Vermont

Reading in today's NY Times (pagr A11) that towns in Vermont, backed by anti-war, are debating whether National Gaurd should be over in Iraq fighting instead of being prepared for natural disasters in the States. This really surprises me you could even have this kind of debate. I know they are National Gaurd so the general idea is that they won't be deployed overseas (whether that is the correct assumption is quite debatable) but when did the idea come that their primary job is natural disaster assistance? They're soldiers. When they sign up they are fully aware they may have to kill for their country. We even call them "weekend warriors". Why would they be trained to use guns and other implements of death if they weren't supposed to fight?
Historically national guard units have always been active. As far as I can tell since it's been nationally organized the National Guard has been called up to fight. So why do anti-war people suddenly think that's changed? It just seems ridiculous to me that they'll try anything to oppose the process including trying to re-classify people. Not one person in Iraq is there involuntarily. Everyone of them signed on to a job that entailed being sent into a hostile situation.

So yeah, that's my randomly frustrated post of the week that. (Different from my usual, depressed me posts!)

BTW, isn't it scary that Vermont's ex-gov is now in charge of the Dem's?

And Eric and I had a great debate on social security and welfare (also whether God support capitolism, an odd topic I'll grant but it relates sort of if you know us). Have to put Eric's new blog up soon (when I have some time back home).

No Good Titles Here

So yeah, today has been ok thus far. Test in approximately 50 minutes or so. That should be fun. Really. Other then that just more homework to crunch on tonight and reading the chapters in CIS323. Apparently Goulet is aware that we are up to our eyeballs in homework and has given us extra lab time (yay!) and pushed the test back a week (yay!). Maybe I will pass now (yay!). First Friday Fellowship is this week too I just realized so (yay!) for getting to go out there on Friday night and relax. Maybe it won't be so bloody cold. I find Molly's blog (another person from Europe group) so I will probably put that up in the great link index eventually. I know I have failed to wrap up my links commentary and SALT thoughts and who knows if I ever will.

Some bad news, WW has apparently quietly pushed back Book of Bone and Ebony til March 14th so now I have to wait for my huge shipment of books and such to come. I was really hoping to have the Ghost in the Shell DVD to watch this weekend too. Want to see how the original Tatchkoma's (spl?) were. GITS: Stand Alone Complex is fast becoming one of my favorite shows. It's moody and I still have figured out what the over-arching meta-plot is yet, which reminds me a lot fo Witch Hunter Robin, but I know it's there because something greater is hinted at. I am just not sure what.

Anyhow, XA tonight and anyone who wants a ride let me know I'll be running about picking up people looks like so can always wedge a few dozen more in between the baseboards. Need to get the CRV out on a longer drive so good thing for First Friday Fellowship and if anyone has any other suggested relaxing drives around here let me know as it'd be good to get out. If only I could find a cute girl then I could call it a date, but haha that's never gonna happen.

Last commentary, the XA small group I'm in will be on Monday afternoons (or evenings if that works better) looks like so since it's just me and Lars if anyone wants in let me (or Lars) know. Anyone's welcome, not sure what we're gonna discuss but guys or girls are welcome so that's me trying to get your interest in that (also me & Lars realizing XA guys #s are so small we can't make two guys small groups I think :( ). That's all for now catch ya later peons!

Happy Happy Joy Joy

It's gonna be another long week looks like. CIS 330 just loves to stomp on morale. Anyhow hopefully I managed to salvage our grade a little bit (my partner so does not deserve to be dragged down because of my incompetence) for this assignment. Do IT people really live lives like this at work? Where everything pops up unexpectedly all the time and nothing gets done in any sort of competent order? My sister says that's how her fiancee's job is but I am somewhat wary because she delights in finding things (whether consciuously aware of it or not) that make me worry or find life harder at times.

Blah. Well I will try to sneak some stuff in here to make the week interesting. Anyone wanna seem some UML activity diagrams for a fictional company?

White-Wolf now has Authocthonians up for pre-order. See the cover there. Looks nice, can't wait as usual. When will I get the chance to read it? Who knows.

Waste

Well this weekend has been interesting. Not really all that much fun though. Late Friday night/early Saturday morning I got very sick. Sicker then I've been in a long time (by this I mean puking, etc). Now normally when I get sick my nose runs a major marathon and sometime I ache a lot but that's it. I can deal with that. I go through several dozen boxes of kleenex and maybe some ibuprofen. Now when my stomach gets upset I pretty much don't do much of anything until my stomach feels better. Well it must have been some sort of 24 hour flu because I feel alright today (not at 100% but aside from eating I can do just about anything, althoug serving food probably wouldn't be recommended either). Frustratingly I had a very busy Saturday planned that was totally scrapped. I had to miss my shift for work (and don't think anyone actually made it in to cover) and that probably irked me the most cause I overworry about the consequences of missing a shift without cover. My parents were also coming up to drop off some furniture (including a couch, yay!). Well they still came but I was pretty much useless, thankfully my roommate is a scholar and a gentleman (and a loose cannon, he's unpredictable) and helped out alot. All in all though I was frustrated because my whole weekend was thrown out of whack. Being sick just sucks. Hope you had a better weekend!

Abbyness

Yes, Abby's Livejournal is now here! Anywho, have much to do so must go, try and put an update up here sometime this weekend so check back everyone other second (twice a second if your name starts with a T and ends with an wism).

Randomisity

While Jenny will probably call me more of a nerd for it I should point out to all who might be interested that PointCon is this weekend in the UC. It starts Friday night (at 5 I think) with a LARP and then runs through Sunday. All sorts of gaming, from tabletop, to video, to card, to more LARPs, to paper and pencil. I think that covers them all. I'll be there some Friday night and Saturday but other then that I am swamped with the rest of life. Feel rather burnt out.

Hanging out with some of my friends at lunch today and I guess with all the new people I feel really, really out of place. I think I'm just old and out of date.

Or a 6.

Or both...

Oops almost forgot they do (ugh) DDR this weekend too.

From the mouthes of Solars

I WILL DEFEAT THE PACIFIC OCEAN! Yea, only a Solar would say that, mean it seriously, and probably be capable of doing it. Overheard from RPG.net.

Forgot

XA people, my roommate has also helpfully created a prototype emblem or UWSP XA so go check it out on his blog. It should be fairly close to this date in his blog.

Loyalist and Abby

I'll hit these in reverse because I haven't done many posts that mention Abby yet. Yes Abby. Abby and Julie came over and hung out quite a bit this weekend. Primarily, I think, to make sure my roommate hadn't died and to make him more social (a lost cause). Anywho, Abby and Co. came over Friday but I was heading out fairly quick so we just chatted, they got the $0.05 tour-for free-and then they watched a movie with Twism. Feeling a somewhat bad host I decided to call Abby (I'm out of font modifiers that I know in HTML now) and Julie and see if they wanted to hang out. So we watched Dune. Abby hadn't seen or watched it so she was greatly enlightened. Alas she is hesistant to read the series. Good science fiction not being read is a crime. When I get around to putting the next wave of photos I could put a picture of ABBY(!!1!one!!) on here for your viewing pleasure. Then again no one appreciated my last picture at all. Guess maybe the half a reader I have left doesn't enjoy people pictures. Abby with a scenic view behind her? Now noticeably this entire paragraph is rather silly and doesn't say much about Abby. Oh well.

On to more serious things.

If you know what an Enneagram is, and there are several readers who do, you might be interested to know that I'm a 6. Those who know me (and the Enneagram) would not be survived. For those who don't have a clue, which included me until this afternoon, basically I am what this post title is (minus the Abby part).

Right. I am somewhat less hyper now. Later.

Life Continues

And work continues apace on the UWSP XA webpage. I tried my hand out at photo-shopping today and that's how UofWSP got added to the logo. However you can't actually read it very well so next weekend (when I am back here in the FAC) I will have to try and do a better job at it. Might play with FontAgentPro and see if I can find a fun font for it. Considering the Mac's have nearly 2100 might as well use it and get some experience at it. Maybe I will be able to help someone someday in here. Happy tho that I managed to get frames working on the site, I think that'll make it look marginally more professional.

So having more or less survived this week with my GPA not down too much thing turned out well maybe slightly better then I thought. I'm feeling down at the moment though (admittedly a minor sense of accomplishment comes with progress on the webpage and my resume) as a Christian and just as a person. Frankly I don't think I've been the best Christian lately, I've pushed people when I shouldn't have and I have not been leading the greastest example of a Christian lifestyle. There are areas I have made improvements in (some of that I am incredibly proud of and hope I can continue, yay me!) but there is always room for improvement. In general I feel my people skills are continuing to cause more messes for others to deal with and clean up. Then there's my common sense and total lack of timing who seem to be able to coordinate splendidly. It's a wonder that I should be left in charge of a webpage or a computer lab much less anything else.

So I'm still a little down but please go out and check out the XA webpage and give me feedback. I tend not to notice stupid things I am doing wrong and subtle hints generally don't work on me as I am not all that subtle, so be direct and hopefully I will not be so bullheaded (which I doubtless am when people are direct thus they attempt subtly instead, are we doomed?) and take your advice. Gotta run.

Now that I think of it...

If anyone wants a Gmail invite shoot an e-mail to one of my accounts (prefferably my Gmail one but my UWSP is fine). I've had 50 of them for a week or three and well frankly I've given away maybe 5 or so total invites in my near year long tenure with Gmail. So if you want one e-mail me.

Stuff to see

From the desk of Filteau. And from Brent's domain, some deep thoughts.

Enjoy.

Not Good

And it only gets worse from here. Don't expect much this week unless a miracle occurs (and it won't).

Inferiority

Talking with Al (who's an actual IT professional) I find that I know very very very very (did I mention very?) little about anything beyond some random stuff for C++, VB.NET, and SQL. I can't do much in UNIX/LINUX, no real ability to fun (if evil) things like hacking, or anything like that. It's dissapointing. That said I put up the replacement Chi Alpha webpage. Hopefully it'll look prettier sooon.

Maybe all I just know is theory. But what good is theory if you can't apply it?

Nobody knows who I really am.
I've never felt this empty before.
And if I ever need someone to come along,
Who's gonna comfort me and keep me strong?

Amy Clark and Napoleon Dynamite

Ok first off before I explain my bizarre title: as most of you know (and are probably tired of hearing already) I work (sleep) in the XA office now to help cover hours for people. Seeing as I live waaaay out in the boonies (The Village) I figured it'd be easy if you had some reason you wanted to visit me (you're insane?) to offer an alternative to going there. Anywho (get to the point you long winded moron who enjoys uses parentheses too much) if you do I'm there 9AM-11AM Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. There is 029 UC, the XA/IV/Cru office located past the SIEO desk in that area where all the other student organization offices are located. Feel free to stop by, if I'm sleeping go right ahead and wake me!

I have realized a lot lately that I am incredibly long winded but it's not useful info like when Brent or (sometimes) Lars speaks. It's kinda random blah rambling. Sorry to all those who've suffered this via AIM, e-mail or in person. I am sorta trying to stop but I'm a basket case in this area.

London people. Our own Ms. Amy Clark is running for SGA Veep next year. Let's all vote for her! And if she doesn't win, let's rig it so she becomes Veep anyways. :D

Finally saw Napoleon Dynamite. Filteau had it on the CPS comp so watched it over work. Personal opinion: it's not that great. It does have it's moments, but they're just moments. Glad I didn't spend money on it. Sorry I am not on the "I love it" bandwagon. Not really my kind of movie so shoulda known that goin' in folks.

That's really all for now.

FortwismhereisaparagraphthathasnospacesbetweenthewordsPleasegotohisblogandcomplaintohim!

County Market Run

So instead of some last minute studying as time runs out on another North Quad late night shift I shall explain perhaps on of the most legendary expierences of my rather dull collegiate career. County Market is the area chain of open 24 hours supermarkets. Up til this very semester I had been to the place dozen or so times. The catch being that everytime I had been here was past midnight. Somehow whenever I went with Lars (and sometimes Twism) I never went during what might be considered "normal business hours". Thus the famed County Market run was born. Why do I explain this quirk now? Cause in about 17 minutes me and Twism are going to County Market.

And we'll tell 'em Boromir sent us.

Commentary

So my afternoon class got cancelled because my prof is sick. Incidentally now like all but 3 of the IT people are sick. It seems the flu is trying to take us all. Yes I am exaggerating a bit there but still, we have a lot of sick people! Hoping they all get better soon but who knows.

Trying to explain the whole quiet blogs vs. normal blogs sections since it has caused such a pseudo-furor (or it gave something for people to rag me on cause they know I'd overreact, hence this :D). Basically tho if you're on the quiet blogs sure it's a nudge (gentle or otherwise) from me to post more but it also makes it easier for people who uses my blog as a links section and poignantly ignore any other content on the page. This allows them to figure out in an instant which blogs see updates often enough that they should check daily/weekly whereas the quiet ones need to be check weekly/monthly. Anyhow...

Patriots won. It was an impressive game. Let's face it, the Pats to a large extent deserved to win. They've worked hard for this and shown that in an NFL which most of the time flip-flops on whose good and who ain't they continue to be good. It was a nice show but AFC has been the powerhouse for several years now and cheering for the Eagles acknowledges that. Brent is correct in saying that we like to cheer for underdogs even if the side with the upper hand worked hard to get where they were. Besides at least they are consistent unlike my Dolphins...

Life continues apace here in it's own boring little way. With snow on the ground again the lakes and ponds that are the streets and sidewalks of Stevens Point have become camoflauged. Tests are coming up (one this week, two next week) and school is def. in full swing. My schedule is almost down-pat so pretty soon I won't have to think about it. Yea, that's right I like having everything generally scheduled out so I can run on automatic. It's the way I function, I prefer not to have to think about the little things and just enjoy the free-time I have without having to remember where I need to be next. If that made any sense raise your hand and say something in Latin.

Going to get some deeper stuff done later I hope. Asta.

Yipes

Bloglist updated. :P

Twism Says He'll Be Saved Soon

I gotta admit, this is hilarious. Oh that's amusing.

Some More Changes

So I decided to put a counter on here. Not sure how useful it'll be. As I've said I use this page as links page so I pass thru quite a bit. Anyhow I'll see about this as I am not completely sold. Homework now. First Friday Fellowship was a blast! Meeting new people who aren't new to Peace at all. Yay more Christians out there! Always a morale boost.

In the opposite end: why can't Stevens Point build a street or sideswalk that doesn't instantly flood? Sheesh, I'll need a canoe soon to get to school...

So I should bring a movie

Yea, need to ask Grandpa if this thing has a DVD drive and if it does I am gonna start bring movies on Fridays and maybe Saturdays. I should do some reading tomorrow to tell truth but I finished the actual lab work for CIS 323 so not that much homework to worry about.

I finished of my Rwanda book so now I am moving onto the Six Days War (ie Arab-Israeli conflict). I am enjoying digging into actual history a lot recently. In this case though recently would be the past couple months. I have a stack of science fiction books sitting needing to be read so eventually I'll swing back to that I am sure. For the moment though I am trying to expand my knowledge of this world and its problems. Do I have any solutions? Not really, the stuff I am reading about cannot be changed or is something that Americans shouldn't really interfere in. So I will just try to educate myself so I can better understand the world around me. That sounds like a high and mighty goal for the spring doesn't it?

So tons and tons of my co-workers have been getting really really sick. It's a rather new thing for me to be surrounded by a mild epidemic. At the 'Ko it was hard to take down everyone but here we all uses the same base stations so close proximity happens. It seems to me a short-term thing however. Everyone should be back up on their feet by next week. Else we're gonna be really hurting. I don't have enough free time to pick up hours (having only 1 hour gaps between classes) so I cannot even help out much.

This weekend I am gonna try and post some stuff that I have been meaning to do. As to whether I will get to it or not I don't really know.

My superbowl call: Patriots 27 Eagles 13...

Links (Part 2 of Several)

Oy, today I'll tackle the enormous field (recently updated with help of my ever cynnical and anti-social roommate) of "active" blogs. Short blurbs here cause there are so many. I'll add my pointless humor because that's the way I work.

Katy's Journal: A debator friend who goes to ASU but now has returned to these warm climes for student teaching. Very active Democrat. She likes Dean, but no one's perfect.
Brent's Blog: Current Chi Alpha President and resident deep-thinker. Brent has to be one of the smartest people I know and if you want to argue about religion do visit the eightstar collective and bring stuff up. He also introduced me to Marvin's so of course I must say good things.
Rachel's Blog: Sort of a friend of a friend's blog. Still an interesting read especially about Christian life once you get out of college (something I don't have to worry about for several decades).
Casey's Journal: One of the people from the London trip. Kind of a quirky journal. Casey strikes me as kind of pseudo-hippy and a bit odd at times. Pretty sure she thinks I'm rather odd as well so it's a fair trade. She should talk to Brent tho sometime, think she'd learn a lot.
Laura's Journal: Another London cohort. She's refurnishing an attic. Sounds like fun to me. She and Casey are both graduated folks btw.
Ryan's Blog: An old high school buddy who now goes to Stout. He created this out of the blue in a moment of insanity/angst/boredom and has kept it up since. If he didn't have a gf I'd say he'd be more of a nerd then me. Either way it's still a close race.
Ashley's Journal: Current GASP Co-President. You should read her journal. Why? Well if you know Ashley you should know why. :D It's a good read but kind of seasonal (ie when UWSP is in session things are updated).
Jen's Journal: Allison's roomie. A fresh new journal that's actually kept up. Lars should get lessons.
Twism's Blog: Aka my roomie. Waiting to see if he keeps up with it but look anyways. A long time ago (ie the first two months or so) he posted as Ty in my blog.
BreAnna's Blog: A friend of Ryan's and mine who is currently in France. Go read about a pilgrim in the unholy land.
Nathan's (Europe) Blog: Nathan went to Spain as soon as I got back from England. Coinidence? Probably not. An interesting look at another European country (with my blog, and BreAnna's you can read about a fair amount of Europe!)
Lars' Prayer Blog: A new attempt by Lars at a blog. Remains to be seen if it'll do better. I've got $20 running on it not.
RSB: Aka Rebecca Sean Borgstrom of Exalted/Nobilis fame. A very good writer. I used to have time to keep up with her stories but as of Europe I've fallen completely behind. Incredible short fiction there for the reading if you want. Buy Nobilis too, it's superb.
Scott Taylor's Journal: Aka izzylobo. A former Exalted writer. Very thoughtful person who from his journal at least reminds me a lot of myself. He'll find some beauties of news articles at times.
Chronicles of Neph: Aka Nephipal. A current Exalted writer (working on Alchemicals as we speak). This is his normal journal rather then his Exalted stuff although occasionaly some of that sneaks in.
Adam Timmer's Journal: A form Exalted writer/contributor who happens to live in London. Interesting insites to the UK, etc. Somehow he find my blog and commented. Still amazed by that.
Black Hatt Matt's Journal: A White Wolf writer (although not anymore I think) who did a tiny bit of Exalted and a ton of Dark Ages. Very active gamer with lots of useful GM resources at his website.
White Wolf's Journal: The official WW LJ. Just created but already an Exalted book is talked about. Hopefully this'll keep up!
GoO's Journal: Gaurdian's of the Order LJ. Creators of BESM and Silver Age Sentinels and Canadians to boot. First game company blog/LJ I ever saw so I have a special amount of respect for them.

Ok that's it. Wow, that was longish. Hope that was helpful too and I didn't cause any of the people who write those blog/LJ's to want to cause severe bodily harm to me.

That just killed the rest of my shift, yay!

How long?!?

So. It's been a year. I've been wasting valuable room on the web for one year. Well this is certainly further proof that I am a nerd. But like I told Lindsey last night when "you already knew this". Somehow even though people do I am still socially acceptable although perhaps just over the web and not in person. Even in person too, in small doses at least.

To tell truth I am surprised I kept up this long with things. When I started it was an ad-lib thing. I was poking around Google and found Blogger. Somehow I kept writing it. The Wheel turns ever on.

Now you'd think I would have something deep to say but I don't. Don't really need to look back, I have an absurdly large archive to do that afterall. Not that some of those posts are much good. I wonder how I could write them myself.

Anyhow, for those of you who've kept reading this to some extent for all that time thanks. Hope it was worth your while. If not, well that's what the comments widgets are for!

Short update

I need to see Hotel Rwanda sometime. On a totally off-hand note: wish I had seen this prior to going to London. Woulda loved to hunt for those places.

London Underground Fun

Ok all you London peoples, here's a song for you. It's rather strong language so if you are sensitive to that for some reason then don't listen to this. Or if you do then don't complain to me!! Anywho... LINK!.

Got a deeper post coming. Might actually appear prior to this tho, see what happens for saved posts.

Thoughts

So I am reading the book on Rwanda (see below post for the very long title). It's rather depressing on multiple levels. Primarily of course is the fact that this was allowed to happen. It, of course, is not the first time this has happened since the Second World War and it certainly won't be the last but it's rather discouraging. I remember walking through Dachua and seeing the promises erected there to "Never Again" let this happen. Well it happened again. Not only that but countries were well aware of that on so many levels. The Clinton Administration specifically avoided doing anything about it. They even went as far as stalling attempts in the UN and then wrangled over money that's right money while thousands perished. I say thousands because by that time they had already probably hit a million deaths that's how successful America was stalling things. We weren't the only low-life's allowing this to happen though. The French, unwilling to be knocked out of the competition for most thoughtless country actually aided militarily (including sending in troops!) to the Rwandan Hutu Power government. They actually helped the people comitting genocide! If this had been inadvertent it might be considered okay on the extent that they were duped. However, the French government was fully aware and quelled opposition at home who questioned what they were doing. Sheesh, maybe the reason the US and France hate each other is they are so alike it scares them. That's an angle I haven't thought about much myself.

The UN was completely impotent. If anything has come about with this Iraq war mess it further shows that the UN is possibly one of the most useless aparatus to ever exist. Simply put it only seems to succeed on rare ocassions and it drops the ball on big ones. Usually a lot of people suffer, not just those the UN was trying to save but peacekeeper's and other UN personnel as well. The UN needs to be either re-thunk or abandoned. (Yes I meant to type re-thunk.)

The other thing for me which rather affects is the actions of a lot of church leaders in these massacares. It is disturbing at how many Pastors/Reverends/whatevers betray their Tutsi Congregation members to Hutu mobs. It reminds me that there are many problems within the Church here on Earth. It's frankly depressing because I put a lot of faith in the various Pastors I've had/have and other leaders in the groups I am involved with and it scares me to think that so many people who had similiar faith were so massively betrayed. Still a lot of problems with the Church folk but God still loves us. Far more then we deserve at times tis true. There are stories which exemplify true Christians at the same time here though so it shows that it's by no means all bad. Truly those people display all that is to be Christian. Some of these people basically held back (and died for it) huge groups of armed militiamen out for murder. To die in the middle of a genocide unnamed and forgotten for others (including many strangers) just seems to be about the max you can do.

That last thing turned into a ramble, maybe I'll edit later. This book is deep though and I recommend everyone pick it up and read it. A whole new sad world will be laid out for you.

Some Changes And Some Neglection

First off, I failed to get to my secondary SALT update. I intend to do that soon tho just need to take some time to think about it. Having gotten the NWN expansions and SW: Galactic Battlegrounds this week has also sapped up my meager amount of free time to a large extent as well. At least I am done with Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World but now I am on Philip Gourevitch's We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. That's a mouthful isn't it? Anyhow it's on the Rwanda genocide. A good read so far. Not exactly fun read tho. I've found that sitting down and reading about thing's really opens up a whole new aspect to conflicts. Certainly I know a ton more about The Troubles in Northern Ireland now that I did all that reading on the IRA.

I updated my lengthy list of blogs and journals. Some got moved around. Mainly my roommate egged me on. It helped tho that my weekend got all shuffled around due to the LAN party changing nights. Not all bad tho got to see Leah, Lindsey, Molly, and met David (Leah's bro) instead. Incidentally my roommate's new blog is up there. Since it's new it's still on the active list but we'll see. I was also keyed in that my old roommate Kyle has a blog out there. Put that up but it's been awhile since he's added anything so can't say if he's still using it. Blogs are funny like that; sometimes people will just stop writing or will update sporadically so you never know when one dies or not. Hence the quiet blogs section. I do intend to overview all the extensive blogs and journals I have out there. Maybe I should remove some, I don't know. I've been told it's a nice addition and I've been (jokingly?) mocked about it.

Anyhow that's the news for now.

The Force Is With Me

I got Death Star. Until Seth takes it away. Hence I propose we gang up on him.

The Great Links Explanation (Part 1 of Many)

I just realized I never wrapped up my SALT review. I should do that soon. This week I will set a goal for.

Well I am gonna start out with my actual non-blog links. These are probably self-explanatory but might as well explain why they're there.

First one simple point with every link on my blog. They are there so to some extent anywhere in the world I am I can have some of my favorite sites easily accessed. It's my homepage to a large extent and I use it as such. Granted the content is for the readers and the links are too but the links serve the self-serving purpose of aiding me as well.

Without further ado:

First off Google News. This is how I keep in touch with what's going on in the world. In general I don't pay any attention to local/state news and I don't get a newspaper or have time to watch tv news so it keeps me informed. It also uses 4k+ sources so I get a wide array of opinions.

White-Wolf Forums: This is actually just there for the Exalted forums but initially it was easier to link to the overall forum page rather then the Exalted one. I am too lazy to change it. If you've read this for any period of time you'll know I'm an Exalted fan boy so this link should make perfect sense.

APOD (ie Astronomy Picture of the Day): Just cool pictures of the frontiers of technology. A new one every day. Also keeps me informed on any big happenings in that area of interest. I've seen Mars and Titan through there.

Red vs. Blue: Very humorous web series. Worth your time to check out although 56k dial-ups will not be able to enjoy very well. If you've played Halo you'd prolly get a laugh. Even if you haven't you might anyways.

Sci-Fi Wire: Sci-Fi channel's news service. Essentially a less efficient sort of Google News (although it's been around much longer) it keeps me abreast with news relating to science fiction and fantasy. Easier then tracking those rumors and stories across the web.

MAHQ (Mecha Anime Headquarters): Basically a Gundam heavy site which houses stats for nearly every Gundam vehicle it also keeps me up to date with the mecha related anime world to an extent. Mostly for my occasional Gundam fix.

So that's the links. Primarily for keeping me in touch with the rest of the world. Blogs both active and quiet soon to come.

Working again

Well I am back on the job for my only night shift. It cuts Chi Alpha short which is frankly dissapointing. I don't get to talk much with my friends there then :( However hopefully next year I can move upwards or at least push my night shift to a better night (Monday!). My first shift was quite easy until the end when my replacement didn't come. I could not contact the higher ups so I was left in the lurch. Now it woulda been slightly less steessful if I had noted somewhere my class started at 1:35 NOT 1 but alas I did not so when I finally left I believed I was a whopping 20 minutes late. I thought I handled the situation about right for not remembering what I had to do, in fact I am pretty sure I was supposed to try and contact my bosses and not abandon my post if all possible. In the end my directly above me chain in the command (don't ask why I don't contact him, things are sort of compartmentalized) said not to worry about it. It would help if I didn't worry about such things but I do and frankly I don't think initially I am very good at any job I do. It takes me a few shifts to get used to things before I start running pretty smoothly and even then a new problem can throw me for a fairly significant loop. I don't think I handle change all that well. I just try and roll with it and kind of bump along. The next couple shifts should be uneventful and then hopefully the class we have will actually give me some useful info. Such as switching toner cartridges and submitting work orders, so on and so forth. It's not like they are hard things but it helps to see it done or try it out before you have to do it with people watching who think you know exactly what you're doing. Or maybe they don't but it feels that way to me and it's my impression we're supposed to handle all that competently which I feel I could do better if I had just a touch more training. Anywho...

Sometime soon I am gonna give a run down on all the blogs and journals I have links to in case anyone is curious how they got there. That will have to compete with the fact I have finally gotten the two Neverwinter Nights expansions and will be playing them often. Additionally Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds is enroute and I have been warned that Seth's got Death Star and I need to practice alot. Fun stuff eh?

Good news is I should be able to get much homework done during these initial lab periods so this way I can relax and keep up with school without sacrificing sleep.

First Day of Work

And so far it's been pretty easy. Then again I've only been here for 30 minutes. To tell truth I really don't have much of an idea what to do. Hopefully this is the norm (everyone says it is but I worry, prolly rather pointlessly) for the semester. It's kind of funny because at the moment I don't really have any homework I need to do so I am rather bored. And I am just enough nervous about first day of work that I can't really focus in on my book. Granted it would help if the book moved a little faster. Robert Jordan can really drag things out at times.

Apartment life has been pretty good thus far, need to actually probably cook some food at some point. I have been surviving off soup and sandwhiches plus so fruits and veggies on the side but aside from nuking the soup (that's microwaving if you're not familiar) I haven't actually cooked anything. Have to motivate myself to do that work. Plus I should just make up a bunch of sandwhiches and put them in the freezer. That way I won't raid them early.

Chi Alpha tonight. First night of that although I have spent a lot of time with Lars, Brent, Seth, and Squirrel in the past week or so. I am looking forward to that tho even if I have to work right after it. My work schedule is kind of crazy so that'll take some getting used to.

I can't believe how packed the lab is. It's only the second day of classes. Can people have this much homework already? I think a bunch of people are printing out notes for classes. Have to keep an eye on the paper situation. Haven't a clue where they keep toner at the moment so I'll just have to pray it doesn't run out until after class Friday (when I presume they'll go over such things). It's rather surprising how little they explained going in. They tell you what you're duties are but don't really give anything beyond that. I guess after the 'Ko I figured they'd show me to some extent just to make sure you got it right the first time. After that it'd be up to you. At this point if something comes up I'll just have to intuit it (scary thought there) and hope I get it right. So for the sake of all the people in the lab and myself let's hope nothing happens eh?

Last note, people keep saying I have British accent moments. Really? Just about everything I say I thought I said the same way as prior to leaving. Wonder if the Brits really did leave something with me...

Wha?!?!

So as some of you have heard we've had toilet problems here. They are (probably) no more as after the maintenance guys failed to find anything I discovered a (I kid you not) screwdriver, bathtub drain plug, and other metallic bits and pieces in the drain. No wonder it was plugged and how the hell did the maintanence fools not find it? Anyhow...

A Picture From The Past

LastNight, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Just seeing if this works. If it does then you are looking at a scene from our last night in London...

Pointless In Point

That seems redundant but I am finally back in Point. Took awhile to get internet up and the toilet is giving troubles (they fixed it this morning and now it doesn't work again). Anyhow I am back although off-campus now in the Village. Have a cell phone now too so theoretically I shouldn't be too out of touch. That's all for now tho.

SALT (Part 1)

Ok here are my first thoughts on SALT. First of all, please check out the official blog for Earl Creps who was the primary speaker at SALT. Also see the eightstar collective for Brent's initial take on things. Finally so I don't forget, not SALT related barring me finding out about it there is Lars' new prayer blog. Hopefully it'll be a little more active then his first run! Everyone go and support him. Yes that means pray for him. Hence prayer blog.

Ok, if I had been able to blog real-time whilst I was there this would have been an interesting see-saw of reactions. While I was there I was overwhelmed. I mean massively overwhelmed. They didn't pull punches or play with kid gloves and so the stuff they said was deep, give me a point where God is involved that isn't, powerful, and well over-whelming. There are times that I just wanted to pull away and think. If anything that's kind of the one thing, for me, that SALT lacked. The message was great tho. If anything it really puts into perspective that you're never done growing in Christ. I remember getting hit by this kind of feeling right after I joined up with Chi Alpha, kind of a point where suddenly the placid idleness is shattered into realization that you've still got a ways to go. Now I hope I wasn't in a state of placid idleness prior to SALT but I do think I had settled into something of a lull. I was, and still am, striving to become a better Christian it's just that I got a little direction and lots to think about.

It gave me lots of things to ask Lars (and Brent and Seth and who knows who else). It got me motivated to push a little harder. I hope that lasts for awhile. Much as I may hate to admit it this feeling of confusion usually turns out to feel good because as I try to sort out the answers and comprehend God. When I get that drive to learn more it re-invigorates me.

Anyhow, you're probably wondering if there's a conclusion or anything like that. My conclusion is: I think it was a good weekend. But we'll see what really results from all this.

More later I think...

Abyssal Suicide Bomber

Before the FBI swarms in, this title is related to Exalted. The title however is a perfect description. Please pull out your Exalted: The Abyssals class and turn to page 227-8. Please note the Labyrinth Circle Spell: Spiteful Passing. Now although it takes a turn of concentration (ie turn delay before the spell happens) it deals possibly the most bang for the buck for a very dedicated Deathlord. Consider, Abyssal shards are re-usable. When one Deathknight dies the Deathlord gets its core essence back. It may be draining and take considerable effort for the Deathlord to create a new Deathknight but think of the advantages. A Circle of Solars has just romped through the Deathlord's plans and are coming his way with a way to kill him. Along they way the capture his last wayword Abyssal servant. The guy has decent permanent Essence but no traning whatsoever. He is nowhere near capable to fighting the harderened Solars. They decide to question him however to learn what the Deathlord has planned to stop them. During this moment surrounded by the enemies of his lord the Abyssal concentrates, his Essence pool is at or near full so assuming an Essence 5 Abyssal he can give upwards of 70L damage (soakable only by natural soak) to everyone around him. How many beings can soak that? Not many, it's instant death. Now think about this, one death for 5, a dozen, more? The trick is high Stamina, high Essence Abyssal and that's about it.

Now I need to get ready to go out and hang with Jon so that's all for now. Just fun thing to think about if you are ever in an Exalted game I run :D But wait, Solars don't know about that spell! Hehehe, evil grin.

One local complaint: how the heck can our local schools get 3 days off already this year for weather? That's akin to the total we had in high school and fast approaching the high school/middle school total. What kinda wusses are they?

Future's Past

So today was the last day at the 'Ko. Possibly forever depending on if I can find an internship this summer (which in truth is unlikely but who knows). Regardless it is going to be the last time I work at the 'Ko here. Next time will be in Point and hopefully it's not so bad there. It's been 3 and a half years since I started working there. Nearly every one of my peers is gone. I think just Mary remains otherwise none of the part timers (and she's prolly a full-timer now come to think of it) remain. I've lost track of most of them unsurprisingly, granting I only tried to keep in touch with a few. Most of the lifer's are still there but many have been driven away. Some of my favorite managers have gone their ways as well. It's a different 'Ko now and not really a better one to tell truth.

For those (-1) readers from the London group if you were in Fred's class your papers should be showing up soon. With all my thinking of the past I thought back some on London too (it helped that I was talking about it with Mary too) and realized I'm gonna really really miss walking in Regent's Park. I think more then anything that was home and some of my best memories were there. It was my escape and I shall miss it.

You Windows slobs need to go check out Apple. We'll see how this venture works out I guess.

Burnout was something of a dissapointment. Guess the PS2 version I'd played was Burnout 2 (since 3 just came out I believe). I have a racing game now tho more serious then Mario Kart. Not knocking Mario Kart tho, it is the best racing game ever. But maybe I will enjoy it more when I am less dissapointed.

To anyone who's e-mailed me in the past week or so, I'll try and get to replying today before I crash but if not sometime before I leave for SALT. I am pretty excited about SALT, lot's of Chi Alpha people will be there, a much bigger reunion then when I was at Chi Alpha before finals (owing to Tuesday nights being tough schedule time I guess). Can't wait! Yay for seeing friends!

Pointless Moves Back

Well not completely yet but starting to move into the apartment and pretty excited about it. Another big move on Tuesday plus gonna travel back to Port Edwards and get some Twism stuff as well. Then I get to work (and stay awake after that to re-adjust the schedule). Tuesday will be long but worth it to have most of the big stuff moved in. Barring the electronics but maybe I can fit that into my CRV and do a run or certainly next week. After SALT. Much excitement this week anyhow.

Good day today anyhow. Felt like I achieved a lot and got an outside assesment by Dad that the apartment was very nice. Plus I finally got all my grades in and I got all As or A-s, I think that might be the first time ever. I'll go check now and add in whether it was later. Basically it ends a good semester. I am hoping people'll get together again or at least we'll run into each other at times. Guess that's silly since we almost all go the same bloody place.

Well let's say a boo to the Jets for beating those Chargers. Guess I am switching to the Steelers for my Superbowl win. With maybe the stumble into the playoffs Vikings playing them because that'd be a story to tell ya know?

Ok just checked, this is by far my best semester, next closest I had one B and a P (which I suppose is an A but not sure how it's recorded really) but that semester was only 3 As, and 1 A-, plus the B and P. Of course 8 credits were A compared to only 7 A credits this semester. But those A-s weigh in a lot too. Anyhow I am happy even if I bored ya about my grades.

I think I'll call this the end now, got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow to pack and such.

Sleep Wanted

I should probably not be posting when I haven't slept in over a day but this could kill some time and keep me awake (as long as I keep getting IMs in the background maybe it will). Anyhow it is kinda depressing lately and not just cause I am messed up because of lack of sleep. For one thing we are taking down our Christmas stuff. That's really no fun at all, Christmas lights and trees and such are just fun to have up. Obviously the season is about much more then that but I gotta say I enjoy the trappings quite a bit and am sad to see them go. Things are just blander and darker til spring rolls around.

Also depressing is the fact that break is mostly over and I have seen really no one (barring my jaunt apartment shopping in Point which was about a month ago) at all. All the people who I am friends with in La Crosse (maybe acquaintances is a better word since it's been prolly half a year minimum since I've seen any of them) are as usual way to busy with hanging out with each other, work, sig others, and whatever as usual. So whilst they can apparently juggle their schedules enough for most people I get dropped out. It steams me somewhat because whenever they are bored they pop online and IM me and complain that they're bored as if I exist to allieviate that. Grr...maybe I am a little more worked up about this right now then usual but hey I try and arrange/offer to hang out with people and visit them and whatnot and sometimes I just wish it'd be reciprocrated. Or that people would just tell me I'm no bloody fun to be around and that they'd like me to bugger the heck off. I realize that when I read this on the flipside it's gonna look like one paragraph hock full of pathetic self-pity. Oh well.

Shopko of course helps to kick morale into high gear. Lesse, I've worked/will work (barring another cancelation) a grand total of 7 days over this nearly 2 month break of which approx. 1 month I've been available to work. Yes, the place which desperately needs to hire more overnight personnel can't give the current ones, I'm not unique in this case, no sir, more then a day or two a week. How the hell can they even call that competent management when they don't give the fulltimers full time hours? We must have dunces in control who make Dilbert's boss look like the shining light of genius. Furthermore the second best manager (that's saying a bloody awful that too) I've ever had at the 'Ko quit. Yea, the higher ups, particularily our gifted "yes man" store manager who seems to be dilbert's boss on good days drove the guy to quit it seems. Isn't that just spiffy? Sheesh nice to know they can keep the talent working there.

N-E-WHO...I think this rant has gone on long enough, time to put it up and show what a total fruit I am. Or total nut. You decide. If ya want I'll key in sometime too (leaning towards fruit at the moment, possibily bannanas to be specific). I do feel a little better now, not much but a little.

Good news: SALT in one week.

RPG News

Ok. Check out White Wolf for news on the next Exalted release: Book of Bone and Ebony. While not my personal favorite to actually play I could use it to throw some "fun" things at my PC's in the theoretical game I am gonna run. Speaking of that: is anyone actually interested in PLAYING? Guess I will find out come the start of school.

Other news: Guardians of the Order (I know I should put their blog up on here at some point) is massively discounting their stuff to get it out. It seems Canadian companies are suffering with the downfall of the US dollar. Even when our economy sucks we can hurt people, scary thought ain't it? Anyhow if you are a Silver Age Sentinels or BESM fan (or anything else GoO) you might want to check out their store which has some massive discounts. Most of it is for bundles of stuff (60 percent off their entire in-print product run, $500 instead of $1200) but also some deals for BESM and Silver Age stuff. Full in print collections of both of these for $100 or less. I am not sure I am gonna get anything, I haven't really played BESM myself although I own the corebook and frankly I don't have that much money to toss around but it's a good deal if you want to get a lot of books all at once.

That's all for now, driving in to work should be interesting tonight.

The 0230 Crunch (Full Circle)

Yes I am still up even tho I am sick. Why, you may ask (or why do I care). Well see I am continuing in my project of the week of updating the parents computer. Tonight's task: downloading 110mb of updates. This took 7 hours. Started at 1900 and ended at 0200. Now the irony is after this I have to probably download something else, install 10.3 and then spend another night doing the same thing (as we are now at 10.3.7 which I just updated my computer this afternoon). Don't forget peripheral updates. Then I have to get their favorite places working and so on and so forth. I'll be here all weeks folks, probably even into the weekend.

Some random commentary: finished The Unifying Force which is the last book in the New Jedi Order series. It's strange now that it's done. I read it so piecemeal as it came out I never got a strong sense of things. Just brief memories which sort of interconnect things when they were mentioned. However the concept was good just not my reading pattern. This book actually took me over half a year to read because I started reading it the day I left for England but was halfway through it so I left it here (rather then finish it on the plane and have extra deadweight). Ok, let's see where the galaxy is: Chewie's dead, Anakin (Solo) is dead. Jacen's prolly baddest-ass of all the Jedi. Luke and Mara have a kidlet. The Jedi are going a completely new path then ever before. At minimum a half dozen well known worlds (Ithor, Coruscant, and Yavin 4) have been destroyed or radically altered. New Republic gone. Galatic Alliance in. Imperials = good guys. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. A fair amount of the legends showed up here. A couple died (I forgot Ackbar but he died a non-combat death, ie old age). The galaxy will never be the same as it's been so thoroughly shook up.

Relating to that I have finished watching the Star Wars DVDs with commentary. I can't believe Han Solo killed Ben Burtt! What was he thinking with the movie half done? They're lucky the got sound for the last half of Return of the Jedi!

Twism's in the apartment now. He nicked the master bedroom (with it's own walk-in closet and bathroom). I am a whee bit irked because I did go to the effort of finding the place I guess I think I should get the choice of bedrooms. However I am telling myself it's a minor thing and all that. We have a place and that is good. Exciting times anyhow. I am going to hunt for an office chair tomorrow because I realized I won't have anything to sit on to use my computer. For the moment my computer desk will be a card table but I am expecting my sister to surrender her old unwanted computer desk at some point.

Finals thoughts: Dad finished the bookshelf! Yay I have a place to store my RPG books and the rest of my library now! It is sad, pathetic, and nerdy that I am soooo excited about getting a bookshelf? Oh well, it looks darn cool if I do say so myself.

Anyhow time to say good night. To those who are sick like myself (but no unlike certain people named Leah I didn't get them sick) hope you all feel better soon!

Updating

Yea not in the sense of this ol' blog but rather my parents old iMac. I've been putting on OS X and wow it's a lot of work. Their OS 9 was out of date so OS X couldn't find Classic. When I updated Classic it created a new OS rather then overlapping the old (guess 9.0.4 and 9.2 are further apart then I realized). Can't update to OS 10.3 because firmware needs to be updated. Can't put Safari on cause the OS isn't high enough. Blaargh! Looks like I've got a project all week. My list of things to do is actually kind of large but nothing seems all that pressing at the moment. I should probably write it all down lest I never get any of it done cause it's all stuff where at random times I think "I should do this" and then forget again.

My beloved Miami Dolphins are not the worse team this season! Yes! Anyhow I think the AFC has got Superbowl in the clutch. It's hardly debatable that they have fielded the best teams this year. Look at what we are sending: the Packers and the Vikings and the West will send St. Louis or Seatle or right who cares?

Newtypes

Was shocked to see this maganize at the 'Ko but picked it up as it is the premire anime magazine. I had thought it was just Japanese only but they have an American version for us non-Japanese speaking Yanks. Guess we have taken to anime enough to make it worth their while. Decent magazine, there is a ton more anime then I can even imagine. A lot of it does not even slightly interest me but a couple shows peaked my interest. Not sure if I will ever see them cause you need to spend money to get the DVDs...

Slowly working to unlock the last levels that I have a chance in hell to unlock in Time Splitter's. Of course I fall about 4 hands (yes hands) short of unlocking Chasm. Gonna leave lots of this talented unlocking stuff to Twism who is a master at this, just like about everything he attempts.

Some well wishes to people who are about to travel or other such things. Primarily that'd be Krystal, Leah, and Jessie. Some are Ireland bound and one is going to Utah. Hope both journies are safe. Happy birthday to Colleen who is 21 in two days. Yea to Ryan for being un-single again. Hope it lasts old man :D

I haven't anything else to randomly mention so I'll just end this now. Fun that.

Ditto to that...

Overheard by one of the (nighttime) radio DJs, said mildy in jest. "I'm like a gas station trash can, girls don't want be anywhere near me unless they absolutely have too. And then just for bare minimum of time." I know this feeling quite well sometimes.
Spent the night hanging out with John and Ben. Yes, the Madden computer is superior to most humans, just admit it. John gave me 50 episodes of Naruto and 10 of Bleach so lots of viewing to do. Can probably get some more Naruto so might have him burning a lot of CDs for me!
Got my hair shortened today. Back to the normal everyday (for what the past 15 years?) look. I don't think I change very much physically.
Well must get to work, need to sort out a CD for Jessie and one for John. Maybe find a snack. E-mail some folks. I work tomorrow night, blah!

Fin-ished

So the little saga of too easy Madden has wrapped. The Dolphins went undefeated for the season. After the romp in the AFC championships I kinda figured the Superbowl would be a little milder. Well 84-0 later I am not quite sure. I got a TD less but I shut out the opposing offense for the first time. Peyton Manning threw 6 Ints (his QB rating at the end was a whopping 11.2). More amazing considering I let the defense play itself just pick formations. Set a few Superbowl records. It doesn't really matter tho, we'll see if I can do any good at All-Pro. Since my complete dominance is unlikely (I imagine the opposing D will get better at making picks from my lousy passes) those of you who dislike Madden will be relieved of that annoyance from this blogsphere.

I reformatted the iPod in a last ditch attempt to fix its battery, short of sending it in. I'd rather not spend money on it. So far it looks like it's doin' a little better but I will have to see. I still think it's on it's last ropes but if I can make it survive a little longer will that's money not spent ya know?

Found out that River City Hobbies appears to be discotinuing most of its RPG book collection which it's only had a for a year or two as far as I know. Picked up the Blue Planet (v2) Player's Guide. I am pretty sure Uncle Hugo's has the Moderator's Guide so I could run the game now in theory. I had the v1 Core book but all the expansions are for v2 only and they are completely different! You are probably asking how I can spend money so freely on RPG books and I am not quite sure. I like reading and I like RPGs. If anything it's my guilty pleasure. I should be better once I go back to Point, reduced to just getting Exalted books. Thankfully none of those come out til mid-February or so. I am thinking I might try and run a Blue Planet if I can get some interest. More importantly I need to get the ball rolling on this theoretical Exalted game I am running in the spring. I have started writing up some stuff but I need to find out who's all playing. Incidentally if you are reading this and interested in being that game drop me an e-mail (prefferably at my Gmail addy, I keep forgetting to check my UWSP mail and it's caused problems of various minor sorts lately). I am not sure if it will run Wednesday nights (at GASP) or some other night. Kinda depends on schedules so let me know what your schedule is if/when you e-mail me.

So now I am poking thru the BioHazard Games homepage some since I had to find the link for Blue Planet. Seems like they might actually be recovering from the doldrums. Not sure if they will do ok. I have heard the RPGs have been hitting a slump lately. Granted it's more D20 system related. Probably as WotC tightens up their grip on the OGL stuff. Anyhow I generally have enjoyed the premise of the story (hence wanting to run a game) so I hope they continue to put out more material. Come on, who hasn't wanted to ever play a dolphin or an orca? I have since Startide Rising. Always a fun read. I really do enjoy reading RPG books. I probably should just sit down and re-read the stuff I've got but what fun is that?

So this whole having an apartment thing is fairly intensive when thinking about all the stuff you need to get, ie basic amentities. Chairs, tables, silverware, cookware, etc. At least I can get furniture from sister (who is getting a new house and wants decent stuff now, w00t! I get the rejects) and parents/grandparents. The other stuff well I got some for Christmas but the rest needs to be bought. A lot needs to be thought of first. I should really have a list cause I always think of it at some point when I can't write it down or do anything about it.

Right, another long entry. Whee, enjoy.

Old Friends

So one of my old friends from way back in elementary school stopped by this evening. Lately it seems like I've been hearing from people I haven't in awhile. I really like keeping in touch with people. Granted some I try harder with some more then others and lately it seems like I haven't been really succeeding. Somehow I lose touch or people drift away. This is probably a natural tendency in the world I guess. It frustrates me. Then again I suppose there are people I want to not keep in touch with so I should assume there are people who want to do the same with me. I wonder why sometimes although in a lot of cases I figure it's cause I creeped them out or something along those lines. Blah to my lack of social skills. But ok enough self pity! I am really happy that I got to see my friend and that a couple friends I haven't talked to in awhile I've gotten to talk to (some of them don't reply to e-mails so I wonder sometimes but even I am lousy with e-mails these days). Here's hoping I can keep in better touch with them. And also people from this fall. Here's hoping!

"Could it be you're what they call a hunter?"
"Probably."

I love this quote from Witch Hunter Robin. Just thought I'd use that to seperate thoughts. Anyhow...a word of note for Madden 2005 users. Difficulty setting of "Pro" is not very hard. I've plugged through a season in franchise with it and gone undefeated. All I have left is the Superbowl. Score of the AFC Championship game: 91-6. Yes that's right I set records (personal ones mind you, best game all season) for passing yards, offensive yards, total tds in a game, passing tds in a game. Think that is all of them. Rather shocked I did it then but well turns out the Raider backfield couldn't cover very well beyond 30 yards from scrimmage so I started burning them deep with Ward, my custom WR, Chambers, James, Kleinsasser, Gonzalez, and Shockey. Yea I got TDs will all of them plus Vick on the ground. After the Superbowl I'm gonna erase the franchise and start over on higher difficulty. I wish in madden I didn't need to deal with resigning players and salaries and all that crap. I just wanna create my team and play is that too much to ask? I was hoping I could turn everything off but that, no such luck!

Think I've got really bad breath. Maybe that explains my problems from the first paragraph, eh? Have to pick up some breath mints or something.

So let's see. What a strange entry thus far. Can I capitolize on it? I'll drift briefly to RPG books. I now own 72 of them from 10 seperate games (9 playable). Finished watching the Star Wars trilogy on DVD. They modified two thing: in Empire Strikes Back the Emperor hologram is more Emp. like and the Emp's dialogue is modified. This is ok, it feels weird tho because I am so familiar with the old dialogue. In Return of the Jedi the end has Naboo in the celebration scene (why?) and a younger Anakin who looks well evil and doesn't fit in. Keep the old Anakin! Wonder why George Lucas can't leave these alone. Guess those are the ones we'll all know. VCR's are dissapearing. Still worth the money and the documentary is good too (rather long tho).

So now this is a very long entry. I should stop because I've heard people hate long entries. And self-pity. I have flawlessly combined them so they should hate this entry! Perfection? :D

Tis the Season To Do Modifications

Hokay...
So we added some new blogs of people I know, etc. They are in the usual place. Moved a couple down to the "Quiet Blogs" section do to inactivity. Still easy to find. Yes if you are wondering some of the quiet blogs do update once in awhile. Laura's just did not long ago. Other notes: I finally switched the time back to the ol' Yankee standard CST. So now it makes sense when I am posting. Or does it? It's not like my schedule is normal anyhow. Theoretically later today or this week I will try and post some interesting read-I am feeling introspective this week so prolly along those lines- so check back if you need to fall asleep quickly or just want to say "duh! You didn't know that all along?" to me the next time we talk.

Merry Christmas

Yay it's a white one too! Wherever you be (and everyone of course is scattered everywhere) please have a safe and joyful one! Merry Christmas!

As Advertised

So gonna try for a more substantial entry for once. Probably the first since I got back. Or not. Who knows. Work has not been that bad somehow. Basically things haven't changed. This can be seen as a good and a bad thing. They haven't gotten worse but nothing has really improved. We do have a kick-ass overnight manager. He does work. Yea, that's a first. I guess the GO doesn't want the managers to do much work (another genius decision by them, let's pay 6-7 people to not work help out on the floor) but those who do are generally well liked, boosting morale and all that. Of course the GO is oblivious to such things. They would probably be unaware to the floor burning out from under them. Then again I think Shopko is losing a lot of ground lately (got nothing to prove that, should check FT.com or something or an equivalent and see what they say) against their competitors and the stuff they do just makes it worse. I wish that'd turn around, don't want the world run by Wal-Mart!
I haven't switched the time back yet. Sue me. Maybe after this. Too lazy to save this as a draft and do it. Perhaps afterwards. Random curiosity: why aren't my grades up yet? It's not like I can hurry them along but most of my classes have been done for over half a month! Guess IP doesn't submit them til late (and yes I am sure they route thru IP).
Ok. I am tired of trying to multi-task therefore I'm gonna stop trying to blog at the moment. Maybe I will get a better entry later. Or not.

Snow and Splitters

Yay. Time Splitter's 2 has arrived! And it snowed! :D What a blissful day. Ok so it's somewhat material but finally the house looks right with the snow and Christmas lights and all. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Gotta work now. I see that I still have this set to GMT so at somepoint I'll have to switch that back over. I'll add it to the really long list of stuff to do...

Splendiferousness

Well as of late I am greatly contributing to the economy. Using early Christmas money I have gotten a Gamecube with MarioKart (of course!) and Time Splitters 2 is on the way. Alas Eric is gone most of the week so I can't pass on the good news. The bigger news is however that I have purchased a new car. Much excitement here although my poor savings are gonna feel even more hollow and empty (include now that I need to cover insurance and tomorrow I am officially signing on an apartment too). Happily my car has a tape deck so I can use my iPod (via cassette adaptor) in it and it has a 115v plug so I can charge it as I go especially since the charge is down to an hour and it retains that for less then a day. Really need to send that it but it's another expense. Maybe I shoulda spent my Christmas money on that (alas too late to think of that now).
Work wasn't too bad Wed. morning. I work again tonight and tomorrow night. This'll mean a long day of which I will probably be sleeping alot whilst Dad drives me to Point and back. Alas no time to visit people I missed the previous trip last week. I still feel bad cause I showed up Allison for lunch last Friday. I hate it when people miss things and then I go and do it myself. Really feel like whacking myself with a pole-arm several times over. Blah. :(
I have just noticed this is still on Brit time +1 (daylight savings time threw that off). Should really change that. Don't need to be reminded that I am far away. I think most of the group is back now. I've seen a few online. Strange I won't see them for a bit. Depressing I won't see Tricia for, well, a long time most likely.
Anyhow, this spring I challenge a bunch of people to Mario Kart with two seperate Gamecubes! We should have room at the apartment to set up that and still have seating for 8 people. We can kick Steiner's ass for sure if there are 7 of us ruthlessly gunning for him! Plus Twism can kill those damn ducks (some people might actually know what I am talking about from freshman year) again.

Oops, almost forgot. Our family has the (strange, ridiculous, cool, fascinating?) habit of naming our vehicles. I need a good guy's name that starts with A. If anyone of the 1 readers care to partcipate.

Stream of Thoughtless

Let's see. Was really busy earlier so didn't get this off til now. What is busy you ask? Well talking to Leah, Ryan, and e-mailing Tricia. So talking to important people! Anyhow...
I am now attempting to re-adjust to routine here. I start overnights again (oh joy) Tuesday. In the meantime I have been relaxing. This involves reading a lot of RPG books, I have Aspect Book: Air, House of the Bull God, and Exalted: Fair Folk all to read. Incidentally I have a ton of non-fiction reading to do. I wondered why I thought battle of Moscow was a turning point in and I got home and sicking on my bookshelf is an unread book: The Battle of Moscow. Hmm. Anyhow I have a ton of books to read. I will be doing that til summer. Yipes.
Relating to anime: I have now missed Wolf's Rain and Gundam SEED since August. Plus Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Full Metal Alchemist. Now FMA I didn't care much about but having seen it, it's decent caliber if not a purchase later. However the other three are so I will have to wait til they are fully out on DVD so I can buy them as sets. At this rate story's will be confusing but I can figure out most of them I think. Fun stuff. Whilst I am doing that I have been playing Total Annihilation (spl?). So in a sense I am busy returning to a normal life.
Last notes: go buy Hero and watch it. Then watch Dodgeball. I have updated the links. Mainly I added Ryan's blog and Jen's journal. Enjoy. I am going back to decorating the basement. I love Christmas.

I need to write Abby and Kleiner. Oh boy. Soooo much to do. I am overwhelmed!

Live From Point

Well I'm back. It might be noticed the time is still Greenwich Mean, I will fix that later. Apartment shopping here goes slowly. Hopefully more luck tomorrow but who knows. This is coming live from the Lars residence. (He's not dead just busy and Jaybez hasn't mastered typing...yet.) Not much to report. Feeling a little out of place to some extent tho, I've found that people have changed. Maybe it's me but the way some people are now is just different then when I left them. It seems to me their values have shifted. I don't know. I guess I feel a little left out, which granting where I've been, I have. You can't expect to be a major part of people's lives and live 4000 miles away at the same time. It doesn't work. So I am dealing with that.
I could really use a good walk thru Regent's Park but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

I also need a shave but my razor is back home. So I am gonna be very fuzzy when I get back Friday. Not like I need to worry about anyone kissing me. I think the one chance I had is now far away London and she won't be coming home to the US. :(

That's life. This was your first post-Europe entry. Enjoy.

Mind the Gap

Well folks, it's been fun. A few months ago I was sitting at home thinking what to write to say "good bye" to Wisconsin. Now I sit here thinking about what to say to London. I didn't get to do half what I wanted, there are so many famous places I didn't see or barely saw. On the whole tho, I have no regrets. I met some great people (who'll hopefully keep in touch). I got to see Belfast a city which I have fallen in love with I think and hope to get back to some day and pray that they may continue the path towards peace. I discovered having the RPG habit in London costs twice as much as in Wisconsin but they have bigger, better stores here so as with everything in life, it's a trade-off.
I will miss the friends I've made in the group. Some I might see regularily, others I may see never again. I miss the people back home and can't wait for Tuesday when I can see them all again! Not sure I miss work but it will be nice to get a paycheck again even if it's in piddly American dollars.
I have thought a lot about travelling and I think (although woe to anyone who leaks this to my parents) that before I graduate I will take advantage of these trips and sneak over here again. I'm thinking Ireland. For now though I am going to relax as all my homework is in and I have only token classes tomorrow. I even managed an A in the first of my WE classes. Fancy that.
In the meantime I am enjoying being able to laugh at the British humor of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, enjoying Regent's Park (and its subsidary Primrose Hill), and late night movie/Risk sessions.
The iPod did hold up for 3 months but barely so I guess my one worry has been answered.
After this entry, this will once again return to the frozen wastes of Wisconsin, hope you all enjoyed the pointless commentary. If not well Exalted: Fair Folk came out Monday so pick up a copy (and harass White Wolf to hurry up and send me mine) and read that instead. Until Wisconsin, cheers!

Most Memorable Turkey Day

So many firsts including: first Thanksgiving away from family, having classes on Thanksgiving, enjoying said classes, spending the entire afternoon traipsing on the London Underground, going to Camden for the first time (with two lovely ladies, whee :D ), and generally having a fantastic Thanksgiving Day. Hopefully it'll get better from here. Not quite sure what I've got on tap but go figure. Today is just kinda legendary to me already! Anyhow I said it already but Happy Thanksgiving to all, I will see you all sooner then you think (muwahaha!)

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends...

...is a fantastic show!

Almost Undisputed Trivia Champs

And we were the only international team too. The joint US-Canadian (UW Stevens Point and U of Quelph) effort brought a close second place! It would help if the guy doing the trivia knew his Star Wars quotes correctly. Which movie do you think "You're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home" came from? Anyhow...
Almost done with the World War 2 paper rough draft. Then I've only got the 10-20 page Brit History paper on the IRA and the Shakespeare paper all 6 or so pages of crap I need to turn out for that lousy class. I don't like it much, can you tell?
Exalted: Fair Folk is almost out. The artists/authors have gotten their copies. Finally got to see some art and charm trees (technically art) and they look very cool. Fae (er Raksha is technically what we're supposed to call them now) nobles are incredibly bad-ass. They start out with 3 dots in all attributes and get a 10/7/4 breakdown (max of 7 starting in any attribute) so they can do a heck of a lot of damage from the get go although I suspect there are some serious drawbacks to keep them from maruading freely across Creation. Regardless running around with beginning characters who could easily have Str + Ath of 12 (that's strong enough to throw a Volkswagen around folks!) from the get-go should make a ST or two a bit nervous. At least I'll have another fun thing to toss into my game I am theoretically running this spring. Need to work out details whence I get back home to all my beloved books but if you are a Pointer and want in let me know! (Lars ya count even though you technically graduated several decades ago. ;) )
Not much else to talk about on the England front at the moment. The farthest I have gotten away from ISH or MTH is for walks with Trisha into Regents Park (which at max is a mile and probably not even that far away). I am happy cause I found someone to walk with! It has also managed to warm up appreciably here from last weekend which is nice. Jeff took some iniative, which itself is not unheard of, and figured out to turn our radiators on, although they aren't very warm they help. Plus Jeff didn't kill us all in turning the radiators on! Luckily his girlfriend sent him something to warm the place up but he can't open it up to see what it is til Dec. 1st (hehe I know what it is!).
I should return to my paper now. I am enjoying reading about the Russian front in World War II which I think is seriously under covered in American classes. The Russians could have beaten the Germans without us and what do most Americans think the major turning point of the war was? Normandy. Don't get me wrong that was quite important for post-war things but the Russians coulda rolled right to Normandy if need be. That woulda been one heck of a Soviet Union then!

Regged

Yay registration went off without a hitch for me for the spring! Sadly I have an 8am class 4 days a week which I had no choice on taking (only section of a required CIS course). However I have only one class on Fridays and it's done at noon so going home will be easily facilated if need be and otherwise I have long weekends. In general my schedule will be pretty busy during the week tho so all my fun will be moved to nights and weekends. Maybe I will get more homework done tho if I am stuck on campus and can't play around on the web as much. I can dream at least!
It's gotten chilly over here since it started raining on Thursday. It has to be close to freezing out there and it's that damp chill which cuts through just about everything. I am not real upset that it is raining today because I need to do homework (I am doing some at the moment) so this will keep me motivated to stay in and do it rather then going finding Trisha or someone else to go for a walk. I wasted a good hour and a half doing that yesterday but Trisha hadn't been to Primrose Hill so it was well worth it. Ironically we got there about sunset (which is 4pmish or earlier here) so the whole city looked pretty damned cool.
This whole week has been rather unproductive and we've been staying up til 3AM watching movies on Jon's laptop. The group varies somewhat but it's usually me, Jon, Jeff, Leah, and Trisha. Other people occasionally show up. Jeff and Jon (lightweights!) never make it through the second movie. It's good fun and we found a decent pizza place that delivers too. Gotten some quality Risk games in as well. It's funny how Filteau tries to make everyone think he is not out just for himself and that when he is feeling like he's in a bad position how he tries to diss other people so he looks better. Greatly amusing :D Jeff did well last night but Jon has managed to be in second place the last two games which is pretty good considering that he has hardly played. It looks like Risk and Axis & Allies will become a mainstay of our getting togethers back home. At least I found people who'll play those games it had been forever since I had played them previously!
Time to return to the homework. Going to try and complete the geography paper so I only have a Brit history, WW2 history, and Shakespeare paper left. The long ones which require actual quoting of sources and such. This week is gonna involve oh so much typing!

No Side

Well the election is over. Bush won. I actually spent quite awhile thinking and working on a response which now I don't think I am going to use despite working on it a fair amount. Thus this will be less eloquent then what I had written so sorry about that. Maybe if I am motivated I will put that up sometime later (it is ensconed in my actual journal somewhere).
Anywho...
Bush won. It's not the end of the world. 59 million Americans are not stupid, not bigoted, not whatever. They voted what's right, that's democracy. Be glad we don't have another 2000 fiasco! And the seperation of church and state means that the church does not directly rule (ala Church of England and/or the Catholic church), the fact people vote along the lines of their religious beliefs probably just indicates they actually believe in their said faith! Pretty sure ol' TJ (Thomas Jefferson) said something along those lines back in his day.
Right, so those are my short comments on the whole mess. Randon and scattered cause I am writing this late over a game of Risk (which Filteau is screwing up!) These last 2.5 weeks are heavy with homework. Very heavy. I have nearly 30 pages worth of stuff to write!
I've also been trying to get out and do stuff with people outside of our group (ala the people I game with who are fun but can tell some tales of NHS) and with other folks as well ( :D ).
Now if I can just figure out about a place to live back home and Salt then life will be good. Oh I'd like the Wales trip to run Sunday too.
Politics and my life, what a weird post.

No side.

Vote

So yea, go vote. Despite what the idiots may say it doesn't matter who you vote for so long as you vote. And if anyone tells you that you voted the "right" way smack them. Seriously that ticks me off. And also, every election is equally important. This one is no more so. But like I said what matters is that you vote.

I voted awhile ago, if you are wondering who then you need to reread this. What did I do on election day? I watched "The Girl Next Door" which I highly recommend. So after you vote go do that.

And those of you with a significant other, be happy. You're lucky.

Jolan Tru.

Life, News, and Swedish Monarchies

Sooooooooooo, I finished rough draft numero uno of my 8-10 page paper for World War Two in Europe so I am taking a break now for the night to give a long entry with lots of nicely planted links to various things you might want to check out.
First off, the lively, lovely, can we get it over with already(?!?) elections. I was pointed to a curious site called Slate where I found one of the coolest things. An election scorecard (please note the one linked to here is for the morning of October 29th, to find the latest one, go to the Slate frontpage, then Campaign 2004 and look for the newest scorecard in the list of articles given) is given for the nation. Now currently they have Kerry ahead for the first time since I started looking. This is amazingly part of Wisconsin. Never thought our paltry few electoral votes would count for much but apparently the cheese-heads may help decide the election! Scary thought there eh?
What actually makes me wonder more though is when you look at the map notice just how much of the country is red. Yup, you got it, well over half (about 30) states are solidly for Bush. This means if Kerry wins territorily he will have taken it with a small chunk of America. Let's face it, Bush controls the Midwest, the Great Plains and the South. All Kerry has is the East Coast and the West Coast. Does it feel like a gyp to those of us in the middle that he has much less territory that wants him? Granted the land doesn't vote but well if Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas would have a few more kids we wouldn't see a Democrat in the White House for decades. Funny thing I noticed too was that Alaska is completely in for Bush. I guess the Alaskans don't mind his enviromental policy. Funny thing too since it's supposed to be really bad or something right? Then again maybe there is a secret Russo-Canuck Alliance who want to annex them and they would prefer a strong leader.
Who are did I vote for you may be asking? I think I said already so go look. Right now I would probably vote differently so I am hoping things work out well however they turn out. I really have no clue. Irony cannot be stated enough my first presidential election and I don't like either of the two canidates the two parties have provided. Where is John McCain? By the way, why do we only get two viable canidates and why is Ralph Nader so evil? All the pro-Kerry people actually bash his running simply because it hurts them. Apparently if you don't help the party (whichever of the two it may be) then you are anti-American, yadda, yadda, yadda.

POLITICAL CRAP DONE!
Well sorta, apparently Osama bin Laden is alive and well. I wish him the best and hope he can personally speak to some of our US soldiers during rifle practice on how they can help make America safer. The nice thing is he can help out and be a rifle target at the same time. Who says he doesn't care? He gets on tv and tells us that both canidates are dopes (which we already know but nice to see that even radical Muslim terrorists can see it) and that we need something better plus he helps our soldiers by giving a moving target to aim at. What a guy! And I love the turban too, very classy :D

Meanwhile if your head is in the ground you've probably missed the most important stories of the week!

Apple has announced new iPods this week! Specifically the iPod Photo! They have increased battery life (12 and 15 hours) and huge memories (40 and 60 GB) and massive price tags (600 and 700 dollars). Plus color screens, did I mention the color screens? If I didn't they have pretty color screens. Now my poor iPod has a battery life of about 3 hours left in it when fully charged. Yes that's down from the meager 4 it had when I got here. Canti's dying slowly but surely poor little guy. So I have been keeping an eye on the iPods. Whilst this is wonderful news it'd be more wonderful if it cost less so I didn't spend nearly half what I spent to purchase my iMac! Over half if you count the costs for my first iPod. There is also the U2 iPod which aside from the deal to get $50 off on the entire U2 collection (whose total price remains a mystery so as to whether this is a good deal or not is a mystery) does not offer much to buy it. It costs more as well so not real interesting. I await hope that the older original type iPods go down in price so I can get a 12 hour battery lifer for under $200. Doubt I will get that lucky but I can pray.

Star Wars fans please take note this paragraph is for you. If you wasted money on a Hyperspace subscription (not me!) then you will get to see the Episode 3 teaser trailer on November 4th. The rest of America and Canada: if you go see The Incredibles on November 5th you will see the teaser trailer there. People who are too cheap to pay just to see that first little trailer (me!) you can see it online at StarWars.com for free on November 8th. See the SciFiWire link or the teaser poster link here. It's still more then 6 months away but time is ticking down!

I finally used the Tube on Monday. Probably right after I posted the my last entry. I used the newer Jubilee line so they sadly didn't say "Mind the gap" because there was no gap. I was sad. I may have to go in search of that because it amuses me greatly.
Otherwise this week has been totally focused on attempting to do homework. This was greatly hindered when I churned out half the paper mentioned above and then found out that because Mertz doesn't actually help much even tho he assigns us outlines to do, etc that nearly everything I had could not be used and as a result had to start from scratch. Plus we only have one book as a source so I need to find some more sources (mostly non-internet because like many Profs he does not trust it) which is rather hard since in London every library but the smallest crappy ones require enough Letters of Recomendations from Important People (ie the Space Pope, God, members of the Swedish Royal Family, Reverend Coaches, and others whom are so important I am not allowed to even mention their names in this blog). As a result my research abilites are limited (I don't have my super library at home or the admittedly decent library at UWSP to use). Life is tough for researching over here and frankly this is the first time I have had to write many papers at all in college. One does not need to do much of that when you program computers! So I am going through an interesting time academically. Hopefully I can pull out a higher GPA then a B but I am worried at this rate.

Much excitement as White-Wolf will be releasing Exalted: The Fair Folk in just about a month. I really wish we could get Nephilpal to leak us some more juicy tidbits. He is after all writing both on the Fair Folk and Alchemicals (granting that there are NDA enforcing hamsters of death, with death-ray lasers attached to their little heads to keep him from spilling any Alchemical goodies, all he can do is mess with our heads).

Is there more I can write now? Prolly. However I should stop as this is incredibly longish already. I needed a good vent. Life is stressful here and I don't have anyone to walk with. Also in violating my original plan of not trying to find a girl here although the girl in question seems to be more then committed to me not failing (at least that is my pessimistic outlook, let's face it I haven't a clue at all what she thinks!) Paper writing sucks. The EU is a mess, there's a general election insanity which seems to grip all of Europe now as well, and we've discovered that Titan is one giant combustable Molotov cocktail. Which makes me wonder, if we drop Hyugens into it, will we cause the entire surface to ignite or is there no oxygen in any significant form to allow for that? It would really such if we whiped out this great scientific wonder (and great source for volatiles in the future, I've been reading Jovian Chronicles some more, I could go onto that too if I wanted) by the dropping of our first probe there? Tune in Christmas Eve for me on that!

Anyhow I miss Wisconsin, it feels very Octoberish here which makes me rather homesick. At least I have nice parks to walk in (I am in love with them if you haven't already noticed) if noone to walk with. I miss all you folks and Eric you better be ready for that first Tuesday night I am back because I am gonna school you all in Mario Kart.

That's all folks.

Really.

50 hours in Belfast

Spent the weekend in Belfast. Despite the general paranoia of people in this group it is an absolutely safe city. Lowest crime rate on the continent (wonder why eh?). The murals were beautiful and I got really lucky when I took a turn off Shankhill Rd and found some of the more famous murals. Sadly didn't make a lucky turn like that off Falls Rd. The Botanic Gardens were wonderful too although I in general love parks and finding another one was a good deal for me. The weather was fantastic, usually it rains alot there like everywhere else in the UK but Friday was cloudy and Saturday was sunny. Rather chilly but that just made it feel like home. Actually the entire city gave a feel of the midwest, maybe a little less well off but they are much more down to earth there then in London. I loved being able to walk down streets and know their history (troubled as it is). Anyhow if you go to Europe don't discount Belfast, Northern Ireland is a wonderful place.

Legality

While those of you who are pro-Kerry may wholly support any efforts to covert people to your cause this article in the Guardian rather frightens me. Now I am not quite sure how old this so maybe it already made major news in the US, maybe not, but anyhow. I'm just going to copy what I wrote to someone in hopes of clearing things up a bit.

This article
( http://guardian.assets.digivault.co.uk/clark_county/ ) is an effort by the newspaper to get its readership to persuade Americans in Clark County, Ohio to vote how the readers want. Each reader who signs up gets the e-mail of one registered voter of Clark County, Ohio who they can then e-mail. There are several links from that page also arguing why Europe (and the rest of the world) should get as much a say as the US.
Now I've got a couple questions here, some of them somewhat disturbing for me: First, why are the e-mail addresses for listed voters available to the entire world to access? (I will grant my knowledge on laws in this area in very limitied, but if the Guardian can get it, who else can?) Secondly, when did Europe start believing that they have as much say in US elections as the US? I have heard people over here actually say they wish they could vote for us to make sure we vote the right way. I personally believe if you voted, you've done the right thing you cannot vote right or wrong, your duty is simply to vote!

I probably shouldn't be writing this stuff at 2 AM but it bother Jeff too, so it ain't just me (maybe just us tho). For better feelings read the previous entry and for those of you who made comments I responded see that entry.

Gray and Green

Walked through St. James', Green, and Hyde Parks today. London has such wonderful green spaces, I will surely miss them for years to come. They make me rather nostalgic for when I was a little kid wondering around state parks in Wisconsin and Minnesota (especially one very misty, foggy, and cloudy morning). If you ever go to London you must take some time to check out the parks, they are fantastic. I guess I am just in one of those sombre happy moods I haven't been in for awhile. Everything just seemed to focus it today though, maybe the only thing which could have made it better was snow but that doesn't happen real often. Hope everyone managed to get as nice a day out of today as me, if not go out and walk in Schmeekle (or whatever greenery you local affords you) and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Measure for Measure

I voted today. Now most of you have to wait til November 2nd but you sure as heck better vote. If you miss because you are out playing cricket and watching (real) football and do not you should be ashamed and I hope the bowler sends a wicked googly your way! :P Anyhow exercise your constitutional rights before the Democratic and Republic parties take them away altogether.
It exists. Enough said. Next time sing the whole song.
A curiousity, have people been getting my Gmails? We have been having browser issues on this end, John's IE being so thoroughly ridden with spy,ad,and pornware that it is virtually unusable, we switched to Fire Fox which has had issues with UWSP e-mail, the tendency being to forward messages and deleting their replies. For instance I sent a survey to a couple people which I think UWSP mail replaced with the original. I am fairly positive I am not Allison I am not good looking enough and I'm the wrong sex if you got that one (and it was messed up as I suspect). I use Gmail pretty religiously now but I am not sure whether UWSP Spamblocker knows I am not a spammer. Right that was a preponderously long and confusing paragraph.
So any news over here? Well my family is visiting this week so I we had a mini-reunion over here. That is really about it. Just the regular old routine. Jeff is shaving using the broken bathroom mirror he "borrowed". It's cooler then ever temp. wise. I have been trying to get out and do stuff with people, mostly within our group cause I am still not really extroverted enough to get to know other people.
It looks like I might have an apartment whence I return to Point so hopefully Twism's finances will hold thru so all I have to do is come back and sign the papers and hand over some money from my already thinned bank accounts. Really hope that works.
Anyhow consider this a randomly pasted (which reminds me, I had a pasty Allison) together attempt to update the two people who occasionally read this blog. Adoring fans or lost websurfers you ask? I'll leave that for the philosphers to decide.
Try tiramisu chocolate truffles, your life will be better for it. Or read 1st Corinthians. Or both.