If you really believe that there are fewer jobs now than there were four years ago, you're wrong. Just because unemployment (5.6% and falling) is higher doesn't mean there are fewer people working. For instance, from 2000 to 2003, there was a net gain of more than 800,000 jobs. About that many have been created in 2004 alone. Once again, coupled with the disastrous economic effects of September 11, that's proof enough to me that the Bush administration has not put up the road block on jobs that the Democratic party wants me to believe. The current administration has done a stellar job to limit the negative economic effects of September 11 and OPEC's gouging.

I'm happy. Despite making nearly $70 million this weekend, apparently The Day After Tomorrow still isn't number one, because Shrek 2 still outsold it! Granted, Shrek 2 was viewable in about 800 more theatres nationwide, but that doesn't change the fact that more people saw Shrek 2 than The Day After Tomorrow! Of course, even more importantly, thank you American for not going to watch Soul Plane. I would hate to have to explain to my children that movies like that were actually popular when I was a young adult.

I saw previews for The Day After Tomorrow months ago, and I immediately had two thoughts: (1) Ooh, cool! Disaster movie!; (2) Great... Another ecological wackjob movie about some impossibly environmentally provoked shitstorm. As it turns out, #1 is much more correct than it really should be (it gets quite cold, and the movie is a disaster), and #2 was exactly what I thought. But don't just take my word for it. Box Office Mojo, the best movies-by-the-numbers web site on the internet, backs me up:

The Day After Tomorrow is the New Left's doomsday evangelism with ecology as its religion... The Day After Tomorrow does not pretend to be anything else and, whatever one's view of how and whether global warming poses a danger to man, this disaster movie is undeniably bad.

This doesn't mean you won't enjoy the movie, but as a highly politically motivated individual who noticed that the movie was on a pace to make almost $90 million this weekend, I wanted to say something.

Our Windows Millennium desktop computer hadn't been connecting to the internet for the last week or so, and I came home this afternoon ready to go ahead and upgrade it to Windows XP Professional. I had the disk ready and everything and I just finished backing up all that needed to be backed up, and just for grins I decided to check Mom's email. And so my thunder has been stolen, and Windows Millennium remains... at least for now.

In unrelated news, I decided that I don't hang out with Adam enough, so I'm haning out with him tonight, because I figure once my job expires (and his could expire with it), I may never see him again depending on where he finds work next. So... it's a guy's night, whatever that entails. Or something.

This is a response to an article, titled "Magical History Tour", written by William Saletan for Slate. My response jumps right in, but you should be able to follow along whether you've read Saletan's article or not.

First, not seeing and not publicly acknowledging that he has made a mistake are two different things. I'm rather confident that the Bush administration is aware that some decisions could have been made better, but given what they had to go on at the time, they made the calls as they believed they should be made. "The wisdom of hindsight does not come with a time machine."

Second, George W. Bush has only been president since January 20, 2001. In the 40 months since, his influence on the "tragedy", as the writer called it, has been grossly overestimated by his political opponents simply because they want him to look bad. I am not naive enough to say that Bush has done everything right, but neither am I naive enough to say that he has done everything wrong. He is president, this country elected him (please accept the outcome and don't argue this), and we now deal with the policies his administration set in place.

Third, what amazes me about is how the media emphasizes every detail that could possibly have a negative impact on Bush's campaign. For example, let's look at the economy:

Unemployment is down to 5.6% with over 288,000 new jobs created in April 2004 alone, after holding steady at about 6.0% for a year or two. Jobs are being created in the hundreds of thousands.

Productivity is up 4.5% in the business sector for Q1 2004 (adjusted annual rate for the first three months of the year). A strong economy is indicated by only 3% annual growth.

The economy is doing what it should, but you would never know it unless you look for it, because most newspapers and TV news broadcasts instead concentrate on the rising prices of gasoline and milk. Some writers and representatives of publications have claimed that "bad news is better news".

But once again, let's flash back to 1996, when another President who happens not to be a Republican was in a similar situation, getting a lift from the economy during a shaky reelection campaign. The media was praising the Clinton administration's good work on reviving the economy, when the economic upturn of the mid-90's is no different than what we are experiencing today.

For another example of the media's one-sided reporting, let's look at the Abu Ghraib prison situation. A few pictures were taken, some dignity was stolen, and Hunter S. Thompson wrote (for ESPN, no less), "Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these photographs did."

Did he not see the gruesome tape of the Berg decapitation? Was he not watching television on September 11, 2001? What the hell is wrong with people today that this degradation of a few prisoners is so much worse than cold-blooded terrorism? Besides, before the US was over there, prisoners at Abu Ghraib were facing dismemberment or death for the slightest infraction. This new (well, old) situation involved a few idiots humiliating some prisoners. Maybe I'm wrong, but even if the soldiers involved in the incident aren't punished at all, the atrocities of al-Qaeda, Hitler, and Hussein (among countless others) are still far worse than a few degrading pictures.

George W. Bush is the President, and as such I accept that he and his administration know a helluva lot more than I do about the current situations with which they are dealing. Otherwise, I'm no fan of Bush, but I'm no fan of John F. Kerry either. I honestly don't know which, if either, I'll vote for in November. But I don't like the subjectivity of our national news media, which appears to have its own agenda to handpick its own president for 2005-2009.

If I can't trust the news media to at least paint a fair picture of both major parties, how can I make an informed decision? By doing what I've been doing: going straight to the source -- which time and time again only proves what so many are refusing to hear: that the American Democratic/liberal base is bastardizing everything for which this country stands.

CHICAGO, May 2, 1917 -- Fred Toney of the Cincinnati Reds and James "Hippo" Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs pitched in one of baseball's most memorable games in history, neither allowing a hit through the first nine innings. However, someone eventually had to lose the game, and in the tenth inning one pitcher lost his no-hitter, the shutout (on an unearned run), and ultimately the game.

Through nine innings, Toney had struck out only one, allowing only two baserunners (on walks), and faced 29 batters. Vaughn had also allowed only two baserunners (on walks), plus another who reached on an error, but ten strikeouts, two double plays, and a foiled stolen base attempt prevented them from getting past first and allowed Vaughn to face the minimum 27 batters through nine innings.

Gus Getz led off by making an out. Larry Kopf followed with the first hit of the game, a single to right. Greasy Neale moved Kopf to second on a ground out for out two. Hal Chase hit a hard fly ball for what should have been out three, but centerfielder Cy Williams (who may have moved to right) dropped the ball and was charged with an error. With runners on first and third, two outs, and Jim Thorpe at the plate, Chase stole second to put runners on second and third. Thorpe then hit a swinging bunt and, with no play at first, Vaughn tried to throw out Kopf trying to score from third. Art Wilson didn't catch the ball and Kopf crashed into him and scored. When the ball rolled away, Chase rounded third and tried to score, but Wilson recovered and Chase was tagged out to end the inning.

Toney then retired the side in order, earning two of this three strikeouts, to end the game.

Game Scores:

Toney: 86 through 9 IP, 93 through 10 IP

Vaughn: 95 through 9 IP, 96 through 10 IP

The game score only shows that, while Vaughn was more dominant (only allowing 15 of 27 batters to put the ball in play, compared to Toney allowing 26 of 29 batters to hit the ball) and actually pitched a better game, defense failing behind him cost him the game. Meanwhile, Toney's no-hitter was almost entirely dependent upon Cubs batters hitting the ball directly at the Reds defense.

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times writes that the general population is either distracted from or ambivalent about it; either way, gay marriage is having (has had?) little effect on America despite the verbal battle between its supporters and opposition. Why? Because the so-called "Christian right" has done none of those things that the liberal left has said they were doing. There is no great movement to squash gay marriage once and for all, and the calls aren't coming in to organize one. Sure, there are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans who strongly oppose gay marriage, but either they are too lazy to pursue the issue, or they understand that someone else's gay marriage doesn't affect them in any way. Besides, maybe there just aren't that many long-term gay couples, and fewer still have the slightest interest in an institutionalized marriage.

Is gay marriage a fad, or will it represent a socio-cultural shift? I say the safe bet is between the two; yes, it's a fad, but those who are adamant about it will have their way and they won't be numerous enough to have their right to institutionalized marriage denied. But don't take my word for it... (obligatory reference to "Reading Rainbow").

The following is an excerpt from the May 20 update (Vol. II Issue 23) at Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, one of the best (and my personal favorite) of all the national election insight web sites. I have added lists, paragraph breaks, and new punctuation to Sabato's text, which on his page is a single, large paragraph:

Once again, draw your own conclusions.

If you've ever used Microsoft's Photo Editor, a nifty little image-editing program included with Microsoft Office since the '97 suite, then you know how powerful it isn't when compared to major graphics applications like PhotoShop and Illustrator, but you also know how useful it can be for little imaging tasks like creating a small, transparent GIF. If you've grown familiar with Photo Editor and you've installed Microsoft's Office 2003, then you also know that Office 2003 takes the liberty of erasing Photo Editor from your computer despite that it still works flawlessly.

Why does Microsoft have the right to do this? I have purchased one copy of Office '97 and Office 2000 (but not Office XP/2002), each of which comes with a copy of Photo Editor, therefore I own Photo Editor and have every right to have it installed on my system. But now when I upgrade to Office 2003, not only does it erase Photo Editor from my computer, but it offers no option to restore it! Who/what the hell does Microsoft think it is?

There is a workaround, of course. Find any computer with Office installed -- preferably Office XP -- and copy the "PhotoEd" folder from "c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\" to the computer running Office 2003. (This is the folder that contains all that is necessary to run Photo Editor, unless you're missing a system library file or something else that can be acquired elsewhere.) I recommend copying the folder into a nonstandard location, such as "c:\Program Files\PhotoEd\", just in case Office 2003 is programmed to remove Photo Editor if it pops up in its standard location. Once the folder is copied, create a shortcut to "PhotoEd.exe" on your Start Menu, and voila!!

Spread the good word, and tell Microsoft to suck our collective balls, or spare themselves the humility by offering an Office Update that restores Photo Editor.

Draw your own conclusion:

Every few years, it seems, a new climate-change scare is publicized in order to keep the parade of emissions regulations rolling along. The scare is eventually debunked, but the debunking is never as widely disseminated as the original tale of woe. The end result is an erroneous public perception that, much like Saddam's supposed connection to 9/11, drives public policy toward a particular outcome, no matter what the real science suggests.

TIME Magazine (European edition) published an article Sunday titled The Fine Art of Burning Bush. The focus of the article by Richard Corliss is to praise the "master propagandist and incorrigible entertainer" Michael Moore for winning the top honor at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend, the Palme D'Or, for his Fahrenheit 911, a documentary on the days following September 11, 2001.

One Slashdot user wrote, "hopefully this movie will open in the US and will cause some people to open their eyes." And I add that, hopefully, people will realize what an anti-American, unpatriotic worm Michael Moore is. But notice that I don't call him worthless, because he certainly serves a valuable purpose: Whether you agree or disagree with the message he attempts to deliver, he alerts us to the fact that we are our own worst enemy. Of course, those of us who disagree with Moore simply think he should fight his war from another continent -- which, I suppose, is what he's doing at Cannes.

Don't get me wrong. I think Moore's mind is a brilliant one, and I acknowledge that we need people like Michael Moore to stand up for what they believe even when it seems entirely anti-American, because that freedom is among many others that make our country so great. Besides, I just spoke the magic word: it seems anti-American. Appearances can be deceiving, and without truly knowing his motives or the facts behind them, I can not intelligently refute him.

However, I can intelligently emphasize that he, like everyone else, is just as ignorant of the details and motives that generate the interpretive big picture as I am of his. No one among us comes close enough to omniscience or omnipresence to have any idea what motives drive the events of the world. We do not know the details -- the causes, the words spoken, the words not spoken, the people involved, the values and judgments that warrant the decisions -- We only know what we perceive, and most of that is fed to us. Most of us absorb it without question, and from that we drive our opinions outward despite little to no basis in fact for them.

'Tis the American way.

I've been fighting sleep since I got home this afternoon, and I'm barely alert enough to see my screen. But I thought I'd let the world know how I'm doing. Friday was lots of fun, and Saturday was too. We had an all-movie quiz bowl tournament, and while no one from Macon State placed, I was like 8th or something. Travis and I had a "Macon State grudge match" in the first round of the playoffs, which was more humorous when our consolation prizes were the movies Volcano and Dante's Peak -- so the match became the Battle of the Volcanoes. But when I barely beat him, we decided that since no onw has actually seen Dante's Peak, we can't declare it better than Volcano, so we instead decided (well, I did) that we should watch it first if we should ever get together to watch a volcano movie. So it was settled, then.

Now I retire to my bed, where I am hoping for a good night's sleep for the first time in three days (before that it had been a good ten days). Mmmm, sleep...

Hamilton Action.com has produced the very first Family Guy collectible, the Stewie 'Time To Be Bad!' figure! Got $29.95?

"Twenty-Four"

Season 4 of the show whose events take place in real time will air Monday nights at 9:00 in 24 consecutive weeks from January to May 2005. This means fans won't be bothered by several weeks of midseason downtime, and the January-to-May run will only encompass one semester, meaning the high school and college viewers will be able to adjust to the show without having to worry about adjusting their TV-viewing habits to a completely new schedule for the second semester. (Well, they will, but the adjustment won't be in the middle of Season 4 of "24"!)

But wait, there's more! Season 4 will feature three 2-hour specials: the premiere, the finale, and a "special event episode in the middle of the season". So does this mean Season 4 of "24" will actually encompass 27 hours? Or will the 2-hour specials be shown from various perspectives in order to tell a much more intriguing, complex story? We'll probably have to wait six months for an answer.

But, you ask, why move the show to Monday, and why delay the start till January? Glad you asked! "24" has kicked significant ass on Tuesdays for three seasons, so I didn't quite understand the move to a new night, but after reading the network's explanation, I kinda get it. While "24" was guaranteed quite a few viewers who left their TV's tuned to FOX after American Idol, the show was also bumped several times for Idol's two-hour specials, not to mention the tendency for the President to speak Tuesday nights. So the plan is now to air "24" every Monday night at 9:00 for 24 weeks, without a interruption (a miracle if it happens). The delay till January, therefore, may best be explained by Monday Night Football, which does not end until December. (FOX also wants to use American Idol's ratings to launch a new show in the Tuesday 9:00pm slot.)

"The OC"

Season 2 of "The OC" will begin in November, but it has moved to Thursday nights at 8:00pm. This is absolutely insane -- young viewers will have to choose between "The OC" and NBC ("Friends" spinoff "Joey" at 8:00 and "Will & Grace" at 8:30). Most likely, I'll be watching "The OC" and ignoring the other two, but I'll at least download the first episode or two of "Joey" to see what it's all about.

"American Dad" and "Family Guy"

Seth MacFarlane, whose cartoon "Family Guy" became a Cartoon Network and DVD hit after failing to find an audience on FOX several years ago, is getting second and third chances at the same time. His new animated series "American Dad" will air Sunday nights at 9:30 behind "Arrested Development", and will get a Super-preview following a special episode of "The Simpsons" on February 6, immediately after the Superbowl.

Even better news for "Family Guy" fans: Season 4 will return in summer 2005 with all of its voice actors returning. Fourteen months and counting...

At the beginning of last semester, I told you how I had accidentally but surely (but temporarily) ended my consumption of C₈H₁₀N₄O₂. At the end of the semester, when the going got tough so the tough got going, I indulged in a little C₈H₁₀N₄O₂ and paid the price for it, assuming that's what caused it. So, once again, I resolved to lay off the stuff indefinitely, or at least in 2004. But even that didn't work. Near the end of spring semester, I needed the extra boost to stay alert and get my work done, and new findings that the stuff is good for you in moderate amounts didn't help my cause. I began to consume one tall cup (about 24-28 ounces) of sweet tea daily, which led to more sweet tea, to cola, and to an occasional coffee. Suddenly, C₈H₁₀N₄O₂ and I are good friends again, and I'm wondering how it's possible for anyone to stay away from it!

Moral of the story: if you want to remain caffeine-free, stay away from holiday chocolate.

Plaxo claims to take the hassle out of keeping your contacts' information up to date. In the last week, I have received two emails from new Plaxo users claiming to need my updated information, which is then to be stored in Plaxo's contacts database so we can 'stay in touch automatically'. After some digging, I was disturbed by the paranoia concerning the top-secret nature of Plaxo's business model -- no one knows how they make money -- which led to accusations that they sell information to spammers. But as Stefan Smalla said in November 2002, I'd rather think they really have something completely new up their sleeves because of who's on their board of directors. Still, if anyone who has my info can enter it without my consent, I'd like to know exactly what Plaxo is doing with it and how they're paying for it. The Plaxo Blog contains useful links, but naturally they're going to toot their own horn. But I figure someone out there has to have some insight. So is Plaxo everything it advertises to be and nothing more, or is it a massive violation of our pseudo-right to privacy?

I'll keep you updated if I learn anything useful.

Rockstar Games launched the pre-launch teaser site for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas last week to coincide with the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3). If you've played through the GTA environments of Liberty City and Vice City, then you're probably as excited as I am about San Andreas. Aside from its October release, not much has been known about the details of the game -- until now! Below are a few handfuls of critical elements of the game that the diehard fans will be happy to know about.

Time and Place: The game is set in the turbulent environment of early 1990s California.

Main Character: Carl Johnson returns to Los Santos, San Andreas, after five years in Liberty City. He had left to escape the turbulence of Los Santos following the death of his brother Brian. He learns that his mother has been murdered, his family has fallen apart, and his childhood friends are all heading towards disaster. Upon his return, corrupt cops frame him for homicide, and he is forced on a journey through the entire state of San Andreas to save his family and to take control of the streets.

Location: The state of San Andreas, across three distinct cities: (1) Los Santos represents Los Angeles, with ghettos, Sunset Strip, and Hollyweird; (2) San Fierro represents San Francisco, a hilly city where missions will be focus more on driving; (3) Las Venturra represents Las Vegas, including casinos and the ability to run a casino and waste your time and money gambling. The intervening country will feature a mountain pass between the cities. Total map size will be four to siz times larger than Vice City.

Graphics: Graphics are rendered with greater quality in the lighting, shading, reflections off surfaces, and soft-shadow lighting for interior scenes. Separate rendering models for day and night scenes are used for more realistic visuals. Be prepared for more action to take place indoors.

Real Estate: The importance of real estate is higher than in Vice City, including buying and running businesses (mostly via phone calls) and also building casinos.

R3 Missions: There will be more R3 (bonus) missions such as cab driving and Vigilante, and probably more bonuses for completing them.

Cultural Diversity: Locations and characters will range from hustlers on Sunset Strip to the intellectual elite of Berkeley, including crass commercialism and hippie idealism, the ghetto misery and Hollywood glitz, all the money and glamour, and the suffering of hopeless futility.

Gang-banging?: Very little. "On the one hand, the game is slightly more serious than previous games, on the other hand, it is still very much a satire."

Soundtrack: The soundtrack will feature a huge selection of various styles, as usual. Voice actors are being selected for their suitability, and not just for any famous name they might bring to the title screen.

Train Spotting: San Andreas will continue with the tradition of matching the storyline with other games in the series. "For the hardcore obsessives that really follow the stories and can remember them in their heads, there will be lots of stuff that they can pick up on, some really fun stuff. Weird characters turning up again, other people mentioned; there will be lots of interesting stuff like that."

Game AI / Difficulty: Every character will react much more intelligently, both to your actions and other events. San Andreas has dynamic difficulty based on your ability, sometimes easing the game to allow players to advance past difficult missions. You can also recruit a gang to help with missions, including the ability to do a four-person driveby. The distinction between mission-mode or general play will be reduced so that non-mission activity will be more important in advancing the state of play.

Lifestyle: Carl will have to eat in order to maintain his physical state, reflected in a Stamina meter similar to Manhunt. You can get fat if you eat junk food, or exercise to get fit and faster. The character model will change to match his fitness.

Targeting: The targeting and camera systems have been inproved. Experience gained from Manhunt (another Rockstar game) will probably be applied, and this may well include the wall-sneaking and round-corner targeting.

Sundry Features: Gameplay improvements include more stances and attacks and greater control during combat, new styles of carjacking, improved weapons handling with some capable of dual-wielding, and swimming (about time!). Other improvements include improved vehicle physics, "rag-doll" behavior of characters who have been hit or shot, and far more realistic play. Weaponry will be tailored to the era and will not include lasers or other unrealistic items. Vehicles now range from a bicycle to "bigger than a plane".

I'm excited! Actually, I am still only 54% finished with Grand Theft Auto III and barely 10% finished with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I at least want to complete all the missions of each game before San Andreas hits store shelves in October, but even if I wait till Christmas or later to play San Andreas, I know I'll continue to enjoy the other two as well as the new game.

It's funny how there are some games that I have to have as soon as they become available, and the Grand Theft Auto games are simply the most entertaining games I have ever owned, and I don't care if I get them months late because I still have tons of fun playing the old ones.

With nine weeks remaining until Georgia's primary election, which will decide which candidates will represent the parties in November's statewide elections, it's time to take a serious look at the major candidates running for Zell Miller's Senate seat. The candidates, in alphabetical order, are Independent Ray Beckworth, Libertarian Allen Buckley, Republicans Herman Cain, Mac Collins, and Johnny Isakson; and Democrats Denise Majette and Mary Squires. (Links are to campaign web sites.) For the rest of this article, I shall analyze and compare the candidates in preparation for the July 20 primary; this means that I will be very brief with the Libertarian (despite my libertarian politics), since he has no opponent in the primary.

Sticking to alphabetical order and skipping Beckworth who has no web site, I'll begin with the Allen Buckley, the Libertarian candidate for Senate. As stated on Buckley's web site, his primary political objectives are (1) to reasonably reduce the size of the federal government and its role in our lives; (2) to change the income tax, Social Security, and Medicare systems so that they are balanced, fair, efficient, practical, and actuarially sound; (3) to emphasize national security and protection from terrorism, but not practice imperialism or anything like it; (4) to facilitate the preservation of air quality and the environment in a practical manner. Buckley also argues that simply preventing another September 11 is not enough; "change is absolutely necessary".

For the country's sake, I agree. More Libertarians and Independents need to be elected for new ideas to surface. The Libertarian Party would not get anywhere, but its better ideas would be picked up by the major parties if they became popular. Of course, Allen Buckley isn't running against anyone yet, so endorsing any of his ideas at this point is moot. Until July 21, Democrats are only competing against Democrats, and Republicans are only competing against Republicans -- at least within the context of the race for Zell Miller's Senate seat. Still, you should view Buckley's web site for his views and proposed solutions to a variety of national problems; he's very thorough, and it is evident that he is also quite educated on the matters at hand.

Next on the alphabetical list of Senate candidates are the three Republicans: Herman Cain, Mac Collins, and Johnny Isakson. Collins and Isakson are currently Congressmen in the House of Representatives, each hoping to make the subtle leap from the lower to the upper house of Congress. Cain, on the other hand, is a political newcomer, a highly successful and motivated businessman with a strong leadership background. Conventional wisdom would therefore suggest that Cain is the odd man out, and the race should simply be between Collins and Isakson. But conventional wisdom ignores Cain's presence and ability, which suggest instead that Cain is a legitimate candidate who could prove himself to be exactly who Georgians need to represent them in the Senate for the next six years.

As one might expect, Cain, Collins, and Isakson vary on the issues only slightly, but that will make the difference for the thousands of voters who don't simply vote for the guy whose name is most familiar. Below I have highlighted the candidates' positions on select issues:

Abortion: Cain strictly opposes abortion; life begins at conception. Collins opposes abortion except to preserve the life of the mother. Isakson shares Collins' position, but also supports the right for abortion in the cases of incest or rape.

Employment: Cain, an African American, favors equal opportunity and opposes affirmative action in terms of ethnic quotas. Collins advocates trade agreements with other nations to facilitate US competitiveness abroad.

Healthcare: Cain opposes healthcare plans designed to burden the next generation with debts. All three candidates support provisions for better healthcare options for seniors.

Taxation: All three candidates support Fair Tax legislation and simplifying the complex tax code.

War on Terror: All three candidates support a strong national defense and support of the President's War on Terror in the post-9/11 political climate. Cain vehemently opposes base closings; Isakson supports the operations of Georgia's military installations.

As I said, these are only a few issues. After reading through the three candidates' web sites, I discovered that Cain is the most detailed about his ideas and his plans, Collins is the most cryptic and difficult to understand, and Isakson is the most disorganized or at least the most incomprehensible. If I had to make a choice among the three of them right now, I would choose Herman Cain for two reasons: he has provided much more than either of the two political veterans, making his message much more clearly understood, and I almost always favor any political newcomer over political veterans -- I prefer new faces and new ideas because they are much more effective than the same old tricks.

On the other side of the aisle are the Democrats, Denise Majette and Mary Squires. Several others have in recent weeks announced their campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat, but none have yet made a splash, and I expect them to fizzle out long before July 20, but by July 21 for certain. For the two serious candidates, I would like to do the same thing I did above -- compare their views on select issues -- but because Congresswoman Majette has not made her views conveniently available on either her House of Representatives web site or her campaign web site. This suggests to me that she believes her higher position should secure her nomination for the Senate candidacy, but it also suggests to me that State Senator Mary Squires, who has been visiting campuses, civic centers, and malls across Georgia for more than six months, and whose views on various issues are plainly available, is taking the race much more seriously -- and is better qualified for the job.

Unfortunately, this is all I have for the Democrats' side of the primary race. This is not because I favor Republicans or dislike Democrats. Rather, it is due to an apparent lack of competitiveness from the Democratic Party of Georgia. Strong candidates who could be expected to put up a fight for Miller's Senate seat have chosen not to run, fearing that a loss to a Republican could harm their political careers. Call them what you will or tell me that I'm wrong, but it looks like the Democratic Party is giving up Zell Miller's seat without a serious fight. We can only hope that the winner of the Democrats' primary election receives the statewide support necessary for a good campaign through the second Tuesday in November.

I work on campus, which is only 6 miles away, but it requires 11.2 miles of driving to get there.

Every job for which students are eligible to work on campus pay $6.50 per hour, or $5.50 per hour for freshmen and sophomores -- except mine. I scored the only job available to students that pays $9.00 per hour, which makes me the envy of some. But hey, I'm just there to do my job. What is it, you don't ask? Well, I do a variety of multimedia and mundane tasks, including developing web projects for the various academic divisions, fixing bad code, instructing professors on incredibly easy tasks, storyboarding various multimedia projects before putting them together in our media lab, and a good bit more.

Combining 20 hours of work each week with 15 hours for classes, 8 hours for student government (president!), 8 hours for quiz bowl (geek!), 4-6 hours for the newspaper (journalist!), and 2 hours total for the Young Democrats and College Republicans (devil's advocate!), and I'm on campus at least 55 hours during a normal work week. Add any special event or major homework assignment, and the time goes up. (In the break between semesters, I'm still on campus about 25 hours per week, despite being allowed to work a maximum of 20 hours.)

Consider that I still to keep a girlfriend, watch "24" and "The OC" (she watches my show and I watch hers), eat regularly, and sleep 6-8 hours per night (about 50 hours each week), and you can understand that I stay pretty busy... but not busy enough. I keep my own weblog, and from here you can visit two more web sites for which I am a sportswriter and political analyst/reporter.

But back to work/school... It is said that I live there because during most weeks of the year, I spend (drastically) more of my waking hours on campus than anywhere else. In fact, I may even spend more time on campus than everywhere else combined (not counting sleepy time). Still, I have never fallen asleep on campus outside of class, so I suppose I can not truly call it home yet.

I personally have no interest in the stuff, but those who do should be allowed to use it with the same restrictions as those who like to use alcohol. It costs American taxpayers $10 billion and 700,000 arrests (plus the costs associated with those arrests) each year, and there is still no link between the decriminalization of marijuana and the increased use of marijuana or other drugs. However, there is a link: the decriminalization of marijuana leads to a decrease in the use of more potent, more dangerous drugs. Don't you think saving a several billion dollars and reducing the availability of dangerous substances is worth it?

As a demographic, American citizens who were home-schooled outperform their government-school (public-school) counterparts in nearly every category. That's what Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute found for the Home School Legal Defense Association. You may draw your own conclusions, but here's what Dr. Ray found (several HTML pages or one PDF document):

Taken college-level courses: 74% home-educated adults to 46% general population.

Participate in ongoing community service activities: 71% to 37%.

Members of a community organization: 88% to 50%.

Government and politics is too complicated to understand: 4% to 35%.

Voting in the last five years: 76% to 29% (ages 18-24) and 95% to 53% (ages 25-39).

Note: The general population includes home-educated adults, meaning that the numbers for adults who were educated in public (government) schools are actually lower.

The problem here isn't necessarily the quality of education in public schools, but instead the quality of time spent with their instructors and parents. This explains why so many students of private schools are also more successful than the general population. Home-schoolers get the best of both worlds, because their instructors are their parents -- they are watched carefully by the people who love them most, and they are taught to succeed both as persons and as students. Then again, they could lose valuable social potential and opportunities...

Moral of the story: weigh your options and make careful decisions!

I've prioritized my opinions on various political issues, allowing the automated script at President Match to match my ideals to Bush and Kerry. I'd imagine that most people would either not care at all or strongly favor one candidate over the other, but not me! I concentrate way too hard on daily political happenings, and for several weeks I've had trouble matching the pros and cons of Bush and Kerry to any arrangement that would allow me to choose a favorite for November. My President Match report reflects that: my political priorities match Bush and Kerry at 50% each (only 41% for Dennis Kucinich), which says to me that I'm safely in the middle of the road.

Kerry and Bush haters are equally welcome to try to persuade me. I'll probably just try to play devil's advocate and tell you you're wrong.

I took the Belief-O-Matic test at Beliefnet.com again. After reanalyzing how the questions were written until I knew what each one meant, I realized previous results were a little skewed. Basically, the new result tells me that I'm as far from "fundamentalist" or "puritan" (for any faith) as I can be. I find it humorous that I'm less Roman Catholic than anything else:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (87%)
3. Secular Humanism (87%)
4. Theravada Buddhism (86%)
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (85%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (76%)
7. Nontheist (72%)
8. Neo-Pagan (70%)
9. Taoism (66%)
10. New Age (65%)
11. Reform Judaism (59%)
12. Jainism (51%)
13. New Thought (51%)
14. Sikhism (50%)
15. Scientology (49%)
16. Bahá'í Faith (46%)
17. Orthodox Quaker (46%)
18. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (45%)
19. Hinduism (39%)
20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (34%)
21. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (26%)
22. Orthodox Judaism (26%)
23. Islam (24%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (21%)
25. Jehovah's Witness (14%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (14%)
27. Roman Catholic (14%)

The first weeks of the season leave much to be desired in Atlanta, with the Braves slouching low at 14-17, 3.5 games behind the Marlins in third place in the NL East. Inconsistent performances on the mound, in the field, and at the plate have hurt us, but even more troubling are all the injuries, forcing manager Bobby Cox to juggle the lineup and invite a few minor leaguers to play major league roles for a while.

In only 31 games, regular starters have missed a combined total of 36 games due to injury, and it can only be estimated how many more games have been played in pain. Jesse Garcia, DeWayne Wise, Mike Hessman, and Wilson Betemit have put up much of the Braves' numbers so far, but now that Chipper Jones, J.D. Drew, and Marcus Giles are all in the lineup, with Rafael Furcal scheduled to return tonight, we still don't know how the 2004 Braves will be when/if they perform consistently.

There is reason to be excited about the next four months of the season. Drew, when he plays, is outperforming every rightfielder in the game. Johnny Estrada's offense is among best of catchers in baseball, and his .550 average with runners in scoring position is best in baseball. And Horacio Ramirez has pitched very well, among the league leaders in ERA, but has received very little run support and is suffering with an 0-3 record despite a staff-best 2.75 ERA.

At 14-17 with several months to play, nothing is certain except potential. If the Braves only play as well as they have so far, they can expect a finish around .500 by October. However, if Furcal, Andruw, Chipper, and Giles overcome their injuries and if Hampton and Ortiz pick up where they left off last year, the Braves could easily win 75-85 more games.

Millions of fans felt let down with the conclusion (or lack thereof) of the Matrix 'trilogy' last fall, uncomfortable without closure of the true fate of The One. Well, Robert T. has a good idea and has written Matrix Resurrections, and several months ago he wrote an incredibly detailed account of the Oracle and the Architect: First Encounter. Expanding the story where the Wachowski siblings chose not to, this gives us another chance -- after the dust has settled -- to consider the merits of the Wachowskis' vision.

Oh, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has an official web site ... with screenshots! (The splash screen of that site is randomly selected from a few options each time the page loads.) The game is slated to be released in October. I'll be in line!

Don't Panic! Three years to the day after the death of Douglas Adams, I have good news! "After what seems like seven and a half million years, the film adaptation of Hitchhiker's is finally underway"; shooting began last month. More info, including cast lists, from DouglasAdams.com (the only official source) and IMDB. Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Warwick Davis (Willow!) as Marvin the Paranoid Android, and John Malkovich as Humma Kavula, a role created by DNA especially for the movie, which is slated for a 2005 release. Hold onto your towel, though -- this is a Walt Disney Pictures film.

(1) My body temperature is now 97.8°. I think the FM radio dial analogy is more accurate than I had intended. So now that I've figured out how to bring my temperature down, does anyone know any good ways to bring it up without overshooting the mark and sending me back into fever territory?

(2) Terrorists (I chose that word carefully) in Iraq have murdered a contractor from Philadelphia as revenge for the abuse of prisoners by American soldiers. The victim was Nick Berg, and he was there helping to rebuild Iraq. Iraqi soldiers could at least be respected as soldiers if they went after American soldiers. But murdering contractors who are there to help is pure cowardice. With reports like this, my illogical side supports pushing the red button and just erasing Iraqi civilization from the map. But, of course, that isn't the answer.

My temperature is fluctuating like an FM radio dial. If it's still over 102 tomorrow, I'm seeking medical attention.

It was a good game. My fever went down and I felt good all day Saturday, which is interesting since it's back and higher than before. I barely broke 100 Friday night, but I was pushing 102 tonight when I got home from the family's Mother's Day cookout. Actually, a weak digestive system trying to digest beef and hot dogs might have contributed to my rising temperature, but the food seems to be digesting (as opposed to its alternative options), so that's a good thing.

I was tired and I felt horrible around 9:00, so I said good night to Keesha and went to bed. I decided I would put on a movie, because I tend to fall asleep more easily if I have something on TV. Well, once I got under a few pounds of blankets, I started sweating the fever off, and while it's still over 100, I feel at least a little bit better, and I've got an hour left in Fight Club. I didn't even think I'd make it through the first twenty minutes.

Anyway, my back still hurts and I can barely swallow, so all is not well... but for some reason I'm in a good mood. Weird. Good night!

I'll be at the Braves game tonight, which you can watch on TBS starting at 7:00 (Eastern). I'll be sitting in the right field seats about ten rows back, and I'll be wearing this shirt. I'll be joined by Keesha (girlfriend), Lara (Jim's girlfriend), and Lucy (Mom).

Only July 6, 2002, I caught a home run hit by Moises Alou in the sixth inning. Several people called my house and my friends to let each other know that they saw me on TV; unfortunately, I had no cell phone at the time. But I do now! And if you're lucky enough to have the number and see me on TV tonight, then you should call!

Chipper Jones should be back in the lineup today, and Marcus Giles and Rafael Furcal could be back too. I'm thinking it's time for the Braves to put an end to their recent losing ways. Braves win tonight, 7-3!

Everyone's catching spring fever -- except me, because I didn't get that memo, and I chose instead to catch a real fever. Last I checked, I was measuring at just under 101°, and everything still hurt in that funny, weak little way that we're all so used to. I consulted Dr. Mom, and she agreed that I needed some aspirin and soup, so that was done; she also suggested a vitamin C pill, which I'll take before I go to bed if I take it at all.

This better be gone tomorrow! I spent nearly $100 on Braves tickets and I want to enjoy the trip to Atlanta! (Last month's game was free to me, until I rear-ended another vehicle in heavy traffic on I-75; now I just feel like crap. What's wrong here?) It's a good thing we have a massage pad on my computer chair. I'm using it to deliver a heated massage straight to the region of my body that always seems to feel the most uncomfortable when even the slightest thing goes wrong, my lower back.

Wish me luck. Good night!

We were debating reviving our favorite team name that we used to use -- "In First Place" -- because it confuses everyone when the emcee announces, "In third place, 'In First Place' with 190 points!" But we decided "Mine's Bigger", and that it would be a more humorous label for the night.

Well, we sucked. Bad. We missed the midpoint question (15 points for getting it right, -10 for getting it wrong, or no gain or loss for not answering), which dropped us down to 56 (about 12th place) at half time. Then we got zero points on the 50-point question, and we missed a Monopoly question, another equally obvious question for 10 points, and an easy 5-point bonus just for admitting that ZZ Top was the artist behind the song playing at the moment.

So after 20 questions, we were 63 points behind the leader and 15 points behind the ninth-place team -- which is the worst we've ever done. It was a horrible couple of rounds. But Adam and I weren't about to leave; we always stick with it till the end, because we want to know who our victims will be next week! And since our strategy is always to wager all of our points (141 this time) on the last question in hoping that we get it right, we figured we still had a snowball's chance in hell.

The category: International Economics. Yeah, definitely wagering all 141 points, and I bet half the room doesn't wager much because that sounds pretty intimidating.

The question: Which country -- not the United States -- is the number-one exporter of goods to the United States? The answer and our result is below (highlight or triple-click the box to see the text within):

Canada. Four teams got it right. We were one of them. We passed everyone. We won. $100 in free trivia nights until it runs out sometime in the next month or two. I win, you lose, and I have the money to prove it!

Eh, some nights are better than others.

Grades are in. I managed all A's, to boost the GPA from 3.51 to 3.55. Yeah, it doesn't move much when you have as many credit hours as I have. But at this rate, it will be up to 3.60 or higher when I graduate. (Actually, if I make A's in every class I plan to take from here, it would be 3.64. Not too shabby.) And to think, in high school people told me I'd be lucky to hold a 3.0 in college.

FYI, the classes I took were World History before 1650, Professional Communication (high-level English course), and the credit for my internship (which was harder than it sounds). I was also excrutiatingly busy with student government, quiz bowl, the newspaper, the international club, the young democrats and the college republicans.

At least my year as student President is over. Now I'm Vice President!

If anyone should find it in their hearts to feel like being generous to the tune of $40, feel free to buy me the PlayStation2 version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game. It's actually only $30 (plus about $2-3 shipping) at Amazon.com, meaning it should be even cheaper in the coming weeks and months at your local Target or Best Buy.

Disclaimer: I certainly do not need this game, and there are many better things on which you could spend your money and I could spend my time, but it would be fun to play. That is all.

The world is becoming increasingly dependent upon internet technology, and if we're going to set ourselves up to take a huge fall if any of it goes wrong, then we need to set up equally huge disincentives (obstacles and punishments) to protect us from the fall.

I think I now fit the description of someone accused of insanity. In a mad rush to utilize files on my hard drive before the reformat, I just watched 11 episodes of "The OC", with no more than ten minutes of total break time. I think I'm all caught up on the first half of the season I missed, but I'll watch episodes 15 and 16 until I start remembering scenes I've seen before.

Don't knock it till you've seen it. It's a much better show than I had expected before I got hooked in January.

Oh, and last night was fun. About half of the quiz bowl gang met up at Dr. Taylor's and we watched Blazing Saddles and Airplane, then we played a game of (Super-)Munchkin that lasted for about three hours. We left at about 2:00, which is also about the time I got home, since the drive is less than ten minutes and the word "about" means I'm not exactly sure what time it was.

Lots of fun, and I've finally had RC Cola. Score!

There's something wrong when the family computer, running Windows Millennium Edition and exposed to every visitor, runs more efficiently than my personal computer, a laptop running Windows XP. I'm sure that the degraded performance of the laptop is due to installation and uninstallation of dozens of items that I didn't want, in addition to running memory-soaking applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Still, I am putting the bulk of the blame on XP Home, which gives me a good excuse to format the hard drive and upgrade to XP Pro. (I thought about skipping that and jumping up to Server 2003 Standard, but I figured that would be overkill!)

So for the last two days I have been burning CDs like mad -- backing up videos, music, settings, and installation packages and prioritizing data for reinstallation on the new and improved laptop when I bring it back up. So far I have burned about 10 gigabytes of data onto 15 CDs. Impressive, isn't it? This is actually the easy part. The tough part is restoring custom installations and settings in dozens of installed programs, not to mention my quirky Windows setup.

A fresh installatin of will not only run much faster than XP Home has for the last few months, but the added benefits of XP Pro will allow me to tweak several settings that XP Home simply didn't allow without registry hacks or special applications. And, while I thought about upgrading the family PC to XP as well, I've decided that it's running incredibly well (despite running Windows ME), so I'm going to leave it alone until an upgrade "feels" necessary.

I am hoping to have XP Pro installed on the laptop by Monday morning, but it may have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll let you know!