I haven posted in a while and I feel like I should, so stick around for a minute while I go ahead and feed the beast.
Besides the brief moment when Steve “fell asleep on Brandon’s couch upstate and didn’t leave for six months”, I haven really had a full conversation with Steve for a good 3 years. I know it’s directly related to my “Escape from Long Island” venture, but is felt really good just to bullshit with him for two hours over the phone. He apparently got suckered into some VOIP cable modem thing from Cablevision, which under normal circumstances would probably be really neat but in the case of Cablevision is a total monstrosity.
If you have never played with their 'IO TV', let me just inform you that it sucks. The fact that they cap your bandwidth if your "uploading too much" also sucks (and the whole blocking of ports… double suck). I remember the whole phone over cable scam they were running before, bit when your phone has lag or cuts out because your using bittorrent or because your bandwidth is capped because you TOOK TOO LONG TO UPLOAD SOMETHING, sucks as well. Let me get back to my point...
I haven’t seriously talked to him in 3 years and the same old jokes were still funny. It was like picking up exactly from where I left off. Most likely it’s because, for me at least, I’m still the same person I was 3 years ago. A lot has changed and I have grown mentally, but the underlying structures and the inner workings of me have not really changed at all. I’m still a 23 year old boy. New place, new life, new toy, new me, but I’m most likely going to work myself into the same corners and difficulties that I have in the past. Man it sucks when history just starts repeating.
ANYWAYS... Here are some entertaining bits that I have come across.
The Lonely Island, but more importantly 'The Heist': I had theheist.mp3 saved on my iPod, I didn't even know I had it on there. As a warning, try not to be drinking anything when listening to it as you might hurl liquid keyboard-wards. It was unexpected and hilarious. The site itself rules. These are some pretty funny MoFos. I think what originally for the Nintendo Clip, but found a wealth of other coo’ shit. I was reading an interview of these guys on Ostrich Ink, which I originally misread as "Ostri Chink" and though that was a fucked up name for a site and would most likely have some comedic value to it, not that I know who or what an ‘ostri chink’ is, none the less there are some great quotes in there:
KYLE: Were you very excitable in this Japanese commercial? Because I've heard that that's the way they like their commercials.ANDY: Oh, I was out of my mind.
KYLE: Really?
AKIVA: It's them dancing to "Let's Groove Tonight" in a car, and Andy's dressed in, I think, orange camo pants, a blue mesh shirt that you can see through, a Dolce & Gabbana zip-up sweatshirt, and goggles on his forehead. He's basically selling out America.
ANDY: It was the gay Iranian raver look.
KYLE: Did they play that song during the shoot?
ANDY: THE WHOLE TIME.
and in other news:
VGMaps: Big as maps from countless video game, both console and PC. Zelda & Mega Man level maps rule.
The PacGrenade is from ‘i am 8 bit’, an art exhibit in Los Angeles that stumbled upon through BoingBoing.
Godwin's Law [WikiDef]: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
This intereste me to no end... Math Rules.
Next weekend, I'm going to do what any white boy would do when presented with a snow covered mountain and a plank of wood; I'm going to ride the timber down the mountain. Nine seasons of snowboarding and I'm still not what I would consider a "good" snowboarder. Some might call this a modest move, but I'd say I'm an "okay" snowboarder. I do well enough to have a good time, and I'm occasionally confident enough to push my limits into small jumps and light glade boarding.
So, what do you do when your activities are short of spectacular? You take pictures of people engaging in spectacular activities... it makes you more spectacular by association. In this ruse of greatness, I'll need a tripod for my camera, so I can set up on the edge of the terrain park and grab shots of people doing things I'm far too sober to do (id est: any attempts to break orbital escape velocity off of a jump, and such endeavors that provide for my feet being further off the ground than my head).
On tuesday, I decide that on my way home from work, I'll stop at WalMart and buy a simple tripod, provided I can get it very cheap. Nearing the store, I recognize that my fuel gauge is navigating the quarter tank designation, so I arrange a visit to the local BP filling station.
This choice seems obvious, as I'm a sucker for their sign: a bright, pure white deal with the avocado starburst emblazoned dead-center, weighted by the lime green "bp" brand offset in the upper-righthand corner. It inspires a sense of cleanliness and simplicity, but also nascency, as this petrol stop is a late addition to my hometown.
Fringe to my choice, however, is that the attendant at this full service establishment bears a special doubt in my mind as to his national lineage where it, oddly enough, relates to his mental acuity. The situation went down thusly, after the first occasion I patronized the station:
Brandon: Hey, have you been to that new BP?
Steve: No/Yes (at this point it's unimportant)
Brandon: The guy down there, I'm not really sure about him.
Steve: What do you mean?
Brandon: Well, he could be Turkish... could be retarted.
This isn't quite as mean-spirited as it sounds. He's got a full, round face and big lips, and it seems as though his tongue gets in the way when he speaks, however, I do detect a bit of a Turkish accent beneath his mumble and he seemed adroit for the fuel pumping task.
Later I'd come to realize that I had ruled out the chance of him being both Turkish and retarted. There certainly is the presence of mental fault in Turkey, and my lapse in ruling it out is now corrected. Still, this fresh theory didn't take root with me, and upon subsequent visits to the facility, I've ascertained that he is more likely Turkish than retarted, but that he has a slight speech impediment and a problem with the English language.
Certainly proving his aptitude with his craft this tuesday, while filling my tank up with regular octane gasoline, he spotted a nail in my tire. To indicate the discovery, he bent down to my open passenger-side window and began, what I thought, was a poorly stated explanation of tires. He then frames a statement about nails and tires in soft-spoken tone and broken English.
In my curiosity for his lecture, he encouraged me to step out of my vehicle and inspect said tires. I'm a fan of visual aids, so I remove myself and proceed around the back of my car. He then points out, somewhat unnecessarily, the long, thick roofing nail placed deep, but obvious in the sidewall of my rear-passenger side tire. I gingerly touch the head of the spike and then thoughtfully pace back around the car and return to the driver's seat.
The attendant calls the other workers to witness the integrity of my tire being actively broken. They talk amongst themselves about fixing versus repairing tires in general, then mine specifically, when I inform them that I've got a broad warranty policy on my tires, and that I'll just get it replaced for free. This stunts their debate and they walk off without entertainment. Now I eschew further travel, skip the tripod purchase and head straight home.
The following day, having changed the critical tire out for my donut spare and having spotted a bubble in the sidewall of my front-passenger side, I set off on my twenty mile daily pilgrimage to my office. This, you see, is where the inspiration for the post enters, upstage, with the quickness.
There are three things that are important to note at this point:
1. I take Sunrise Highway to work, where the speed limit is 55 mph.
2. The average speed on Sunrise Highway, I'd guess, is 70 mph.
3. I actively try and maintain my speed as no more than 75 mph at all times.
That day, being conscious of the hobbled state of my car, I remind myself upon setting out that I will, at maximum velocity, obey the speed limit. This is easier said than done. It seems that on Long Island (as I'm sure it is in other places), everyone on the road is mad at two people at all times, those going faster than them and those going slower than them. The fastest and slowest people on the road, having the extreme to themselves, retain an anger towards the police, however, for opposing reasons.
Despite taking me a bit longer than usual to get to work, (and to be honest, it wasn't that much longer) I noticed that driving the speed limit on Long Island during rush hour isn't something easily subscribed to. Among many incidents of fear that the truck in my rear-view mirror isn't going to slow down when he parks in my trunk, were two stand out incidents of absurdity. For the latter half of my commute I was being tailgated. I expected this, and thought myself prepared to ignore such aggressive intimidation tactics.
This proved ineffective when I found that I was being shadowed by an old, yellow short bus. The canary blaze in my rear-view was too much for me ignore and I desparately wanted the bus to go around me in the unoccupied passing lane. This bus wanted blood on the pavement, however, and was not dissuaded from it's bullying by the availability of the two neighboring lanes for traffic to flow.
It was at the point that I began to fear that the bus was, indeed, a Decepticon involved in a poorly executed attempt to mount my car and make sweet buttlove to it, that the most unexpectedly humorous event transpired. In the passing lane, surely pushing the limits of it's engineering, came the Hybrid of the Opera, Honda's Insight. Surely it was the most rediculous that any Japanese designer could actively imagine a car; this R/C wedge smoothly and swiftly carried out its lane choice intentions and passed me in my Mitsubishi (Goofus and) Galant. Now as it may not strike you as light enough to bring about laughter, that is exactly what it did. Perhaps to bring you into the joke, you'll need to be familiar with the Honda Insight's spec sheet:
Engine: 1 cyl. Vespa-type
Battery: 4 D-cells (NB: my maglite uses 6 of these)
Zero-to-Sixty: Yes (with the wind at your back)
Buttplug/Sneaker On Wheels: Both
Fuel Efficiency: 60 AU* / gal.
*AU (Astronomical Unit) = 9.3x10^7 mi
It's nice to see something humbling on your way to work, espcially when you find out that the free warranty replacement really involves prorating replacement costs, along with installation factors you neglected to acknowledge. Now, the driver's side tires on my car are further along in wear than the new passenger side tires (I can't honestly tell from driving it), but I had a little adventure in humility in the rectification process.
Roofing Nail: $0.05
Tire Replacements: $80.00
New Tire Warranties: $20.00
Having an Insight pwn you: Priceless
I tried for a good 10 minutes to find a suitable fit for the above Slashdot formula for Soviet Russia raping John's fat hosting pipe, and thus, revoking my blog posting for a few days. I give up, you don't do anything to a blog that becomes vulgar through word rearrangement. Apparently, though, those commies love their UNKLE, though now that Vladimir and his boys seem fit with their Lavelle fix, I can get some short bursts of blogging out of my system.
I know Mark would be happy. I mean, there's only so many times you can look up "bantam" and "praxis" before you realize that my comment relates less to your post than to the post I'd have written if I hadn't forfeit my blog to "the people".
Volksbloggen aside, as I recover from my withdrawal I can see more clearly now that I've gotten quite a bit done at work due to the afterclap of the UNKLE77 board blowing up my spot. Cuntpunt as they cuntpunt unto ye; now I must get some words out from my head and onto the interweb. This, expectedly, takes place from my desk at the office... I'll go home soon.
A quick explanation before I do: A slight change in prefixation turns the Viennese sign above from "Placarding is forbidden." to "Sex with animals is forbidden." Experience the magic of Pictures of Walls for a good hour. It's certainly cheaper than hitting up that strip club after work, and be honest, you like grafitti more than you like nudity anyway.
John: Some personal favorites involve-
In Soviet Russia, tetris piece rotate you.
In Soviet Russia, library checks out you.
In Soviet Russia, road forks you.
In Soviet Russia, environment pollutes you.
and this one pwns me,
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue;
In Soviet Russia, poem writes you.
Hrm... Ok. I have recently become addicted to Burnout 3. The premise besides racing is crashing into people and things for money. I'm sure you can see the allure. Not only that but after a few rounds you feel a little relieved. It's a cathartic release when you plow throught a small european city at 150 MPH and cause $1.6 Million in digital damage.
They make it for PS2 & Xbox but I heard that the xbox version is beyond superior. I was just trying to figure out a way to get my hands on it without buying an xbox. Oh... back to the pimp myself out at gamestop plan.
Between that and the PSP coming out next week I think I'm in trouble.
My other guilty pleasure it the WipEout racing series (Racing + Weapons - Carmageddon = ^_^ ). One of the first titles they are releasing the PSP with is WipEout Pure, which pretty much solidifies the fact that I NEED to buy one. It's not like I want to buy one or it would be in my favor to buy one... this a desperate hunger and lust for this game. If PSP be the only way I get it, so be it.
Back in the day, WipEout Fusion was supposed to be released with the PS2, but as history will forever be written that the game came 3 years to late. It laid the ground work for some other pretty decent Sci-Fi racers (Read: Extreme G, Star Wars Racer, F-Zero X...), but the fans were still left wipEout-less. To pass the time I hunted down the Euro Special Edition of WipEout 3, which was in my opinion one of the best of the series (XL had the better soundtrack but 3 was all around a better product). The Designer's Republic, which did all of the conceptual and design work for the first three games pulled some funny stuff when it came time for the PS2 4th incarnation of WipEout.
Psygnosis (of Lemmings fame) had been dissolved and Sony Europe was shopping around for other Publishers to release WipEout 4. In the meantime, TDR was pushing to renegotiate what was clandestine to be a hit game. When all was said and done, it was too little, much much too late. The TDR parted from the project and the game underwent a major revamping. While the game was thin on innovation as seen from one version to the next, it attempted to make up for the shortcommings in eye candy and power of the PS2 platform. The first version was littered with bugs, but this didn't stop the die hard fans; it did however have a hard impact on hoe big the game could have been. By the time a US version of the game came out, the reviews were lukewarm and the general populace didn't really need another Sci-Fi racer.
WipEout Pure is a bit of a new begining. This second attempt by Sony Entertainment Liverpool has smoothed away all of the rough edges of it's predecessor and is earning new levels or praise across the board. In a area of portable gaming where most the the racing games are usually sub-par, WipEout Pure is something that not only sets a new standard for hand-held racing games, it even exceeds the gameplay value of most home console racing games.
For me, there is WipEout, Burnout, Gran Tourismo. My Heroine. My trifecta of racing perfection. If you haven't seen it yet, here is some WipEout Pure design porn. Revel in it.
These are a few of the scripts, plotlines and books being kicked around Hollywood at the moment. While they range from bad to ok, consider this the pre-alpha sneak peek of the proto stages of the movies you will be seeing come 2006 and 2007.
Besides sifting through the rest of the garbage, here are some points of interest:
Title: Vacancy
Log Line: A young, married couple are stranded at a desolate motel and discover hidden video cameras in their room. They soon realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film.
Buyer: Screen Gems
Logged: 3/16/05
______________________________
Title: The Transformers
Log Line: Centers on two groups of robots, one led by Optimus Prime, who believes in tolerance and the sanctity of life, and the other by Megatron, who espouses survival of the fittest and the extermination of biological life.
Buyer: DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures
Logged: 3/15/05
More: Based on the Hasbro toy line. Tom DeSanto wrote the screen story. Tom DeSanto, di Bonaventura Pictures' Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Angry Films’ Don Murphy will produce. Steven Spielberg will executive produce. First set up in June 2003, then again in July 2004 and November 2004.
______________________________
Title: Coin Locker Babies
Log Line: Two troubled boys, abandoned in adjacent train station lockers as infants and raised in orphanages, set out together to seek revenge on the women who abandoned them.
Buyer: Wild Bunch
Logged: 3/14/05
More: Adapted from the Japanese novel by Ryu Murakami. Rick Benattar, Scott Kaplan and Angry Films’ Don Murphy will produce. Michele Civetta will direct. Sean Lennon will star.
Man, I should have started this entry with a penis joke; but anyways.
Nothing says lovin' like waking up and finding that your host wants to drop you over a spike of 8GB worth of downloads in a matter of 15 minutes because some Russian MP3 blog posted your UNKLE archive as the 'shiznit'.
Apparently after I gave the link to someone over at the UNKLE77 board, they gave that link to to people, and they gave that link to two people, then they gave thay link to two people... that's like 10 people right there.
Funny thing is that is happened twice. I posted the link two nights ago, it got shut down the first time, I deleted a bunch of files and then reactivated it just for it to happen again. I'm borderlining it now with the clips from Robot Chicken. What's the use of an assload of hosting space if I can't abuse it with sufficent bandwidth. Time to go see if I can hide a fileserver in the ceiling at work, Later.
I've now spent more time than I'd like to admit to, soaking in the absurdly useless content of FezGod. From Celebrity Head (John F. Jong Il) to This Day In History (1865: Doctors discover it wasn't the bullet that killed Lincoln, it was the humidity.) and a Daily Bummer ("Every time a restaurant runs your credit card TRW also tells your waitress your dick size.") that reads like a The Parking Lot Is Full punchline. I can't forget the hilarity in fake ads ("Come out of that closet Gaybraham! -Queer Eye For The Dead Guy") and last, but certainly not least, The Squooshy Pineapple. Satirical fake news is only as funny as the thousand words you put behind it... or a picture.
I'd 
also like to thank Ben of Robot Comix for giving me the help I need to avoid doing my job. If it wasn't for wading through the archives of Robot Comix, I may have gotten something done today.
Reading Google News, Slashdot, Gizmodo, the updates in my favorite blogs and trying to figure out who I know with a CostCo membership doesn't really add up to a productive day, but I did just finish an orange that was both tasty and delicious, so I think I'm ahead of the curve on getting something done.
I need a new job in a new location or a thick oversized envelope from RPI's grad admissions. Either one would keep me from relegating myself to what I've got now: a shite job, hardly related to my education. I've got such a motivation problem, it's a bit unsettling. But to cheer me up... a mock advertisement courtesy of FezGod.
John: I too dig Fez God / The Squooshy Pineaple. I discovered this a few days ago and had the link sitting on my desktop for whenever I wanted to post something but had no material. Apparenly Brando beat me too it. I compiled a bunch of them that made me laugh out loud like a retard at the office... Dare I share?
The chain of command goes:
Adult Swim to Me to You, and here is the latest offering.
If you haven't heard of it yet, you should be all over Robot Chicken. The comedic stylings and animation would most definately make James Mascia proud.
So here is how the deal went down. Seth Green got together with a bunch of really funny guys, whipped out the sidekick with every major celebrity's phone number on it (and the cast that did voices for Family Guy ^_^) and started signing on people to do an animated sketch comedy show that was described as "Saturday Night Live meets Nightmare Before Christmas." Calling it that would make it seem much more derivative than it actually is. In reality is a no holds barred stop-animation roadshow that is the furthest thing from P.C. you can be without government clearance.
I've included some clips for your viewing pleasure. They're Quicktime, so that should make Steve unhappy.
RC1: That 00's Show (2.5MB)- W/ real actor's voices... Nice. Topher Rules.
RC2: Three Fast Three Furious (14.3MB)- The Mach 5 could take the Batmobile any day.
RC3: World's Most One-Sided Fist Fights (2.3MB)- "...call a guard."
In other news: RJD2's "Ghostwriter" is the anthem to my afternoon. RJD2 rules, He's taken Moby's "Field negro with a beatbox" routine to a whole new magnificent level. Enjoy.
Just made the jump to Movable Type v3.15 and despite the troubles upgrading it’s been totally worth it. The interface looks all around smoother and the comment and trackback systems have become everything I wanted them to be (No more spam-massacres in PHPMyAdmin). I did have a bit of downtime. Thank god for the backup, being that I had to restore it a good 3 times before getting it right. Personal favorite was being locked out of my own blog and having all of the comment pointers mixed (Comments attached to the wrong entries and some entries disappearing altogether).
On a different note, I managed to catch up on a few things after calling out sick yesterday. I managed to unlock a lot more of Burnout 3, I caught up on a lot of TV. The new South Park has 7 new levels of wrong to go through (A negroplasty and Jew-Fin eh?) and after watching 20 straight episodes of Naruto, there were many ups and downs. Rock Lee getting completely wasted and being a natural Drunken Master, a few side characters being taken out for no apparent reason but self sacrifice, Akimaru getting punched in the face (poor puppy) and then the ultimate cock tease; The return of Gaara. Now the waiting game for Episode 126.
Sony Ericsson releases this spheroid robot, the ROB-1, that has Bluetooth to connect with your Sony Ericsson phone, so you can control it and see through its camera eye. It's most likely intended for security, surveillance or 
any number of other black ops missions where stairs are not present. What will you use it for? Same damn thing you use your Roomba for... scaring the shit out of your dog or cat. You don't have a pet? I'm betting this thing can confuse an Aibo just as well as it can the flesh and blood counterpart. Plus, you'll find, after rushing your prey with the self-propelled ball of metal, that robot urine is easier to clean up than animal urine. So use Sony phone to control Sony robot to terrorize other Sony robot so you don't have any money left and effectively Sony has bought out your soul. In the end everyone's happy. All I want to know is, can I use this ROB to play Gyromite too?
This image rocked my mind... Now if I could only do something more purposeful with it, that or I have just been playing too much KD. Oh and by the way. If it wasn't for all that japanese getting in the way, Naruto: Narutimate Hero 2 is the shit.
From BoingBoing: Katamari Da Vinci
I'm quite keen on publishing in many forms, especialy web publishing, and I support the availability of publishing resources to many, many people.
This article, therefore, makes me a happy person. As a matter of fact, the rest of Cool Tools, and indeed Kevin Kelly's entire site are especially interesting. Blog style news sites seem to be palatable informatives, and the Gawker media consortium's gamut proves mildly indispensable to my daily information collection, with special emphasis on Gizmodo's feed for a tech toy habit to rival any coca/opium dependencies.
But I don't leave public-personal journal style blogging out of the mix. MarkDrago.com and DogPoet lead my own drive to blog, along with my desire to see John blog here a bit more than he does. I can't quite remember who it was that recommended DogPoet to me. This person deserves my thanks. Michael shows alot of great talent in writing, and his ability not only to interest, but to captivate me comes as a surprise. A paragraph into the first blog entry I read on his site some five months ago and I could tell that I would frequent this nook for some time.
So that's it. That's the post, and it was brought to you by my undying love of information in all forms. Blogs yield no exception, and I feel happy to have them support my regular pleasure-reading of dead-tree style books in various short and long formats.
Note: I suppose I should explain that the image is only tangentially related to the post as it comes from one on my less frequented blog roster, the lithium journals, but damn, if he isn't so cute like an innocent little hatemonger.
Did someone say that young lawyers aren't soulless husks? Not quite, but it seems like the corporate fuckpuppet status is something to drop in reverence and soon be regarded with confusion over past motivations. Honestly, the frat hazing attitude that some people have over their own long gone hardships confounds me more than those dumb fuckin' "I Support Our Troops" magnetic ribbons on the back of every suburban cunt's armored little league troop carrier. It's the only reason I can see partners at a law firm so upset over their young associates inability to forfeit their lives to a fundamentally dishonest entity that would more likely confiscate their sister's anal virginity than offer them their lofty reward for such undying sacrifice. Maybe I'm not the vindictive cocklunch these older tortured litigators are, but it seems the oppression is misplaced on their juniors and would only serve to perpetuate the vicious circle alluded to in the article. Maybe things aren't looking so bad for the so called "Generation Y" (what a horribly unimaginative appellation), and in fact we may well be starting to care more about quality of life than quantity of money.
Casey McCall: It's a vicious circle.
Dan Rydell: Yep. Just keeps going around and around.
Casey McCall: Never stops.
Dan Rydell: That's what makes it vicious.
Casey McCall: And a circle.
I've been moved at work this week... twice. First, it's important to note that until today I've been using my father's desk and computer at work. He's never at his desk anyway, and so this seemed to work out quite well. He'd visit the desk once a day to check and write email for about 30 minutes, during which time I'd go visit Helen, the receptionist.
Now, since the company just hired new engineers, they needed my floorspace in the engineering quadrant to reassign desks to senior engineers. This being an issue, my father's desk was to be moved to an office. It seemed a beneficial move for me, as I get a room to spend my time in, rather than an open area shared by many, many people. In addition, I'd get a window, through which I could see the progression of bad weather and the antics of Long Island drivers. Both about as entertaining as listening to the engineers talk about iPods, their favorite subject, even more popular than actual engineering topics.
Now, I found out upon the moving day, that I was to share this office with Pete, the consultant hired to create some sort of stock database system. This is good news, as I'll still have someone to talk to, but I don't have to deal with him if I don't want to. The bad news about this office is that it's unbearably hot at some points and at other points plastic goes soft and paper combusts. Having a view of the airport isn't so bad, and it inspires Pete to relate a few anecdotes about flying for the Civil Air Patrol or for the Air Force.
Yesterday, my first full day in the office was both productive and enjoyable, but I missed the sense of community that I got from being with the engineers and also I missed the way I didn't worry about heat stroke at my old location. This was remedied today, as I was placed at a desk of my own, with a computer of my own, and all of this is within the engineering area, however in the far corner. This is optimal because I'm away from the core of the engineers, so I can ignore everything while I work, but I can also stroll over and converse with my co-workers, something I do place a value on, slight as it is. Also, my fellow workers are more free to drop by my little habitat, complete with bookshelves, deskspace, my own garbage pail and more than enough vegetation to be the sole provider of the oxygen I use throughout the day. And drop by they do...
So here's the exchange that just took place at my new desk:
Fred, one of the electrical engineers, walks over to my desk carrying what looks like a gigantic blade of grass about a foot long and an inch or so across. Fred, offering the green stalk to me, says, "Someone left some weed on my desk." I, understandably, don't reach for the plant piece in Fred's outstretched hand and say, "Someone left some... weed... on your desk?" Eyeing the wide bladed foliage at the edge of my desk, Fred nurtures a fledgling idea. Holding the foliage in his hand up to the foliage on my desk, he matches neatly torn edge to neatly torn edge. I explain that this foul must have been perpetrated by Willy, one of the mechanical engineers, who, earlier today tore the damaged leaf from the plant in order to, as explained to me, let the plant use its energy to grow the healthy leaves. This makes sense to me, but what goes totally unexplained is the presence of said greenery on Fred's desk. Satisfied with the scenario I've painted for him Fred matches the tear up again, admires it's exact fit and the short amount of time it took him to figure out the orign of this offense, and says, "Pretty good, eh? I should be like a detective or something." He then turns triumphantly towards the engineering room lined with desks and computers, everyone silently hacking away at their CAD drawings and logic simulations, and while he's strutting away, he announces in a proud, hearty voice, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" As he passes his desk on the way to Willy's he mutters something to himself involving the vegetation he's weilding, Willy's posterior and some obscene, violent verbs.
I'm not entirely sure, but this sort of play may be why I don't get a substantial amount of work done here. That, and my time is rolled up in common activities while I'm here. You'd be surprised at how much time you spend walking around your place of work, using the restroom, warming over your lunch and breakfast, reading the news, choosing the next album to play and filling your water bottle for the 20th time today.
This time a Scrubs quote to start off my sentiment about a proposed bill. Now, in addition to the straightforward short title of this bill, the Count Every Vote Act of 2005 seems like it shouldn't be necessary in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I mean, with our experience related to the establishment of democracy in other countries, you'd think we'd want to have a bit of that here, in our own backyard. It seems to me that the lack of laws related to this bill is striking, and that any opposition to this bill from any side of the bipartisan fence may well be owing to agendas not totally in the best interests of myself and other Americans, free to vote in this country.
If the election process in Iraq, recently established and closely monitored, were to exhibit any of the symptoms of corruption that our voting process presents, you can be sure to tune into your evening news to see the same rift between religious groups that we had paid so much to mend, torn wide with the rapidly evaporating trust in a fair and equal government.
Is our system so stagnant that a pernicious instability can hardly spark unified concern, nevermind yield a suitable remedy for the cancer of power from within our rule? This bill rejuvenates in me a belief that America is not so apathetic towards it's citizens' rights, even at the federal government's level, as to ignore a grave oversight in the laws surrounding the very process by which we represent ourselves, the essence of the establishment that gives us power.
First and foremost, the problems with electronic voting machines may be close to solution with a voter verified paper ballot to mirror the electronic vote, and also with having the technical and personnel problems following these electronic voting machines to be solved with help from the EAC.
Why shouldn't Election Day be a national holiday? If you get off of work, and all you have to do for it is pick who'll lead us into a campaign of bombing all the brown people or the next hostile invasion, I say that's twice the rewards. Honestly, I failed to vote in this past election, in part, because of my state's prohibition on voter registration on Election Day. With the addition of a federally mandated allowance for this late registration for all states, I believe that there is no excuse for the populous to arrive in time to let their voice be heard.
The final point of this bill I'll address is as follows: "The bill also makes it a federal crime to commit deceptive practices, such as sending flyers into minority neighborhoods telling voters the wrong voting date, and makes these practices a felony punishable by up to a year of imprisonment." I've got one question, simple as it seems, which remains to be answered. Why is this not already outlawed? There should be no room for deception or corruption in our government, and especially in our voting process. I hope for perfection from my government, but I expect no less than an undying drive to better the system from all of its citizens.