Archive for April, 2004

I’ve been wandering around Barnes&Noble.

I’m currently sitting in limbo about equidistant between the Gay and Lesbian section and the Religious Fiction section. (Yes I realize the latter title is redundant, but I didn’t make it up)

Between the dichotomy of these two sections and the scattering of political hack jobs masquerading as books, I’m disturbed by the divisiveness in today’s culture.

There was a prevailing theme of unity after 2001. “Lets be united, lets be strong, stand together in solidarity.” (Why does this sound slightly like communism?)

Instead its as if we got together and took a good look at our brothers from the north and from the south and ran, disturbed with what we saw. We’ve taken to hacking at each other, attempting to win a silent battle.

Unfortunately this is not the most disturbing thing I’ve seen recently.

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On the day George Bush stated he would support a constitutional amendment to enshrine the religious standard of marriage as being between one man and one woman, I got a telephone call from my older sister, Randi, upset and frustrated by his hateful stance. I had simply labeled it as the words of a bigot and felt secure that history would run its course and GWB would look like the ignorant prick that he is.

What is disturbing to me is I went to my Dad’s house the other day and he had “signed” pictures from GWB’s campaign. (Its possible these were for donating to the RNC, as I’ven’t found his donation on GWB’s website.)

My dad was the parent who took my coming out the best. So I’m frustrated when my dad supports a man who has placed himself directly blocking the path of his son’s future happiness.

I’m in limbo as to what to do. I want to scold my Dad for his position. But, at the same time he has been kicked enough as is.

So, walking around Barnes&Noble seeing this war unfold around me has crystalized the limbic middle ground on which I’m standing on.

My father is unexplainably with the south and I’m with the north.

I don’t want to see this battle…

I have lots of stuff to get through quickly, cuz I need to sleep..

1. I have a kitty for adoption. She’s definitely got a strong personality and is a fighter. She needs to go to the vet first though (thats happening on Friday.) She is adoptable at no cost, you just need to provide a good home and cover the vet costs.
2. I registered for the March of Dimes. My employer Citicards is matching every donation, so its a great way to make that $10 donation be worth $20.. I also need to get my coworker Cathy to register too, as she is procrastinating on the matter. Leave your comments with suggestions on how to get her to register. Oh and I have a personal donation page at the March of Dimes where you can pledge a donation. I suggest that you mail me a check, just so i make sure it can get matched, by Citicards..
3. Cincinnati traffic sucks.
4. Oh, Cincinnati traffic sucks.
5. Okay thats it. No more. Oh but Cincinnati traffic sucks.

Fucking Kitty.

I’ve got this thing where my cats are my kids. They probably think I’m nuts but I take the approach that they are my kids.

You see the problem is I’ve got this stray and I want her to have a good place and home but she is currently a big pain.

She got on my nerves this morning and currently she is spending the day on the patio. I’m just frustrated that I can’t help her permanently and right now she is a big pain in the ass.

Its not for lack of trying…

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Okay, problem solved. I spay her and a coworker will take her. so the kitty has a home!

I’ve been saying I should write a PEIDM entry for quite a while.

I just don’t know what to write one on.

I usually write these things when I’m pissed, or meditating some decision, or I’ve come to some semi-profound conclusion that I want to solidify so it cannot morph itself into something else without a record, or some commentary on something weird, or a funny take on my life.

I’ve had those little bits, but they seem to fizzle by the time I get near paper or the computer.

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In someways its a good thing I’ven’t needed to write anything here. If you look at the January 2003-Mayish 2003 entries in my eJournal (as it was known in those days), you’ll note that in some ways this was a therapy method I used to ensure my sanity.

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Also I’ven’t been reading as much as I would like. I did finish Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson. It didn’t spark any amazing insight. I mean I know that there are separate tools that people develop and we’re not using them all at once; that there are chemicals that affect our brain as well as different brain structures; that people who are good at specific tasks because they can get in specific brain patterns when the need arises; that we have primal systems that learn and don’t always work with us. It could be that I was a bit spoiled by reading the excepts of the book. Sometimes once you get the key ideas that the book is built around the filling is well, boring. Its similar to Dr. Irvine‘s next book. In some ways I am looking forward to it to see how it came out (and possibly if my name made it into it somewhere.), but in many ways I’m not looking forward to it because I am not really sure how much new information will be in it.

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An Amusing snippet from my conversation with Phil.

Me: oh, did I tell you Cincinnati Bell is trying to kill me?

Phil: nope, but I believe it.

Me: lol, you’re too easy

Phil: i know

Me: I’m disturbed, you don’t even ask for an explanation.. perhaps I should be worried that CinBell has had enough contracts on other people’s lives that its common practice in Kentucky…

Phil: shhh. you’re not supposed to know. sigh. *finds tire iron*

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Hmm other news. I’m moving to Covington, Kentucky. I’ve gotten all the obligatory state paperwork done, although I’ven’t gotten my plates taken care of completely. (I’m actually being very Kentuckian about the matter right now, I have my Ohio plate, which is stuck on the rear plate mount, and I have my Kentucky plate in the window. I figure if push comes to shove, I can argue that “I’m following the law to the best of my ability I just couldn’t get the Ohio plate off to put the Kentucky plate on”)

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Felines, they’re all well. The boys are cute as ever, and the female.. Well shes a bitch and shes unhappy because she got cut up the other day. (Gotta follow Barker’s advice)

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Hmm.. What else. Oh I’m frustrated with Phil’s take on Movable Type. Come on, its a blog engine that is so flexible that people can and have contorted it to do things that no one even imagined it could do. Yeah the commenting sucks, and I think the Net wide comment registration thing is a great idea, better than captchas, blacklisting, or single site registration.

Really for a majority of the blogging community MT or something similar works. Most of us don’t add a huge number of entries, (My database has 544 entries, plus comments in it right now) and even if we do we don’t rebuild all that often.

I guess I must say I do get around a lot of the complaints by using Server Side Includes gratuitously, to the point that I’ve turned it into a programming language in its own right. (The page you are currently viewing is composed of no less that five separate files on my web server.)

I could go on and on and on, but I’m more of the opinion that it works, most people can get it to do what they want it to without too many headaches.

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Hmm.. what else should I rant about?

Unfortunately no one has added themselves to my PEIDM mailing list, although this could be because it is only on one page. (Guess I got side tracked somewhere down the line when I was adding it.)

Oh while I’m mentioning it features that I want to add to my website:

• The subscribe box on all the PEIDM pages, as well as a page explaining the PEDIM mailing list
• Search (I’ve got the CGI sitting installed I just need to do it.)
• I’ve got a whole section of my site of my school papers that is in the process of being prepared for prime time, that well has been forgotten about.
• Plus just some general updating here and there

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Okay so hows that for having nothing to say?