Avatar (Beware of Spoilers)

So I went to see Avatar today in all its 3D glory. So I thought I'd share my thoughts on it with you. And yes, this also serves as a spoiler alert.

Visual Effects

Let's face it, the major selling point of this movie is the killer visual effects. Avatar marks a giant leap forward in filmmaking. When you see this movie in digital 3D, you are immediately forced to acknowledge that in terms of the technical aspects of creating a film, Avatar ranks up there with The Jazz Singer (which ushered in the age of 'talkies'), The Wizard of Oz (which ushered in the age of color movies), and Star Wars (which revolutionized special effects). When you see Avatar in 3D, seeing any other action movie in 2D just does not compare.

One of the main reasons for this is that Avatar avoids one of the major flaws of 3D films that have gone before it. There is no monster leaping out of the screen at you. There are no explosions that send shrapnel by your head. They avoid the easy thrill, and instead use the 3D technology to its greatest effect in creating a fully immersive experience that literally puts you in the forest. To compare prior 3D films to Avatar is like comparing boy bands to the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Sure the boy band gives a nice, cheap thrill, but can't compare to the timeless beauty of the orchestra.

The only problem with the visual effects is that a normal movie screen is too restricting for them. If there's an IMAX theater in your town (or a town near yours) it is well worth the money to see Avatar in 3D on the IMAX screen.

Plot

Ok, I'll get this out of the way right now. I liked the plot the first time I saw it, when it was called Dances With Wolves. And don't tell me you weren't thinking it too.

Now that I got that out of the way, the plot basically runs like this. The main character is a marine who got paralyzed below the waist. His twin brother was a scientist, who was part of some super-freaky science project, but got killed. Because the marine has an identical genome to his brother, he can take his place, and the Company won't lose out on their investment. More on that later.

After the first bit, the film takes place entirely on the forest moon of Endor, I mean Pandora. Seems the Company has come to Pandora because it is one of the few places they can find some rare ore called Unobtanium. Unfortunately, the Company faces a few problems in their mining operation. The atmosphere is toxic (though a simple gas mask is enough to protect you), the forests are chock full of deadly animals, many of whom just shrug off machine gun fire, and, oh yeah, there's a native population that doesn't care for how they're strip mining the planet.

Remember that science project I mentioned earlier? Now we figure out what it is. Scientists take DNA of the natives, mix it with human DNA, and grow remote control bodies tuned to their owners' genome. Since our Marine's genome matches his brother's, he can pilot his brother's Avatar.

On his first mission, our Marine nearly gets himself killed, and has to jump off a cliff to keep from getting eaten, and winds up lost in the forest. Night falls, and a native woman saves him from a pack of nasty creatures that look like a cross between wolves and jaguars. She was going to leave him, but got a sign from Emya, and brought him before her tribe. The Marine is allowed to stay with the tribe to learn their ways, though the Company wants them to figure a way to get them to move, since their home is on one of the largest Unobtanium deposits around.

Most of the movie revolves around the Marine learning the ways of the tribe, while the Company plans to destroy their home and take the resources for their own. The Marine is eventually inducted into the tribe, and takes a mate, just in time to learn that the Company is moving on the tribe's home.

The tribe tries to fight, but fail utterly due to the fact that bows and arrows don't do much against gunships, and their home tree is destroyed, and many tribesmen are killed. The Marine rallies the tribes, to fight against the humans, in a desperate last stand.

As for how it ends? I'll let you find out for yourself.

Theme

Avatar beats you over the head with the native american theme, and telling you how mining without regard for the ecological consequences is bad. And the whole army man goes native, realizes the natives are better concept is literally straight out of Dances With Wolves.

Final Score

All told, I'd give Avatar top marks for visual effects, and the action sequences are excellent. I highly recommend you watch this in the theaters. When it comes out on DVD, I'm just not sure they'll be able to do it justice unless they're able to project the 3D effects on your TV.

In the afterglow

The presents are all unwrapped. The remains of the feast are all packed away as leftovers. The Family begins thinking of home, wherever that may be. And now all eyes turn just one week away, when 2009 becomes 2010.

In the afterglow of Christmas, take the time to remember the real lessons of the season. No, I'm not going to go religious on you. I'm talking about the simple, human lessons we can all learn from a holiday in a recession.

* Bigger, flashier, and more expensive does not mean better. Sure, everyone likes the new big screen HDTV, but sometimes something simple, like a T-shirt from their favorite movie, and a book they've been wanting to read for a long time, can mean so much more.

* Just because something is used, doesn't mean it is junk. Best received gift I gave this year was an old, leatherbound copy of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner I got off Ebay for twenty-something bucks.

* A gag gift can be a great way to show someone you care, as long as you follow up with a real one. Not every gift has to be serious. Giving the ultra-liberal a copy of Sarah Palin's book, or giving the ultra-feminist a subscription to Penthouse can get a good laugh from everyone, but follow it up with something they'll like, to soften the sting.

* Spending time with friends and family can be the best part of the holidays, as long as you have an escape. Family togetherness is a good thing. Having fun with the family and friends makes everything about the holiday better. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. To keep the holiday craziness from overwhelming you, be sure to take a couple hours away from the family, and spend it on you. Watch TV, play some games, go for a drive, whatever. Just do something that lets you reboot, reload, and recharge, so you're ready to go for the next round of family fun.

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Trek, Gate, or Wars?

Gonna have to go with Star Wars. I would literally give my right hand to get a working lightsaber.

Pancakes or waffles?

Waffles. Especially Waffle House waffles.

Ever read Crichton? Fave Crichton novel?

Fave Chrichton novel would have to be either Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain, or The Great Train Robbery

Ask me anything

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Condoms in Schools?

"Show the average American teenage male a condom, and his mind will turn to thoughts of lust."

"Show the average American teenage male a lug wrench, and his mind will turn to thoughts of lust."

-- The West Wing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V82I7vgzfgE

The above is taken from a television show, but it provides the best argument religious conservatives provide for not teaching safe sex practices or allowing access to condoms in schools. The idea that somehow this knowledge encourages kids to have sex is the cornerstone of their arguments for abstinence only education.

I grew up in Georgia, and attended high school in one of the reddest of red districts. In Health class, we weren't shown anything about condoms, and only got the basic message that STDs are bad, some of them can kill you, and the ones that don't sometimes can't be cured. The year I graduated, about half the girls in the senior class were either pregnant, already had a child, or had been pregnant at some point during high school.

Giving kids condoms is not going to go and make kids have sex. THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE SEX REGARDLESS! All that denying kids easy access to birth control does is prevent kids from having sex safely.

Think about it. When you were a teenager, if a grownup told you not to do something, wasn't your first reaction 'gee, I wanna do that'?

Educating our children about safe sex, and the consequences of STDs, is the best way to prevent teen pregnancies and the spread of STDs in our schools. Abstinence only sounds like a great thing, but we all see how well that's been working in our schools. Where was that 'abstinence only' education when Palin's girl got knocked up? How is that message working in Africa, where STDs like HIV are running rampant? How is that message working in Mississippi, a very red, very conservative state, that, as of 2006, ranked 3rd in the country for the most teen pregnancies?

http://womensissues.about.com/od/datingandsex/a/TeenPregStates.htm

It is time that religious groups face facts, and accept that the best way to stop teen pregnancy isn't to go into the same tired 'abstinence only' refrain, and instead support initiatives like what the city of Milwaukee is considering, and providing access to free condoms in area schools.

Because ignoring the facts won't change them.

Moving to Windows 7

So I decided it was time to update my old computer, which I'd had for about five years. Sure, that's not long in the real world, but as computers go, it was getting up there. A couple external hard drives were the only reason it was still keeping up with my needs.

My new computer came with Windows 7. Despite what the Mac guy says in those ads, I've been using PCs since the DOS days, and I've never had major problems with them. Still, I'd heard mixed reviews about Windows 7, so I was unsure what to expect.

There was the normal headaches involved whenever you move from one computer to another (reinstalling software, setting up the desktop like you want it, desperately searching about for your Microsoft Office product key so you don't have to buy a new one, etc.), but all told, it was a relatively easy move. The interface works much like Windows Vista, in that if you're over 40 you probably have no clue what to do, and if you're 15, you mastered it in twenty seconds.

One new feature I've found that I like is the ability to pin programs to the taskbar as well as the start menu. So I can toss Google Chrome, Microsoft Excell, and Adobe Reader in there, for easy access, while before you could only pin things to the start menu.

All in all, Windows 7 feels like a cleaned up version of Vista. There's a bit of a learning curve, of course, since a few things are slightly different between the two systems, but all in all, it is fairly straightforward to use, with the bonus that I haven't run into as many of the annoying popup windows asking me if I really want to run the program I just clicked on to run.

My review? Nice features, but don't bother upgrading from Vista unless you're getting a new system to go with it.

Time Travel, Alternate Reality, or Dream?

***This entry contains spoilers. Don't read if you don't want 'em.***

A staple of the science fiction genre is the "What if?" plot. In a "What if?" plot, the writers are free to go outside the continuity of the series, sometimes drastically changing things. The difference between this plot, and the main continuity, is that for the plot, the writers ask "What if X happened?", where X is something completely off the wall, like a major character becoming a vampire in a setting where vampires don't exist, or something like that.

Now, "What if?" plots can generally be broken down into four types: Weirdness, Time Travel, Alternate Reality, and Dream/Hallucination.

Weirdness - This would be something that, while out of the ordinary in the continuity, is within the scope of the universe. Prime examples would be in the Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action", where the Enterprise encounters a world that is literally out of a gangster novel. Weird, but it still fits in the continuity.

Time Travel - Time travel stories typically involve going backwards or forwards in time, and both have their fair share of perils. Go back, and you risk changing the past, and negating your own existence. Go forward, and what you learn there could change the future. This is the second most common form of "What If?" scenario.

Alternate Reality - In a universe where parallel realities exist, sometimes the writers will step into those alternate realities, and see what might have been. A good example of this would be in the X-men comics, where they routinely explore parallel worlds, with the best example being the "What If?" series. This is by far the most common type of scenario when dealing with a "What If?" plot.

Dream/Hallucination - Rarest of all is the dream/hallucination scenario. In part, writers are not fond of using this option because, if it is done wrong, it can seriously anger fans. In this setup, suddenly, inexplicably, things are completely different than they used to be. However, when you get to the end of the plot, you realize it was all a dream, or perhaps a vision or hallucination caused by some outside force. Regardless, none of it is real, and usually it serves to teach the main character of the plot some lesson.

How can you tell what kind of "What If?" plot you're in? Well, there's a few signs to look for.

If they have a simple means of getting into and out of the situation, then you're looking at normal weirdness. If they just have to beam up to the ship, or jump through the stargate, or something like that, then you're in normal weirdness territory. The situation falls within the "norm" of the series, even though you have soldiers with MP-5s dealing with natives armed with crossbows fighting enemies with rayguns. Its par for the course, in other words. Note that if the series centers around going back and forth in time, or dimension hopping, then any time travel or alternate realities count as normal weirdness.

But what if that isn't the case? Then you're looking for one of the other situations.

Time travel is usually the easiest of the three remaining scenarios to discover. Typically, you'll see some means of travel that takes you elsewhere in time. Either its a time machine, or your means of faster than light travel slingshotted you around a star, or something of that nature. Regardless, time travel usually means that you either go back in time, or forward, and they are very obvious with the method. There are exceptions, like Planet of the Apes, but for the most part, people are up front with time travel.

Alternate realities can be tricky. Depending on how 'close' the realities are, you might not know you're in a different world until later. However, like time travel, there's almost always some clear means of travel between the realities. A wormhole, or a transporter accident, or something like that is always present. Maybe everything went purple for a moment. Regardless, there's always a clue that something has changed.

The Dream/Hallucination method is by far the most subtle of the "What If?" plots. Many times, something will happen, and things will seem to progress on, but in reality, that' where the dream begins, like when Dorothy hit her head in the beginning of the Wizard of Oz. But there are times when it sneaks up on you.

Take the recent episode of Sanctuary. The episode starts off with Magnus waking up in a post-apocalyptic world, with no memory. We know that this is not in the Weirdness category, so we can eliminate that altogether. After Will tells Magnus that she's been dead for three years, time travel appears to be the most likely option. However, the clues point elsewhere.

First, in Dream/Hallucination episodes, there's always something the main character is trying to remember, something they keep coming back to, even though it seems to have no real bearing on the matter at hand. A trip to Honduras, for instance.

Second, look for something out of the ordinary. Again and again through the episode, you see a white, misty shape moving through the background around Magnus. This is a clue that things are not what they appear.

Third, the 'friend' who keeps trying to distract the main character from their work. In this case, Will trying to get Magnus to leave, and give up. This usually is a sign that this is simply a mental battle between different parts of the main character's subconscious.

Finally, things conveniently happen for no real reason. Magnus happens to escape will, and happens to find another survivor in a city full of zombies? If it seems too convenient to be true, its usually false.

By the second commercial break I had called it as being a dream. This is confirmed by the fact that as Magnus pieces together her memory, combined with the information from a conveniently recoverable computer log, she makes the connection that it is her fault everything happened. And then the illusion fades away, the spirit of the tomb having conveyed their warning to stop Magnus from opening the vial of doom-stuff.

If you can read the signs, it is plain that the whole thing was a dream.

Remember Remember

Remember remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

Honoring heroes

Have you heard about these ‘Honor Flights’?

Basically, the idea is that private citizens contribute their time and money to fly WWII veterans to Washington, DC, to see the WWII memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, and other symbolic sights, as a way to show their gratitude for these veterans.

Each veteran who goes on one of these Honor Flights is accompanied by a specially trained ‘guardian’, and a physician is present on the flight. The only thing the veterans have to worry about is getting to the airport.

This is a fabulous way to honor our distinguished veterans. Every veteran of our armed forces has sacrificed their time and service to protect our country. Many sacrificed even more. These Honor Flights are the least we can do to honor those who remain.

If you would like more information on the Honor Flights, go to http://www.honorflight.org

The Art of the Sword

I’m a collector.

In the past, I’ve collected hats, baseball cards, action figures, and shot glasses, for no other reason than they were neat looking.

I collected many types of things in turn, none of them holding my interest for long. It was in my senior year of high school that I discovered the thing that has held my interest ever since. It was that year that I bought my first sword.

We were on a school trip to Disneyworld, and we decided to spend the day at Medieval Times. For those of you who don’t know, Medieval Times is a place that has been made to look like a castle, and inside, you sit at these long tables on benches, where they serve you a huge chunk of meat on the bone, and all the servers are dressed in period costumes. And while you’re eating, they light an indoor arena, and have jousting competitions!

Well, having a little bit more money on hand than was good for me at the time, I stopped by the gift shop and purchased a replica longsword to take home with me. It wasn’t the best looking blade there, but it was in my price range, and I instantly knew I had to have it.

Since then, my collection has swollen to over a dozen swords, as well as the odd dagger or scythe. None of them are overly valuable, though some are certainly worth more than others. But they are all beautiful to me. There’s something in the sight of the steel leaving the sheath, the weight of a finely balanced blade. It is hard to describe what I feel when I hold a sword in my hands.

It stirs up some romantic part of my soul that wishes I lived in a simpler time. It is a part of me that wishes that there were no guns. Anyone can pick up a gun and shoot someone. It doesn’t take that much training or skill to fire a Colt .45. But to wield a sword takes long hours training, building your skills. It requires a certain level of athletic grace, a balance of power and speed, all controlled, all tightly disciplined. It is why if you watch a master at work, you see that wielding a blade is almost like a dance. It is an art.

There is something about the line a katana traces through the air as it swings, the rapid jabs of the epee in fencing, the crushing power of the greatsword as it crashes down upon helm and shield. The dance of steel is entrancing. I long to learn that dance, and make it’s steps my own.

Beyond that, there is a certain discipline that comes with learning a martial art, but especially one of the martial arts involving weapons. You have the physical training that tones and strengthens the body, and you work on controlling that power and speed, so that you aren’t simply flailing about wildly. Rather, every motion has a purpose, and it is controlled, preventing wasteful actions. That control carries over into other facets of life, as well.

Wouldn’t the world be better if the art of the sword was a way of life?

Public Options

For months now, I've listened to both sides of the health care reform debate, paying special attention to the Public Option that has been talked about ad nauseum.

The primary arguments against the public option (not including the patently irrational scare tactics like death panels or communism) seem to be:

1) It will drive private insurers out of business.

2) It will lead to long waits for 'vital' care.

3) It will lead to rationing care.

4) It will drive costs up.

5) It won't work efficiently.

So lets examine these arguments.

5) It won't work efficiently.

This argument seems to be based primarily on the idea that anything the government does is necessarily going to be complicated beyond measure, and have a mile of red tape, and generally not work well.

The counter to this argument, of course, is that the system works so efficiently now. Really, no one ever has to deal with red tape when dealing with an insurance company, or wade through page after page of legalese to find out if the procedure they need is covered or not.

4) It will drive costs up.

Yes, there are people claiming that including a public option to compete against private insurers will actually drive costs up. These people are bolstered by a report funded by the health insurance industry that seems to confirm this view.

The counter to this argument, however, is that the report in question only looked at four items out of the massive bill. There is no report covering the entire proposal that says prices will go up due to increased competition.

3) It will lead to rationing care.

The idea behind this argument is that if the government runs health care, then they can say what procedures will be covered, and who gets what.

The reality is that health care is already rationed. Insurance companies decide what they will or won't cover, and can decide not to cover certain people for certain treatments. And if they say no, you're basically SOL. So if rationing occurs under a public option, the only change will be that it is government bureaucrats instead of private bureaucrats doing the rationing.

2) It will lead to long waits for 'vital' care.

This objection is propagated by horror stories out of Canada about people who had to wait months to see a doctor for treatment. Basically, they say that with public health care, you would have people waiting years for life-saving treatment.

This is just patently false. The so-called 'vital' care that these stories generally refer to are things like cataract surgeries, and other elective procedures. Emphasis on elective. As in, not life-threatening. In Canada, if you have an emergency, you can go and get treated immediately.

1) It will drive private insurers out of business.

You all know how this song goes. No one can compete with a subsidized public option that doesn't have to worry about profit and blah blah blah.

Honestly, I find this argument the most laughable. Here you have people saying that the insurance companies provide the best care for the cheapest price, but that a government plan that is less efficient would put them out of business, because private enterprise can't compete against the government.

Really? Allow me to retort: Fed-Ex and UPS. Both compete directly against the government. Both do dramatically better than the government. How? They have found a niche that works for them, and that allows them to be leaner, and more efficient.

Just because the government provides a baseline insurance plan doesn't mean that people can't get a supplemental plan, if they need care that isn't covered in the baseline plan. Will the big monolithic insurance companies that kill competition die out? Yes. Will they be replaced by smaller, leaner companies that can specialize in niche services? Yes. Private insurance won't go away, but it will change. And anyone who says the system doesn't need to change is clearly on someone's payroll.

A public option will force competition into the markets where two main companies have a stranglehold on insurance. This will drive costs down. It will also ensure that people with preexisting conditions are able to find affordable health care, even if they change jobs.

Is it a perfect system? Of course not. In a perfect system, we wouldn't need insurance in the first place. But this is an imperfect world, and so we must do what we can.

Why do teens commit suicide?

Since May 5th, the town of Palo Alto, California has seen four teenagers from the same high school kill themselves by stepping in front of a train, all on the same stretch of tracks. Others have been spotted by police and concerned citizens and stopped before they could follow them.

Why are these teens (one as young as 13) killing themselves?

Most of the coverage talks of 'suicide clusters' and how this is a cry for attention as the teens see the effects of another teen killing themselves like this. But that doesn't answer the question on what drove them to that point.

When I was younger, people always said that "These are the best days of your lives, so enjoy them," or something to that effect. I know a lot of other people hear the same thing at that age, from people who are older, and have gone off into the 'real world'.

Frankly, I can't think of a more depressing thing to tell a teenager. Do you remember your high school days? Not just the good parts you like to remember. I'm talking about everything. The teasing, the drama, constantly feeling like no one understood you, everyone trying to pressure you into one thing or another, teachers piling homework on you, standardized tests, and looming SATs, the pressure to figure everything out about where you want to go in life, so that you can go to college, and get the right degree, with the right references, to get the job that will make you enough money to survive for the rest of your life.

And then you go and tell them that this is the GOOD part? Really, the only question is why more teenagers don't commit suicide.

Being a teenager is stressful enough with all the problems of the here and now. Dumping the knowledge that things are only going to go down hill from there makes people wonder why they should bother dealing with this, if it wasn't going to get better.

I can say that when I was that age, there were many times that I seriously considered committing suicide. I was always on the outside of every group. I was single, and always had been. I wasn't popular, and I wasn't the top of my class, and I didn't have an escape. And I had all this pressure to decide what I was going to do in life, what college I was going to go to, and all of that. On top of that, most of the music that was popular at the time was all bright and happy, or talked about love and sex, and all those things I lacked, and that just made me feel worse. I put up a front of being happy, but inside, I was basically dead already. And there were times I seriously considered what would be the best way to kill myself.

I didn't have access to a gun, so that was out. There weren't any sleeping pills, or anything like that in the house, so I couldn't do that. Jumping into traffic was out, because you could live through that if you weren't lucky. The only trains that came through were big freight trains, and they never went that fast, since they hadn't had time to get up to speed yet, so I couldn't do that. Electrocution was out, because you could possibly survive it. Fire was definitely out, because I wasn't big on the whole pain thing. I didn't know where to get enough drugs to OD on, and even if I did, I didn't have the money to get them, so that was out.

Why am I still alive?

It isn't because of some religious experience. Most of my experiences with religion and 'religious' people only serve to push me away from them.

It isn't because of friends. I didn't really have any. There were acquaintances, but no true friends.

It isn't because of family. I love my family, but in those moods, I always thought that they would be better off without me causing trouble all the time.

It isn't because of any psychologist or therapy. The times I went, I just felt like they were preaching at me, and I shut down.

It isn't because of any hopes or plans for the future. I couldn't see anything beyond tomorrow.

So why am I still alive?

Its because there wasn't a convenient way of killing myself, and I was too lazy to go actively searching for a way, when those moods were on me. So I would sit, and be depressed, and eventually the mood would pass, for a while.

Its because I eventually found a release for those feelings, a way to express them and purge them safely.

What was this release? It was actually three things that allowed me to find a measure of peace.

First, I 'discovered' bands like Metallica, and the lyrics of rage and anger were more therapeutic than any amount of psychobabble.

Second, I started playing more video games. I would build cities in SimCity, just to unleash disaster after disaster upon them. But my bread and butter was always flight simulator type games, like X-wing, where you blasted the enemy from the skies. I could spend hours blasting enemy spacecraft.

Third, and most important, I discovered RPGs. I'm not talking about things like Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft. I'm talking Dungeons and Dragons, Mutants and Masterminds, and Shadowrun. I'm talking MUDs, MUSHes, and MOOs. It was this escape from reality that really saved my life.

When I was playing Dungeons and Dragons, I could be the vile necromancer who crushed his foes. In Mutants and Masterminds, I could be the vigilante who lived by the motto "I'm not a hero, I'm a bad man that does bad things to bad people." In Shadowrun, I could be a criminal, running the shadows and doing things of questionable morality, all for a few bucks. In short, RPGs allowed me to express the darkness of my soul, and give those feelings a release.

The discovery of RPGs was like opening the lid on a pressure cooker. The underlying causes were still there, and might always be there, but by throwing myself into this fantasy world, I could cope, and I wasn't brooding on them any more. All my anger, all my rage, all my hopelessness, all my loneliness, I took it all, and projected it on my characters, and I was free of it, for a time.

But there was a downside to this. I began to throw myself into the fantasy world, to the point where I can no longer relate to people in real life. I don't know what to say or what to do when there isn't a computer screen between me and another person, or we're both pretending to be other people. People say to be yourself, but myself is the reason I ran to the fantasy world.

Is this a healthy lifestyle? Willfully throwing yourself into a fantasy, to the point where you long to get rid of reality altogether, is not healthy. But my circumstances would have to improve dramatically before I could lead a 'healthy' life. Between living a fantasy, or spiraling into depression, I'll take the fantasy any day.

There are still times when I get depressed, when I consider, "To be, or not to be?" But now, instead of brooding, I turn the music up, pour myself a drink, and drop into the fantasy world. And eventually the mood passes.

Guns for everyone?

A report on CNN today got me thinking about Gun Control. Too often, the debate about what to do about guns turns into a shouting match. On one side, you have the NRA, warning that if the government puts any restrictions on gun ownership, the next day they’ll be breaking into homes all over the country and ripping guns out of their owners’ hands. On the other side, you have people who are families of the victims of gun violence, and are no less emotional in their cries for guns to be banned in the cities.

As is usually the case in American politics, the moderates have been shouted down into silence. The people who can actually compromise have been forced to be silent by the radicals.

No rational person wants to take all guns away. No rational person believes that everyone should be allowed to buy any kind of weapon they want and can afford. Yet too often this is what the choices presented to people seem to be.

But for those of you who can still be rational about things, can’t we come to some sort of compromise? Surely no one can argue that they need a fully automatic assault rifle to go duck hunting? Can’t we agree that an assault rifle has only one purpose, to kill people? Do you really need an Uzi for home defense? Please. Can’t we agree that people who want to own guns should go through a class to use those guns safely?

Guns are made to kill. That is their sole purpose. Whether you kill animals or people, they are a tool designed to kill whatever they’re pointed at. Anyone who argues this point is either a fool, or trying to twist things to his own benefit. Guns are made to kill.

Guns should be controlled. I do not say get rid of all guns. Not only is it impractical and unconstitutional, but I agree with the need for weapons to defend the home, or to go hunting. No, I’m not saying we should take all the guns. I’m saying we should keep violent offenders from buying guns. I’m saying we shouldn’t allow people to buy assault rifles or automatic pistols. You can defend your home as easily with a shotgun as with an AK-47. But killing large numbers of people is harder with a shotgun.

Stop yelling, and compromise.

RIP Senator Kennedy

As I'm writing this, I'm still having trouble finding the right words. When I was born, Edward Kennedy had already been the Senator from Massachussets for twenty years. His brothers John and Robert had long since been laid to rest, and the only Camelot I knew was in the stories of Arthur and his Knights. To me, a kid growing up in Georgia, the Kennedy name was a name in the textbook in History class, something remote and distant, with no connection to me. I had no frame of reference for Ted Kennedy, or his brothers.

Ted Kennedy was one of a dying breed of politicians in America. He came from a different era, a different time. It was a time when you could disagree without being disagreeable, where personal feelings about a subject didn't mean you took someone's opposition to your position personally. It was a time when people could still talk to one another, and come to a compromise.

If you want to take measure of Kennedy's work as a politician, you could look at his fourteen thousand roll call votes, or his accomplishments like the Voting Rights Act. I choose to look at all those people, Democrats and Republicans alike, who came to pay their respects at his funeral. I choose to look at long time rivals who counted themselves amongst Kennedy's friends, despite their political differences. I choose to look at the crowds of people who stood in front of the Capitol for three hours, patiently waiting for a colleague, mentor, friend to make his final stop there.

There are no lions in the Senat now, only sheep and chickens, while pigs roll in the muck. Farewell, Senator. You will be missed.

Do people really fall for this?

The old addage of fools and their money comes to mind when I see some of the email scams out there. Here's a little gem I got today, completely unedited.

-------------------------------

from	Graves, Jim
to
date		Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 1:47 AM
subject		Your Email Address Has Won:Contact Your Claims Agent Via Email At (garry4baldwin008@live.com)
mailed-by		ttu.edu

BRITISH NATIONAL LOTTERY HEADQUARTERS:
28 TAN FIELD ROAD,
CROYDON, LONDON.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Ref: UK/940X2/68
Dear Winner,
We are pleased to inform you of the final announcement of the
UK National Lottery Online Promo Programme held on the 30th of May 2009. The
draw was done electronically with several email addresses provided to this
office by microsoft to enhance the utilization of the internet.
Your email address was attached to Reference Number UK/940X2/68 and was
picked as one of the ten winning email addresses.
This has qualified you to claim the total cash prize Of £753,437 in cash
credited to file KTU/9023118308/03. This is from a total cash prize of
£7,534,370.00 shared amongst the first ten (10) lucky winners in this category
B.
Your winnings will be issued to you as soon as our claims department
verify your winning after you might have filled the
payment processing form below.
Payment Processing Form for filing of claims.
1.Name in full.
2.Address in full.
3.Age.
4.Phone No.
5.Occupation
6.Winning Email Address
Assigned Claims Agent: Mr. Garry Baldwin
Email;garry4baldwin008@live.com
Phone; +447031874347,+447031903483
Congratulations once more from all our members of Staff.
Yours Sincerely
Graves Jim
(Online Promo Co-ordinator)

-------------------------------

When you read this thing, you should have alarm bells going off all over the place. NO ONE SIMPLY GIVES AWAY MONEY! If you win a lottery you don't remember entering, that should be a major red flag.

Second, look at the email addresses provided. One is a ttu.edu address. That domain belongs to Texas Tech University. If you think a British lottery is going to send out notifications through Texas Tech, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you in Brooklyn.

The other address isn't any better. Live.com is a free email provider. Never trust anything coming to you from a free provider, unless you personally know the person behind the address. This includes things like gmail and yahoo, too. Anyone can simply sign up for an account, and say they are whoever they like. Unless you know the person behind the screenname, don't trust it!

Lesson is, don't be stupid. If its too good to be true, it probably is.

Gates-gate

So I was talking with one of my twitter friends about the Gates thing in Cambridge. Y'know, the Harvard prof that got arrested in his own home. Some people think its racial profiling. But really, if you mouth off to a cop, you deserve to get your ass arrested. Hell, I would expect to get arrested if I started shouting at a cop. Part of the reason is my parents taught me that the best way to avoid trouble with the cops was to be straight "Yes sir. No Sir. Right away officer. Whatever you say officer." You be polite, and do as the cop says, and you'll be a helluva lot better off. Getting pissed and mouthing off is a sure ticket to central booking.

Don't get me wrong, if cops were called to my home, and were questioning me, I'd be upset, too. But mouthing off at the cop is the wrong way to deal with it. Mouthing off, demanding the cop's name and badge number, telling them you're a big man, and you're going to complain, that's just plain stupid.

If you think the cop is doing something wrong, the best way to deal with things is to be polite, and respectful, and go along with what they want. That's the best way to get them to go without further incident. If you want to make a complaint, don't go angrily demanding their name and badge number, simply ask for a copy of the incident report. The report will have the name of the officer, as well as his badge, and you'll be able to file a complaint in short order, and avoid seeing the inside of a cell block at the same time.

I think the most telling piece of this story is that a black officer on the Cambridge police force who was on the scene also said that if he'd gotten to the Professor's home first, he'd have done the same thign as the white officer.

Did racial profiling happen on the part of the officers? Maybe, maybe not. But there was almost certainly some profiling going on on Gates's part. Racism and racial profiling works both ways.

What to do with Gay Marriage, or my take on CA Prop 8

For those of you who don't know, California Proposition 8 was a ballot initiative put forward a while back that specifically makes marriage between a man and a woman. Obviously, this caused something of a stir, and opponents of the measure are currently taking Prop 8 through the court system to challenge it.

Both sides are fighting the wrong battle.

The gay marriage debate has been raging for over twenty years now, and it has made only minor steps towards being resolved. The reason for this is simple. There are two institutions of marriage in this country, a religious institution, set forward in sacraments of the various religious creeds Americans follow, and a legal institution, set forward in laws that vary from state to state, and provide certain rights and privileges to those married under it. Religious people want to keep their sacraments pure, while gay people want the rights provided to them by a legal marriage. But since both institutions have the same name, the religious people don't want gay marriage, and the gay people demand it.

There is a simple way to deal with this issue, that most people on both sides would likely find acceptable. Get rid of the legal institution of marriage. Take all marriages, be they a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or any combination or group that you can think of and make them civil unions.

Now before you jump on my back, think about it for a second. Even in the case of a marriage between a man and a woman, getting married in a church doesn't mean anything in the eyes of the law, unless you get a piece of paper from the state that says you are legally married. All I'm suggesting is changing the letterhead at the top of that piece of paper, and making the legal institution we've known for centuries Civil Unions, rather than Marriages, and opening it up to all couples or arrangements.

Those currently married under the law would not see any change in their legal standing. All that would change is that people not currently able to marry under the law would be able to get the same rights and privileges as those married under the law. That includes health benefits, visitation rights, and other such things that gay couples do not have now. All these civil unions would be equal, conveying the same rights and privileges. This eliminates the problems of discriminating against people based on sexual orientation in regards to the rights couples have, which will make gays and other such couples happy.

This plan will also keep the majority of the religious types happy, because their sacraments will be safe, and beyond the reach of legal assault. Since churches decide who they will allow to be married under their sacraments, marriage will be safe. If two women find a church that will marry them, that's fine, but since that would be that church's take on their own sacraments, that is hardly an assault by the gay rights groups on the sacraments of marriage, is it?

Under this plan, everyone wins. What's the problem with that?

LEARN TO DRIVE!

For those of you who don't know it, Georgia has some of the best highways in the South. Georgia also has some of the worst damn drivers you'll ever see. And the majority of those bad drivers are in a place called Savannah.

Seriously, Savannah people can't drive for shit. Doesn't help any that when the tourists come around, they can't drive, either. I literally sat in stop and go traffic on US 80, because at two points you have to do that increadibly difficult feat of driving called merging. Yes, merging.

My question is, how do these idiots even get their licenses? Did you not take basic driving skill tests? LEARN TO FUCKING DRIVE, DUMBASSES!

Shadowrunning

So as some of you know, I enjoy playing different RPGs. One in particular is a game called Shadowrun, 4th Edition (SR4).

One of the things I love about SR4 is that no matter how bad-ass you are, there's a very real chance that you can get your ass handed to you by someone who's never held a gun before. That's because skills and abilities in Shadowrun aren't like in other games, such as Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).

In D&D, whether in 3.5 edition or the new 4th edition, you have a set number that reflects your level of competency in that skill. To use it, you roll a d20 (a twenty-sided die, for the nongamers out there) and add your skill rating to what you roll. After a point, this means you can literally 'autosucceed' on some actions, since if you need to get a 15 to perform it, and you have a 14 in the skill, you're going to make it even if you roll a 1.

That's not how things work in SR4. You will never touch a d20 in SR4. Instead, you have a whole pile of d6s. When you use a skill in SR4, you take a number of d6s make up your dice pool. This pool is determined by the skill you're using, your abilities, and any other modifiers that add or subtract to your dice pool. When you roll your dice, count up the number of 5s and 6s you roll. These are your successes. You compare these successes against the target threshold, or against the number of successes your opponent gets on their roll. It is possible for you to roll a whole handful of dice, and still come up empty against someone only rolling three dice.

Moreover, in SR4, you have 'glitches'. Like the Critical Failures of some older systems, a glitch means Bad Things(tm) are gonna happen. You get a glitch when half the dice you roll come up as 1s. It is possible to succeed in using the skill, but still glitch. So you might climb over the fence easy enough, but you get caught on the way down, and leave your pants behind. If you glitch, and get no successes, however, its called a Critical Glitch. This is when REALLY Bad Things(tm) happen. That grenade you were throwing at the bad guys? Yeah, the fuse was a bit shorter than it was supposed to be, so it went off in your hand.

Being good at a skill doesn't mean you can cakewalk through things. It simply means you're less likely to fail. SR4 is one of my favorite systems because it is so much fun to tempt the cruel whims of fate.

Webcomics

You ever look at your daily newspaper, turn to the funnies page, and then sigh, because out of the whole page, there are only three or four comics you actually care about? I know I did.

Of course, then I discovered webcomics. These are exactly like you'd think. Comics, made for the web. Now you can still find your classic newspaper comics out there on the web. Two of my faves are definitely Dilbert/ and Doonesbury.

But if you venture past the realms of your basic newspaper comics transferred to a new medium, use caution. This is the internet, afterall, and not everything out there is safe for younger viewers. Or work. Seriously, some comics out there are as bad as 4chan. (If you don't know what 4chan is, consider yourself lucky. There are some things you just can't unsee. *shudder*)

Anyways, there are plenty of comics out there that are definitely worth a look. I'll go through some that are, for the most part, work safe, if not entirely kid safe.

8-Bit Theater - 8BT is a Sprite comic, based (loosely) on the original Final Fantasy game. Sprite Comics take characters from popular video games (such as Final Fantasy, Megaman, or Street Fighter) and use them to tell their own story. 8BT follows Black Mage, Fighter, Thief, and Red Mage as they journey around the world, trying to fulfill quests, and leaving devestation in their wake. It'll take you a while to go through the entire archive (its 1146 pages and counting), but it is WELL worth the time. The art and storytelling have both progressed amazingly from the first few strips.

Questionable Content - It starts off with an indie music geek and his AnthroPC. Then you meet his friends, and then more friends, and hijinx ensue! Seriously, though, if you like indie music, robots, coffeeshop humor, or just general sassyness, with a side of actual plot, then check this out!

Least I Could Do - Take one incredibly self-centered guy who makes a hobby out of banging as many women as he can, toss in a group of friends who are all a bit crazy in their own way, and you know you're in for a good time. Trust me, this comic is hella funny. And the art's gone leaps and bounds above where it used to be.

Looking For Group - Set in a fantasy world not unlike those in World of Warcraft, LFG follows Cael'anon Vatay, a noble elf in a world where the rest of his kind are irredeemably evil, and his friends as they journey to escape the people who want them dead. The story has grown a lot since its opening, but there are very few pages that don't offer at least a bit of a laugh.

If I was an evil overlord...

... I would follow this list here: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

Seriously, as a gamer, it is a good thing I am a player, and not a DM. When I make villains, I tend to make them very, very nasty.

But perhaps it is this gaming side of my life that has left me somewhat callous towards the real evil overlords in life. Early on in the #iranelection craziness that happened on Twitter, I saw one tweet from a protester in Iran, asking if this day could get any worse, as people were getting beaten with clubs in the streets. My first thought was immediately, yes, it could get a lot worse.

Maybe its the fact that I'm a gamer, or maybe its because my dad is a history teacher, and taught me some of the things that people have done to eachother in war, but I can come up with a lot worse ways that the days following the election could have gone. Here's a hint, more than a few of them involve machine guns, instead of batons.

Is what happened to the protesters horrible? Of course. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But it is by no means the worst that could have happened.

I just pray that I never have to see the scenes my imagination can cook up unfold in real life.

Scams, or "If its too good to be true..."

So I was watching CNN today, and they started talking about that Madoff guy, as he got a cool 150 years in jail. This got me thinking about scammers, and the scams they perpetrate. And it also got me thinking about the kind of people who get taken in by this kind of thing.

For those of you who don't know, Bernie Madoff ran what was essentially a Ponzi Scheme for decades. He got caught, and his 'investors' went from millionares to broke overnight. These 'investors' were drawn in by Madoff telling them that while everyone else was averaging 3-5% return annually on their funds, he was able to get 10% returns. Really? Double the return of anyone else out there? And no one thought, "Gee, maybe there's something a wee bit fishy about this?" The only people in that mess I have sympathy for are the people who were sent to Madoff by investment agencies that thought he was gold, and didn't do their research.

But there are other, more blatant scams out there, and I have literally no sympathy for the people who fall for such crap. If you have an email account, you've likely gotten one of the following messages before:

"A rich oil sultan in Saudi Arabia wishes to transfer money to the US. I have been asked to find someone to help us facilitate this transaction..."

"Congratulations, you just won the Nigerian National Lottery! Please send us your bank information so we can deliver your winnings!"

"My husband just died, and I wish to devote his monies to improving the lives of people like you..."

There are many others, of course, but 99% of the scams out there are so blatantly obvious, you have to be a complete idiot to get taken in by them. News flash, people! There's no such thing as getting something for nothing. Practice a bit of healthy skepticism, do your research, and never give out your information!

#iranelection

If you don't know what #iranelection refers to, you've probably been living under the same rock that FEMA was under when it took them a week to realize that there were people at the Convention Center after Katrina. Its been a couple weeks now since the story really got going, so I figure it would be an opportune time to talk about my experiences, watching this story unfold.

Before the election, I didn't really pay much attention to Iran. Sure, I was on Facebook and Twiter, but I didn't follow any of the groups or people supporting the various characters. Like many Americans, I was more concerned with things that affected me close to home. It as only in the week leading up to the election that I started paying any attention at all, as CNN reported that social networking sites had played a sizeable role in the opposition candidates' campaigns. I still didn't care much about Iran, but the story of how social media was changing politics, seemingly a continuation of what happened here in the US with Obama's campaign, was interesting to me.

Then the initial results came out. For the first couple days, I'll admit that I didn't pay much attention to the protests. I viewed it as people being sore losers, honestly. The fact that there were multiple sets of observers, and seeing how the opposition leaders weren't coming forward with any evidence beyond hearsay of ballot tampering or vote rigging left me skeptical. Afterall, pre-election polls have been wrong before. Need proof, Google "Dewey defeats Truman".

I didn't start actively following the #iranelection thread on Twitter until I heard about the initial backlash against the protesters on CNN, and how Iranian Tweeters were picking up the slack in the wake of a government imposed press blackout. Out of curiousity, I checked it out.

Now at that point, there were literally thousands of tweets a minute with the #iranelection tag in them, running the gambit from government agents, to spammers, to radicals who wanted the US to invade immediately, to thousands upon thousands of people outside Iran, wishing to show support. In the middle of this virtual tsunami of information, I managed to find a few tweets by people who were on the ground in Iran, giving a real account of what was going on. It was by tweeting with these diamonds in the rough, that I was able to get the full story.

I watched as the movement changed almost overnight from a call for new, fair elections, to a call for the overthrow of the entire government. I watched the twitpics and videos coming in of protesters going against riot police with stones. I watched the outrage grow as the brutality of the crackdown intensified.

Maybe it is a comment on my having seen too many movies, read too many sci-fi and horror novels, but when I saw one such tweeter ask whether the day could get any worse, I was surprised they had to ask. There was plenty of room to go, if the regime wanted to go for absolute worst. Allow the protesters to enter the square, and trap them there, before setting up machine guns at all the entrances, and on the surrounding rooftops. And then shoot anything that moves. That would be the worst.

Then the Supreme Leader made his speech. If he was trying to get the movement to die down, he miscalculated royally. I watched as the tone of the tweets coming out of Iran changed. Beatings became shootings. Neda died. Government agents began appearing on twitter. There were warnings of trap proxies, and hackers trying to find the people who dared to speak to the outside world. And one by one, the tweets went silent out of Iran. One person I was following, @persiankiwi, gave this haunting message: "we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast - #Iranelection". Moments later, @persiankiwi went silent. That was on the 24th, and he hasn't posted since.

My heart goes out to all the Iranians out there, those who've been wounded, those who've been taken, and those who are still out there. Keep strong, but keep your head down. Stay safe out there.

I'm an addict

I've known for a long time that I have an addictive personality. There's family history and all that, but I can see it in my own life as well. Growing up, I was basically borderline OCD. So because of that, I've made a point to keep away from the things that would seriously mess me up. I only drink socially, and I don't do drugs.

Of course, the fact that I'm borderline OCD means that it is very hard for me to do good things, too. I can never get into the habbit of exercising, which means that my weight, which was 180 in high school, when I was playing football, has gone up to 240 in the seven years since I graduated.

Part of the problem is that I'm an addict.

My addictions aren't as glamorous or accepted as alcohol or crack. Might be easier for people to accept if I were an alcoholic. No, I'm addicted to video games and networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Of course, most people just say I'm lazy, and should get out and exercise. That's because they don't understand what its like. My internet went out for a week earlier in the year, and I was twitching so bad, you wouldn't believe. No twitter, no world of warcraft? I was going to the public library just so I could keep track of my Facebook!

A normal friday night for me is to come home from work, sit down at the computer, and then spend the next few hours either Tweeting, or killing kobolds in World of Warcraft. I live at the beach, but I've actually gone on the sand only five times in the last five years.

I am an addict, but what can ya do?

Religion, or why I don't vote Republican

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against the idea of Religion, per se. Everyone has a construct of their own making that they need to make the world around them make sense. Some people have science and logic. Others need some faith in a higher power, whether it is Christianity, Wicca, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, or even people who want to be Jedi.

What I have a problem with are the "religious" people who feel the need to force their religion down everyone around them's throat. Crazy guy spouting off in a college campus's free speech area, this means you. People who walk up to me and ask me if I've been saved, this means you too. Religious nutjobs who want to make laws based on what God wants them to do, this DEFINITELY means you!

The Republican party has been held hostage for years by the religious wing of their party, people who want to turn their religious views into legislation affecting all Americans. There are two problems with that. First, you lose any kind of moral high ground when you get caught doing the SAME DAMN THINGS YOU SAY YOU'RE AGAINST! I don't have to name names. You all know who's been naughty these last few years.

Second, not everyone in the country shares your view of the world. By legislating your faith, you're inflicting your faith on them, which is NOT what any religion wants you to do. The idea of forcing someone to practice your faith is the exact opposite of what Jesus would have wanted, and if you're saying otherwise, you're a fool.

Now there are some Republican ideals I can get behind. Fiscal discipline being highest on the list. But here's the thing. You can have a debate with a fiscal conservative, and keep things civil, while still trying to change their minds. But with a social conservative, if you try to change their mind, you're questioning their faith, and you get the bitterness you see in Congress today.

Give me a Republican party without the social conservatives, and I would likely vote for them. Because there are plenty of things about the Democrats that piss me off too. But I won't vote for a party that believes in making laws based on what their interpretation of God's will

About this blog

Hey there, guys and gals. If you're reading this, you're probably wondering who is this crazy guy, and what the hell is he going to do here? Well, I'm a geek, but this isn't going to be all about gaming. I'm a student, but this isn't going to be all about my studies. I'm an anime fan, but this isn't going to be all about catgirls. I work in a restaurant, but this isn't going to be all about the people I see.

So what is this blog about? The simple answer is everything, and nothing. If I have something I feel like sharing, I'll put it up. If I see something that I think I gotta comment on, I'll put it up. If I just wanna post something funny, I'll put that up, too. And if you guys see something you want me to talk about tell me, and I'll see what I can do.

--Stuart