I just wanted to jot down a quick note to let you all know that I'm back from the second Florida vacation of the year. Actually I've been back since last Thursday, I've just been at work all these 5 days and dealing with a lot of stress and work. The only downtime I have had I've been working on my own computers.
If you haven't heard from me personally already, since I know 4 out of the 5 of my readers have my phone number, lol, there's BIG NEWS coming up very shortly .... I just don't want to jump the gun before I have all the details ...
So, I'm here packing up my things, preparing to spend my last night in my own bed, my far too large and sometimes lonely bed. I'm flying and taking it all on board with me this time so I won't be checking any luggage for them to lose. I have my one-quart-sized, zip-top, clear bag filled with all the less-than-3-ounce liquid-containing...containers. I'm carefully packing and deciding what I'm going to wear to the airport, and then a silly thought occurs to me as I'm folding my clothes: what's to stop me from wearing ALL my clothes to the airport? No luggage, no suitcase, I just wear everything I've got. There's no law against it, but I'd look silly and I'd burn up. Besides, they may not let crazy people on the plane.
Anyway, I wanted to tell all my loyal readers, all five of you, that I'm leaving for another vacation down in sunny Florida to visit with friends. No, it's not another Gay Days, geez, I don't think I have any more gay left in me after all that. Good thing it only comes once a year. No, this time I'm just going to be with friends and take a .... well I'm not really sure I even NEED a vacation or that it's well-deserved for that matter since my PTO is now negative, but I'm taking it anyway. =) I'll be back next Thursday.
It's ironic how when I read someone else's blog and it starts talking politics I usually just scroll my mouse wheel right on passed it, but here I am, doing it myself. I did a little research for myself so I could get a feel for one of the candidates I haven't heard much about and thought I'd share the highlights with ya. I'll be brief this time so you can all hold down your lunches. :)
If you want to learn more, his official website www2.kucinich.us is very informative and lists his positions on each of the dozens of issues, and he's also been consistently responding to YouTube posters' questions.
If you want my opinion on the guy, I'm still developing it. So far, I've decided he's a pretty left-ended guy, even further than Hillary or Obama. The marijuana decriminalization article was...interesting. One commentor of one of his YouTube videos called him a "blatant socialist." I'm not sure I totally agree with that just yet, but he does have that air to him. He speaks of ending the war in Iraq by cutting off funding and instead of fighting a "war" on terror, tracking down individual terrorists. Assumably after the Iraq withdrawal, he'll attempt to hold diplomatic discussions with countries like Iran and the like. "Peace" is echoed on his website...sounds too good to be true to me honestly.
I hate to call it too soon, but I think he's too far left for the nomination even following Bush due to the candidacy of Obama and Clinton. Perhaps Gravel would make a tougher yet similarly positioned candidate. We'll see...
Oh, how it brought a smile to my face to hear what Commander Scott Kelly of the now-in-flight Space Shuttle Endeavor mission to the International Space Station requested to wake up the crew one morning:
The Human Rights Campaign recently sponsored a presidential debate on the Logo channel. Each candidate was give 15 minutes and asked questions by a panel of GLBT folks. The candidates on the show included in no particular order John Edwards, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, and Hillary Clinton. Realize, of course, this whole show is centered on GLBT issues; what to do with the fiasco of Iraq is a whole 'nother debate that needs to be had.
My original intent was to post a video or two from each of them so that I could present an unbiased, all-inclusive videoblog so that you all could hear the whole truth and come to an informed opinion of your own. But unfortunately, after much searching, I was unable to dig up videos for Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel, which is particularly unfortunate because I hear they are the only two candidates who have spoken out in support of gay marriage. (Please comment with links if you find any.) Also, not all the videos online are completely unbiased and have been chopped up to the liking of the person posting it; the one of Bill Richardson comes to mind.
I hope for my loyal reader's sake (I'm talking to all five of you now) that I've still managed to stick to my initial intent of presenting you with all the information in an biased way so you can come to your own decision.....but then again, this IS my blog, and it's where I get to voice my own opinions. But let's hear what they have to say first.
Hillary Clinton, clip 1 of 2: These two videos show Clinton's interview in its entirety, all 15 minutes of it.
Bill Richardson, clip 1 of 1: This interview has been edited by its uploader.
Barack Obama, clip 1 of 2: Obama's interview was hacked into so many pieces on YouTube, I decided to only post the ones that didn't bore me to tears. =)
Okay, if I still have anybody's attention after all that, let me just put in my two cents.
Bill Richardson has lost my vote. First he said homosexuality was a choice, then he said he didn't know, he skirted around the issues, and didn't answer the questions. He was sweating bullets! For myself, I can't believe a word the man says anymore. It just appeared to me like he was trying to play the field much like I would if I was trying to hit on a hot guy at the gym and he starts taking about cars, a topic I have no clue about really. I'd try to play it off, sweating profusely, and I'd blow it....in the locker room, LOL. So I wrote off Richardson.
Too bad Gravel and Kucinich don't have videos on YouTube (yet) because I would have loved to hear what they had to say on the issues. They're not only for gay marriage which is fine and dandy, but they're for equality and full civil rights which I believe is more important and probably an easier bill for Congress to pass than shoving another marriage amendment at it again so soon. One thing I do like about Gravel though is that he comes off as a real straight shooter. He isn't fake, and he doesn't pause every few words and smirk at the camera. He doesn't spend 5 minutes shaking everyone's hands and waving at the audience, Hillary. He doesn't skirt around issues and leave questions unanswered. He actually answers the questions asked of him directly and even challenges other candidates to define their stance as they so often intentionally fail to do. So I'll keep him on my list for now. I just wish I knew more about Kucinich at this point; I'll be on the look-out.
John Edwards, one of my own Senators, ... part of me wants to like him, but I just can't bring myself to do it. He just seems so on-the-fence with everything. His position is this one day, and he's "on a path," but doesn't know what he'll decide tomorrow. Sure, he believes in civil rights but not gay marriage today, but tomorrow who knows. I just find it hard to place my trust in someone so flippant.
To me Hillary and Obama seemed to be the same candidate in these interviews. They generally take the same stance of being for civil unions and not exactly for gay marriage, not yet anyway. They both seem very genuine in their opinions and their stance on these issues. Hillary, dare I say, articulated her reasons WHY not moving forward with gay-friendly marriage ammendment in her presidency, and I see her point. Don't get me wrong, I would love to live in a country that cuts through the red tape and accepts gay marriage across the country (Canada, UK, Spain, South Africa, Belgium, Netherlands) but I know it's just not realistic in the Southern Baptist, God-hates-fags country that we live in until people start treating us equally regardless of what the law says. I do have to disagree with her point that gay marriage should be a state issue. Straight marriage is a federal issue that involves federal rights and 1,100 benefits. Civil rights should not and could not be a state issue and neither should marriage. There are two many strings attached to marriage to sever them all at the state border. And you better damn believe no law is going to keep me from seeing my would-be husband in the hospital. Honestly, that's just fucked up.
[Chorus:] We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
Thanks to Billy Joel for this chronological trip through recent world history and Wikipedia for so many of the links (though not all of them).
It was after much debate that I decided to post a video instead of just the lyrics by themselves. First, you need to hear the song, and second, a picture says a lot and might ring a bell. I looked at a number of videos on the net where people have put this song to video. Some were silly, some were just wrong about a lot of the lyrics and their true meanings, but I liked this one because it suggests meanings to "it goes on and on and on on..." and I'm sure you can think of a few more yourself.
Okay, somehow I managed to get a bunch of people at work playing this game. First I played a little of it and showed it to the guy behind me, and we tinkered with it a bit. The next day, today, I walk in and I see it on like three people's screens.
A friend of a friend of mine is a lucky bastard and gets to think up and make this very type of computer games for a company here in Charlotte...uses Flash and Java applets and whatever else they use, C#, Java, several things. I believe this one's Flash. I hear Ebaum steals their games from hardworking, game-developing yuppies which is a real shame. They need that money to buy smores, Visine, and cologne.
Pretty neat little game, though I had to admit. Makes you think that's for sure. Good damn thing it has an ending though, or it'd go on forever. The cool thing is that you can make up your own levels and let your friends try them out to see if they can beat them.
I just found this one video on YouTube that pretty much shows you the same thing as a previous post, Feeling insignificant anyone?, except that this one is of course a video instead, but it's also nicely synchronized with the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is in my opinion one of the greatest novels/films of all time. =)
I'm tired of diving at my friends to rip my phone out of their hands before they see that picture I took of myself.....Come on, we all have those pictures on our phones.....you know the ones...I KNOW I'm not the only one....
I finally decided to change my AIM screen name today. I just got tired of the old name. Mostly it's old friends from college, some I don't remember, some I'd rather forget. You gotta move on and not look back sometimes, ya know? Hit me up if you want the new one.
Now, I go to delete the old one from AOL's website....much Googlin' later I find out that you can't really ever delete any of your screen names. They're stuck there forever! Some threads speculated that after a year of inactivity it would be deleted, but AOL didn't say that. It kind of reminded me of Gmail. Gmail archives ALL of your email! It's like your personal information becomes their property, and you can't do anything about it. I know a guy that was turned down for a job, because, and they told him this, they Googled his name and found something they didn't like on UrbanDictionary where he had defined something years ago. He couldn't erase it or change this name on it or anything. It's there forever. So think before you sign up on these websites, people! Don't use your real name and look up beforehand whether or not you can cancel your membership.
....I wonder if there are AIM screennames and Gmail accounts for sale on eBay...
Sheyit, when I saw this in the movie theatre for the first time, I went with a gay friend of mine....we was sweatin'....I was a-gruntin' and a-eye-poppin'. It was a vertiable FEAST for the eyes -- all those musclar men with impossibly thick abs in these bikini-like things. Mmm!!
So I had to go out and get it, and it's a pretty good movie and all. Very gory. Some great lanscapes and lighting. The blood looks a little too fake though; that would be my only beef... Well there is one more thing (speaking of beef) I seem to remember from my Gay History 101 that the Spartans used to do battle in the nude...maybe I was daydreaming....
Two blasts from the past have hit me these last couple days.
First, I don't really remember what I was reading on Wikipedia as I often jump randomly from one subject to another like an entranced bug going from one shiny object to another, BUT somehow I managed to stumbled upon the ICQ page on Wikipedia. So I'm reading this article because I LOVED using ICQ back in the day when I was in high school in 98-99 maybe, but I've never really used it since. And they said there are people out there selling their ICQ numbers ON EBAY .... I thought it was kinda silly. But apparently, ICQ numbers are way up in the 400 millions now and for someone to get a hold of one of the earliest 5- or 6-digit UINs is pretty rare and worth some money. So I checked out eBay, and they're going for 20-30 bucks. The weird thing is, when I went to the ICQ website to login....I could still remember my ICQ number from nearly 10 years ago....just let that sink in -- I remembered a random number from TEN YEARS ago .... It's just too bad I have no idea what my email address was at the time. If I could just remember I could make a quick 20 or 30 bucks. Anybody wanna buy my number? It's 7 digits -- 8788364.
The second thing happened just hours ago. I was sitting at work and people were whistling random things, trying to annoy each other I guess. One guy starts randomly whistling the song to Digger. And...OMG Digger was my favoritest game on my Texas Instrument computer back in the 80s. I had to run it in CGA mode instead of VGA, lol. That's some ancient shit. I remember a couple games only worked in EGA mode because those 8 bit games were so video-intensive, LOL. Anyway, for those who didn't play Digger on a Tandy, Texas Instruments PC, or Commodore back in the day, here's a preview:
A truly addictive game, and background music that's so easy to get stuck in your head. You can download this and other old skool DOS games at http://www.alex-soft.net/. And now I won't get any sleep. =P
I'm 27 and a computer programmer at heart studying .NET for an MCSD while working at a software help desk. I have a BS in Computer Science from Radford University. I'm into various music, working out, reading, movies, and ... you can read the rest. =)
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