And now, for a handheld musical edition of…
YOU SUCK!!!
I think it’s obvious at this point. iPods suck. Granted, I don’t have one. I’ve never really used one. I’m sure they work just fine. So what am I bitching about if I don’t even have one? Simple. It’s the hype around them and the idea that they’re somehow so special that it seems everything needs to be about them.
Continue reading “iPod for the Lose”
It frightens me a little to see so many folks, especially on the NYRA forums, clinging religiously to this idea that your rights and privileges are and should be completely forfeit under the jurisdiction of some other person. Okay, I’m sure that made no sense. Let me explain.
Continue reading “Rights of Ownership”
Was checking my site logs and happened upon a couple of referrals from the Pensacola News Journal. Sigh. It’s so typical.
http://forums.pnj.com/viewtopic.php?t=11487
Basically, a couple of guys figured they’d bring up the topic of youth rights to the happy little denizens of the news journal forums. Not surprisingly, they weren’t well received. They stated their case (somewhat) coolly, only to be met with know-it-all attitudes and patriarchal pandering. Again, not surprising.
Continue reading “Hey, Pensacola!”
I hereby decree…
Life’s too short for the seven deadly sins.
I’ve been thinking about these for the past couple of days. Pride. Gluttony. Lust. Anger. Sloth. Greed. Envy.
And those are all a damn waste of time. I’d say they are sins for good reason. They suck! They all make you act like an irrational moron and possibly hurt yourself and those you care about. Let’s go through them.
Continue reading “Seven Deadly Sins”
I know this is two in a row now, but here’s another set of people who seriously should…
SHUT THE HELL UP!!!
These whiny parents and grandparents who feel like they just have to make the same tired “joke” about the “ordeal” it is when their children are teenagers.
“Oh, kids are great, but then they become teenagers!”
“Wait until your kids are teenagers, then you’ll feel sorry for all the horrible things you did at that age.”
“Have teens around makes you age very fast!”
*headdesk*
Continue reading “Teenagers, Oh My!”
And now, for a furious, data-loss induced edition of…
YOU SUCK!
I refer to web host, UN Site Solutions. They don’t host this site, but they host NYRA. You know, it’s always a damn problem with them! We keep having major server issues, lots and lots of downtime, and occasional lost data. Then today I get on to find we lost EVERYTHING since January 8!
They don’t back things up as often as they should. This is not acceptable! We lost important e-mails. Important message board posts. Important member information. Everything!
Not to mention they are really fussy about CPU usage crap that other hosts don’t care about. It’s irritating as all hell.
Plus, lately we’ve been having a problem of threads disappearing on the NYRA forums. No idea why. None of our tech staff knows why. UNSS certainly doesn’t know why. Despicable.
And they tend to lock IPs out of being able to access their hosted sites, for no reason.
Just sick of it. We pay them ridiculous amounts of money to host us, and they do this crap all the time. Sad thing is, they’re still better than the host we had before.
My good NYRA friend Keith Mandell showed me this earlier.
Austrians Split at Voting at Age 16 Plan
VIENNA, Austria — Austria’s new coalition government says 16-year-olds _ who can already vote in some local races _ should also be allowed to cast ballots in national elections.
But the country is split on lowering the voting age from 18. Some think 16-year-olds are not sufficiently interested or mature enough to have a say in national affairs but others welcome the change.
“Adolescents aren’t any less interested in politics than other groups,” said Reinhard Zuba of the Austrian Institute for Youth Research, citing recent studies on the topic.
One such study, carried out with the Vienna-based SORA Institute after local elections in Vienna in October 2005, showed 59 percent of 16- to 18-year-olds cast a ballot.
That turnout was about the same as other age groups, said SORA co-director Christoph Hofinger, adding that lowering the voting age to 16 _ or even 14 _ could help counterbalance the views of an increasingly aging population, a common phenomenon across Europe.
In Europe, and around the world, the voting age is commonly 18 _ with some exceptions. In Iran, 15-year-olds can vote and in Cuba, Nicaragua and the Isle of Man, off the coast of Britain, 16-year-olds can cast ballots. On the other end of the spectrum, the age in Italy for voting for the Senate is 25.
The proposal to lower the age comes from Austria’s “grand coalition” of Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party following elections on Oct. 1. But it was not a major campaign issue.
“I’d vote if I could because I get a bit worked up about what politicians do without asking us,” said 15-year-old Katharina Wurian.
Maria Finz-Lucchi, a history teacher in Vienna, said she too supports the proposal.
“It would teach young people to take responsibility,” she said.
But Willi Geser, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Innsbruck, is skeptical.
“If one decreases the voting age, then one has to do more to promote political education in the schools,” he said.
Oh, awesome! More and more people are seeing the light. A lower voting age is a GOOD thing!
And I just can’t stop thinking of The Sound of Music right now. 😆
While I admit to occasionally jumping on the whole “third party votes are a waste” bandwagon, I’ve given it some more thought and realized that, well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
It supports the idea that the whole point of voting is so you can be like “yay, I voted for the winner!” rather than for whom you actually want to win. Granted, most of America doesn’t know enough about the candidates to make any kind of informed decision outside of hoping they picked the right one (and to think they don’t want the voting age lowered because youth are too immature!).
Continue reading “Third Party Thought”
And now, with the Twelve Days of Christmas through as well as Epiphany, the 2006 Christmas season is over.
Well, it was fun, right? Good presents? Good food? Good times?
Aww. Time to take down the decorations. Always a disappointment. You get used to everything looking so pretty and festive, then you have to take it down and everything looks bland. Oh, well.
Glorious now behold Him arise
King and God and Sacrifice
Alleluia, Alleluia
Earth to heaven replies
O…
Star of wonder, Star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy perfect light.
*takes down lights*
OMG! OMG! OMG!!! Awesome! 😀
So today at work, instead of working on stuff I probably should have been working on, I did what I do every day. I went to one of my favorite sites and did the daily puzzles there. It’s BrainBashers.com if you want to check it out. Brain teasers. Illusions. Puzzles. Other similar crap. In other words, totally my kind of place! The Fun Stuff section kicks all kinds of ass.
Continue reading “Big Puzzle”