Palin says: Come to Alaska...kinda

I opened up my email this morning and lo-and-behold discovered an invite for ME to go to Alaska from Sarah Palin herself!

Wait a minute...This isn't asking me to go to Alaska. It's simply asking me to go to the official Alaska State Travel (unlike those pesky unofficial Alaska State Travel websites, grr). Is this the beginning of her 2012 campaign?

A meeting of two bloggers

Over the weekend I had the chance to meet up with Redzeppelin for "Chinee", discussions about video games, prop 8, and graphic novels. The picture of the event has been edited to keep identities anonymous.

Suggestions for the Auto Bailout

Some suggestions for what should be included in the Big Three Auto companies bailout package:

Every new car must have:

1. At least 4 cup holders up front.
2. Permanent "new car" smell.
3. A horn that plays "Smoke on water"
4. Microwave ovens.
5. A digital display in the rear window to tell other drivers exactly what you think of them
6. That red moving light on the front like KIT from Knight Rider.
7. A flux capacitor
8. The ability to fly
9. ...and go underwater
10. Machine guns

Old Friends update

Well as of this week I have had a lot of replies to my sending out of emails to my old friends. I have been very pleasantly surprised. Mostly they tell of good news which is great but it's funny what some folks end up doing for a living considering what I knew about them a few years ago.

It's been a worthwhile experience for me so I'm glad I went ahead and did it. Even if everyone doesn't reply I'll be happy. I had a few people say "Why aren't you on facebook??" surprised that I would dare not to join the social networking giant. Well, why would I? You use it to keep in contact with friends. You have my email so just hit reply. Job done.

Guns

I recently read a story in the news that reminded me of an early post of The Film Geek's (Poor Priorities) talking about gun culture. He illustrated an incident of an 8-year old boy accidentally shooting and killing himself. On a kinda flip side of that is this story about an 8-year old boy who is now a murder suspect in the shooting and killing of his father and another man. It worries me that children are encouraged to know about guns, have contact with guns, and use guns and these two stories reflect my anxiety about such an issue.

As a kid I loved playing with guns. I had authentic looking cap guns that simply made the "bang" noise and that was O.K. with me. I got to feel like a cowboy and no-one ended up dead. I fired water pistols and that was great too. I soaked my friends and in return I would get soaked. With no trip to the hospital (or morgue) needed. I would play laser tag, picking off my "enemies" with beams of light. Running around crazily pointing the heavy laser gun and enjoying hearing that "bleep bleep" knowing I'd scored a hit. If I would go back in time and give that 8 year old Allclick a REAL honest-to-goodness gun I have no doubt there would be trouble by midnight because I doubt I'd be able to fully appreciate that I was holding a lethal weapon (just like that time I met Mel Gibson).

At this current point in time there is apparently a rush on gun sales (Dallas News, Sign On San Diego) due to the election of President Obama. Apparently there is some debate about whether or not he will make it more difficult to buy guns or even restricted the selling of "assault weapons". I am not sure I really see the logic behind the mass buying, though. Either you currently own a gun and so buying more guns isn't really a priority (especially when the economy is so bad and you really should be buying things like food and paying off those credit card debts) or you currently do not own a gun and you have managed to get this far in your life without one. The Slate published a pretty interesting look at this issue suggesting that it is really the press who are spooking us about the increase in gun sales.

I'm frankly, much more spooked at the thought of everyone owning a bunch of guns around me, than my access to such a weapon. I can barely trust other people to make decent judgements when they are driving, or shopping let alone their decisions about welding lethal weapons.

Rant over.

Summary: Guns bad. Except fake guns.

WTF moments in Comics

Rather than open up my email and send this out, i'll just post this lil linky up here.

http://www.ugo.com/comics/wtf-moments-in-comics/

Surprises and strange but true moments from the world of comics.

Word to the wise

When it comes to browsers it's becoming a difficult choice but my main staple is Internet Explorer. Yes, I know it's more vulnerable to attacks and malicious code etc.. but that's what seems to get the job done most of the time. I'm having a very strange tech prob at home. When I load up any blogs on Blogger.com the images and video won't load. Every other site is fine except blogger. So, in an attempt to fix this I thought "I know, I'll download the latest IE". Big mistake. I am now running IE 8 version 2 beta...or something like that. It's a little more fancy (i.e. annoying), my images still don't show in blogger and it won't even work with some web pages now. Perhaps it is more advanced than the website that are actually created. I think perhaps the best thing about it is that it will restore your last browsing session. I wonder where Microsoft got that idea from?

If anyone has ideas about why my blogger images aren't showing let me know.

Reaching out: Minor update

Well after sending out my three emails I had two BIG replies back! Both friends stated in two different ways that *I* shouldn't have been out of contact for so long! I didn't mind though. At least it showed they wanted me to get in touch. Spurred on by this response I sent out a flood of probably 10 short emails to old friends today and replied to the two original responses.

I have recently been reflecting after hearing some bad news that I received after contacting one of my best friends via email, and some possible bad news from another friend. I have heard people before say "Why does allow bad things to happen?" and what I'm reminded is that I am more grateful for good things in my life today having listened to my friends bad news. If bad things never happened, then by definition good things couldn't happen because there would not be anything to contrast them with. I suppose it would end up a very bland life indeed.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring to my inbox.

Reaching out

It's nearly Christmas. That's right. I said it. I know this as Wal-mart is currently playing Christmas music. I can usually rely on Wal-mart to tell me what time of year it is and have disposed of my calendar. Christmas is no longer a one day event but a huge 60 day on going affair of celebration and "spend"-ery. As it will soon be Christmas, it's time to start thinking about buying gifts and sending cards to people you know. This process is usually straight forward. I just buy things for people in my direct circle of contact or my closest family members. I decided to reach a little further out of my zone this year and get in contact with old friends and send them a card too but it was a difficult decision to make. I began writing my first email to a friend and asking for their home address. It may have seemed a little strange as we hadn't been in contact since January 2008 but I thought "what have I got to lose?". As I was writing I was overcome with a feeling. I suppose it was anger or just confusion. I mean, why was *I* the one making all the effort. Why haven't I been contacted for my address? I had to push through this and sent the email.

I figure that perhaps they are saying the same thing and if everyone continues to say and think that then nothing will ever happen. So, I made the first step. This morning I had zero responses in my email. I think I managed to finish three emails so far so I'm "oh" for three right now. But I'll keep my chin up, my upper lip stiff and continue down my list.

Annoying Phrases

Thankfully SOMEONE at Oxford is doing important research and this is what they have come up with. 10 annoying phrases:

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science

If you have spent at least 5 minutes in any office situation you are bound to hear one of these beauties. I would add to this list "Think outside the box" and "Playing Phone-tag"...

"Oh, looks like we've been playing phone tag!" Yer, that's just not cute or funny mister. The truth is I called you a bunch of times and you didn't answer so I didn't bother answering your call because when I call YOU it's because I'M ready to talk. I'm eating/working/scratching/sleeping now so I can't answer your call so leave me a message and if you say "phone-tag" I'm going to cover you in mouthwash and set you alight. Ass.

And if I COULD think outside the box I wouldn't need someone to tell me that. Especially someone who will just say that phrase but give no directions about how to do so. How inconsiderate. Why don't YOU think "outside the box" and come up with a new phrase. Ass.

And breathe out...

I have been away a couple of days and have been off the blogger grid. I checked in today to see what was happening upon my bloglist and it seems that since Tuesday night every blogger has lots to say. It's like a second wind has descended on West Virginia bloggers. I am pleased that everyone feels they need to share their thoughts over this week and irked that I now have so much to read and so many sarcastic comments to formulate.

Go vote

Typically, voting is boring. You go in, it's quiet, you walk behind the booth and then Bam! you vote. No fireworks or music or fanfare. Just you knowing you voted and possibly a thank you on the way out. Tomorrow it's probably going to be even more boring as from what I've heard (Insert: impressive link to many web sites showing long lines at polling stations) the lines will be long. But hey, it's for your country, it's for demo cracy, and it's for people that can't vote but will feel the consequences.

Plus the weather should be nice.