Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Re-Inquisition

Yesterday I forgot to mention my weekend discovery, which I’m sure most anyone else reading this already knows. After doing well at the $10 SnG’s for the day I decided to hop into a $20 to round out the day. I have enough of a bankroll to play these, but given that I’m ultra-conservative with it, it’s not to the point where I feel I can or should play them exclusively. I think that mindset may be shifting, however, as I discovered that play at the $20’s is as bad or worse than the $10’s and even lower. I’ve only played a couple, so my discovery may not be indicative of the norm, but damn the play is terrible. Rampant hyper-aggressive idiocy. Can someone that plays this level SnG let me know if this is accurate? I was shocked because I figured I would encounter a better level of play and thus far it’s been quite the opposite. If my impressions are indeed reasonably accurate I may just have to jump out of my comfort zone a bit sooner than I planned.

*****

I desperately need this sickness to go away. Walking through every day is much like slogging through mud, and class last night didn’t make things any better. Four hours of pure drivel. I thought that my degree classes were dumb, but slogging my way through the last couple Gen Ed’s that I need is pure torture. Thank God I can get on FullTilt (Bonus Code: HHEAD) during class; it keeps the things to a dull buzz in the background and I can turn a dull experience into a profitable one.

It certainly beats trying to dream up inventive ways to kill oneself with various unlikely objects, such as eating my battery pack, trying to suffocate myself with my laptop bag, or perhaps impaling myself on one of the legs my chair. Is this mechanical pencil sharp enough for me to give myself a lobotomy? I really think that in the not too distant future we might see the emergence of a new phenomenon called “Death by PowerPoint.” Thanks Microsoft, for giving the world this wondrous software and making poor speakers even more teh suck. Meh.

*******

Warning: If you don’t like political rants, stop reading here.

I was helping out one of my users yesterday who was having problems with their VPN and noticed that this person had NPR on. I really like NPR (not sure where that puts me on the huge nerd scale, but it must be pretty high. Probably somewhere in between huger and hugest) and had forgotten about it, and it made working a bit nicer, until…..

My ears perked up at the mention of Manhattan, KS, home of K-State. It’s beside the point, but I find whoever it was that gave the town its name to be pretty audacious, considering that it’s neither a city nor is it metropolitan in any way. Like I said, beside the point. Evidently, G-dubya was speaking by phone to some rally or another on the campus, trying to gain support from the people to help him and his administration in their efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade. Then, I heard uttered a most frightening turn of phrase, one that I’m sure the Pres has stated before, but this was the first time I’ve heard it. (This quote may not be word for word as I’m recalling it from memory, but it is definitely accurate enough—pull the transcripts if you have a penchant for exactitude)

“We need to overturn this law in order to bring our Culture of Life to the world”

Dear.God. He did not just say “Culture of Life”

It’s like waking up every day and finding that we’ve regressed a bit further into a medieval age, where religious fervor reigned supreme. Isn’t this exactly the thing that this country is supposed to be founded against, religious fanatacism? Why have we forgotten this? Those three little words chill my blood, it’s fucking scary. What next? Start giving people suspected of a crime the drowning test? If they don’t drown they must be in league with an insidious foreign terrorist devil and if they die then they were innocent, its God’s will, right? Hell, let’s just officially revive the Inquisition. It worked really well for all involved back then, why not now?

Here’s the thing. I don’t really care what your personal opinion on abortion is, my own opinion on the subject included. It’s not important because it’s a personal belief/opinion. If you want one, fine. If you’re against it wholeheartedly, fine. We must stop efforts to legislate dogma. Separation of church and state is in place for a reason. We were founded on freedom, and within this freedom is the right to make the choices we think are the best for us in our pursuit of happiness.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. For now, at least.