Hey, haven’t been here in a while, so decided to drop by. I must say, the two quotes and the media banner you have at the top of the screen are good.  I really like them.  I even put the quotes into my own little booklet that I carry around.  Well, I’m at school right now.  I should be doing my work, so I gotta look busy.  See ya.

This is a really cool site. I just discovered it a minute ago.

Aren’t those Ikea chairs comfortable?  I didn’t know Ikea existed in the states.  I don’t think they have those wicker ones, but that’s okay because I wouldn’t want one anyway.

Great pics.  So, what camera(s) do you use?  Why not put a little info on your gear into the photos section?

Just a thought.

Tom

So somehow or other I heard about the latest popular reality show, "Joe Millionaire." I must’ve seen previews during the superbowl or something; that was the last time I watched TV.  Anyway I’d never watched Joe Millionaire, but I came across a website that’s doing a running commentary on it.  It is hilarious.  This guy cracks me up with his comments and observations on the whole thing.  I read through all 6 of his commentaries so far (for the first 6 episodes of Joe Millionaire).  So after reading them, I was really curious and anxious to know which girl Evan would pick.  And this 7th episode was supposed to be the one where he decides, so I watched it on Monday night.

It was ridiculous in many ways, but enjoyable to watch.  Let me just say that I’m so glad he picked Zora.  She was the only one out of the bunch that wasn’t thoroughly annoying.  She wasn’t an extremist about this or that like everyone else.  Like the one girl was a dancing freak... and then another girl was like "if you come home from work one day and say you want to go waltzing I’m gonna freak out!"  Zora was just... nice.  She wasn’t ridiculous like the rest of them.  Of course, Fox certainly tries to make everything extreme/scandalous/confliction/etc, but still.

And I knew right from the start of the show (I mean, the 7th episode, the only one I’ve seen) what the "shocking twist" was going to be.  They kept saying that it’s so "shocking" and that even Evan didn’t know about it.  Well what else could it be, excep that there really WAS going to be some money for him?  Obviously not $50 million, but... to just let the show end, and send Evan and Zora back home, for Evan to go back to his "$19,000/year construction job"... I just couldn’t see them ending it like that.  (Incidentally, $19,000/year is about $9.50/hour, and no one who operates heavy construction equipment gets paid that little.)

While this show was mildly ridiculous, this next one coming out really makes me mad.  I forget the name, but the deal is, the viewers pick a man and a woman based on seeing them on the show, and they pair them up to get married!  The viewers completely make the decision; the man and woman never meet before their wedding day.  That shows complete and utter contempt for the sanctity of marriage.  And people have the nerve to wonder why our country is going to hell.  The destruction of the family is the destruction of the nation.  Someone recently said (was it the president?  I forget) that a nation is only as strong as its families.  It’s common sense and it’s so true.  (Which is not to say that single people don’t matter but 1) the majority of people do get married and 2) even if you’re not married you still have a family.)  The media is incredibly influential in American society, especially to young minds, and this is the kind of crap they’re presenting.

I love Triscuits, but not just any old Triscuits. Baked Triscuits.  I don’t know how I ever lived without a toaster oven.

It is crazy around here since there’s a foot and a half of snow everywhere, and piles of it that are ten feet high.  It’s really funny to watch dogs run around in snow that’s up to their necks : )

I came across some interesting articles today.  This NYTimes piece tells about Iraqi men who escape to Jordan to avoid being forced into Saddam’s army... these men "told of grotesque repression, of relatives and friends tortured, raped and murdered or, as often, arrested and disappeared."  They say that as much as they hate the US, they desperately want us to go to war and remove Saddam from power.

And then this Iraqi scientist says that Saddam has moved his arms operations deep underground, beyond where inspectors can find them.

My favorite story of the day, though, was about president Bush and last weekend’s antiwar-mongers.  As capitalistlion put it, Bush to Protesters: Suck It.

...come to an end. Goodbye all.  I am departing from the West. 2Chron16:9

Why, why, why?! President’s day, snow day, school cancelled!  I stayed up till 1:30 last night knowing I wouldn’t have school the next day.  I was planning some exercise, a movie, doing my laundry (which really needs to be done, by the way.  Trust me, you don’t want to be near me now), hanging with some pals, finally fully beating Dragonball Z: Budokai, and starting the script for my next F-movie (like a B-movie, but worse).  Instead, at 7:00, a woman from my mom’s job calls and ask me to babysit.  I really don’t mind that much, but still, c’mon.  A free day should be a free day.  The kids cool and all, hey we spent the day at Pizza Hut and Barne’s and Noble’s free loading off the fact that they let you read the comic books in the store without kicking you out, but I lost all my plans.  Why, why, why!  Oh, cruel world, take me now!  (Oh, by the way, not that any of you care, the new Ultimate X-men is out and it’s freaken awesome.  Hey, wait, I get paid for this.  Heck, I’m going back to Barne’s and Noble’s after she pays me)

 
The official measurement is... a freaking lot!!

Your site inspired me to do the same for my entertainment system. I was curious, can you disable the chip on board, and insert another AGP card into the machine?  I want to do this because NVIDIA supports TVout within linux, and I really need this feature.  I don’t know if the S3 can do this, i mean i can not seem to find linux info about this.  What is your opinion abou this issue.  Thanx!

Adam

P.S.  What did you use to interface with your mp3 music box in your car?

Bill Whittle is one of the best writers I’ve come across, and you should spend half an hour reading his essays on courage and war. They are highly informative, but more than that they are thought-provoking, and they are touching.

So I’m at Wegmans in the checkout line, and a funny thing happened. I was asked 3 different questions at the exact same instant.  What’s interesting is that these 3 simultaneous questions came from only 2 people.  One person was the cashier... he’d just finished scanning all my items and he asked me whether the next stuff on the conveyor belt (which clearly belonged to the next guy in line) was mine.  The other person was this girl who floats around doing 10 things at once at the ends of all the checkout aisles.  She appeared behind me and asked me two questions: "do you need a cart?" and "are these all yours?"  Not only did she ask those two questions simultaneously, which is a feat in itself that I still can’t understand, but those two precise questions required opposite answers from me because they were all my bags, but I didn’t need a cart.  It was a cleverly crafted double-question which was impossible to answer efficiently without ambiguity.  Stunned by my opponent, I stammered "WHGT! JGTH! FLBT!!"

By this point the cashier was ringing up the next guy’s stuff on my bill.  Me and the next guy tell him to knock it off, and I turn to the floatey girl and say "Yes those are all mine no I don’t need a cart thank you."  But by that point she was already five aisles down doing something else (fortunately).

It just caught me off guard.  I’m used to shopping at Wegmans at around 1 in the morning when there’s no one there... at 7PM the place is bumpin’.

On the upside of things, I did get a grapefruit, some Ken’s Steakhouse French-with-Vermont-Honey salad dressing, fire (well ok propane), and Tropicana Grovestand Lots-of-Pulp orange juice.

Going into J4 for some nighttime caving... not that it looks any different inside at night than during the day... you know the drill, if I don’t reply to this within 24 hours, please send a rescue team.

Mmmm, fatty grilled steak for breakfast makes me happy   : )

So today is the day when the latest report will be presented to the UNSC by the top weapons inspectors. It will reveal nothing new, of course.  It will merely show that Saddam is continuing to reveal bits and pieces (of his choosing) of whatever the world wants to hear.  France, Russia, and Germany will continue to pretend that this is progress.  They’ll continue to pretend that they’re not being played by Saddam.  They’ll continue to push their "plan" which is simply to "sit around and wait," except that their new plan requires the US to pay for this ridiculous inaction by stationing 200,000 US troops near Iraq... not to go to war, but to "keep the peace" -- to keep Saddam in power.  Because keeping Saddam in power allows France and Germany (and for different reasons, Russia) to collect their billions of dollars from Saddam.  The sickest part of this whole Franco-Russo-German farce is that they are framing the situation as though they’re taking the moral high ground here.

Oh, and before I forget, "Happy Valentine’s Day," you perverts.

This was the best weekend I’ve had in a long time. It rocked hard.

First, my roommates Konstantin and Dmitry invited their sister Rita and their brother Maxim, along with about 10 other Russian friends, up to our house.  It was pure madness.  We played volleyball Friday night until midnight, then played pool until about 2, and then were up till about 5 in the morning.  We got Turkey Hill iced tea, two gallons for a dollar, at Wegmans.  What a deal!  I think that’s an all-time low price for iced tea.

Saturday morning I got up at 9 to go caving with Kevin in J4 and it was awesome.  Stinking awesome.  I took my camera for the first time, and I took a bunch of photos.  And we only saw one bat the whole time... he was way up on a high ceiling, sleeping or hibernating.

This morning I went to State College E. Free church and it too was awesome.  Praise God for churches that aren’t composed entirely of college kids!!  The pastor is really great.  He sort of reminds me of Alec Baldwin (except, of course, he’s not a whiny France-loving anti-war anti-American sissy like Baldwin is).  He’s energetic and funny and as much as one can tell from a single Sunday, he seems to present solid biblical truth.

Then, I get home from church and see that Bob’s new article is online, and I read this in it:

"Since nothing liberals do results in anything less than a disaster, it takes a lot of forgetting to make liberals look sane."  Which isn’t news, of course, but I love to hear Bob speak the truth when no one else will.

Rock on!  Now I’m gonna play my drums.

In the earth with Kev. Send help if I don’t post here within 12 hours.

Peter Galbraith served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Iraq-Iran conflict and the US war with Iraq in the early 1990s. During this time he smuggled out of Iraq 14 tons of documents detailing, among other things, the Iraqi regime’s attempted genocide of the Kurds within Iraq via the use of chemical weapons.  These documents were created by Saddam’s government, but were stolen by the Kurds during a revolt, and one of the 2 Kurdish leaders handed them over to Galbraith to be taken to the US for study.

NPR’s Terry Gross interviewed Galbraith recently.  You should listen to it.  It’s 32 minutes long.  Here are some quotes from the interview:

"There’s no question but that in Bosnia the United States intervention, the NATO bombing saved many many more lives than were cost by that action.  It helped bring the war to an end.  It was a war in which 200,000 people had been killed, and it enabled Bosnia to get on with the process of reconstruction.  And it is, admittedly slowly, becoming a more normal part of Europe."

"Iraq, in the 30 years that Saddam Hussein has been in power, at least a half a million Iraqis have died as a result of actions taken by Saddam Hussein... it’s likely to come to some kind of military action, and if it’s sooner, we’re simply going to save the lives of Iraqis."

"You have a situation in Iraq in which 80% of the population are Kurds, Shiites, or Christians... groups that have been brutally repressed by Saddam Hussein."

"Iraq is today very much a third-world country as a result of what Saddam Hussein has done to the country, but it wasn’t, it was a country making great progress back in the late 1970s... in which a lot of people had gotten educated, a lot of professional people..."

"We’re not going to find anybody inside Iraq who can be part of the government, except from the Kurdish area which has been free from Saddam’s control for 11 years, because anybody inside the country who might have opposition tendencies either has kept them very secret and is not known, or if it is known, he’s in prison or dead."

"Iraq is going to need to have a period of de-Nazification.... It’s inconceivable to me that any person who has served as a judge in Saddam’s Iraq could possibly continue to be a judge in post-Saddam Iraq, because inevitably, this person has been involved in the enforcement of tainted law, of law that grossly violates human rights."

Yo, my stuff is valid HTML 4.01 and valid CSS! Ok, so it’s only valid 4.01 as transitional HTML, which is lame, but it’s better than nothing.

In my parents’ basement I found something very wonderful. It used to belong to me a long time ago, but I didn’t appreciate its true value.  I found a little portable AM radio with headphones.  Now this may not sound like much, but it was made in 1983 by Radio Shack, and distributed by Burger King!  It says "Are you hungry?  Burger King" on the front.  The crowning glory is the earpieces on the headphones:  they look like Whoppers and have the Burger King logo!

Isn’t this the most excellent thing to find?  I am very happy.

God is dead.
-Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead.
          -God

It’s finally here! This thing has been "coming soon" for a couple years now, and it’s now available for order, with the first shipments in March.  You have to go to the site and watch the videos.  I’m so excited -- not that I’ll be able to afford one anytime soon since they’re $5000 -- but this thing is so cool.  I can’t wait till the first time I see someone riding one, I’m going to die of laughter for sure.

Okay, I might just be re-enforcing the fact that I am an idiot for not noticing this before, but why is my font green?

In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a  laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it’s  not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.  Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane  Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding the attacks on Sept. 11).  Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said  "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years  we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.  And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How  can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"  In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school ... the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.  Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.  Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because  we don’t want any bad publicity, and we surely don’t want to be sued  (there’s a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.). And we said OK.  Then someone said, let’s let our daughters have abortions if they want,  and they won’t even have to tell their parents. And we said OK.  Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they’re going to do it anyway, let’s give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won’t have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said OK.  Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn’t matter what we do  in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn’t matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as  long as I have a job and the economy is good.  Then someone said let’s print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the  female body. And we said OK.  And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they’re entitled to free speech.  Then the entertainment industry said, let’s make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let’s record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it’s just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.  Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.  Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it  out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."  Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.  Funny how you can send ’jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like  wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think  twice about sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.  Are you laughing?  Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.  Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no  one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit  back and complain about what bad shape the world iS IN!

I have had it with whiny "Americans" who are anti-war and anti-government and anti-everything. War is a necessary part of human history and the human present.  You can be an idealist all you want and say "war is bad" but in the real world, we have problems to solve, and if someone threatens us we need to protect our people.

These are the same people who, after September 11th, were saying "why didn’t the government protect us?"  Now, when there is a clear threat that we have the ability to fight against and prevent attacks from, people are against it?

As April put it: "I support a war with Iraq.  If we don’t go to war and Saddam drops a nuke on the US, then I have only one prayer...it is the families of the people who opposed the war that suffer the greatest."  A-freaking-men is what I say to that.

The fact is that freedom and safety are not free.  They never have been free.  Just because YOU take them for granted, that doesn’t mean they can’t be taken away.  The fact is that people fought and died to allow you those freedoms, and freedom has NEVER come without war.  One thing that has consistently defined America is its willingness to fight to protect its people, its freedom, and when necessary, that of other peoples.

If you’re not willing to fight for America, or to support those who will fight, then get the heck out -- we don’t need you here and we don’t want you here.

The US space shuttle Columbia broke apart and was destroyed this morning before it was able to land. The exact cause is yet unknown.  The lives of its seven crewmembers were lost.  The word from a heartless Iraqi government employee is  "We are happy that it broke up."

That’s great, Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi.  Freaking great.  And I hope you’re just as freaking happy when your little piece-of-crap country is destroyed by the US because your narcissistic murder-dictator refuses to disarm.

I just moved my photos and my personal recordings to a new server -- one that’s hosted instead of running on my own computer. So they should be a bunch faster now, and anyone who had trouble connecting to them before should have no more trouble.

So go and check out my songs already!  No, seriously, check them out.  Pretty Melody, Neat, and Incorruptible are the best, and you can stream them!  No waiting!  Give them a few listens and they will become your friends for sure.

Grrr. Getting accosted by Mormons while trying to run... that doesn’t get it.

I didn’t know a lot about Mormons before last night, but they handed me a copy of their "Articles of Faith" so now I do.  They’re basically another Catholic church... they made up their own book of faith, but still claim to believe in the Bible... they believe that you need to do good works to be saved and that you need to be baptized to be saved... they even have some interesting random crazy beliefs like that the new Jerusalem will be built on the American continent.

Anyway, this just reaffirms my stance that I’ll never be a door-to-door salesman for Christianity.  It’s so intrusive and unwelcome and it immediately puts the vast majority of people on the defensive -- hardly an effective way to share your faith with them.  They kept asking me for my phone number and address so they could "get together with me and talk to me"... the first time I kinda went "hm" and changed the subject, the second time I gave an obviously-no "maybe" and the third time I said "no, I think I’d rather research this on my own, if you guys don’t mind."