:: Welcome to the Revolution ::

:: Thursday, December 04, 2003 ::

Eric is still really pissed off at me and is amazed that no one is sticking up for him. I guess I'm a popular guy in the department, or Eric is really unpopular. It has been two weeks and everyone should be proud of me for getting under someone's skin that much.

Still not biting my nail either, was introduced to a concept of a nail brush.
:: Ocean 8:00 AM [+] ::
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I have a nasty nail bitting habit that I have through a great force of will stopped for the last week. Now I need someone to tell me how to get the crud out from under my fingernails please.
:: Ocean 5:46 PM [+] ::
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In my international law class last week I call this guy a fascist. This guy (we'll call him Eric cause that's his name) believes in a strong central American government, the state is above the people, suppression of the "Liberals", and that Americans are better than everyone else. So here is the Webster dictionary definition of fascism...

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

So Eric is a fascist. He has been complaining about it all week to all the other students in the political science school, I had people walking up to me all day today asking me, "Did you call Eric a fascist," and "He's really pissed off that you called him a fascist." In response Eric has spread the rumor that I'm a "Liberal" which economically I freely admit, and socially because I have a lot of "Liberal" friends I don't see much as an insult even though I personally would not use the word to describe me.

So I would like to not apologize Eric for calling him a fascist, but people should recognize what they are and accept it. I could of called you a "fascist pig" but I don't know if you area a pig; or I could call you "whore of fascism" but I also don't have information that you're a whore.

Also in class today there was a presentation where the phrase, "The men plow, and the women hoe," to which my response was laughing.

:: Ocean 8:52 AM [+] ::
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If anyone important to you walks up to you and says, "Hey, I want to see the absolute movie ever made. I mean I want to see a big pile of crap for two hours on a very large scree, actually something worse than that. There is nothing more than to see a movie that would want me to take a power drill and drive it into my eyes during the movie," then take them to see the final movie in the Martix series (we hope). There is my movie review for the third matrix movie. Not a single person on this Earth no matter how evil should sbe subjected to this pile of feces (except George Bush Jr.)
:: Ocean 5:23 PM [+] ::
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Been busy with school so I haven't been around.

Down in Alabama Judge Moore was fired from his office as a Alabama Supreme Court Judge. For those who didn't hear this was the fascist judge that put up the Ten Commandments and refused to remove them after ordered to by the federal court. I don't have anything against religion, or the Ten Commandments, but this man who is a judge, supposed to uphold law and order refused to obey the oath that he took to uphold. So in a way he is claiming to represent God by defying his own oath to God. Moore was quoted as saying, "God has chosen this time and this place so we can save our country and save our courts for our children." He was also known to make comment about the United States being a Christian Kingdom. What do I have to say to that? "The three blind mice told me to say you are a major ass hole religious nut."

Once again George Bush is getting on the debate, he's nominating this nut to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. I am completely blindsided by the fact the religious right, also known as the fascists, have somehow taken control of this country. They are changing everything that Americans do (that they perceive as good) as God's will, their fight has become one of God's against the nonbelievers. What a bunch of donkey doo doo. America is about religious tolerance, and not taking a religious stance, my proof is implanted in the constitution, which is fact as opposed to the holy visions that people have while they are robbing the rest of the world of their money.

Those white bastards are also wrong about Jesus being white.

:: Ocean 8:14 AM [+] ::
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Here in Illinois there is talk about getting drugs from Canada because the drugs are under half the cost of the price here in the United States. In fact the drugs are made here in the United States but it would be cheaper to buy them if we send them to Canada, and have them in turn sell it back to the United States. Now the FDA has stopped this plan because these drugs that the United States are sending to Canada are not safe even though they come from the same inventories that are sent to the citizens of the United States. Of course everyone knows that the FDA is in the corporate interests of the companies in the United States, this would not be the first time that they pulled this shit.

In capitalism, the economic system that the U.S. claims to be championing, one is supposed to be able to shop around and find the best prices. When two products are identical, but one is less than half the price then the cheaper one will outsell the more expensive one. Instead the FDA who besides saying that the United States is sending defective drugs to Canada, are saying that this aspect of capitalism is wrong. We have to buy the more expensive product because the only thing more American than capitalism is watching people die even though the means to save them is available but they can't afford the means.

This concerns me because watching the policies of the FDA it is clear that the corporate interests are at stake, but the FDA is supposed to be working for public health and the public good. They are to make sure that the drugs and foods that are sold to us are good, but instead when an American product comes about it is automatically good, no matter the safety concerns. It is a sad case indeed when corporate interests override the interests of public safety in government. So I'm adding the American drug companies to the list of enemies of the revolution.

:: Ocean 9:17 AM [+] ::
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Recently in the small international state of Azerbaijan, which happens to be a former Soviet republic, there was an election. Before the election there were protests against the government. Heydar Aliev whom was "president" had not been seen for months by anyone in the country, yet he continues to rule it. He decided that he couldn't run the country any more and appointed his son Ilham Aliev his "political successor" When the election was coming up international monitor who were to observe noticed that before election day the ballot boxes were already full of votes for Ilham. During the election the observers also noticed that voters for Ilham were allowed to vote more than once, opposition candidates votes were placed in other boxes and then destroyed, and many government officials went to several different voting areas to vote for Ilham (twice each time). Needless to say the election was not ruled to be fair. Afterwards there were mass protests, and mass arrests followed.

After all that Bush sent a congratulations letter to Ilham, not only on the election but upholding democratic values.

George W. Bush is such an asshole *

:: Ocean 8:05 AM [+] ::
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I have returned, I have not posted in quite some time because I was trying to make sure that I somehow survived finals week, which also reminded me how far behind I was in school as I attempt to play catch up.

Oh, there is always next year for the Cubs.
:: Ocean 7:40 AM [+] ::
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Today started off nice, it was a great rainy day, I had somewhat caught up on all the work I was doing, had Indian food for lunch. My study group decided to get together in the afternoon instead o at night because many of us wanted to celebrate the Cubs win. My Biomedical Policy class we handed in our assignments and had a short class, because the Cubs were going to win tonight. I was going to get home and celebrate for a little bit and put together the new desk that I bought.

THIS FUCKING ASS HOLE PREVENTED ALOU FROM CATHING THE FUCKING BALL CAUSING THE CUBS TO LOSE!!
I AM GRANTING A WISH TO THE PERSON WHO BRINGS ME HIS HEAD!!
GODFUCKING DAMNIT!!

A baseball costs something like $1, I would of bought you a ball, any Cub fan would of bought you a ball, but you have to be some kind of fucking selfish cheap ass hole. Someone is going to kill you, I hope they do and I will NOT shed a tear. I hope that you're happy with your life cause that wish is going to bring me your head.

Tomorrow Game seven
GO CUBS!!

:: Ocean 7:37 AM [+] ::
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Okay while watching the baseball playoffs there has been this commercial which I think has to be the worst commercial that I have ever seen, it is for HP Cameras. It is this camera going around and everything looking like pictures, they have all these retards walking around looking two dimensional until you get to the other side of the picture and surprise they are really there. Then at the end they have this retarded child playing with pictures, standing them up like they are real people. The reason this bothers me is that they are playing "Pictures of You" by the Cure. There are songs more depressing than "Pictures of You" but they too are written by the Cure. The one redeeming factor of the song is that it does bring back fond memories of ripping, shredding, or burning the pictures of old girlfriends; but the commercial takes that part out leaving this depressing music and the line, "These pictures of you," over and over and over. Now I will actively NOT buy any HP products.
:: Ocean 6:10 PM [+] ::
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Is it me or are big hoopy earrings starting to come back in style?
:: Ocean 4:54 PM [+] ::
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Welcome to the revolution my friends...

There is a reason that I study international relations as one of my fields. It is the perfect opportunity to observe several different behaviors as well as how reactions are formed from a state's actions. About a century and a half ago Karl Marx wrote his communist manifesto about the exploitation of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Now this was serious stuff at the time working conditions were poor, they were worse than that. There was child labor and many people didn't have jobs in industrializing countries because if they didn't want to work everyday for twelve hours. So the bourgeoisie were really afraid of the communist revolution that Marx talked about several workers formed unions, and union busting because a favorite sport of the factory owners. More importantly the leaders of the communists (and the anarchists) were not working class, they were educated people who saw the suffering of the majority of the people and had the courage to fight.

Well in 1917 the revolution broke, though it wasn't a true revolution as Marx predicted. This revolution happened in Russia and it quickly spread to its colonies and to Mongolia. It was a bloody civil war where monarchists fought communists who fought democratic leaders who fought anarchists who fought religious fundamentalists; lets just say everyone fought each other. These were not the industrialized areas that Marx was thinking about; they were still agricultural economies, though Russia could be called a developing state at the time. Though several socialist ideas were applied to these communist governments cropping up they were not true socialists, nor were they communists in the sense of the word of Marx. Eventually the Cold War happened and it ended.

Yes, "communism" was defeated though in reality this was only one form of totalitarianism. So now we decided that rogue states are the enemy. What is a rogue state, well it is a totalitarian government that does not toe the line of the United States, or the new empire. Not that empire is a bad thing mind you, it is how the empire acts that determines that. What has the empire done, it abandoned several proxy wars as soon as the "evil" empire fell leaving several developing countries heavily armed with two groups that hate each other, without aid several of these countries starve to death. We develop cures for diseases that have been plaguing humankind, but refuse to give these drugs to the people in the developing world who need them. Our currency traders are personally responsible for destroying the economies of several newly developed countries, the equivalent of Bill Gates spending the night stealing change from homeless people; then we force them to liberalize their economy which is a development plan that has only proved itself to fail, the equivalent of Bill Gates kicking the bum a few times after robbing them.

So now we have the war on terrorism, or as I like to call it Americans have realized that people in the world may not exactly like them (some people). The strange thing is that despite what American propaganda may lead you to believe the ranks of terrorists are made up of several leaders who are well educated, and people with skills that are out of work. They are from the poor, or exploited, countries of the world who constantly talk about the exploiters, or the West (imperialists). Now I have gone full circle haven't I?

I don't have much sympathy for armed revolution none in fact. 9/11 was a moment that I thought the United States may wake up and look to see what it has done, maybe look at the blood on its hands. I did expect us to fight back, but not only with guns but using our power to help the world. Instead Bush watched a few too many action films and has gotten a “you're for us or against us” attitude. Marx discussed a cycle of revolution, which revolution happens because there are exploited out there that find themselves with nothing left but fighting back; several other "radicals" have taken the same idea (including anarchists). This pattern has developed time and time again (the monarchs were overthrown by democracies, or "communists" some democracies have become socialized, and the colonized have thrown off the colonizers) in every case there was a need for an improvement in social conditions. So as we fight this war on terror and shoot terrorists, annex other states, and leave others heavily armed with warring factions the more important thing to notice is that we continue to do nothing about the social conditions.

Sure the bourgeoisie may not care about those under them, but it seems that there has been a breaking point that has been reached. Welcome to the revolution...

:: Ocean 5:29 PM [+] ::
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So I was walking around school and noticed the flag that was flying around and it looks like this, it is the school flag (one of them).

Not only is this the school flag, but the anarchist flag of Spain during the Civil War.
:: Ocean 7:11 AM [+] ::
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I met the Indonesian teacher here at school, I hear it is an easy language. We were chatting and it came out that she was from Borneo which is cool because I want to go to Borneo. So this got me thinking that I should share with my three readers (I'm sure there is a lurker out there) in the tradition of High Fidelity my top five travel spots, and why. Though these are in no particular order.

Indonesia (Borneo and Irian Jaya)
These are some of the more remote places on the face of the planet, Borneo is the big island that Indonesia shares with Malaysia; and Irian Jaya is the western half of the island that is shared with New Guinea. The remoteness is one major factor for going to these places.

Though Borneo does have a Malaysian side the Indonesian half interests me a little more. On that side there are great untainted mountains and rainforests. The island has one of the most diverse flora and animals in the world including orangutans (Clint Eastwood was here)!! There is some of the greatest diving off the shores of this island. It is a perfect place to just get away from it all, and not to mention that if you are running from the law then no one is going t look for you here. Irian Jaya has some of the most remote people of the world living in it, like Borneo there are great mountains and rainforests with a wide variety of flora and animals to see. In addition there are several different varieties of art from the various local tribes. Lone beaches line the coast These may sound like boring places but I think of it this way; trekking through these areas is close to how the original explorers of these islands had it. The scenery is so "alien" that the rainforest views are nothing but astounding, something that one could only experience when they actually see something like this.

Nepal & Tibet
In a two words Mount Everest. I'm not an experienced mountain climber or anything like that, but the view of this mountain is nothing but awesome, there is simply nothing on Earth that is bigger than it. Once again there is a lot of scenery to view. There are a lot of national parks (besides Everest) where there is just a lot to see there, including the Asian one horned rhino. Some of the best rafting is also available in Nepal. Tibet (part of China) is the empire on the roof of the world. Lhasa the holy city which was rarely seen by people of the "west" until recently here there is the Potala Palace which is a huge complex that was built without a single nail. Tibet just give images of mystery, this mountain kingdom is also home to "sky burials" which was made famous in the Sandman comics, people are cut up and fed to the Carrion birds off of cliffs.

Ethiopia
The Ark of the Covenant is here in an old Coptic Church, for those who don't know what it is see Indian Jones and the Lost Ark, it is the thing they open up at the end. In other terms it is where Moses put the remains of the ten commandment tablets after they were destroyed. There was never colonization of this empire (though a brief invasion by Italy during WW2) and there is a lot of history of one of the great empires of the world. Several different "ruined" cities are here. Ethiopia is also one of the greatest places for bird watching which is something that I have never done, but if I was going to do it once then bird-watching at one of the best places would be grand. There are also several long bike trails to go to where you can simply ride the bike and enjoy the landscape. Lalibela has some 12th century churches carved right into the side of the mountain

Irkutsk
Yes one of those territories in Risk that many people can't say. Lake Baikal, one of the largest lakes in the world, here hydrofoils take you around the lake, which is so clear that swimming underwater is not recommended because the water is so clear that people have drowned by swimming the wrong direction!! In general I want to see Siberia an area that is larger than the United States that has a rich history from the first Russian explorers, to the Gulags of the communist period, and even a gigantic head of Lenin now who wouldn't want to see that. Of course the Trans Siberian railway which if you take the entire thing is 1/4 of the world on land.

Mali
Geography lesson, this country is in Africa and is in the Sahara. Non-European architecture, including the largest building made out of mud. Spectacular desert landscapes, trek through oasis the way ancient traders did. Several different African empires were located in this region, there are several abandoned cities to explore. Of course Timbuktu if you ever wondered where it was is located in this country, in the middle of the desert, with simply desert around it. In the 18th century it was often said to be the most inaccessible city on the planet, though really Lhasa was. Three of the oldest mosques in the world are here, and a lot of sand. One of the greatest museums of West Africa is located in the capital city of Djennee. Yes, there is not much here, and little comfort really, but that is all part of the adventure.

Of course there are several other areas that I will visit someday; Mongolia, Botswana, Guinea Bissau, India, Laos, New Zealand, and of course the Yukon all of which may be detailed in future editions of this Blog.

:: Ocean 10:34 PM [+] ::
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CUBS WON THE DIVISION!!! THEY FUCKING WON!!!
:: Ocean 8:41 AM [+] ::
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I know that this is old news but in class were are discussing the ethics of stem sell research, so we watched Bush's speech on the subject that was such a hot topic before 9/11 (remember watching the speech in Washington D.C. before embarking on my failed adventure). Anyway one of the parts of the speech he discusses that the choice is a difficult one because the research can yield cures to all sorts of diseases, in addition to solving the organ shortage problems, cure people with spinal injuries, and all sorts of great things; then again taking the stem cells from and embryo kills them. This is a dilemma for Americans because of our great respect for life he says, "I have an obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world." Of course a year and a half later his morals changed while it is almost a sport to kill people in Iraq.

I know, Iraq is over there and has been demonized so the American people won't care unless there was a huge loss of American life. Also, I know that Bush is a fucking liar and it isn't the first time. He lies to get the public to support his policies like he does in Iraq. Now he needs 80 billion $'s to continue his war in Iraq that he lied about in the first place to get his way to play with his toys. You never hear an interruption to your usual programming to hear Bush talk about all the social injustices in our own country and devote 80 billion dollars to create jobs for those who don't have jobs, improve educational facilities (more pay for teachers), universal health care, etc. Bush's great respect for human life also causes him to support economic policies that are creating famine, war, and hatred for America throughout the developing world.

This caused me to have a great idea, what Bush meant to say was that he had great respect for some lives, I'm even going to go out on a limb here and say American lives though that really is a load of shit. So we go to Iraq now and get them to give us their embryos and we can use those to extract the stem cells. This way we will be killing Iraqis, which not many people in this country care about, and using them to create advances in medical sciences that could benefit the entire world; but will only benefit the rich within our own country (for 20 years until the patent runs out).

:: Ocean 5:37 PM [+] ::
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I want to let everyone to know I'm still alive, just been spending all my time with Homeworld 2.
:: Ocean 4:51 PM [+] ::
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I want to give a big cheer for the G21. For those of you that don't know the G21 are a coalition of developing countries around the world led by Brazil, China, and India. At the recent WTO talks in Cancun Mexico this coalition successfully held them up and resisted the demands of the EU and the United States. Now this all may seem uninteresting to some but it is a great change in world events that has not gotten much press coverage here in the United States because the story is anti-United States and too many people in this country are sitting down shielding themselves from the outside isses.

Here is some quick history. Parts of the developing world followed a selective development plan (these countries were China, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Indonesia) their development strategies brought them more industry and money. (Japan and Germany followed similar strategies during their development in the late 19th century) Well in 1997 the Asian Economic Crisis hit and spread out, something that we in the United States continue to feel today.

Here in the United States and the EU we believe in a development strategy called Neoclassicalism; libertarians follow a pure form of neoclassicalism. Except in reality we don't practice it because the government meddles around with the economic market all the time, but we have only helped countries that follow neoclassicalism (we meaning the WTO and the IMF). So in order for a developing country to receive help to develop then they have to enter an already uneven playing field by opening up their markets to more developed countries who exploit the fact there are no trade barriers; but the more developed countries don't need help from the WTO or the IMF so they don't have to play by the same rules. In summery the developing nations are being force to play by rules that the developing nations don't which make trade uneven.

This poverty in developing nations causes war, famine, disease, etc. In addition there is a great disparity between the rich and the poor, and it is only increasing. The rich get filthy rich, and the poor are filthy poor; there is no middle class (except in some countries). Well now the developing nations decided to stand up and pretty much collapsed the talks. The United States response, they will decide on doing bilateral talks, instead of working with organizations like the WTO they are going to work directly with other states making different deals with each one of them. This way we can continue to fuck these states in the ass take everything from them with economic policies that have done nothing to improve these countries in the last sixty years; and refuse to allow them to use the policies that industrialized the developed nations, and were working on several others.

The EU has decided that the WTO is still an organization that is worth saving and want to reorganize it, I will wait to see how before they actually do it. Once again I give a big thumbs up to the G21 and hope they continue to stand up to the bully states.

I will also take this time to tell everyone that this is one of the reasons that I am embarrassed to be an American.
:: Ocean 7:04 AM [+] ::
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I used the word poopsmith in a sentence in class yesterday, "If a religion designates you as a poopsmith from birth the United States has to respect that, unless that person doesn't want to be a poopsmith," after a shocked pause, "And who wouldn't want to be a poopsmith?"

:: Ocean 6:45 PM [+] ::
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Last year Professor Bonnicksen's class was much more interesting, there were arguments, fights and shouting matches. That was Genetic Policy, man that was a blast. This year I have Biomedical Policy, it is an entirely different policy, no fights, shouting matches, or arguments. So today when we were talking about stem cell research I decided that I would start on. I told everyone that the creation of embryos was all a part of a natural order. Matter is destroyed and created; famine, disease, and war are responses to overpopulation. The creation of embryos for the sole purpose of their destruction to extract their stem cells would only be natural for the progress of human medical science (not medicine, medical science mind you).

No one objected.

Then I discussed the horrors of abortion and how much I oppose it, but support the creation of embryos for the sole purpose of their destruction in order to further human science.

Nothing, I even had people agreeing with me on some of those points. I never had it so easy, now I have my own herd.

:: Ocean 9:13 AM [+] ::
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Yesterday I needed a day off so I didn't go to class, I had an assignment and E-Mailed it saying that for unforeseen reasons I will not be able to attend the classes for that day. This is not a good start for school. My financial aid is still screwed up, I was supposed to be going to Northwestern but they didn't inform the powers that be that I would be going there; well now I'm back at Northern (which is Fine) but am trying to get everything done so I can go to school. Yesterday I spent most of the day painting, watching the Cubs lose (they won today though), and napping. I have been much more tired than usual.

I had an interesting conversation with this guy at work who was from Belarus, he was talking about how much he hates Russia. I found this odd because many people from Belarus believe that they are Russian. One thing he said though was that Russia had "Bad Culture" and I couldn't understand at the time how one judges a culture. It got me thinking though about American culture.

Webster defines culture as 5 a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company or corporation

So American culture is it "unbiased" pro-American media, violent movies, wooden chopsticks, fast food, or blowing up other cultures; or all three? The first definition does not fit. I'm going to remove the second definition because being American is not a racial, or religious group. I would not say that America is a Social group because there have to definite identifiable patterns to the members of the social group, and because of the mix of patterns in this country there are not patterns that everyone follows; different religious, different dietary patterns, etc. There isn't even a shared history among Americans; there really is no America. The third definition is dismissed because American is neither a company nor a corporation.

Therefore there is no American Culture, but it is instead a grouping of several different cultures. This is really meaningless as every society is a mix of different cultures, and even cultures are really just a mix of different cultures. There was a thought in my head that America is some sort of anti-culture, something that goes against culture. Here is my reasoning; America is a non-culture that attempts to assimilate others into it by claiming to be a culture. The American spirit consumes others and spits them out a cultureless mass of drones.

:: Ocean 5:11 AM [+] ::
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One more thing, have you seen this in the news? If you don't think the RIAA is evil this should convince you...
:: Ocean 6:12 PM [+] ::
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One thing I don't get about Prez Bush is his woodland policy, to prevent forest fires we have to cut down the forests. Now he may be right, in a 1st grade logic sort of way, but to combat fires in the city are we destroying cities. There were several fires in Washington D.C and Las Vegas last night, lets destroy the city then there will not be fires there. I really am embarrassed that he is our representative to the world, no wonder everyone hates us. I'm really glad now that the economy is doing a little better that Bushy decided to ask for more money to pay for Iraq, which is his fucking lie; it really is like asking for a raise because you fucked everything up.

As many of you know I enjoy playing miniature games, I play a cheaper one called Chronopia which is has cheap miniatures and the rules are some of the best. Now I thinking (from encouragement from my friend Scott) of playing games-workshop which is much more expensive; but the miniatures are much better and there are more players. Chronopia is good don't get me wrong, but there has been nothing new in the last few months (not even for Gen Con) and while there are rumors and all that none of that really means anything. Then again it will cost me a load to form a Warhammer 40K army, so I guess if I get that promotion I could place it on the agenda.

School saps all my time anyway.

:: Ocean 6:03 PM [+] ::
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Finally the entire groove of school is catching up to me.

I had a talk with my boss at work about a promotion and all he asked me was where I would not like to go. I think that is nothing but good news really. Sleep now!!
:: Ocean 10:06 AM [+] ::
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So here I am the morning after my birthday wondering, well was it worth it? As I celebrate my birthday today I will continually ask myself is this really my real birthday, or did my parents pick it out of a hat? Anyway here is a quick history of my birthday. For most years my birthday was going out to eat at the restaurant of my choice, which was always Bob Chinns because my father hated seafood and I love it, still do just don't eat it.

0th (??) - I was born on September 4th, at 11:58 P.M so I was almost born on Sept 5th
6th - I had the pleasure of having a birthday party, which was my first and last. The sad thing was that we had just moved and I didn't know that many people.
17th - My father had decided to not be in town for my birthday, I had a party!!
18th - Had my first date with the woman that would in the future be called only "her"
21st - I didn't drink, but went out and bought alcohol; but I wasn't carded.
25th - Birthday in Russia, was the worst day of my life because I was in a horrible mood the entire time, really waking up on the wrong side of the couch
27th - The Cubs won a game for me, for my Birthday

So as you see I never really taken my birthday as this wonderful thing even though it is supposed to be the biggest Taoist holiday (it is the day your life begins). To be honest I have been egging my father about when I was conceived, thus I could have a conception day which right now I may celebrate January 4th. Tonight though there will be drinks and general great times. I'm looking forward to it, so I'll see you all there!!

:: Ocean 6:12 PM [+] ::
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It is very late, and I just got back from school. I was supposed to go to a Cubs game earlier in the day, but it is good that I did not go because the game ended up being fifteen innings long, and I would of missed class. The Cubs won, then they lost the second game at night because of a bad call. Sometimes I wonder why they don't add instant replay or something to the game, I mean it is long already (not like Cricket though, those go ALL DAY) then again instant replay takes something away from the game. I didn't see it but I guess Antonio Alfonseca pushed the third base ump for the bad play. I personally think the Umps can take it, after all they wear body armor. Anyway back to school. I got invited to a party that some of the Political Science graduate students are going to, but because of my birthday I can not go. Now I know that it seems that political science students can't party, but really you're wrong... but I won't say any more on that because these people may want to get elected someday. I felt good though, then I felt bad because I said that a bunch of my friends and I were going out... and I hadn't thought of inviting them. I changed the statement to my family and I are going out because that is true anyway.

I have this class called Biomedical Policy and we were discussing Artificial Reproductive Techniques, which I do have to say besides a funny scene in Forget Paris, and a bad plotline in Friends I don't think about it too much. Well I still don't besides the usual fact that the government should be abolished etc. Of course when I talk about the government keeping out of it all I made some people bitter and I really don't know why, but for some reason I'm going to be one of the people that are going to lead the class discussions. Confused?? Me too, it is too late.

:: Ocean 10:31 AM [+] ::
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I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, the worst part was that my bed is against a wall and that was the side that I woke up on. Smack right into the wall.
:: Ocean 5:15 PM [+] ::
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The strange thing about my cell phone company is that they have not allowed me to change my address. Every time that I try and change my address I have to go through an automated system online, or through the phone; and every time I discover that once again that my address does not exist. Now because of the huge amount of research that the cell phone company places in addresses they must know if where I live actually exists; which it does not. So I'm living in some hole in reality.

In other news I am back one day at work and already don't want to go back. It is Labor Day weekend, and contrary to popular belief the customers are rather nicer during these times. I think that people expect a certain amount of dissatisfaction with their service, which is as it should be (a certain amount mind you, within the confines of common sense). I don't like going to work because well... it is work (as opposed to a career where you "work" but enjoy it enough that you can handle it). I'm going through one of those times that I am not enjoying work, and I'm not so sure about school either. Cassie is gone, there have been "in-law problems", and general getting adjustment problems; so as a result I'm not exactly depressed or sad, but I'm not ecstatic or happy either. As Lamon told me when she saw me in class "you look tired" and I do. I don't know how else to explain it.

I'm on the phone talking to an actual representative from the cell phone company right now, and let me tell you the maze presented by endless option on the phone service did not make it seem that one could be able to contact a live person. In addition there are times when customer service is open, when they shut down the automated system that doesn't make much sense. Anyway getting back on track the customer service representative near the one I was talking to was confirming a credit card number, expiration date, and name giving me full control of that person's credit card!! I don't know why this person was basically shouting the numbers down, but those numbers are going to get me a fully functional robot!!

Cubs won today, and that's good because everyone else that counts lost.

:: Ocean 7:32 PM [+] ::
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So today was another absolutely horrible day, sort of. I get up this morning and get into my car and begin driving and notice a yellow paper attached to my windshield. At first annoyed I get angry when I see that it is a parking ticket for not having a village sticker. I return to the scene of the crime, the private parking lot of the apartment complex. I look at every single car, none of them have a village sticker, and none of them have a ticket. So in addition to receiving a ticket on private property, I get targeted for some reason to get a ticket. My vehicle isn't even registered in Rolling Meadows. This means that for whatever characteristic has targeted me for economic regimentation Rolling Meadows is practicing it; in addition because there is no way to dispute this ticket the government of the Village of Rolling Meadows views itself above the laws that they produce. These are the two characteristics of fascism; Rolling Meadows is a fascist government. I may very well have to take action against them.

And the Cubs lost again.

:: Ocean 7:27 AM [+] ::
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"I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman," It is no joke my friends, this is Arnold Schwarzeneggers view on gay marrage. DON'T THINK ABOUT IT, it is just like the conversation that you heard at IHOP. This recall election is giving California a lot of publicity, and let me tell you it is like the circus that American politics really is; so I'm thinking that here in Illinois we could have the same thing happen. We would need some celeberties to run though so I would have to suggest Mr. T, someone from the smashing pumpkins, and the Black MAge from Final Fantasy (I know not a naitve of Illinois but after all these years still the coolest Final Fantasy character). Finally in other news it has been revealed that in efforts to boost the image of episode three George Lucas is going to have Gonk the Power Droid appear as the jedi who really scars up Skywalker before the transformation to Darth Vader, I don't know about you but I'm damn excited now. Also appearing will be the entire cast of the Lord of the Rings, the Black Mage from Final Fantasy, and the first glimpse at the next generation playstation.
:: Ocean 5:59 PM [+] ::
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Just to kick me in the pants after this bad day the Cubs lost when they should have won.
:: Ocean 9:16 AM [+] ::
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Time for movie reviews, this time I have two highly rated movies by the critics.

This first is the Magdalene Sisters, this movies is about the Magdalene asylums that were in Ireland up to 1996. If you were a woman who had premarital sex then your family (encouraged by the Catholic Church) threw into one of these to serve a lifetime penance for your so called sin. As we see from the movie that you could just be a flirtatious teenager and be thrown into one of these. The movie follows the lives of three main characters that are sent to the asylum, one was a flirtatious orphan, another had a child out of wedlock, and another was raped (which goes to show the different perception of rape during these times, the woman "tempted" the man into following his animal inhibitions). In these prisons the girls are forced to do laundry in where the church receives money, in effect they become slave laborers and are forced to prey the entire day. The conditions are dismal, the girls who try to escape have their hair cut of, girls are mocked and humiliated by the nuns, one girl is raped by a priest and later thrown into an insane asylum for her accusation, other girls are beaten. It is shocking to see that these prisons were run until 1996 when large public laundries were just not profitable. The Catholic Church condemned this movie (and every movie that is condemned should be viewed) and it shows some of the horrors that the church has committed in recent history. Overall there were several problems with the movie, the first being that there was no plot. Instead I see the movie as a character study, but in reality I could not really get into the characters of the movie. Yes, this story should be told (in reality the prison conditions were much worse) but in this format I find it questionable. It would have made a much better documentary, being such a limited release as a movie a good documentary may have reached the same amount of people. The acting in this movie was above average by all parties, the direction was excellent, but I just thought the stories were... well blah. I give this movie two stars.

The next movie that I'm going to review is Dirty Pretty Things with Audrey Tautou. This movie is about the plight of illegal immigrants and their quest for citizenship in London. Secondary there is a love brewing between Senay an illegal Turkish (Audrey) and Okwe and illegal Nigerian (Chiwetel Ejiofor). The acting was just awesome by everyone, I had no complaints from even the minor parts; but the performances from Audrey and Chiwetel were nothing but amazing. Senay has a girlish love for Okwe, but Okwe tries to ignore it and survive seeing love as getting in the way of this; you really feel for these characters and hope that they at least find love in their miserable lives. Senay has a hope for going to New York City, she begins by working at a hotel as a maid, but then is forced to move to working a sweatshop where her innocence is violated by the owner who forces her to give him oral sex or he'll report her. Okwe also works at the hotel, he is shown right from the start to be an intelligent man and shows medical knowledge which branch out from the fact you discover that he was a doctor in Nigeria. He begins to unravel a plot run by the Hotel Manager Juan (Sergi Lopez) where immigrants give a kidney in exchange for false papers. When he discovers that Okwe is a doctor then attempts to get him to run the surgeries. Needless to say Seney gets back into the plot, Okwe does his best to stop the operation but survival may demand that he become part of this illegal trade. Other actors that should be noted are Benedict Wong who plays Guo Yi who works the morgue at the local hospital and is Okwe's good friend, and Sophie Okonedo who plays Juliette the prostitute that works at the hotel (and has one of the single hilarious scenes in any movie). This movie is a must see and will bring tears to your eyes because it is that good. Simply the best movie that I have seen this year, possibly several years, without a doubt four-star movie.

In other news Cassie has left for school, which is sad, but also should be her last semester "away", which means that next semester she should be in Chicago. She'll also be back for my birthday festivities and to give me a new tattoo as a B-Day present!! As for me, today I begin my duties as a student, meaning I have to go to school and study like a mad scientist until I get the grades I like for a better life, I don't want to be working at Binny's for the rest of my life. Speaking of Binny's I just got passed over for a promotion there, and I'm wondering if that is my cue to leave there so I think that I'm going to begin looking for another job, but going to inquire about moving up. I enjoy working at the damn liquor store, but sometimes it frustrates me. Nothing else of importance has happened so until next time Ciao.
:: Ocean 7:17 PM [+] ::
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Last night I met up with Jesse, she's this woman that I know from my stint in the Peace Corps, she was an American Student studying Russian language. All around great girl really, she's sold her soul to the Americorps and was in town for "training" or what people not in Americorps call team building exersises. We went to the Map Room in Chicago which has to be the greatest bar on the planet. We drank a lot of differnt beers then went to a Mexican Resterant that was down the street. I think they didn't want us to eat at the resterant because they gave the order to go, but we ate there anyway. There were a lot of people there at 2:00 in the morning, which by the way is the best time for Mexican Food (mmmmm Avacado Tacos!!). This is not to mention that I wandered into my bedroom at 4:00 in the morning and the first thing on my mind was to update windows, which I promply did. After knowing my computer was safe I knew that it would be okay to sleep, just kidding of course. It was just that there was a huge window on my computer say WINDOWS UPDATES AVALAIBLE and I clicked on the OK button. Of course this morning before the gallon of water I drank I was "paying" for a great night.
:: Ocean 9:42 PM [+] ::
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So I had lunch with one of my Profs today, I paid because the people at the Thai Pavilion never write separate checks even though I ask and they say sure, then they continue right on one check. They really are not that good there, I asked for vegetarian Pad Thai but got a soup that had chicken broth in it. They leave the check but wait a half hour before picking it up, still though it is some of the best Thai food that I have had outside that area of the world.

I also want to set for the record that I don't have anything against Jesus, in fact I think of him as one of the people that I could be friends with if we knew each other, hanging out at Thai restaurants discussing the meaning of the Universe. You see I make jokes about a lot of people, including myself, and feel that Jesus, well he can take a joke... hell he knows that it is just a joke. There will be no eternal damnation because of a joke, if there were I did not want to be created. How I see it is that the afterlife is well after life. I'm a good person, somewhat of a bastard ass hole at times, but overall a good person; I'm like this because I think that it is right to be like this. It would be wrong (to me) to be nice and a good person because someone told me to, despite that someone be Jesus, God, or Tori Amos. In the afterlife I plan to continue to be a good person, and I'll worry about that then, I have a life to live that is a little bit more than most people who worry about God.

I'm not against organized religion either, some people need that organization in their life. I'm not into all the "sins" that the church has done, no religion is exempt (including the Taoists) and many times people did bad things in the name of good, not that this excuses them but it is a reminder that human history is in the past and that times were different then they are now. In fact I like Catholics, they really do seem less uptight about it all than many of the other Christian faiths. In the end religion itself is a private matter, I don't even mind when people attempt to force it one me, so what; but religion is NOT an excuse for one's actions... only people are responsible for one's actions. This is why I don't really have anything against Jesus, he is not responsible for the actions of the people who do things in his name, I see him laughing at the name of my blog, but crying at the atrocities that people do in his name.

:: Ocean 9:37 AM [+] ::
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I'm really pissed right now, Jorden said that he would be around tonight and that we could have a few drinks and smoke a cigar together (we would each have our own cigars and would not share one). I got off work excited because even though I live with the lovable little bastard I have not seen him for a long time. Well I get home don't see his car, go inside don't see him and am informed that he took off to see Kim (his honey). That's all fine and good, but I could have gone out with Cassie and told her that she should go out with other people. So correct me if I'm wrong here, but a phone call telling me that he was going to ditch me is much more polite than really ditching me. So now I'm feeling dejected and alone, I'm being force to drink now because of the loneliness that I feel as a result of this dejection, who knows where my life will end up... on the streets buying booze and glue to sniff before using the money to eat... walking the streets play tricks and getting beat up by my pimp... or worse yet I could find Jesus.
:: Ocean 6:51 AM [+] ::
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Well I start school again in about a week and I'm dreading an looking forward to it all at the same time. I say this because I really like school, while on the whole the entire socialized structure of school leaves something to be desired... there is too much standardization and structure. There is also the fact that in my experience the further you go along the more one is treated like an equal; now that I'm in grad school I feel that the others in my department see me as an equal. I don't get things like, you believe in such and such theories, are you stupid, instead I get I'm interested in your opinion because of your belief in such and such theory. I rather enjoy the conversations with these people. I have come to firmly believing that education is important, that is why I get so insulted when I am accused of being uneducated (see previous blog long ago).

Then again working full time and grad school full time almost killed me already, and I didn't get that 4.0 that I wanted (needed) and I was enjoying a nights sleep that lasted more than four hours. At the end of last semester I was so relieved that it was all over that I almost died on the spot, but also in a strange way I feel that I need to have that feeling all over again.

Many people have commented that I'm doing the right thing, meaning that I'll get a better job etc because I'm going through grad school; but I don't exactly think that I'm doing it for those reasons. I got offered the job that I wanted but chose to instead go to school. I think more and more that I'm doing it for myself because I may actually enjoy it, I love the stress and feel that when I'm learning these things that I'm doing something important instead of something that seems to be completely worthless. Yes, this may seem selfish because I believe more in the betterment of myself than the progress of the human race as a whole, but then again that is who I am, what I believe in, and fuck anything else.

One more week until I'm back in the trenches.

:: Ocean 9:27 AM [+] ::
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The greatest thing and the worst thing about my job is carding people. About half the time there are people who come in get carded and understand that it is the law to have a photo ID to buy alcohol (in the United States), these people are polite and leave. Then there are the others, they are rude and do not understand that me enforcing the law has nothing to do with me believing the law, it has more to do with a $2000 fine and a year in jail. Today this guy told me to go fuck myself while he was arguing with me so I said, "Go fuck myself, well NOW I realize how much of an ass I have been and have decided to sell to you," he was stunned until he realized that I was being sarcastic. I mean really people when has swearing at someone and calling them names ever allowed you to get their way.

Let me set the record straight, I don't like the 21-year-old law, none that I work with do either. It is stupid and there is no logical basis for it. Being one of the few countries with such laws has taught us that alcohol becomes taboo and it only encourages those not of age to drink it in private where there is more likely to be trouble. In many other areas of the world where drinking is more acceptable drunkenness is not. It is seen as "amateurish" and it is, in Europe many people go to the local pub after work and have a few drinks, meet other people at the pub, and they home and relax (unlike here where people go home and barricade themselves in their homes away from the prying eyes of their neighbors. Local pubs are seen as places to get drunk and pick up loose women instead of meeting your neighbors. When we do go out we wait until the weekends where one can go out for the entire night and not have to worry about it the next day.

I'm glad that I have friends that are willing to do things on the weekdays instead of barricading themselves at their home wand watching the telly as a form of entertainment. Maybe this "secretive" culture only allows Americans to live more sheltered lives. As children we are encouraged to go outside and play, but at some point that changes to stay at home where you're safe from what we fear. In the end what is there to be afraid of anyway?

:: Ocean 10:08 AM [+] ::
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So I have decided that the United Kingdom is now a colony of the United States, it is true. The British and Scots are to be kicked around by the Americans. May we also request that you now speak the President's English, no more of this Queen's English crap, we would also request that because of the terrorist threats that there be no more double decked busses. The commonwealth will now be under control of the Secretary of State because it is a useless post anyway, we also plan to include Mexico into it and expel some of the smaller states that out high school students don't care about. No more cricket, more baseball as well as calling Soccer by it's improper but simply wonderful American name. You will never allow gay marriages. No more royal titles, all the royal family must intermarry with the Kennedy family... of course they may maintain their titles, but it would simply be a fashion issue.

As your masters now I request that the new American governor of the United Kingdom Tony Blair chop off the head of Prince Charles drain the fluids and eat a large order of fries out of it with the proper tomato based condiment on it, and they are fries not chips. Welcome to the club my Anglo friends; I think we'll change that to American-Anglo instead of Anglo-American.
:: Ocean 8:25 AM [+] ::
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This is going to sound strange, but I think that we may have violated our own laws when capturing this guy with a missile. I think it is rather interesting that someone tried to smuggle a missile into this country (after watching many action movies in my life I have come to realize that there must be several thousand missiles in this country, just in case a street gang needs to take out an armored bus). So we get cooperation from the Russian government to sell a missile to this guy, and undercover agents in England and from the United States help him smuggle a missile into this country, isn't this entrapment? I think that it is crazy that we make several thousand of these missile a year and they are for official terrorism (otherwise known as a military action, police action, etc). People should stick to playing games, maybe play a game of cricket, baseball, or command and conquer generals against the opposing nation, or maybe Bush can have a single handed fight to the death with an opposing leader.

Some people may ask about this threat to our country, well that depends on what threat you're talking about, if it is the threat that some AK-74 wielding foreigners that hate Americans pose well you can't please people all the time, and you definitely can't beat someone down and expect them to like you. There is little I can do about someone not liking Americans. The threat to my freedoms by the restrictions of speech and privacy, in addition to the proliferation of large business... well I believe that this will only bring the revolution a little bit closer so why these things are wrong, they are also in the end self-defeating. Us humans are nothing but self-defeating really.

:: Ocean 8:28 PM [+] ::
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Oh well there is computer madness on the range with some fucking virus that infected all of our computers, I swear to God this sort of thing does nothing but piss me off. I don't know the exact amount of time that I should morn for a spider, but I am feeling much better today. Also to address one thing that I heard this last weekend, that I am a vegetarian because I really do care about animals, I have something to say to that... it is not true, in fact I'm going to buy some leather socks right now!

The movie May, well I do have something about movies that have the main character have some minor flaws as a result of being put down by society, or something else. In this case the lead character May (played by Angela Bettis) has the character flaw of being insane, she thinks of a doll in a case as her best friend and mutters to herself a lot. She is also extremely shy, and has a strange habit of commenting about how she likes people's body parts like necks, and legs (get your mind out of the gutter). The social injustice of it all is that May has few friends, by few I mean none. So May sets out attempting to gain the attentions of a fine young buck that has lovely hands, who also comments "I like weird" in what many people would see as an attempt to get May into bed. When May turns out to be too weird a female coworker has better success with May, Polly is played by scary movie's Anna Faris who is NOT in Dawson's Creek. Well May gets dumped again for someone with "nice legs" and her entire little escapade of attempting at a social life fails... then she goes off her rocker. The entire film I thought, I would like to be May's friend she seems like an interesting person. He insanity stems from having an extreme shyness, which leads to a lack of friends, which in turns to a lack of basic social understanding, she thus gets taken advantage of by Polly and by another guy who comments on "It's hot in here, can I have some ice to rub on my nipples?" (simply a classic line in any movie, I hope to see it in Star Wars Three... Rubbing Ice on Jedi Nipples). The ending is a drop down in insanity and a predictable, but not predictable ending. Overall I really got into the character of May, I felt sorry for her and how the people around her treated her. The other characters were two dimensional though and we never find out about these people that really fuck her up (Polly is a dumb lesbian, and Adam is a reject from film school) these characters influence May and it would be more interesting to find out how they got to where they are (why is Polly working at a clinic when she seems to barely speak two syllable words?) I recommend this movie to anyone who would like to get into one character in a film and watch them descend into a psychological prison, May gets three and a half stars.

:: Ocean 10:40 PM [+] ::
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Today I was going to introduce a new section to this blog, the movie review section, coming after one of the worst summers of movies ever... only watch X2, Terminator 3, and 28 days later. This will have to be postponed, when I wok up today Sparky was dead, laying on her back doing her death twitches. She will never be replaced with a more loyal pet (okay maybe one with more intelligence). Please observe a moment of silence for Sparky.
:: Ocean 7:29 PM [+] ::
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Yes, we have a new member of our family now, Lauren, who was wedded to my great bourgeois friend Eric Knell. It was an expensive, fun, awesome, and moving affair. I had a load of fun, and I know this because at the end of the night it seemed as if only a small amount of time went by... which of course means a lot of fun or an alien abduction but the alien abduction of an entire wedding would not be in their best interests. I got a veggie meal which was a supper volcano really, I think it was all the left over veggies that they threw on the plate, but it was really good. All the meat seemed undercooked, I'm glad I wasn't eating it. I also felt bad because if you left your seat someone would fold up your napkin again and replace it, there is service and service that I don't understand. Overall it was awesome.

I had my first experience being trapped in a lift, which was most interesting. It wasn't like in the porn movies where everyone took off their clothing and had an small room orgy. Nor was it like Shallow Hal where people are now seeing the inner beauty of everyone. No, it was being trapped in a small room. We were preparing to cook Emily (Mark and I both had lighters) just in case it was needed, a corner was decided upon for defecation. In the end we escaped the Satan's lift but not on the floor that we were supposed to be on, but then all the stairs were for emergencies only, and us not trusting Satan's lift was not a good enough emergency to where we could use it, instead a man "escorted" us down the lift and if it broke down again who knows? Possible orgy, or hypnosis?

I'm going to sleep but I wish to have a shout out to Eric and Lauren in that all their dreams come true and they live a long life together, all a shout out to all my friends in the South Side... you all my white tornados. PEACE!!

:: Ocean 11:46 AM [+] ::
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I'm not good at remembering Birthdays, but it is Jackie's so I should say "Hey Happy Birthday," and I did I also told her that she should go to the bar because she can now, I know that she was over 21 but she CAN go to the bars now, and I think that is exactly what she did.

I'm really fed up with all these fad diets I'm tired of hearing "Dr. Atkin's diet really works," or "Dr. Seuss says that you should eat only raw meat." Well I'm going to write my own diet, self-help book, its going to be called Shut the Fuck Up, Eat Less and Exercise More it's guaranteed to work the steps are simple, 1) Shut the fuck up. Take responsibility for your actions. 2) Eat less and find something that you enjoy doing besides sitting in front of a computer. You see I follow this, I don't need to shut the fuck up, have taken meat out of my diet, and have taken up Unicycling. I haven't unicycled yet, but plan to and continue to plan to because I want to become a mountain unicyclist... yes they really do exist!!

:: Ocean 9:35 AM [+] ::
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Okay maybe everything has gotten strange in my last few blogs, besides being riddled with spelling errors they really don't make much sense, maybe I'll stap it now, maybe not.
:: Ocean 8:59 PM [+] ::
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There have been several transmissions being received by the metal plate in my head about discussing the link between the aliens and Earth, most of these transmissions are coming from radical right southern Baptists and the vice-president, whom was pissing in the bushes of a Burger King at the time. To put it simply the aliens are affected by a type of mad cow disease, the causes of this disease are many but it mostly stems from the fact that they eat each other. Cloning came out of a time after these beings destroyed their ecosystem, leaving no other living being other than them. Evolution has allowed them to receive nourishment from the solar rays of their sun, but it is not as satisfying as using their little mouths to chew and suck (through a twisty straw). So by reproducing by cloning they have also made a new source of food. Now they are slowly developing a disease that is wiping them out, much like Mad Cow disease, so they are here to study it... thus the abductions of inbred bumblefuck living whities, and the cattle mutilations. This is a unique opportunity to study the beginnings of a major disease. They could take samples from our planet and clone those samples for a new food source, but except for highly conservative southern Baptist ministers, they really don't have a taste for anything else.

don't believe in aliens, I said the same thing until they showed me the satellite, more on that later, if there is enough transmissions to my skull from pedophile catholic priests, and the multiple wives of the Church of Latter Day Saints (who have shown a remarkable interest in my studies.

:: Ocean 8:51 PM [+] ::
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There have been requests to explain the statement supper volcano, in a word... no.
:: Ocean 8:48 AM [+] ::
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Once again aliens stole my brain and took me back in time in a not so infinite time loop preventing me to not write in my blog, but now I bring you...

The Gen Con Report

Gen Con was moved from Milwaukee to Indianapolis which was a horrible move by all parties, after all there is NOTHING special to do in this mysterious city where in a Turtledove book was allowed to be nuked by aliens by the United States, I say nuke the city and bring the Con back to Milwaukee, or Chicago. In the end the fact that Aliens stole my brain prevented me from play effectively, but overall the Con itself was great, it was the sprit of the city that was not so great, you see the city sits on top of a supper volcano that is 111 (one eleven) kilos long and because of that the Sasquatches are allowed to secretly rule the city from their hidden chambers under the city. They use the voice of Rush Limbaugh to subvert the population to being really boring, but not boring enough where they are not producing children, though sex to the people of Indiana in general is not fun, but a duty.

By the way, I love sex, it's something that our alien creators have done right. They don't have such an act, all our alien visitors reproduce naturally by budding, which is why they didn't have a mass population shift until genetic engineering and cloning, unlike the Human species that had a large population shift when we all got over bad religion.

:: Ocean 5:49 PM [+] ::
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You see the way I see it our political lives have been a large cover-up, not only have we not landed on the moon but we're alone on the planet. You see the rest of the world is populated by the Japs, otherwise known as the gray aliens. Flat noses, small mouths, little body hair, and abducting young schoolgirls in uniform for anal probes, who else but the "peace-loving" people from Japan. Back to the truth, you see they have secretly taken over the world, and the only way to save America from eventual infiltration from the Japs is to move the country to another habitable planet.

This is where the Stargates come in, after the attempted subjugation of the United States by Japan in the 1980's the United States have been searching for the stargate where we can transport to a nearby habitable planet (it it the tenth planet in the solar system often referred to as planet X, here there is an internal heat source that will allow life so far from the sun). The problem is that this Stargate was located in Iraq somewhere, thus the purpose this most recent war... it was discovered in 1995 in an old mining shaft.

Now that we have the stargate and are transporting it back in several pieces to the United States they will transport the entire country to planet X, where we will prepare our defenses for the inevitable conflict with the Grays.

:: Ocean 8:30 PM [+] ::
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I want to post a public apology to the Blogger gods; the race known as the Sasquatch, and their eternal friends the Yeti that I have not posted in a while. I feel that they have hired assassins against me and that my life may soon be at an end unless they accept this apology. I'll be back soon with more wackiness, fun, folks, and games. Remember that Ronald McDonald is not your friend.

Oh I've been great!!

:: Ocean 4:18 PM [+] ::
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Two interesting things happened at work this week, and one is the weekly horrible customer story.

Wednesday I waltzed into my place of employment and was informed that my coworker and fellow CSM Jeff was moving up in the company, he was promoted to OPs manager, (everything in the job is fucked up the operations manager really doesn't do operations, the customer service manager doesn't do customer service, but the wine manager does all the wine stuff). Anyway this came with a great sadness because Jeff suffers the usual angst the exact opposite as me, plus we like working together. So because Jeff got moved up and was taken off the schedule I had to open the store the next day. So on Thursday I'm minding my own business opening the store and everything when Jeff come waltzing in and proceeds to ask me "What are you doing here," which beat me for a second before I could ask, "What are you doing here? You got promoted!!" In response Jeff gets a perplexed look on his face and runs off to clock in thinking I'm playing a joke, until he checks the schedule and sees he's taken off.

So what happened is the Pocketeer (Capt Pockets) was informed that Jeff was going to be offered a promotion as a "professional courtesy" because he would be losing one of his managers, he was not supposed to tell anyone, nor was he supposed to act on it in anyway. The district manager was quoted as calling the Pocketeer a "Scmuck". In the end Jeff is getting moved up to another store, which now makes me the Cigar manager. Rumors abound now that I'm going to be moved as well, but nothing is confirmed.

The second incident happened tonight when I kicked a customer out because she was yelling. I had come to a conclusion that I will not service customers (sounds dirty doesn't it) when they are yelling at me. When they are being rude in a normal tone of voice, while not acceptable, also shows a level of self control that I can somewhat respect enough to mock and belittle them when they are not there. Screaming on the other hand is a primitive act that I can associate with animals and shows a level of self-control at that level. So a customer yelled at me today, she was yelling something that was completely ridiculous. At one point she told me "You didn't tell my son that, you said the box was open not that the top was off it," which is crazy to me because I didn't talk to her how does she know what I said, and when you open a box of cigars you often HAVE to take the top off. I took away the box of cigars she was going to buy and in a calm tone told her "I do not help people who yell at me, you will not be buying anything here," and that was that, she wanted the office number and I gave it to her with my name if she had a complaint. I also hope that she rots in heck (not as bad as hell, but worse customer service).

Which brings me to the final part of this segment, there are many people that often send someone else to do their shopping for them, they send their parents, wives, husbands, friends, etc all out to do shopping for them. While in some circumstances this may be acceptable this usually does not work out in a liqueur/wine/beer/cigar store. Take the following conversations for example...

"I was looking for a [Random winery's] white wine, I'm supposed to get it for my wife."
"Well do you the sauv blanc, pinot blanc, pinot gris, a blend? Did you want the California, Napa, or Sonoma?"
"I don't know, I'm just supposed to get a white wine for my wife..."

Or another example...

"I'm picking up a cigar for my boss what would he like?"
"What size does he like?"
"I don't know."
"What type of wrapper, do you know the color?"
"No."
"Do you know if he likes a mild or strong cigar?"
"I think strong, though I really don't know."

In each in case the customer is sent in by someone else who doesn't have a clue what is going on, in the end the person uses their handy cell phone to call the person they are buying the item for which is acceptable, in many other cases though what ends up happening is that they buy something, and a few hours later the other person returns it to get the right item. There have even been cases where the original person comes by three or four times until they get it right (or give up). So to all those people who are thinking about this don't do this.

:: Ocean 9:07 AM [+] ::
...

The subject came up yesterday about the term poke and prod. Are they not the same thing making this a completely useless phrase? Well I went to Webster's to find out the truth behind both poke and prod. The verb poke (which is the context that it would be used in the phrase poke and prod) means 1) PROD!! 2) To urge or stir by PRODDING!! 3) to cause to PROD!! Now the verb prod means to thrust a point interment into (Like a spear) 2) to poke or stir as if with a prod. Talk about fucked up they are the same thing, the definition of Poke is to Prod, though the definition of prod is not to poke. Why even have the word poke. Webster needs to clean up the English language, if only I could not use the word poke ever again.

In other news people at the University of Illinois made a super computer out of 70 PS2s, that's cool.

:: Ocean 8:18 PM [+] ::
...

One of the things that is holding humanity back is truth and perception of truth. When an event happens usually each person involved in the event has a different perception of what occurred during that event. The problem is that not everyone is right (unless you’re in the postmodernist school) and many times the truth of the event lays somewhere in the middle of the different perceptions, that is not to say that one’s perception isn’t correct, sometimes they are all correct, one person correct, and many times there are people who are wrong. I’m not exactly sure that I quite believe in this, I think that everyone sees the event the same (true) and they know the truth of the event, though through self disillusion they alter the events to fit them. This is slightly different from above because each person knows the truth but is willing to lie to alter events, because everyone does this there are different perceptions of the event with the truth laying somewhere in the middle.

This is what our [great] court system is designed to do, in reality it tries to settle issues outside the court system and attempts to find deficiencies in a case so that a defendant can get off.

This entire issue can be described in great detail by an event that occurred Thursday night at work, and the events following it. As many of you know I’m a manager at a liqueur store, and I am a carding fascist. It simply isn’t worth it for me not to, there is too great of a fine especially with what I make. Anyway there was a customer with his wife that were attempting to buy a bottle of wine, the wife was from outside the country and did not have her passport but instead had three various Ids that I have never seen before. I would not sell to them and they planted themselves at the counter and said that they would not leave until they were able to purchase their wine. Eventually It old them they had to leave because it is trespassing, they continued to stay, I called the police who escorted them out. Now the bullet points of my version of the story:
·At one point they told me that these identifications were accepted by people from Africa to which I asked if that was a racist comment or are they being ass holes.
·They would not leave the register area and told customers to go to another register.
·The woman was from Poland, I’ve been to Poland it is a beautiful country especially in the south where there is some beautiful scenery.
·They commented several times that they were in a hurry and did not want to waste time (the entire incident took about fifteen minutes) and this was the reason for not going back to get a passport.

Well the next day the male of the duo wrote E-Mail with the grammar of a first grader and with about a third of the words misspelled. I guess he was extremely upset about having to confront the police the night before. In his version he repeatedly called me uneducated, and “rud”. He claimed that he was buying a fine wine and is a regular customer of the store and because of the incident he would never return. In his version he came in and had his wife present internationally recognized ID’s (oh and there were four not three) and that I would not offer any help with the situation (I told them how they could buy the wine, by getting a passport what other help they wanted I can’t guess), that I was young (I’m two years older than the both of them), I claimed that they were criminals because they were “defending their rights” (what rights were they defending?). They mentioned that I threatened to call the police and they told me to because they knew that they were right. Now their bullet points:
·The “Young” manager was uneducated and “rud”
·Unacceptable behavior from the manager
·Manager would not offer “help” with the situation
·The duo was defending their rights.
·They were buying fine wine and were regular customers who were in the store all the time

Now the truth of the situation, I will not present the truth because I have shown two perceptions but instead will attempt to convey several facts about the situation
·The customer may always be right, but you have to be able to buy something from a store to be a customer. Human decency requires one to be polite (which I felt I was until the time when the police were arriving but this was because of the fact that they were beginning to be rude to customers by not allowing them to use a register and by attempting to insult my intelligence by calling me names)
·I had never seen this couple before; they are in the store all the time? No, I’m in the store all the time.
·A $5.99 bottle of wine is not fine wine, it is a bottle of crap that had a fancy label where you could fake your wine knowledge at the party you were going to.
·The police came and escorted the duo out of the store after they made their defense to the police which was not that they were of age, but instead said that they should be able to buy because I was so “rud” to them.
·The police were called not because they were “defending their rights” (in fact if they were somehow defending their rights I would sell to them out of principle) but instead I called the police because they were at that point trespassing because they refused to leave the store.

I guess the truth is somewhere in between or that I may be right in interpret the events. The facts clearly don’t back their version (they failed to mention that they were escorted out by the police and they are not regular customers… or customers at all I guess). I got a congrats from the district manager about how I handled the situation after this letter was sent. In addition the police thanked me for dealing with the underage carding situation. I guess I’m having one of those events that I’m talking about too much but I don’t plan to talk about it anymore, I just find it a good example of human nature.

Bye all.

:: Ocean 7:13 PM [+] ::
...

Well it has not been even a week now and I'm loving every minute that I spending with Cassie. God I love that woman. We went to the bookstore to pick up some books, we were only there for a short time but I realized that it had been a long time since I spent some quality time in a book store, I'll have to do some more after my next paycheck, books are great.

Today the district manager called me and talked with me for a little while, then he wanted to talk to Captain pockets (my ass hole boss). Anyway he talked to him only for a little bit, for a few seconds, and that was it. I didn't think too much of it, but now I have found out that it was because the District Manager and the Human Resource Director want to have a little chat with him. I think that our luck is about to break and that he's going to be fired. Saturday Bill sold a Keg to a guy who said that he was going to serve it to minors. Now, I don't agree with the age law for alcohol, or any laws really, but it is also my job to uphold that law. So I tried to prevent the sale, but Bill decided to be an ass hole (I swear he does this only to piss all of us off because he's the big boss or whatever) so yes, I went a step above him and ratted him out. I'm hoping that Friday is going to be a great day.

Well tonight I'm in for some Thai food, or Red Robin garden burgers with blue Cheese, yum!

:: Ocean 2:32 AM [+] ::
...

I got my Peace Corps T-Shirts, I don't know why that matters because the time that I spent in the Peace Corps was awful, I was away from Cassie and I didn't really do anything, and less and less people from the Peace Corps are E-Mailing me back. I guess Volunteer service isn't as great anymore, I also guess that is why no one wants ot do it and that is why they serve community service as a punishment eh?

In other news there was a customer at work today that actually had the nerve to say that I was too young to help her, even after several other people told her that I was more than qualified to help her. I also more than qualified to kick her ass, she was like eighty or something, which not only means that she's going to die soon but also that she's going to hell. I know that I look about eight years younger than I am, but I don't see why I can not help people at my job because of my age. It happens a lot. I also guess that people have empty lies and they have to make themselves feel special by discriminating against young people. I really hate the attitude that old people have like hey "we've been through everything and therefore we know everything," well then what is the difference between Somatic Cell research and Germ Line Research, they don't know because old people are afraid of technology and enjoy the good old days when a toaster caused entire cities to burn down.

Not all old people I guess but I'm tired of hearing about the good old days, they were before I was born and involved people cheering for lounge singers. Yea, those are the days, go ahead and buy that cheap alcohol (and make sure you get your coupon) because I know that you need something to pass the days now that the Golden Girls are only on Lifetime and you're too technologically incompetent to understand cable TV.

Still not eating meat either, love you all!!

:: Ocean 7:24 AM [+] ::
...

So some ass hole starts to ring our buzzer a few minutes ago, in reality it was 7:30 in the morning, on a Sunday. Now who the fuck rings a strangers buzzer that early in the morning? Chris hit the door button, while I was just thinking about throwing the bag of broken glass over the balcony at them. Fuck them. I can't blame Chris, we were woken up, and he may have been in his underwear or something, he was but telling everyone that another guy told me that they were in there underwear seems kind of strange. The fucked up thing with these people is that they will keep on ringing the buzzer, and wait outside. Someone else could come down and be like, "Why didn't you come in?" and they are like, "Well we were buzzing some random apartment and they would not let us in," A mean they could be out there for hours. That happened once, someone kept on buzzing us for like an hour and I just went outside and told them that I wasn't going to let them in... over and over... they kept on buzzing and I kept on telling. It'll be great to see their faces when we move out and they are out there forever. I’m going to make a sign though, it'll read something like from all the people in Apartment 2C, for those that ring our buzzer who don't know us, for those that honk their horns instead of ringing someone else's buzzer, and for those with a human head in a cooler... FUCK YOU.
:: Ocean 5:42 PM [+] ::
...

There are two things that I want to talk about today, the first is a response to my critics for going vegetarian, and the second is this entire Glenbrook North hazing thin (I know that everyone is sick of it but I have some things to say, and it is my forum).

Like I said about becoming a vegetarian, it has nothing to do with trying to protect cute furry animals, or that I despise the taste, though it may possibly be for health reasons. Either way I feel good, better than ever after almost a week of not eating meat. It is encouraging me to cook more, and see at what I'm eating. Also after going through the entire gene class I have found some of the shit that they put in your meat, growth hormones and all that, and the fact that they are not tested because it is in the "national interest", meat is "American", and it is a huge export. I have no wish to become a guinea pig for the experiments of the drug companies that are injecting your meat with unknown chemicals. Though I do approve of the fact that humans are supposed to eat meat and that we are the top of the food chain, until some reptilian aliens come down and pretend to befriend us while exporting humans to their home planet. In that scenario I could accept that because it is the natural way, so to all the meat eaters out there I'm expecting you to eat a little more to make up for what I'm not eating, nay, what all of us vegetarians aren't eating. More meat for the meat eaters I say.

Now the Glenbrook North thing, as you all know there was a hazing incident in a park that involved initiating junior girls by the senior girls, it got out of hand and involved feces, pig intestines, forcing the girls to drink paint thinner and making them throw it up, forcing the to eat mud, and smacking them around with paint cans. No the girls (everyone involved) are being suspended and some are going to be expelled. There is now a lawsuit filed by the girls being suspended saying they are not to be suspended because it will hurt their academic record, and that they have a constitutional right to attend prom and graduation (to which they would also be barred). Well I don't remember anything in the constitution about the prom and graduations, I don't even know if there was such a thing as a prom, and when the founding fathers of the United States wrote the Constitution they certainly were not thinking of you, in fact they would of hung you (knowing that hanging is not cruel and unusual for these sorts of acts, it would of been witchcraft). In addition the lawful charges against these students (assault and battery) are going to be worse on a professional level, especially in job interviews when they do a background check, I'm sure most employers will not understand you forcing others to eat pig shit as being normal behavior. There is my point (one of them) this is NOT normal behavior, I think these girls should be hung (the seniors) and the juniors should be punished for LETTING the senior do that to them. It is that simple, if we don't want this to happen again we hang them, but we won't because there is a belief here that the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

In the end this just shows one of the great problems with America, and humans in general, they are not willing to take responsibility. Look girls, you fucked up, all of you. Now stand up and take your punishment. Personally I don't think the school should be able to suspend you (it wasn't on school grounds, during school time, at a school sponsored event, etc...) but the law will be much harsher when it decides that you all need something worse than a suspension. You should be hung, not because you assaulted anyone, but you assaulted their self esteem to make yourselves feel better, superior. This is why a serial killer does what they do, they humiliate then hurt their victims to make the victims feel small, and they feel big. Yes, bullies do this too, and this is why children are bringing assault weapons to school and mowing down their classmates. This may be extreme but it isn't, it is this type of behavior that needs to be more severely punished.

Finally a lot has been made about alcohol at this event, yes, underage drinking is a crime. But besides that alcohol DID NOT make these girls do anything they wouldn't do. Drinking beer may make one see pink elephants, but it does not make feces, pig intestines, paint cans, and paint thinner appear out of thin air. This event was premeditated (which makes it that more disgusting) because the senior girls brought these things with the intent to use them. Alcohol didn't make these girls do anything they wouldn't have already done.

Until next time FYM!!

:: Ocean 4:48 PM [+] ::
...

I'm pretty fucking drunk right now. No school, no studying, no nothing. I alos miss Cassie, but she'll be back within a week, though right now I'm drunk.
:: Ocean 7:46 AM [+] ::
...

Yes it is done, I just took my last final and I have decided to hang out on campus being bored out of my skull until people gather tonight, that is all the political science graduate students. Some may ask how I did, others may not but wonder anyway. I know I have one A and one B, and after taking this last final, well I don't know. I actually think that I did the best I could under the circumstances. I was so burnt out the last few weeks that I really couldn't do an effective job, still though I'm not dead and soon I'll be alive (or something close to that) as I gather my strength for another semester where I'll hand my social life away and focus on getting good grades again. I really must be a sadist to go through all this again. Still though I think that I can organize my time more effectively somehow, this may be by having no contact with my friends, no I think that instead I'll just accept the same level of work.

In other news I made a choice last night to eat less meat (no meat actually) and more leather. The reason for this is that I have been gaining a little weight and when I avoided placing dead animal flesh into my body I was a lot smaller, petite if you will. I at least want to cut a few pounds. I also generally felt better about things, oh yea, more exercise as well. I also figure that if I don't eat mat that means more eat for the meat eaters. I don't think that the dead animal carcass industry has these meetings where they discuss vegetarians and think of ways to get them to eat meat, NO they already know that there are millions of people served everyday large platters of dead animals. They know that these people who are eating the flesh of dead animals don't think about it. That's the difference between me and some other meat eaters, I think about the carcass of dead animals when I'm eating it, but I don't mind it so much really.

In the end there will be plenty of meat for everyone, maybe more now that we have drugs to inject into our animals that make them meatier, like He-Man. There will also be school because well I don't really mind it that much, and like the guy with the glasses in the cartoons, who usually is smart and Asian, I am badly animated. I will continue to fight the good fight, later all.

:: Ocean 2:53 AM [+] ::
...

I came up with a devious plan suddenly last night in my last class before finals. I will have my revenge on the copy service at school. You see I have a lot of copies to make, for each class there is a stack of journal articles that I have to read, a huge stack. In fact I spent about $300 just making copies, maybe more, I know for a fact that one class was at least $200. All this blood money goes to the copy service. So here’s my plan.

I’m going to get the articles from the professor at the beginning of classes next fall, then I will scan them and either post it online, or burn them all on CDs. I have talked to some of the other grad assistants and they thought it would make everything easier, and it would make it cheaper (no cost to print from a computer), and for me it’ll give a big kick in the ass to the university copy service.

Here is the break down, for my biomedical policy class there is enough pages for $200 worth of copies, there will be about 8 students, so right there it’ll be $1600. Well then lets say my other classes are about $300 (a fair estimate) and one class has 8 students, and the other 10 students (conservative estimates because my other classes had 13 each) that’s 18 students total, at $300, and that would be $5400. If you add in the total from my other class it would be $7000 that I myself will be fucking the copy service. In addition if the other POLS classes did this it could easily screw the copy service over $20,000.

So there’s my grand plan, I’m rather fond of it. My grander plan is to expand this operation across departments, maybe everyone would realize that it would be better, I’m thinking about writing the copy service a letter informing them of the loss revenue because of their incompetence.

In other news, school is unofficially over, I now only have two final exams, and another take home exam, within a week I’ll be home free for the summer drinking with my friends, going to graduations, now that I think about it I have a lot of stuff already planned for this summer. It will be awesome to see Cassie again, most of the summer, see everyone, and well, just relax a little. Next semester is going to come and I’ll be itching for that cause despite everything and the stress I enjoy classes, I just wish I had more time because of working too. Next semester I’m taking Biomedical Policy, International Law, and Political Economy of Developing States, two new professors. It will be a blast, I hope.

:: Ocean 8:57 PM [+] ::
...

Today is just dragging on, which may very well be great because I have a lot of work to do, like write a paper, write a presentation, and possibly sacrifice a cat. The problem is that my work is also going slow and my mind is not on it. Tonight I'll have to decide if I'm going to jump right into studying for finals when the decision has already been made for me, I'm studying for finals.

There was a kick ass thunderstorm last night, it wasn't quick, it was long and drawn out. I love thunderstorms. I was going to go outside on the balcony and smoke a cigar, but the water was blowing everywhere and I couldn't stay all that dry, which I think may be essential if I want to have something on fire in my mouth. Instead I did work, and every once and a while I looked out at it and listened to the Cubs getting their ass handed to them in a Tupperware container. Damn, they better win this afternoon, I'm sure that I'm not the only one that will be a little happy about it.

I have not had the chance to call and talk to Cassie all that often in the last few days/week. I just have too much work to do, I still have work to do right now, but this distracts me. I miss Cas, but I guess I have gotten used to the fact that I've been busy, ultrabusy, someday I'll be a blues singer though, I mean a government agent doing great for the world and all that. I have been asking myself if sacrificing all this is worth it. I keep on getting told that the "sacrifice will be worth it," but will it, I also notice that a lot of people saying that are not spending every waking and sleeping moment working and studying for tests. I'm not trying to be judgmental, I'm stressed out, but this is nothing like I have ever experienced before in my life, it sucks. I like school, sort of hate my job, but have to live with both. Still I feel bad that I have had no time to talk to Cassie.

Summer will be appreciated, no more getting tied to the pier when the tide is coming in, nope I live away from the Ocean, well except for my inner self and all. This summer I want to just do everything I can with all my friends as I feel I have to make up for all the time that I could not be around.

:: Ocean 10:57 PM [+] ::
...

I just read on CNN.Com that scientists in Scotland have found that fish have feelings they feel pain and stress. This disproves Kurt Cobain's Theory that it is okay to eat fish because they don't have any feelings.
:: Ocean 6:30 PM [+] ::
...

Okay I finally finished my grand paper, it is about 5000 pages and I wrote it in one day, no I guess I’m joking there, it is not 5000 pages but it seems that way, actually noe that I think about it is only about 30 pages or so, but I wrote it in one day from research that I have been doing all semester. I feel like a great cloud had lifted from my head to fly away among the stars.

Last night I had the best customer on the planet, well the best customer that did not have a plumber ID, the conversation went a little something like this…

Customer: My ID card is expired but I have my plumbers ID.
Me: We only take state ID cards, driver’s licenses, passports, and military Ids.
Dumb Customer: A plumber’s Id is a state ID.
Me: No, a sate Id card looks like a drivers license, but says ID on it.
God Awful Dumb Customer: If you don’t let me buy this then I’m going to call the Police.
Me: Okay.
Shit-head: Well call them.
Me: They are across the street; you can go there, inform them you have an expired license and drove here to buy alcohol, I wouldn’t take your expired license or your laminated piece of paper you call a plumber ID card.
A moment of silence…
Ass black hole: I’ll be back with the police.

Needless to say I did not see him again, which is really horrible because I figure the next time he would want me to call the National Guard or something. In my head I would like to think that he went to the police who promptly laughed at him, then they beat the living shit out of him. Of course that’s what they would do in some countries that I been to, but not here. More likely they let him go on his merry way and laughed about it afterwards.

Well I have more homework; it is never ending, and have a trip to school to school to make. I only have a week and a half left, and four days. Summer is going to be sweet.

:: Ocean 6:45 PM [+] ::
...

Oh my fucking god, I did it, I wrote the first draft of my research project (the effects that the revolution in military affairs has on foreign policy decision-making) except the conclusion which I can write easily. Fuck yea, now i have about twelve hours to finalize it, but alas I think that gives me some time for sleep.

Today there was a guy who was upset because we would not sell him a $3 cigar because he had a ticket for an ID, he thought we were crazy and I wished him luck on finding a place that will sell to him dispite the lack of a real ID. I like arguing with people without IDs because they are not customers, they are wannabe customers and deserve to be treated like something that I found under a colony of dead maggots. there were more dumb people, they come out of the woodwork on Sundays, but I'm going to get three hours of sleep right now.

I'm just happy that it is looking good that I'll finish my project, fuck yea!!
:: Ocean 9:31 AM [+] ::
...

I'm hacking away at this paper, due in 32 hours (13 of which I have to work) and I have finished 4 and a half page, no editing. I'm getting there, this is the paper that I'm most worried about, everything else should be smooth sailing, except that smaller paper, and the finals (but to tell the truth I've kept up with everything so I'm not too worried about finals).
:: Ocean 4:59 PM [+] ::
...

So something interesting happened to me last night, and now I have a new archenemy: The University Copy Service. After my exam I decided to gather the final research material for my paper that is due Monday (at 4:00). This was a good idea because I'm not at school very often (Tuesdays and Thursdays, except for this last week) and I would not have the chance to gather more material. I went on the Internet and used a variety of different methods to find about twenty articles that I could use, and about ten which would be useful to me. Well I gathered up the articles in the stacks and went to the copy machine area.

Now a description on how this works. I am not able to take the articles out of the library, they may be copied for academic purposes only, and in order to copy I need to get a copy card. There are two main ways to obtain a copy card; the first is to get one directly from the copy service, which is conveniently located next to the copy machine area. This is difficult because I cannot figure out when the service is actually open, I think that it is a narrow gap between 1:00 P.M and 1:01 P.M. I one time saw the service open, but they informed me that they were closing down. So most people use the second method, the several machines located in the copy area, a credit card only machine, a cash only machine, and one that can take both (though this one can not take the new bills). There are also two machines located in the student center, both of which take only cash.

Now back to my predicament that is only building, I forgot my copy card at home (about an hour away) so I needed to obtain a copy card. Knowing that it isn't between the narrow confines of the copy service hours I knew that would be no help. On to the machines, of which only one was working... as identified by the signs and the fact there were no blinking lights. Upon careful inspection though I noticed that the final one was not in operating order either, because of the lack of blinking lights. Now I know that the University Copy Service (my emerging arch enemy) is not an official part of the library but I decided that something might be done. Approaching several of the workers at the library (who were disgruntled because it was Friday night and they were working, but also saw my predicament a were nice enough to help) was fruitless. Onward I traveled to the Student Center where [YES] the final two machines were broken, with no more on campus.

Upon returning to the Library I found others in the same predicament. The people at the library and I came up with a solution, they would allow me to take the materials out of the library, in exchange for my ID Card, and I could go to the Copy Service (private company in town, not the University Copy Service) and copy my materials. Everything looks promising and the Copy Service is NOT a Kinkos and is NOT open 24hrs, in fact because it was closed it seemed to me more like the University Copy Service in it's hours. I did have a solution, drive to a Kinkos (about 40 minutes away) copy everything and return before the library service desk closed. To make a long story short, this is what I did.

Now my complaint is not because of me, but several things. First there is always one machine broken, which is fine because there are only two backups, but ALL the machines were broken and I was told that the Copy Service does not come out and fix it unless the service is actually open (several library employees agreed with me that this is crazy). Second, there are two weeks of school left which usually means two things, finals in the second week and PAPERS DUE THE WEEK BEFORE, NEXT WEEK. So there are actually people there on Friday night trying to gain more material for their papers and people like me who live off campus who will not be back before their papers are due. So the copy service guy will not come out and fix the service, no one in the copy service cares (except to place a sign on the machines) and I'm forced to use them because a lot of the materials cannot leave the library.

So now I'm occupied with schoolwork, though soon I plan to assassinate the people in charge, and bomb their main office. I'm pissed, others are pissed, and this in not a way to run a fucking university. If I approached my professor and told him that I could not finish my paper because of this debacle I don't think that he would care, except to flunk me.

Back to work...

:: Ocean 6:47 PM [+] ::
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Chris E-Mailed me and informed me that I wasn't naked.
:: Ocean 4:05 AM [+] ::
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If there is one thing that I would really like is to finally be able to pace out my studies and get a normal night of sleep at this time in the semester. My roommate and all around great guy sent me an E-Mail about running out possibly raving mad, and quite possibly naked to turn off the radio the other night. I don't remember this, but it may have happened cause I do some strange things in my sleep, a few weeks ago I woke up in the kitchen, and because our place is a shit hole (ah we're moving) I took an extra long shower right away instead of hanging around smelling for a little while. I don't wake up that easy either, Cassie (my wonderful lady friend) commented on that too when I told her about what happened... which gets me thinking about how much she knows this.

Not that I mind of course, though not remembering it is strange. I just worried that Chris saw me naked, because I'm sure that could ruin a fine friendship as any two male naked friends could do.

Well off to take my exam, which comes with free pizza. I'm telling you there are some advantages to grad school.
:: Ocean 11:39 PM [+] ::
...

Well something interesting happened to me on my drive to school, okay technically it was a drive to get my oil changed before my drive to school, whatever. Anyway I was sitting and waiting for one of the traffic lights, one of those really long ones that in unusual frame of mind you go out of your way to avoid, and it flashed both red and green. The cross traffic was stopped, the cars on the other side of the road were stopped, everyone looked confused. After gaining my frame of mind again for a second I looked at the cross traffic's light and it was red. I zoomed across the intersection and to freedom.

This has gotten me thinking though, I don't think I have ever seen or heard about such a traffic light malfunction, in fact I am lead to believe that I may have taken advantage of this traffic light thing for too long. I mean this could be a real source of problems for everyone, we have come to believe that traffic lights are our savior against accidents, and causes of us being late to work, but is this really a good idea. We have three colors on a traffic light, red, yellow, and green; most people in America think of blue as their favorite color and it is not even represented. They are not even patriotic colors of Red, White, and Blue (Vive Le France!). In fact the only great country that I can think of that has, two of those colors on it is the People's Republic of China, and Spain now that I give it some real thought.

I guess that changing the colors now would just confuse everyone; in a perfect world, there would be no traffic light mal functions and tunnels at every railroad crossing.

Now to something a little more serious. The recording industry has file lawsuits against four students at three different universities because they ran servers on their university system that allowed other students to share music, or MP3s (as the recording industry calls it ripping off the people who are ripping off the artists). Now for those who know me (and who else would read my crap, heck a lot of people that I know don't read my crap) I don't believe in copyright laws, nor do I believe in patent laws but I'll write about this some other time. So, one of these guys is Joe N. he is being sued for a total of 97,800,000,000 united states greenbacks. So yes, not only did we just bomb the shit out of another country, but our currency is the source for all this, as well as our laws. I'll just say 98 billion dollars. Most countries of the world (who are hoping that we don't bomb them) don't make that kind of money, in fact if we offered any country that sort of money they could of bombed Iraq for us.

One web site freejoe.servemp3.com has the statistic that it would be 91.7 mega tonnes of Raman (202,161,820,000 English pounds, or 91,700,000,000 kilos for everyone else besides America), what the recording companies plan to do with all that Raman who knows, but asking for a fellow college student to pay 98 billion dollars is crazy, I'm sure Joe is like me, working a part time job worrying about student loans etc. Maybe not, but I'm sure Joe understands that getting a higher education is expensive (more expensive than a higher higher education) but never as much as this. could you imagine telling his parents, "Yes, Mom and Dad, I have some more costs associated with school, well really connecting my computer to the school network." There response would be "What?" So there it is the recording industry is attempting to collect Raman for some evil purpose, which I have a feeling is not to feed the starving people of the world.

So my pledge, to help the cause of Anarchy for all, I am refusing (except is a few rare cases, that's my TORI AMOS escape clause) to ever [or until the recording industry stops all this foolishness] buy a CD [or music in another medium] from a big producer [any one of them that is filing the suit a list of these companies is at www.riaa.org/About-Members-1.cfm]. So that's it, for someone who owns several hundred CDs I'm reduced to taking my music off the internet, or stealing from record stores, or not listening to new music ever again.

This one is a long one, but I add the RIAA and all their members to the ever-increasing list of my enemies.

:: Ocean 10:40 PM [+] ::
...

I decided that Jesus is a gay camp councilor; Chris (My Diablo Galactic Civ playing roomy) presented me with the facts... sits around fires, long hair, praises peace, and wears sandals. The claim is that Jesus smokes pot. Well I say NAY, cause after all there are not that many people who go and become priests (or minister, or whatever) and smoke pot. There are a proliferation of them that are abusing small boys, in that mind there is some secret camp teachings that Jesus was all about.

Coping from Chris' list I have some people that I would like to put a bullet into...
Anyone who mentions that an item is free because the register is having a problem. I think that in Iraq they hit these ass holes with their shoe, right in the face. These people make me sick, I hear it day after day, and these ass holes make believe that there is some originality to it and they were the first to say it ever. I imagine that a large majority of these people go home stick a gun in their mouth and think about killing themselves as soon as they get home. If you need to insert some humor into your life don't bother the harmless cashier with you lack of humor, instead rent a Steve Martin movie (I recommend My Blue Heaven, or LA Story). If you don't think you need more humor in your life but insist on attempting to make other people die with your lack thereof, try banging you head against the wall, go for a world record it is when you die.

I need more sleep and less work.

:: Ocean 9:38 PM [+] ::
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Here's the scoop, as some of you know I go to school, in fact I'm going to get a few master's degree just so I can be in school forever and get all crazy about two times a year because it seems at "this level of my education" (as Dr. Jones says all the time) everything leads up to one large test, one very large paper, and class participation (which means how much the professor likes you, unless you say something lie "here are some ramblings of a madman" before everything you speak). So this is that time of year, or half-year, but I have been preparing. I have been saying to myself that "I'm a big (actually small) graduate student and I don't want these things to creep up on me. Well Sunday night I stayed up all night writing a paper, and Monday night I was up all night writing the same paper that I have been preparing myself for all semester. Tuesday I hand it in, a week and a half early.

So what happened, as it often seems to be the trend in my classes there are presentations that are filled with Ummmms, and occasionally PowerPoint presentations. The presentations started yesterday, but the papers are due after the presentations. It didn't say this anywhere; it was assumed that at some random date the papers were due. The odd thing about it was that everyone knew about it but me; because they thought to ask about it in private, never mention it in class. I swear to god that it is a class conspiracy to keep it from me. Needless to say after the prof said she’d take it and read it on the plane to a medical ethics conference this weekend I said no. I will not give that pleasure and I can use the time to tweak it a little better (which I won't do).

I also have to make a return to work today, meet the Capt. Now a little about Captain Pockets (also called Dickwad, DickWick, Ass hole, and Shitface) he's the general manager of the store that I also have to be one of the assistant managers. If you watched him all day his job would be to sick his hands in his pockets, play with himself, and "bounce". There are occasions where he'll sit down, usually because he has to call and check in with his wife every hour, then afterwards he'll fall asleep, and once I saw him drooling. Needless to say this really isn't his job, the problem being that the rest of us are able to do our jobs and each do a little of his job because if he looks bad to the people above then we look bad too. Now don't get me wrong I like the Captain, so to speak, I'd like the captain to get himself stuffed into two slices of bread and torn apart by wild dogs, but even after all that I would not like to see him dead. No, I would like him alive, limbless, without vocal cords, and if possible without genitals. Then he couldn't put his hands in his pockets, or even sit down really. He would want to kill himself but he can't.

I got too much sleep last night, and am supposed to start my homework at sometime, but I think I'll get naked and run water all over me. I really can't wait to move out of this apartment complex.

P.S: everyone, I still don't know what to write.

:: Ocean 7:41 PM [+] ::
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I have been thinking about what I was going to post here for quite sometime, but I couldn't figure it out besides allowing for a long spontaneous string of letter and possible words flows from the keyboard. I'm really pissed off about the war, but I'm also really sad. Because this is the topic on my mind right now I'll talk about it even though the media has made a long drawn out babble about the entire thing, but what else are they supposed to do, that is their job. I'm pissed off because it the country that I happen to live in happens to be carrying out this war despite world opinion. Now I learn in my classes that world opinion doesn't matter very much, I I am inclined to agree. World opinion is also FUCKED UP!! I mean there are people out there who are defending a dictator that would kill these same people in a heartbeat. Yes, I believe that this ass hole should be removed, and hopefully the first of many, but I don not believe that this is the way. Now why I'm sad is that in reality this is the way. I guess I should not go into long explanations about all this, but because of impatience, standard operating procedures, or arrogance I have to live with this shit.

Sigh.

It is true that someday I wish to work for the government, the same government that I have opposed in the past. People may ask why, and I believe that answer is quite simple. It is what I enjoy doing. I don't feel that I should have to change anything away from my beliefs about these things, and I will not. Denial of these things makes the world a horrible repressed place.

I don't know quite what I'm trying to say, except that oppose war even when necessary, don't repress anything, and of course structures and organizations are the sources of all the suffering in the world.
:: Ocean 6:11 PM [+] ::
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