every minute of it! I am voluntarily putting it down for almost two days after tonight, though. I leave for Macon tomorrow to fill out some papers that my boss didn't tell me I needed to fill out while I was there Wednesday, so I get to go back. Rather than drive to Macon, come back, and drive to Macon again Saturday, I think I'll just stay in Macon and go to work from ten minutes away instead of thirty. Yeah, good idea. So I won't be in contact with Gran Turismo 3 for a couple days... I'll suffer from withdrawals. :) Tuesday, July 23, 2001, 7:12am If not for days like today, I may have forgotten that the sun ever came up at all. For the last few months, I have been around to see it up and to see it fall, but never to rise from dusk... Today, well, I have. Tony, Nathan, and I decided to get some sleep around midnight or so, and I awoke at about 6:00am to hop into my car and drive back home, an idea that really seemed like a good one after I had already gone over there. You see, I will be driving my brother and a couple of his friends to Macon this morning. Originally, there were enough to require two cars, and he did not know exactly where to go, so I was going to lead him. Either way, it works out fine, as now I can just take all of them in my car and have zero problems. So the plan is to arrive at Claire's at or shortly before 8:00am, and from there we shall head to northern Atlanta ... to Six Flags Over Georgia. In case you're wondering why, this is another one of those nice little things my friends are doing for me for my birthday ... or maybe they all wanted to go and just bought my ticket for me because my birthday was just a few days ago. Either way, if I heard right, this trip has been in planning for a good few weeks, so I think my birthday just happened to coincide, which was just enough to earn a free pass. Hey, I love you guys! And now we leave. We get to pick up one of my brother's friends from the "sticks" - ordinarily, this would be a bad thing, because we have somewhere to be in fifty-five minutes. However, even in the wrong direction, this friend's house is off the highway that we must use to head up to Macon, so... If you're a visual learner like many of us, I plan to post maps to all of our potential destinations. Stay tuned. Monday, July 23, 2001, 11:55am Someone asked me what I was doing to help the environment. I answered: I hate to break it to you people, but there isn't much we can do to "help" the environment. We can only prevent further damage that we do. For instance, I take my aluminum cans and newspapers to proper recycling bins, and I occasionally pick up some trash outside ... you know, when there is a trash can nearby and it is not inconvenient. As far as aresol cans and anything else that supposedly causes global warming... that's bull shit. Global warming may or may not be occurring, but it makes no difference what we do. EARTH TO PEOPLE: your planet has a very long history - longer than yours - of heating up and cooling off in cycles. There is nothing you can do about it. There is, however, something you can do about pollution and trash everywhere. Take Earth Day, for instance. On most Earth Days I just sit on my ass and look at a computer screen ... if I'm not at school. My idea? Declare Earth Day an international holiday. All over the world, every government declares Earth Day a holiday and encourages all citizens to put down what they're doing - just for one day - to clean up a little bit. Pick up the trash on the highways. Pick up the trash on your street. Clean up your yard. Whatever. How the hell is this place going to get any better if we don't do SOMETHING to make it better? I'm sorry, but our few-and-far-between efforts aren't cutting it. We need a new national holiday devoted to cleaning this place up. Oh, and if it isn't voluntary, it won't work. :) Questions? Comments? Concerns? I think it could work. Someone start one of those hideous chain letters with my idea and see if it makes it anywhere. Maybe, if our government is too busy to cooperate, we could undermine the whole holiday thing and organize it through the internet. Don't say it can't be done. I've seen absolutely horrible songs voted into popular music countdowns through massive internet pranks... Only this isn't a prank. Com'on, people... what have you got to lose, aside from one afternoon staring at a computer or television screen? It's a good idea. Monday, July 23, 2001, 11:37am I know I have wonderful family and friends. I knew it all along, but I guess they felt like showing it off this past week. Last Wednesday, Claire surprised me by inviting my parents to somewhat of a surprise birthday dinner at Mikata's. To ensure the surprise, the party of six she had told me about was just a group of our friends ... friends that conspired with her and played along any time I talked about dinner on Wednesday. Oh, you guys! So anyway, Japanese food is wonderful, and I completely enjoyed all of that ... especially when the chef almost tossed an egg into my brother's lap. It was a good night. So fast-forward to Saturday afternoon. I had left my car at my mom's the previous afternoon, which was messing up everyone's plans (though I didn't know it), but it actually helped things to work out perfectly. You see, when I got back to my mom's house to visit and eventually take my car home, I walked into a kitchen full of about twenty teenagers yelling "Surprise!" as if I were supposed to say something... Funny how that happens sometimes, especially on or near important dates, such as birthdays. The fact that my birthday had been three days passed really made it a surprise. :) So skipping through and picking little details throughout the night, my sister made me a delicious red velvet cake, and everyone pitched in to get me a PlayStation 2 with Gran Turismo 3. That will make a boy's day ... any day! We mingled and conversed for about six hours, played Catch Phrase (sort of like a mix of Outburst and Taboo), listened to load music, and ate lots of my mom's awesome spaghetti and my birthday cake. What's the only bad thing about having most of your best friends at a surprise birthday party? The cake doesn't last! So, just to put my gift to good use, I've played it for at least twelve hours since I got it less than two days ago. Gran Turismo 3 is much more difficult to get started than the previous two titles in the series, and the driving is much more realistic. And man, the graphics! It feels almost like driving through movie scenes! Basically, I want to make sure that everyone that pitched in (and everyone that doesn't know why they're reading this) that I love my PlayStation 2 and Gran Turismo 3, and I think I got the one thing that I wanted when I wanted it! I very rarely just want things like this, and so I was extremely surprised to get it. Thanks everyone. I love you all! Now, as if Hell actually needs to freeze twice in one week... I'm going to go, um, to work? That should make a few more people happy. Oh, but don't get your hopes up. Hold no expectations of me until the first paycheck comes in. I'm as good as an unemployed volunteer until I get the first check. Friday, July 20, 2001, 11:08am Forgive me for using Neal Boortz material again, but the man just thinks like I do sometimes (not all the time), and it's often so easy to use his writing. Today's topic? Social Security, and our evil Democratic Party's plan to use it for their benefit - not yours. Let's set up a little analogy here. Turn back the clock to the time of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Instead of setting up a system to supplement retirement income *ahem*, FDR decides to create something called "Housing Security". It's a plan for the government to provide housing to every American who reaches the age of 65. This government housing is financed by a payroll tax. Everybody pays, and everybody is guaranteed basic housing when they retire. If you want a fancier house, go get it on your own. When you die, you and your possessions are removed from this government-provided residence and someone else moves right in. If you have children or other relatives in the home, they're going to have to find another place to live. In other words, it belongs to the government, not you, and once you're gone it does no one but the government any good. Not exactly what I would call "housing security". Such a plan is particularly popular with Democrats. They know that old folks vote in larger numbers than any other segment of our society, and they know that these old folks are vulnerable and can be easily frightened. So, with every federal election, the Democrats send the same message to the older voters: "If you don't vote for us, you are going to lose your retirement home. You'll have to go find another place to live." If you want to frighten old farts, tell them that they're going to be put on the street. They'll crawl over each other's bodies to get to the polls to keep you in office. Now ... here comes an "evil" Republican. The Republican knows that soon there's just not going to be enough money coming in from payroll taxes to pay for these retirement homes. One of three things is going to happen: Taxes are going to have to go up, retirees are going to have to double-up in those homes, or the wrinkled citizens are going to have to wait longer before their retirement home is ready. I don't suppose you're looking forward to facing any of those options. The Republican has an idea. Why not let workers put their money into buying their own home? Let them put that money to work making payments on a home that belongs to them, not the government. Look at the advantages! When they die they can leave the home to their children! The home would be something they actually own! The way it is now, these retirees have absolutely no legal claim to this retirement home the government is promising them. The politicians can take it away any time they want! If workers were allowed to invest in their own homes, they wouldn't have to worry about some politician taking it away! The Democrats wouldn't react well to this idea at all. If people owned their own retirement homes, the Democrats wouldn't be able to hold those homes over their heads at election time! How in the hell are you going to frighten an old person to vote for you if you can't threaten them with the loss of their home! Those homes absolutely must remain under the ownership and control of politicians! You can't effectively frighten voters by threatening to take away something they own! You can only frighten them by threatening to take away something you own! The analogy, of course, is to Social Security. Social Security is not the retirement program it once was; it's a vote-buying scheme. The Bush Administration wants to take part of your Social Security retirement "account" and remove it from government control and turn the ownership of that account over to you - the person paying for it. A study commission set up by Bush has come out with an interim report. The report says that there are only two real options for Social Security. Either we face benefit cuts, higher taxes, and massive borrowing ... or workers are allowed to build personal wealth through private, long-range investments. Democrats are livid! Outraged! They are petrified that this idea might actually be presented to - or worse, understood by - the American people! If that happens, and if Social Security moves toward privatization, Democrats will have lost possibly their most important vote-buying tool! Social Security? Sounds more like "Voter Security" to me. And it's not security for you, it's security of you. This is important to you. It is more important to your children. Time to put down the remote control and spend a few moments thinking about how things might be made better – for your children, if you will – and freer in this country. That is, of course, unless you already have your escape route meticulously planned. Thursday, July 19, 2001, 9:18pm I read about this in the news weeks ago, and I just now feel like saying something about it. Okay, so you're aware that child pornography is illegal for the simple reason that it is undeniable proof that a child was sexually exploited. Problem? I thought not. The problem is this: An Ohio man was sentenced to a few months in jail and put on probation for possession of child pornography. His probation officer was searching his apartment one afternoon - looking for child pornography as one might guess - and the officer found the man's private journal. In this journal were fictitious accounts of sexual abuse of fictitious children. He is clean of child pornography, but he has written about it in his private journal where no one else would ever even know about it, and so no harm is being done. What happened to the man? He was sentenced to seven years in prison for writing an odd combination of letters and punctuation in something very personal that no one else should ever have the need to see. This is not child pornography, nor is it a crime - it is the man's personal thoughts and his method of dealing with his problem. He should have been left alone. Instead, Ohio taxpayers are now paying for this man to live in a state prison. (Read Boortz; he said it first.) Want more? Do you realize that, under this law, any author who writes any work of fiction that includes a sexual acts involving minors is subject to arrest and prosecution! Lolita is one of the greatest pieces of classic literature in circulation today. But under laws like these, it will be no time at all before one of Vladimir Nabokov's most well-known works is frowned upon or even banned. If Nabokov were still alive, he should be subject to arrest ... under this law. In short, this is a load of bull. A man was arrested for putting his thoughts down on paper. No crime, unless you count thought crime, which was the overwhelming force dominating the helpless citizens of the tyrannical state of Oceania throughout George Orwell's 1984. You don't think 1984 will become a reality? Wake up and smell the coffee! It's coming faster than you think, and you don't even realize it. George Orwell put his prediction in writing fifty-five years ago, and authors like Aldous Huxley and Yevgeny Zamyatin did the same years before that. So Orwell was off by a few years, or perhaps a few decades. But it's coming, and there is little that can be done about it if you don't remove your head from the Democratic Party's ass. Wednesday, July 18, 2001 It's my birthday. So get me something. Monday, July 16, 2001, 10:34pm I have told myself that I would stay away from this story, because I really don't care until the truth comes out, but I found something interesting. If you have kept up, you will remember that Chandra Levy's aunt reported that Chandra told her that Gary Condit gave her instructions not to carry any identification when the two of them met for their little "sessions". Chandra has disappeared, and all of her identification is still in her condo. While this is hardly proof, this is certainly evidence that Chandra Levy could have been on the way to or from a meeting with Gary Condit when she disappeared. Or maybe, just maybe, she was with him... Monday, July 16, 2001, 3:48pm Want news you won't find in America? Check the BBC, where you will find a recent report that handgun crime has risen 40% since the banning of the weapons. What's the basic message of the story? Take something away from your citizens, and your criminals still find ways to get it, and now that the citizens can't have them, the criminals own the place. Gun control isn't a bad thing. The way our government is going about it is. La la. I'll just wait on Neal Boortz to say something about it. It can't take him long... he usually mentions guns four times per week. Monday, July 16, 2001, 1:24am Reading site's like Ev's sheepless.net and Daniel's brilliantly redesigned waferbaby.com not only remind me that there are complete strangers able to make the details of their lives quite entertaining to read about with a few twists of words (Ev), and other complete strangers that simply captivate you with constant creativity (Daniel), not to mention the hundreds of other good qualities that I'd imagine they both have that I'll never know about. Then again, I have the advantage, for Daniel and Ev, being in the future (or more accurately, in Austrailia), live tomorrow today and always talk about it before I get up. And it's odd to consider that, wow, it's actually winter on the other side of the world. Amazing how that works! </pointless post> Monday, July 16, 2001, 12:40am This K5 article will upset capitalists, as it upset me. I spent about forty-five minutes reading and responding to socialist comment after socialist comment - very rarely did I actually get to praise someone for speaking reasonably. Oh, we're turning into a socialist nightmare, and it's not because the people want to, but because they want more money! Oh, selfish America, you won't last another hundred years. I'll even be surprised if you last fifty... Sunday, July 15, 2001, 12:55pm If you're familiar with Neal Boortz, then you know that he's about as anti-leftist as they come, and he'll stop at nothing to let his listeners know. So why do I bring this up? He's allegedly reserved one three-hour show in a little more than a week for two Democrats to take on his listeners! This is the time for two Democrats to take on Neal's listeners. It could be a nasty showdown. It could be a tranquil battle of reasoning. It could actually be interesting, so much so that I think I might actually listen to Neal on my own for the first time, um, ever. Sunday, July 15, 2001, 1:33am Wow. Amelia Earhart may have actually been found ... or may actually be found soon. Yeah, I know, we've heard stories and fibs about Earhart's lost plane for decades, and we rarely have any reason to believe or disbelieve, but it has been proven time after time that these remains and that wreckage have nothing to do with Amelia Earhart. This time, however, we have little more than a glimmer of hope that the search (which I think is a bit pointless) may actually be over. Perhaps that is too much to hope for, but an extraction operation is to commence within the month, and I'm certain that details will follow shortly thereafter. Read the article if any of this sparks any curiosity in you. I'll report more if anything develops. In unrelated news, my sister is staying the night with my girlfriend tonight. This isn't weird, I don't think, though it is an interesting and new occurrence that I had not foreseen. I hope they got along in their, um, whatever they were doing tonight. I'd hate to hear that they hate each other tomorrow morning. Of course, in all likelihood, Claire's mom will cook a huge feast of a breakfast for the sister of mine that she's never met and everyone will love everyone. :-) In other unrelated news, someone's ass hurts. If you must know, a young man endured unfortunately developments that led to the surgery of and about his "nether regions". The suffering that followed has produced this lighthearted story of what you're missing, and how you may attempt to avoid it. I know, I know... It isn't your dream to know of the experiences of another man's ass or how to avoid such experiences. But, believe it or not, this is a highly entertaining read, and if you make it all the way through, you will certainly know how to avoid having this happen to you. Thursday, July 12, 2001, 2:43pm Everyone watch the Braves game on TBS tonight. TBS is a national network, the "superstation", so you should be able to catch it. Why is tonight's game so special? Because I will be in the second row in left field right behind the left fielder most of the night wearing a red shirt. If I can find my Orioles cap, I might wear that too. It's black, so you know. I'll try to get a good picture of the field from my seat's point of view. Hopefully I can get the stupid digital camera to transfer the picture to a computer. So that's it. Red shirt. Second row. Left field. Maybe I'll catch a home run! I hope to... Headin' to Atlanta! Thursday, July 12, 2001, 4:04am Reb, so you know, I respect you for putting your thoughts on the web. You and I and everyone else that does this are well aware that we leave ourselves open for criticism, perhaps welcome or perhaps not. I don't think you're an idiot, but sometimes I use your site or others to get points across or to deliver entertainment. It is nothing more than that. Think of it as a tribute that you're one of three sites that I use quite regularly. :-) No hard feelings, right? Thursday, July 12, 2001, 2:43am Want to strike out on a Pedro Martinez fastball? A Randy Johnson slider? A Greg Maddux change-up? Now you can! I don't want to explain. Read about the pitching machine that can throw any pitch at any speed at any location. It runs on a Pentium 3... Thursday, July 12, 2001, 2:31am Nick did it first: Bahahahahahaha. Thursday, July 12, 2001, 1:37am I just noticed that my cheap, ugly counter has just turned cheap and ugly, and thus I have effectually gotten rid of it. I no longer know how many of you visit my website per hour/day/month. This was an easy decision to make. I have stopped paying attention to the counter, and I only cared now because it looked quite ugly. So, it's gone, and pay no attention to its disappearance. So you know, I had had 54,134 visitors since June 30, 1999 (only 3000 in the first year). Thursday, July 12, 2001, 1:29am K9mach3: there was no wednesday update! jpmccord: correct. K9mach3: why wasn't there? jpmccord: when i'm not home, i'm not online. when i'm not online, i don't update. jpmccord: :-) K9mach3: where/where were you? K9mach3: and if you're online now, why can't you update? jpmccord: er, nothing's struck me as worth updating for K9mach3: do something interesting/stupid/amusing then! Interesting/stupid/amusic, eh? Tim say me should do something stupid. Or amusing. Or interesting. *scratches head* All I've got is this thought. This thought about invitations. You see, I understood that an invitation was extended to me to meet a group of my closer friends at the local pool hall at 11:30pm. So I scrambled home and put myself together and headed out there. I waited. And I waited. And, um, I left. So all my wonderful, loving friends decided to go to Steak & Shake and didn't bother to cancel the invitation, or tell me to meet somewhere else, or ... anything. Oh well. I drove around town for about twenty minutes for no good reason. Works for me, I suppose. So anyway, I am going to Atlanta again tomorrow to see another Braves game. This time I get to see my favorite player ever for the Baltimore Orioles play against one of my favorite teams ever. He announced his retirement for the end of this season shortly after I acquired these tickets, so I'm quite certain the place will be packed. Um. Have I mentioned to any of you how awesome Andy is? He's the man that got me the tickets for tomorrow's game. Thanks a million, Andy! Oh, and it seems that tomorrow's game is really today's game, as it is already Thursday the 12th. Yay. *does a little dance* Tuesday, July 10, 2001, 11:44pm 11:22pm. Roberto Alomar bats in the bottom of the eighth inning of the 72nd Midsummer Classic - that's Major League All-Star Game for the baseball illiterate - and the local Fox feed died, probably leaving thousands of baseball fans cursing wild curses at their television sets. Many will blame the Fox Network. Don't do that! Fox is a quality network (although their announcers suck). Besides, I have confirmations in Pittsburg and San Francisco that the game is still on the air. Nope, you can blame your money-grabbing local Cox Cable office. Just how local? Well, considering I've got friends up in Carrolton, Georgia, watching the game END as I write this, I would guess that it's pretty damn local. If I were an arsonist, and if I did not subscribe to Cox's @home service, I would burn down every single one of Cox's local offices. Sons of bitches made me miss the only baseball game I never miss. Don't talk to me. I'm pissed. Tuesday, July 10, 2001, 7:00pm I'm beginning to see the anti-abortion argument more reasonably than I used to. I still don't support it, but I don't dismiss it as a meaningless argument anymore. You see, first and foremost, I believe that freedom is the ultimate natural and unalienable right, and that it can only be limited in the least when it infringes on the equal freedom of others. That is a bit of a loose interpretation of freedom, but I know how I mean it, and it is difficult to clarify it much further than that. The only way to truly clarify what it means when put to use is to apply it case by case - not by enforcing some general rule that treats almost meaningless actions open to a variety of interpretations as potential dangers worthy of drastic punishment. I bring up freedom because I have always believed that a woman should be free to choose whether or not she should have an abortion or not when the decision needs to be made. It is generally known that a tiny minority of pregnancies are seriously considered for abortion, but in the event that it should be considered, the mother (and/or father) knows better than anyone whether or not that child should be born. No government official, no matter how high and mighty, knows that woman's body, the live she lives, or the life that her potential child could live. He only knows the statistical representations of this, and as we all know, stats are convenient loopholes for government to get the wrong things done. The woman/parents should make the final decision, not the government. The government is not raising the child, the mother/parents is/are. Period. Tim and I agree for the most part on this issue. An abortion early in the pregnancy - before the child takes human form - is okay anytime. In other words, as long as the potential child has not reached fetal stage, it is still only a bundle of cells and tissues that are not alive and therefore should not be treated as though they are. My biggest problem with the anti-abortion argument is pitting it against population control. I do not believe that population control or other forms of control should be legally enforced, but voluntarily enforced by the people. We know that the planet is overpopulated and getting worse, but we're doing nothing to stop it. The answer, as Tim proposes, is that some people simply should not be allowed to reproduce. Those on welfare, in order to receive the benefits of welfare, must be sterilized. If no one has noticed, our worst population problems emanate from the lower classes of society. This is exactly backwards. Those that require our tax money to survive should not be having children that only require more of our tax money. They are only mooching off of our government and creating more children that are likely to become (but not automatically) a burden on society like their parents. I may or may not finish this train of thought later. The All-Star pregame show starts now. Send your thoughts and I might post them. Tuesday, July 10, 2001, 12:40am Months back, I borrowed and rewrote parts of a "could the Matrix be real" story. I always include links when I do that, but this time I forgot. As a result of my actions, I am bringing you the link now. Everyone thank the Zion Mainframe for bringing me that story and for being good sports while I made the proper adjustments to the proper page on my site. The story I used is here. Just clarifying. In other news, Gran Turismo 3 just shipped, and millions of gaming fans around the country are anxious to get their hands on a copy. I'm one of them. I can't afford the game or the system, but perhaps there are other ways... Or perhaps I am in for a wait. Either way, life is good, and I haven't seen my girlfriend in way too long. Claire, I love you! I'll see you soon. :) Monday, July 9, 2001, 6:05pm The best professional baseball players in the country have gathered in Seattle to play in tomorrow night's Major League Baseball All-Star game. Yay! As has become customary (since 1991), the heavy hitters gather the night before the All-Star game for the Home Run Derby. Guess where I'm going to be tonight! If you didn't guess "in front of a television watching the Home Run Derby" or something similar, then you're wrong, stupid, or both - not possibly neither. I have not missed an All-Star game since 1990, and I don't plan to miss one ever again. The All-Star game is like the last ten minutes of the World Series to me. You can miss every other game or every other play - just don't miss this! And so I won't. Don't bother trying to contact me after 7:00pm either today or tomorrow - I won't respond. This is your warning. Oh, and crazed Mariner fans like Tony or me might like to know that, of all the cleanup hitters at Joe Torre's disposal for the American League squad, Bret Boone was chosen to hit cleanup. I can hear Tony screaming "YES!" and raising his fist in triumph now... Hold that yell, Tony. Rafael Furcal's MRI has revealed that he needs surgery and is out for the year. Oh well. I guess that means .420-hitting Mark DeRosa gets to hit every day. Werd to baseball. Monday, July 9, 2001, 3:10pm How to piss me off: ring my phone every fourteen seconds. My god! The phone won't stop ringing! There have been seven phone calls in the last ten minutes - and not one is for me! That's it... From this point forward, I do not answer the phone. The only two people that call me are Tony and Claire, and I can spot them on the call ID. I'm sick and tired of the lazy idiots in this house that get all the phonecalls waiting on someone else to get it! HELLO! IDIOTS! It's for you! Get your ass up and answer the phone! Monday, July 9, 2001, 2:44pm How to scare the hell out of a tech-nerd if you're a laptop computer: complain that you can not find the operating system. How to pass advanced troubleshooting courses: find the lone screw that stabbed you in the foot last week, screw it into the hole that you can not see about once centimeter from the surface of the laptop, and watch as the laptop suddenly finds its operating system again. Silly laptop; tricks are for rabbits. In short, I have now decided to move all of the work on various web pages that I had kept exclusively on that laptop to this computer. I didn't realize how valuable all that work was until the computer wasn't recognizing its hard drive or operating system. Hundreds of hours of work would have been lost, and I quite possibly would have gone insane. Not that you'd notice any difference... Monday, July 9, 2001, 1:44pm jpmccord: ugh. this roe v wade crap bothers me. some guy: how so? jpmccord: bush is trying to protect unborn children. jpmccord: step by step, he's bringing us closer to government control of the human body :-) jpmccord: not bush in particular, but government in general some guy: ah, but i'm pro-life because i believe the unborn still have rights, not because i'm for government controls some guy: the government exists to keep contractual obligations fulfilled some guy: if you become pregnant you have a contractual obligation to the child not to abort it jpmccord: I agree, once the child has taken the shape of a child. some guy: what does the shape have anything to do with it? jpmccord: Once it reaches fetal stage, I feel that it's too late. some guy: it's not like a 2 week old fetus is going to turn out in the shape of a square or anything. jpmccord: If it's only a few cells, it's not living. some guy: (shrug) some guy: i disagree some guy: but that's where the line is blurred, i suppose jpmccord: It only has the potential to live at that stage... jpmccord: It is still a part of her body. some guy: that's a rather high potential, though :D jpmccord: Not as high as you would think. some guy: and i'm technically made of "parts" of both my parents' bodies jpmccord: Many pregnancies end unnoticed by a rather larger discharge than normal when it comes to that time of the month. :P some guy: if they end before they're noticed, then it's moot :D jpmccord: What is the difference? some guy: you only have an abortion when it IS noticed, no? jpmccord: The body can reject it but the mind can't? some guy: ... some guy: eh. some guy: good point :p So it comes down to the Mind/Body Problem again. As one may or may not know, the Mind/Body Problem has presented societies with problems for generations. Does the body control the mind? Does the mind control the body? Do they simply work together? Is either more valuable than the other? Such questions will likely never be answered. I think maybe that's what kills you... You realize the answer, and the powers that be realize that you realize the answer, and so you pose a threat to revealing the answer to the rest of society... Or maybe it will just never be known. Monday, July 9, 2001, 1:30pm I don't care what anyone says, the right to choose is better than government legislation of one's body. Abortion should never be outlawed. All the same, abortion should never be a haphazard or careless conclusion. I don't generally talk about such a thing, but I actually have a chance to take Leftists' side on something, and that's not something I can do every day, or even every month. Besides, it really pisses me off that the government wants to throw away a mother's responsibility of deciding how and when she wants to have a child. Certainly, if abortion is the choice at which she arrives, she probably should not have gotten pregnant to begin with. That is not the issue. The issue is that the government is treating a few cells in a woman's body to be a life, when they are nothing more than a mere batch of cells with the potential to live - if it survives seven to nine months. What I am seeing is government control over the human body. It seems to me that, if a woman does not want to have a child, she probably has her reasons. If she is incapable of raising a child, or has any of a variety of diseases, or if her child is otherwise likely to endure a less-than-quality living for its first few years, then I would be all for getting rid of it before it becomes alive. Now, unlike some, I can allow that perhaps those "cells" in the mother's womb can be considered a "life" once they reach the fetal stage. If the child has taken human form, it's too late. If it hasn't, it's not. Even then, that's not my decision. If a mother does not want to have a child, don't make her. Until she has that child, it is her body. Period. Sunday, July 8, 2001, 1:02pm The more Reb talks about Eminem, the more I think she's turning into a socialist. Before I get railed for saying that, being a socialist is not a bad thing. However, being a socialist and trying to turn a capitalist nation to socialism simply for your convenience or because you think it is better... well... Neither capitalists nor socialists can prove that they're right or that the other is wrong, and I figure we have lots of socialism on the other side of the pond. I'm sure if some of you socialists talked to some big-money capitalists, they would pay to get you out of the country to a place more livable. Then again, I could be wrong. As for Eminem, I can agree with Reb on one thing: his style of music is not my listening preference. This does not mean that you, I, or a bandwagon of people can send him away. So some of his lyrics offend - big deal! He can talk about whatever the hell he wants! I can talk about 400-pound naked lesbians if I wanted to, and while that would offend many people, you couldn't do anything about it. Look, life offends. Are you going to try to get rid of that too? At least that's guaranteed to solve all your problems... Sunday, July 8, 2001, 3:22am This is absolutely necessary. Buy me one ... if you have $36,000 just lying around going to no good use at all. I won't mind. I promise. And I just know you want all the information on my new favorite car, the Audi TT Coupe. It comes in two flavors: 180 & 225, 5-speed & 6-speed, fast & faster! What do you think Anna? Saturday, July 7, 2001, 7:52pm As I watch the Braves slowly lose a game to the Red Sox, something virtually impossible until four years ago, I think that now would be a great time to celebrate my car's return to my carport. Aren't you just dying to know what was wrong with it? I was. (Confidential to the uninformed or ignorant: "I was." is a complete sentence.) It seems that the alternator had all but died and was no longer charging the battery. As a result, my battery had been left to do all the work. Under normal circumstances, the alternator charges the battery when the engine is running. When the battery is not being charged while running, things can only get worse. So my battery completely died, my alternator was providing no current, and to make a long story three words longer, my car died. So we took the little Grand Am that could to Franklin Battery, which is the best place to take your car for any type of electrical problem. What makes them the best? They do quality work and they don't do more or less than necessary. They don't swindle you. They only offer top-notch products and services, and their prices are lower than most of the competition. How do they stay in business with lower prices? Well, it's quite easy when word gets around that they do the best work. Despite failry inconvenient location, they are quite well known in the George midstate area and receive a lot of the area's business. I say this for two reasons: (1) I am happy to have my car back in pristine order and I thank Franklin Battery for once again treating the customer right; (2) I want anyone and everyone in the midstate area to know that Franklin Battery on Ignico Drive (just off Davis Drive at a light between Watson Blvd and Highway 247) is the best place to take your car for any type of electrical problem. I said it twice, so it better be firmly planted in your memory banks. Oh, and the Braves just lost. Saturday, July 7, 2001, 2:04pm Nobody would put up a fuss if, oh, I don't know, Milwaukee exploded, would they? Saturday, July 7, 2001, 1:29pm This is too much to pass up. The "Progressive" Plan To "Save" Our Lives, or more specifically, my response to it, stirred up quite a bit of socio-liberal reaction. I don't know what's more frightenining: that the plan exists and is ready to go; or that the only responses I am getting are supporting that plan. What am I going to do about it? I am going to attempt to let the water out of their arguments (the few that appear to hold water, when it's really just a small puddle on the surface). First, we have this guy. He used the popular liberal tactic of belittling the other person or his arguments through insult. He said that my arguments represented "unproven common sense, similar to the 'If one object is heavier, it should fall faster' common sense that existed 1500 years before being disproven". I am happy that he admitted that it is common sense, but unproven? I'll leave that for you to decide. I would rather compare it to the statement, "If one system is worse, it will not work as well", which is essentially what my arguments stated. Then he compared today's state with our nation's state in 1900 when "you can say we had a perfect libertopia", he says. Um, I'll never say that, and don't ever tell me that I can. The situation today is vastly different than it was one hundred years ago. The liberal influence of the last one hundred years solved a lot of problems, as he argued, but as they have gone further and further, they have crossed their peak and have begun to detract from society. Yes, were are in need of another "progressive" movement. No, we are not in need of a liberal progressive movement. Perhaps we could call it a "regressive" movement if you would like; I don't really care. The point is that the liberals are carrying their agenda(s) too far. Besides, we are not working with the same politics as we were in 1900. The same fixes won't keep working. He then claims that I should not use the word "Orwellian", and he touts the good qualities and effects of socialism in Europe. Keywords: in Europe. If he reads more carefully, he'll see that I never tried to claim that socialism was a bad thing anywhere else. I just claimed that I did not want to be forced to live in a socialist nation. I prefer capitalism and the ideals of capitalism. Taking that away from America would take away that freedom to be responsible for oneself away from hundreds of millions of people. I don't suppose anyone wants to fight a war against a hundred million Americans... or is this worth fighting over? My favorite line, I think, is when he says, "the constitution is meant to be interpreted, not read". Excuse me, sir, but how do you propose we interpret something that we have not read? "If the actions of people do not violate the current interpretation", he says, "they are constitutional". This is partially correct, but like just about anything else, I believe you can not rigidly use a loose or strict interpretation for any and all instances. It must be decided on a case-by-case, or clause-by-clause, basis, for there are certainly some clauses that can not nor will they ever bend, and there are certainly others that were meant to bend (such as the elastic clause). In other words, I am neither for nor against a loose or strict interpretation of the Constitution. Or perhaps I am for both and against either. You understand what I am saying, yes? Then the boy tries to give me a history listen. Excuse me, pal, but not only have I taken several years of American History, but Tony DiLascio is my best friend. I think I'm covered. Okay, so I responded with about one fourth of the response you see above, and he comes back by saying that Americans prefer liberalism, and that a majority of Americans voted for a liberal candidate last November. I don't see it that way. I see about 60% of America voting, and about 50% of them voting for a liberal, thus about 30% of Americans voted for a liberal candidate. And he then claims that most of the nonvoters are liberals. *random gestures to indicate severe frustration* How the hell do you know that?! If they don't vote, you don't know where they lie on the political scale! I am quite certain that you can make an educated guess about quite a few (such as cons and ex-cons), but without some shred of evidence to support your claim, there is no way in hell I'm believing that. I love his next argument: "Being responsible for yourself is not a freedom; it is a duty." Thanks, man. I know that. But your liberal candidates are trying to change that. He then proposes the several options I have if I want to remain an individual in our new society after this "progressive plan to save our lives" takes effect. I could always refuse all of the benefits guaranteed to everyone else to further put myself behind, he says. What he doesn't understand is that such a lack of individuality in such a society would simply remove any positive incentives to get ahead. If we're all the same, and the wealth is evenly distributed, and everything is fair, why try any harder to get ahead ... if you can't?! People would stop trying, and the country would fail. As it stands, the country is going to fail. It is only a matter of time. And if I had any scientific method to prove that it would be in the hands of a socialist government, I would. Until then, let's just call it an educated guess. Moving on, "John Milton" finally joined in on the argument and tried to tell me that political parties don't matter. He went on with this elaborate explanation that completely ignored the fact that our political system, particularly exhibited by how Congress is set up, is based on a two-party system. I explained this to him, and the first guy "agreed" that there are "not enough parties". What the hell?! There are too many! Parties are simply tools to prevent independent thinking. We should all vote our conscience and what we think is right, not what any political party tells us and certainly not what would simply benefit ourselves. Selfishness is a virtue, but geez, don't cross the line into greed. Rather than waste my energy trying to bundle all of that up and write some sort of conclusion... I am going to go vent my frustrations on Perfect Dark. I think I'll find the heads that look most like Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt and blast them with my crossbow... :) Saturday, July 7, 2001, 3:22am I haven't done it in a while, so it is time to request reader participation once again. Three times before I have asked you to offer a reasonable response to a reasonable question, and twice I have received a plethora of responses. The third time I realized that no one cared about that particular question. So, here's question four. Please take the time to send in a semi-paragraph's response. What is your government's job? (answer) I expect many quality responses to this question, and I will not begin posting them until I have at least five reasonably well-written answers to go on. Saturday, July 7, 2001, 3:06am Peggy Noonan is one of the best political writers of our time. And George W. Bush is one of the greatest presidents of our time (so it seems so far). Below is an excerpt from Peggy's account of her most recent meeting with the president: The president noted the carved American eagle on the front of his antique desk, the one used by Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. The head of the eagle, he notes, is turned toward the arrows it holds in its talon. But look here, he says, at the American eagle in the presidential seal on the rug: The head is turned away from the arrows and toward the olive branches he holds in his other talon. "Harry Truman changed it", he says. "He wanted America looking toward peace." Saturday, July 7, 2001, 2:01am Last Friday Neal Boortz linked to an article in the current edition of Front Page Magazine, stressing that the article was a must-read. Edward Anderson's The "Progressive" Plan To Save Our Lives, as the article is called, detailed ten hours of speeches at the "Wake Up Democrats! Take Back The Country!" conference in Los Angeles last week. Anderson "went behind enemy lines" to gather evidence of what many had already suspected to be the case: the liberal leftists' "progressive" agenda is aimed to turn this country into something similar to the totalitarian state in George Orwell's 1984 - and fast. The gist of the "Democratic" (read: Socialist Democratic) convention was to abolish personal responsibility and individual self-reliance while treating citizens merely as victims to be rescued by the state from the dreaded forces of the free market. "Their cures for the country's ills almost invariably translated into a massive and unrelenting increase in governmental, particularly federal, power, control, and expenditure." "Little" Dick Gephardt said that the federal role in education must grow "dramatically". Filmmaker Rob Reiner moaned that almost half of the country voted against their own best interests last November. Excuse me, Rob, but since when do you know more about my interests than I do? Oh, I see that this goes hand in hand with that government education. Fill me with your lies so I believe what you say, and don't teach me to act or to think for myself. That way you can run me over and have complete control of an idiotic class that has no idea what it stands for. That's peculiarly Orwellian, don't you think? Representative of West Los Angeles Henry Waxman claimed, "We belong to a community where we want to take care of everyone", yet each and every one of them are doing absolutely nothing to take care of anyone that thinks differently. To prove that the Socialist Democrats are more interested in taking control than in doing what is best for the country, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich advised that they could "regain power" by promising health care, child care, "education", and "no more tax cuts" to the half of the adult population who regularly fail to vote. In other words, give the non-voters goodies and they'll vote for you! Oh, I'm not done. Jesse Jackson Jr later erupted, saying that our nation's greatest problem is its "separate and unequal system" of "fifty separate and unequal states and 3067 separate and unequal counties that must be rooted out root and branch. In other owrds, the Tenth Amendment - the enumerated rights that allow such inequalities to exist - is the enemy. Jackson said the only solution is a much stronger central government for "one America". He then shouted the nonsense of proposing constutitional amendments guaranteeing fairness for all - equal health care, equal education, etc. (In case you haven't noticed, government education has always adapted to the lowest common denominator, or it has slowed down in the interest of fairness to give the slower or dumber students a "fair" chance. What this does is slow down the gifted students and prevent them from reaching their full potential. Einstein? Franklin? We will never see great minds like that from a government education.) This is beginning to sound frightfully 1984-ish. I will argue that the only truth told by any speaker at this convention was spoken by Representative Maxine Waters of Los Angeles. She said, "If George W. Bush does not wake us up, we are literally dead!" Surprisingly she admits that the Democratic Party is figuratively asleep and is in desperate need of waking, not to mention the millions of Democrats, other leftists, and centrists hanging in the balance that need guidance before the Socialist Democrats and their false promise of benefits snag them away. We are in control of our own destiny. We are responsible for the our actions and decisions. We can escape our prisons that we make for ourselves. The Socialist Democratic Party is trying to throw all of that away. By promising all of these goodies to lure you to their side, they are gaining your support to remove those freedoms and replacing them with a more expansive system of laws and law forces. By writing a rule for every thing, they are essentially declaring definitively what is right and what is wrong, no matter the situation. You are guaranteed equal health care, equal education, and perhaps even a redistribution of the wealth. There is zero guarantee that any of this is for the better. They are pushing for "one America" in which all counties in all states are governed by one universal controlling body. In other words, they are pushing to abolish the states. Can you imagine the hundreds of varying and differing state laws across America being rewritten to assimilate the states into a singular body? Hundreds of laws would have to be reversed in every state to accommodate the uniformity of the entire nation, and that alone would be enough to spark significant opposition groups, if not rebellion. If the Socialist Democratic Party can successfully execute their "progressive" plan to save our lives, perhaps I will qualify for a nice little check while sitting on my ass jobless. If this redistribution of wealth thing becomes a reality, I should be in for a few thousand dollars for doing absolutely nothing. Hell, I could live off of that! I'm frugal. But that's not how things should be. I am not making money right now because I have chosen not to make money. Anyone that has found a way to the bottom has done just that, found a way. The government did not do it, and therefore it is not the government's job to fix it. The government's job is to serve its citizens by protecting them from foreign threats and by protecting their personal liberties. Education is not the government's responsibility. Moral policing is not the government's responsibility. Yet the government's moral policing and its fix on education are reasons why the government no longer protects our personal liberties. Our government has assumed the role of God and decides what is right or wrong - not case-by-case as it should be done - but generically in order to remove responsibility both from itself and from those pressured into making decisions. Your government is not your God. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Put yourself where you want to be. Don't give in to Big Brother. You can't trust your government to fight your fights. You can only trust yourself. Friday, July 6, 2001, 3:15pm mp3otd: Tool - 06 - Parabol.mp3 mp3otd: Tool - 07 - Parabola.mp3 You know a band is confident when they name a song "Parabola". You know a band rules when said song rocks your face off. I am greatly surprised by Tool's most recent album, Lateralus. I've liked Tool for quite some time now, but this album in particular is easily my favorite of all they've done in the past. Tool is one of the most talented bands out there for their knowledge of music. If you like rock at all, give their new album a listen. Friday, July 6, 2001, 1:29pm I just had to laugh at something I read over at sheepless.net. Every one needs a good laugh now and then. Now imagine this happening to you or someone you know, and tell me someone wouldn't laugh about it: on launching the attachment i was in shock. the application automatically moved my pc volume to the maximum setting and from the laptop speakers bellowed: "look at me everybody, i'm watching porno's over here. woo hoo!". with the surrounding work areas standing up, pointing and generally sharing in the excitement; i realized i would be the source of many a 'pub conversation' later that evening. while i went a shade similar to ribena, i saw the lighter side and congratulated my comrade on his clever deception. he acknowledged my thanks, and explained how my ex-manager had run from the area, clutching to her mobile phone. i thought this was strange, but reminded myself that the building often had intermittent mobile reception. Hah, what a great prank. I think I'll have to try this sometime. *plots* Actually, I have a load of neat little programs that visually emulate several processes that one would normally not want his computer to perform, such as formatting the hard drive, deleting C:\Windows\, or popping up that lovely little "This program has performed an illegal operation" error a billion times. Heheh. That would be fun. Don't tell anyone I warned you, though. Friday, July 6, 2001, 12:34am Happy Sixth of July. It is really no more or less important than the Fourth of July, aside from the fact that some fourty-something men signed some piece of paper on the Fourth of July some few years ago, and the effects of that piece of paper really didn't take place until seven years later, yet everyone places all the emphasis on that little piece of paper. Why? ... Couldn't tell ya. I can only comfort you by guaranteeing that it has no real affect on your life, unless you are extremely patriotic, in which case you're off by a few days. So about that double date that I told you I would tell you about. Many people think it is weird for me to be dating my ex-girlfriend's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. But I was dating her before my ex-girlfriend became my ex-girlfriend's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. You see, it's all a complicated twist of words, but we're no more than four friends that each happen to have a significant other and an ex-significant other in the group. Nothing too strange. So the plan was to meet at the theatre at 4:15 to watch the 4:30 showing of Evolution. The plan was altered slightly when my car's battery decided to die. (Oh, did I tell you? The car isn't dead - the battery is. Huge relief there.) So Claire had to drive all the way to my house and then all the way across town back towards her house to pick me up. It would have made a lot more sense if Ryan and Dalila had just swung by my house, which is less than a minute from Dalila's, and taken me to the theatre to meet Claire. It would have saved Claire twenty-five minutes of driving, and it would have saved me a few heartbeats. (Rush-hour traffic with Claire in a rush... wonderful combination!) So we arrive in the middle of the previews, or perhaps near the end, and Ryan and Dalila are already seated in the center of the theatre - and no one else is there. Hah! We have the theatre to ourselves! The movie itself was positively entertaining. It rates well on my comedy and thought-provocation scales. I would say that science fiction has never been so funny, but I know that isn't true - Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books are incredibly funnier, and the movie that Adams was working on should be a reality within a few years. I can't wait for that. Either way, I recommend seeing Evolution, and I nominate David Duchovny and Orlando Jones for Best On Screen Duo. But that's not the point; the point is to discuss the double date. So the impression I get from most is that two couples each comprised of the other couple's exes is generally a weird thing, especially when the couples in question join each other for what is generally called a double date. Well, we did, and unless Ryan feels the same way I do, I'm the only one that did not feel weird or out of place. It just seemed normal to me. I understand that many people think that it is abnormal to keep friendly relations with your exes, much less double date with your exes, especially when your ex is dating your better half's ex, but I don't see why it would be anything less than normal. When two are mature enough to understand that they are not right for each other, they should be that much happier when they realize that the next potential Mr/Miss Right is found. Right? Of course, when said couples walk into the local EB (down the hall from the theatre) to talk with an employee that we all know, it is a bit odd when said employee is talking with one of the girlfriend's other ex-boyfriend. So let's have a headcount: one EB employee, two (ex-)girlfriends, two (ex-)boyfriends, and another ex-boyfriend to boot. Yay. You can imagine Dalila's range of thoughts when she realizer her *other* ex-boyfriend was in the room. Not to say that he and I are her only ex-boyfriends, but we are the most recent two to my knowledge. That was weird, because it was just an odd coincidence. Either way, we split after leaving EB, and that was that. Nothing weird. Nothing uncomfortable. Just two couples enjoying a movie and hanging out a little after. And congratulations to Ryan and Dalila. May you have a long and fruitful relationship! Just, um, no fruits anytime soon. You know what I mean. :) Friday, July 6, 2001, 12:01am Everyone should read this, especially people like Tony and me. If you must know before clicking, it is an excerpt from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (yes, really) written by Robert Pirsig. Go. Read it now. You were supposed to read it. But oh well. The point is to stop stopping effects and go after the cause. If you get the problems at the roots, rather than the problems themselves, you can keep the problems from coming back. To quote: "If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government." Thanks go out to Nickd for reading the book and to Philg for reading the book first and repeatedly pestering Nickd until Nickd began to read the book. Thanks boys. Wednesday, July 4, 2001, 11:45pm Happy Fourth of July. And in fifteen minutes, happy Fifth of July. This is a simple update with a simple purpose: to convey the message that I am a big fat idiot. (Al Franken got it wrong; Rush Limbaugh isn't the big fat idiot - I am the big fat idiot.) I left my car keys and my wallet at Claire's house. This really makes no difference though, because my car doesn't work and I have no money anyway. Having my car keys and wallet would really make no difference right now. The end - no wait - to be continued... Tuesday, July 3, 2001, 4:13pm And now my girlfriend and I are joining my ex-girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend on what some people would call a "double date" - we are going to see the movie Evolution. I'll let you know how it turns out. Tuesday, July 3, 2001, 1:40am I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to mean, but as of yesterday, my ex-girlfriend is officially dating my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. Small world. Tuesday, July 3, 2001, 1:17am It seems that these "Big Brother Cameras" are going up everywhere. I don't know that they have actually taken that name, but that is the name of the article linked, and I think it's a good name with a negative connotation that gently clarifies its purpose somewhat. These "Big Brother Cameras" are cameras on roads designed for two purposes: first and most importantly, money; second and taking a backseat, safety. Safety isn't just taking a backseat, it's all but forgotten. You see, these cameras catch you speeding or running lights or stop signs, and then they send you a ticket in the mail. There are no points assessed against your driving record, only a fine that isn't worth going to court over, which essentially makes these cameras cash crops for law enforcement agencies. But that's not what really bothers me about them. What really bothers me is that, by the implementation of these cameras, we have lost our due process rights and the right to confront our accuser - we have lost the ability to defend ourselves. Not only that, but suppose that you let a friend borrow your vehicle for a day, or even a moment, or suppose that your car is stolen. You are still the guilty party because these cameras don't care who's in the driver's seat. If you really want good reasons why these cameras are bad, read the article. If not, then have fun paying off those tickets. Tuesday, July 3, 2001, 12:43am Today saw a few friends of mine and me participate in a "colossal waste of time" at the request of one Macon State College... *holds up fingers in cross shape warding off evil spirits* ...the Regents Test! If I may say so, the Regents Test is easily the most pointless of all things pointless that I have endured at Macon State. You see, I am in the Honors program, taking two or three Honors classes per semester, making A's in my English classes, and this Regents Test is trying to prove that I can read and write. I can even misquote my friend Mike to further prove Macon State's idiocy. You see, Mike had about fourteen credits from all the AP classes he took in high school when he arrived at Macon State. He then took an average of eighteen credit hours per semester last year, effectually raising his total credit hours to fifty (I believe). The number is not important. What is important is that Mike is credited as being halfway through his sophomore year at Macon State college, and because he had not taken the Regents Test before acquiring his 46th credit, Macon State is not allowing him to register for next semester until they have positive results from this Regents Exam. Okay, let's see. Honor student. AP credits. Thirty-six hours in one year. So Macon State is basically screwing up Mike's life because he's working harder than everyone else. That's a great message to send to today's youth, Macon State. Keep it up. And, um, the quote... Mike said, "I made a 5 on the AP English exam", to which some Macon State official responded, "that doesn't mean you can read and write!" ... So on the way home, I notice that my speedometer is reading 60mph while I am quite positive that I am going no faster than 50mph. Such a difference could be mistaken, I guessed, so I ignored it. After stopping and accelerating again, my speedometer zipped up to about 75mph while moving no faster than about 35mph. Suddenly my radio started to go nuts. I turned off my air conditioner and radio and everything seemed normal for a moment, aside from the speedometer bouncing at its own random pace. That moment was over when I stopped at the next traffic signal. Putting the car in park as I so often do while waiting on long lights, the car jumped to what felt like 7000 RPM in no time at all, so I quickly put the car back in gear. So close to home, I decided to get the car home and park it in my own driveway. And so there it sits, dead to the world. After conversing with a somewhat knowledgeable friend on the subject, we have come to the conclusion that the problem is likely related to fuel, or perhaps a bad spark plug, though I can hardly see how that would affect the electronics within my car in the manner that it did. Maybe the damn thing is possessed. Sunday, July 1, 2001, 9:58pm I just read something rather interesting (and funny) on zone:38 about prescription drugs - or more directly, the too many television ads concerning them. I quote: The thing about them is that, under American law, advertisers have several choices if they want to sell prescription drugs on television: They can opt to name the product but not actually specify what it does, or they can do exactly the opposite, with no restrictions whatsoever. However, because our society is so litigious, if the advertiser wishes to mention both the product's name and its purpose, the ad must also include a long, ridiculous, and sometimes just downright scary list of the drug's side effects... I mean, it's just so incongruous - we see all this imagery of people living such a nice, happy, joyous life, and then we're told by the announcer that in some people the drug may cause chronic side effects and even death. Yeah, talk about nice and joyous. Oh, he said more, but if I went and quoted his entire site, I would essentially be revoking the purpose of actually going to his site. That's not the idea. So, um, go there. Sunday, July 1, 2001, 8:48pm Okay, so I'm a moron. Yesterday (June 30, 2001) was the two-year anniversary of the creation of this website. Yesterday I was gone for roughly twenty hours while sleeping, traveling to and from Atlanta, etc. Yesterday, while I was away, I had planned on leaving my site to display nothing but a very large and awkward-looking "2" - and I forgot. The idea was that the "2" would confuse people that had no idea why a "2" was all that my site was good for at the particular moment in which they found themselves here. So, happy two-years' for crash.neotope.com. (And so you know, it's only sat at this location for, um, nine months? Longest stretch for any location so far. Go me! Thanks Matt!) Sunday, July 1, 2001, 8:18pm The line of the day belongs to Mike Hampton, a pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. Mike Hampton is batting .311 with a .711 slugging percentage. He has six home runs in forty-five at-bats so far this year. He had batted 372 times previously in his career without a home run. "Experts" explain this power surge with the simple notion that his home runs are a direct result of the thin air in Colorado. I call that explanation "hogwash", because that does not explain why he has hit so many, nor does it explain why at least two of those home runs have come outside of Colorado. I say it's about time we moved Mike Hampton to the outfield during two of his four or five off-days between the days that he pitches. This man needs to hit a little more often! Sunday, July 1, 2001, 1:33pm That we exist is all is really quite amazing. We are constantly faced with innumerable problems, among which the most serious may challenge the very roots of physics on which the science of our existence is based. The most significant problem, it seems to me, is that all entities of any kind require initiation - a beginning. Animals like frogs and human beings are conceived, and then born, to initiate their lives. Ideas like nationalism and Europe are conceived, and then established, to take the form of what we may call existence. However, matter and time can not, within our grasps of the many fields of science, be created nor destroyed, begun or ended in any way. This creates provides a bit of a glitch with the logic of our notion that all must have been or must be created or initiated in some way to induce its existence. Where, then, did our universe come from? It seems to me that a space so full of such massive entities as stars and rocks, and of an age so old that it defies the majority of human civilization's creationist theories, that it all had to start sometime, right? It makes little sense that it was always here, no matter the relative positions of everything within it. It makes no sense that time never began and matter was never created. It makes no sense that time suddenly started from nothing or that matter was suddenly created from nothing. Something started something, or it was always here, and it makes no sense either way. In other words, no matter how much proof anyone has that science is the only right way, I will always believe in the supernatural elements that initiated time, matter, and even life for this universe. There is something greater at work than merely our minds trying to figure it out. As far as I'm concerned, this being or force that created all that we are is certainly our God. We still do not know what form it takes or how it has done what it has done, but theists and atheists alike can recognize that we are the result of that which put us here, and I am all but convinced that it hasn't all happened by chance or coincidence. I do not know the weight of the words that I write. I write these thoughts as confusing thoughts with the answers and questions that I know. I do not know the way of the world, or why we are all here, or why you are reading my page. I simply do what I have been conditioned to do in my years of upbringing. To explain this somewhat with a final thought, I believe that everyone is born with a clean slate - everyone is born equal. Each person's environment - influences by people, places, ideas, etc. - is what shapes the person into what he will become. No one is ever better than anyone else, and no one is ever the same. No one can ever receive the same influences as any other person, and so everyone is always different. All minds act somewhat randomly, or so it seems, from the beginning, and it is not until we begin to overcome the steep learning curve from babytalk to language and knowledge that we begin to show our irrelations. So next time some one asks you why you are the way you are, give them a long, involved response such as this. Sunday, July 1, 2001, 12:46pm Guess what... you've got a secret admirer! Want to find out who it is? Just click to http://www.CrushLink.com Email address: jpmccord2@home.com Invitation code: Make sure you enter in this information exactly as shown above. See you soon! Sincerely, The Crush Master PS. This is not junk email. You've received it because someone you know came to CrushLink and confessed an interest in you! Maybe it was that hottie from English class or the cute one at the party last weekend or maybe--well, we can't even give you a hint until you come to CrushLink.com. PPS. If you do not wish to receive any more of these messages from CrushLink, please visit http://www.CrushLink.com/block.php3 Will the real [secret crush] please stand up? Please stand up. Please stand up! I have a very good reason for blocking these messages from my inbox, I think. You see, whoever you are, I'm about five months into a relationship with an absolutely wonderful person, and if it isn't her, then I don't want or care to know who it is. You may feel free to tell me through email or anonymous note that it was no more than a prank, or you can admit that it was you, Claire, but if it was anyone else... there's no point. Thanks for the thought, though. I haven't gotten one of these in about a year, and it's always a boost to one's self-esteem. Archived... 2001: aug, july, june, may, apr, mar. feb, jan. 2000: dec, nov, oct, sept, aug, july, june, may, april, march, feb, jan. 1999: dec, nov, oct, sept. © III Enterprises & neotope.com |
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