I'm getting pretty much nowhere with my efforts so far, so I'm resorting to means like this to try and get the URL spread around. I have NO idea how well it'll work, and at this point have little illusions, but it can't hurt. Please spread the URL around if you can. Donations won't be refused either.
It reminded me, however, how wonderfully fulfilling these kinds of relationships are. How totally satisfying it is to have a person you truly love to wake up to every day, and to go to sleep with every night. In my dream she was very warm, and caring, very down to earth, smart and funny, everything you could want. Although she was blonde, and not my preferred red hair color, in the dream, for a while she did try black hair. That was fun.
I miss those days. I suppose that's the price of maturity. The chick-du-jour becomes tiresome after a while...
I would say who's face it was on Miss Right, but that would just totally ruin the effect. Needless to say, I didn't realize it during the dream...
Sure, Nader says that Gore lost it on his own, and yes Gore ran a really bad campaign running away from all the good he and Clinton did for 8 years, but he did still get more popular votes than Bush even with a bad campaign. So yes, saying Nader lost Gore the election is wrong, but not totally wrong. Nader contributed to Gore's mismanagement of the campaign, and helped put Bush in the White House. So Nader and Gore both get half the blame. Gore is worthless now, so only Nader seems to want to repeat the horror that was the 2000 election.
I emplore all former Nader voters to IGNORE RALPH NADER this year. Do not let him help Bush get reelected. The world as a whole cannot put up with 4 more years of Imperial Insanity or AWOL idiocy.
While I'm ranting, what is it with the poor? Every time I go to a store it seems one of the two checkouts that's open (I like to shop late at night) is being held up by some poor person trying to cash food stamps. If I ran things there'd be a Poor*Mart that only took food stamps and people with such stamps had to buy everything there.
So, it's not humiliating enough that these folks are so fucked in our wonderful economy (thanks George! Keep racking up that deficit too!) that they can't even afford to buy food, but let's ostracize them to special stores too!
Now, I can understand that this is maybe just a rant and he maight not really mean it (I hope), but still, it's just an asinine statement.
I really wasn't prepared for that...
Reading it, I realized I was reacting in a way I'd never reacted before. I reacted from the father's perspective. I imagined myself in the same situation, a 16 year old daughter coming home and saying those words, "I'm Pregnant". It was disconcerting to both be in that situation, and also to realize that being in that situation isn't as far fetched anymore as it once was.
For a long time, when you're young and dating, and doing the thing no parent thinks their kids are doing, and the deed we never admitted to our parents when it was happening, your worry is about being the person that would become the mother or father. And how you're too young for that to happen, and you realize it would really throw your life off course. Then, time passes you by while you're not looking, and suddenly, your friends are getting married, folks you went to high school with already have kids, and you're no longer too young. And your perspective has changed. You realize you identify with the other viewpoint now. You understand so many things your parents told you when you were young (not all of them, because, after all, we're all smarter than our parents were
And also we realize more than ever, when we were young, how stupid we really were in so many places we thought we were so smart. And we realize as every year passes how little we really know, and how much we still need to learn. And of course, just when you think you have got the rules memorized, the game is over.
Wow, maturity is a real downer...
I'm glad that the long musical drought in which we were subjected to years of horrid bubblegum pop with not one, but THREE crappy boy-bands (does no one remember the last intense flameout that was NKOTB?), and one half-dressed, no talent, blonde teeny-bopper for each of the big 5 music companies, is starting to see the first good rain. Artists like Avril Lavigne (who is quite impressive for being so young, thank god she didn't let them bleach her hair and make her do porn-esque "dance" moves with 15 boys behind her mimicing ever move on a 15 foot tall plastic/metal monstrosity on some soundstage), Gorillaz, Thicke, etc. Now all we have to do is find a way to ship Britney Spears on an expedition to the core fo the sun, and life will be tolerable with the radio on.
Tumult in the Mozilla world. Mozilla 1.2 has a nasty flaw, not discovered until after it went gold, necessitating a 1.2.1 milestone. Phoenix Technologies asked The Phoenix Project to rename Phoenix to something else, To Be Announced. And the trunk is kinda wonky right now... Well, over at MozillaNews.org, we opened the ever expanding Mods section. New Mozilla splashes, games, resources and links, and soon themes and icon sets, and whatever else makes it in there. Stop by if you run The Lizard...
And speaking of growing up, we need to talk about this whole "first post" thing...
These days, it seems that as technology companies evolve their product lines in the march towards ubiquitousness (and yet not commoditized), and greater accessability for the masses, they are leaving behind a very important group. Those of us who can be described as technophiles, geeks, hackers, (even enthusiasts to some) are being left behind with the oversimplificaion of products. Yes, most products don't need to be as complex as they are for the majority of users. But those of us who prefer to see the gears turn, tinker with the innards, and get our hands dirty are being locked out and spoon fed the pablum that is modern computer related technologies.
Often times, many of us would (and do) pay a bit more for the next level of product. Let Joe Sixpack buy Widget Standard. We want Widget Pro. We want to be able to get at the core. 99% of car buyers and users do not care about the spark gap, engine timing, cylinder offset angle, etc. But for those who DO, auto manufacturers cater with high end parts, technical manuals, and loads of other goods for the engineer in all of us.
To manufacturers: Don't weld the hood shut, just bolt it, and let those of us who want to peek underneath do so.
To start things off on a charged note, we'll revisit, very briefly, the Linux Vs. Windows debate.
Linux kicks ass in serverspace. Even in some vertical markets of workstation implementation it kicks ass. I think it would be great for CAD systems to move to Linux. Crashing while designing the floor trusses in a high rise would be a Bad thing. But as a desktop, right now and for the forseeable future, it sucks. Let's move on.
Windows, on the other hand, is an excellent Desktop OS. Asidee from app support, it's a fantastic single user environment, and with some proper security restrictions to the horrid built in Worm Distribution System called Windows Scripting Host, we'll be set. And get rid of IE, my god. Use Mozilla. But Windows sucks in the serverspace, and has no business being there. Too bad MS doesn't see it this way... An ideal world would have lots of Windows desktops with decent security, all connecting to Linux based servers. Oh, and there would be free money and magical pixies.
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