Is there really anything more else I need to say at this moment?  Rhetorical.  Some of you have been here and the comfort is that all you young whipper snappers WILL join me… eventually.

Been around three decades and all I got was This lousey t-shirt!   Wisdom now etches my newly forming laugh lines… *cough*…  Now I can sit back in my rocker and curse at the top of my lungs “Hooligan!” and “Pull up your pants!”  *hack* .  Of course the one I’ve been waiting to say all my life “When I was your age….”  “… there was no Wikipedia!  We had to go to a library and look up books with the Dewey Decimal System!”  Now don’t get me started if you don’t know what that is… go Google it!!!

Lots to look forward to, Depends, walkers, Prune juice; it’s just to bad it also means becoming deaf, dumb and blind.

Yeah, this is what you get to look forward to, son…..  Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

I am currently in the middle of writing a series of articles about my experiences of the first weeks of pregnancy.  There are currently two articles up. Check them out if you feel froggy.

The Start of a Pregnancy – Part 1 – Revelations

and…

The Start of a Pregnancy – Part 2 – Validation

Enjoy! :D

I lived in this small town that was very pretentious.  On the surface it looked the very picturesque meaning of quaint.  An outsider standing in the middle of the downtown area could easily believe that this was a place that could feel like home.  Every one was part of your extended family.  A place of peace and acceptance.  A place that made you feel like you had a big fluffy blanket wrapped around while you were sipping hot cocoa on a cold stormy late Autumn evening.  Of course that was what they wanted outsiders to think.  It was a tourist trap.  But as soon as the tourists went home from their little mini vacation a completely different atmosphere appeared.  And the true town’s personality emerged.  The people were not so well adjusted, nor excepting.  I always saw the town as a form of Broadway stage during tourist season.  When the lights went down and everybody went home – the makeup and costumes came off.

Then late at night the circus freaks emerged. Mostly during their beloved Halloween season.  October was their time to show their true form and come out and play.  The city officials and those who ran the town hated them.  Hated their existence.  They thought it was a blight on their perfect little town.  This little group of circus freaks were twistedly talented volunteers of the local haunted school house.  And I was one of them.  A proud member in fact.  I cherished my part in smearing the towns perfect little exterior.  All of us at the haunted house did, I think.  The town wanted to hide it’s imperfections.  Shoving them in the basements under lock and key.  October was the only time we could escape and show our deformed faces and non compliant revolutions.  It was mostly innocent of course.  We never really did any visual damage.  We were hooligans but we were not criminals.  This was my first true realization of home.  My first place of refuge.  Empowering, we were all royalty there.  Not the vagabonds the town branded us as.  Plus there still is nothing like scaring the pants off a guy twice my size.

I then lost it.  You can’t stay in one place forever though.  You must move forward on your path wherever it may take you.

I didn’t find another home until a few years later.  And oddly enough it took its form as a MMORPG.  It’s insane but in a lot of ways it filled the gap in my life that the haunted house made when I departed from it.  Once again I was able to be a more projected version of the things I wanted to be and liked in myself.  I put on the skin of a Twi’lek and played my grandest role yet.  That of a little blue Tyrenanian Twi named Xie ‘lanthia.  In actuality I found it terribly easier to be comfortable with being me under the guise of lighthearted silliness of a cantina than those of your everyday “real life” scenarios.  With SWG I found true social happiness.

The truth be, I am a bit of a social reject.  A self proclaimed hermit.  Even my husband scorns my antisocial tendencies at times.  He has dubbed me socially challenged and he is most definitely correct in his view of me.  In some ways it is something that is beyond my control but mostly I find contentment and even a bit of honor at being a mob of one.  It fits me.  I do love socializing with people once you get through the BS but unfortunately I found that a large majority of people are entirely made up of BS.  I actually should rephrase that.  I hate people.  I love persons.  The easiest way to get rid of me is to play at one of the mindless drones.  It does it every time.

By now as you can guess, SWG is gone for me also.  The truth being the game changed way to much and that caused a different type of people to become attracted to the game.  Sadly, it also chased away the type of “persons” that helped make me fall in love with SWG, so eventually I left also.  WoW, EQII, and all the other MMOs fall tragically short of the splendid social sandbox that was once SWG.  So, in a moment of weakness I very seriously think about renewing my subscription to SWG, even though I know full and well that the fix I am longing for I will never get again there.

Five years ago it was annoying. In today’s world it is down right unacceptable!

I am talking about a few Utilities Service companies refusal to transition into 21st century technology amenities. Simple things like being able to pay your bill, check your account online; pay by phone with check or credit card; and the worst one… excepting credit/debit cards as a form of payment. Yes there are still a few utility companies who do not have these services available. Can you believe it. In this day and age it seems almost unimaginable.

It does get worse though. Most of the time we as customers do not have the luxury of shopping around for a better price and service from these companies (e.g. garbage disposal service, phone, gas or whatnot) because there is no competition. There is only one company that will handle said utility service in the area you live. We are stuck with what they give us and we are expected to be happy about it. Cause if we are not and we happen to speak out against these atrocities, they will most certainly make sure to inconvenience you to almost the point of harassment. Ever wonder why when they tell you they’ll be at your house between 12pm and 5pm sometimes you come home, on time mind you, only to find a note on your door timestamped at 11:45am – sorry we missed you, please call this number to schedule. They’re teaching you a lesson that’s why. They are smug about it too because they know they are not going to lose your business. If you want electricity or water you’re stuck with them and boy do they know what power they have over you. They seem to enjoy rubbing it in your face every chance they can get.

I’m going to buy a plot of land out in the middle of nowhere. Built my house with my own bare hands. I am going to make it completely self sufficient too. I won’t need to rely on these bastards any longer. Ah, what a dream!

I never was one for a mass display of intoxicated gluttony.  It is true though that I have been involved in my fair share of them.  One of them was a SciFi-Fantasy convention my friends affectionately dubbed the annual drunkin’ orgy fest.  I took part in the drunkin’ portion of the fest for four years in a row.  Two of those pivoting moments, where joy and pain became one happened here.  This is the reason they are so beautifully precious to me.

The fucking worst thing about remembering these moments is that in part because of them, I realize that I have shut out, closed down any possibility for any future memories to be made and cherished.  I have built up a wall around me preventing anyone from touching me, connecting with me.  This is my own personal purgatory and I lay in the bed that I have made.

Earlier I posted “I think I just killed my N810″. Creeva came and rescued me from my ineptness and offer up the suggestion that I remove the battery. Yeah you guessed it. It was that simple.

Well, at the cost of a little bit of pride at least I learned something. When confronted with a problem it is more often than not, a simple solution. I guess this is proof of how I tend to over complicate the situation.   /sigh

  Lost and long ago...
I dreamed of violet skies,
And luscious fields of green.
         All is lost,
         All is gone.
 It seems so long ago...
I whispered in the evening winds,
Of treachery bound deep inside.
         All is lost,
         All is gone.
 What must have been a lifetime ago...
The world was new, conjecture excepted,
Unquestioningly, contently - bewitched by time.
         All is lost,
         All is gone.
 A shadow of time long, long ago...
In the innocent twilight of my youth,
I slipped on memories - vast seas of hope betrayed...
     Forever lost and long ago.

President Bush Addresses CENTCOM Coalition Conference

“Our main enemy is al Qaeda and its affiliates. Their allies choose their victims indiscriminately. They murder the innocent to advance a focused and clear ideology. They seek to establish a radical Islamic caliphate, so they can impose a brutal new order on unwilling people, much as Nazis and communists sought to do in the last century. This enemy will accept no compromise with the civilized world. Here is what the al Qaeda charter says about those who oppose their plans: ‘We will not meet them halfway, and there will be no room for dialogue with them.’ These enemies have embraced a cult of death. They are determined to bring days of even greater destruction on our people. They seek the world’s most dangerous weapons. Against this kind of enemy, there is only one effective response: We must go on the offense, stay on the offense, and take the fight to them.”

President George W. Bush
May 1, 2007

Al Qaeda and its affiliates resemble Nazi Germany in the last century, do they? I have to disagree. I am beginning to think our own U.S. Government more closely resembles Nazi Germany these days. Here is an example why:

Fact Sheet on FISA Modernization

The Problem

• The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was drafted almost thirty years ago, for the purpose of establishing a process for obtaining a court order to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance in the United States.
• However, as a result of revolutions in telecommunications technology since FISA was passed, FISA now often requires the Government to get a court order to collect information on terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets located overseas.
• It makes no sense to require the Government to obtain a court order to collect foreign intelligence on foreign targets located in foreign countries. This requirement impairs our intelligence capabilities, and diverts scarce resources that would be better spent safeguarding the civil liberties of Americans, not foreigners who wish to do us harm.
• As the Director of National Intelligence has reported, as a result of this outdated law we now are “missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country.” This is unacceptable at any time-but it is intolerable in the current heightened threat environment.

The Director of National Intelligence Has Proposed A Reasonable Solution

• The Administration proposed a comprehensive FISA modernization bill to the Congress several months ago. However, Congress has made it clear that they will be unable to act upon the Administration’s full proposal before the August recess.
• In an effort to address this critical intelligence gap, the Director of National Intelligence has proposed a significantly narrowed proposal focused on the current, urgent need to protect our Nation.
• This new proposal would substantially enhance our capabilities to collect intelligence on targets located overseas. It would also preserve a role for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in reviewing the Government’s procedures for collecting intelligence on these overseas targets. This is an effort to balance court review and our urgent need to close the current intelligence gap.
• The court review procedures would not stand in the way of starting collection of foreign intelligence immediately. The Government would have 90 days after collection has started to submit its procedures to the court for review. If the court found any deficiency, collection would continue during any and all court review processes.

What Is Not Acceptable

• • Some have proposed that the Government must obtain pre-approval from a court before it conducts critical surveillance of targets located overseas. This is unacceptable. The Government must be able to act immediately, particularly in the case of national security emergencies, to protect the Nation.
  • Some have suggested that FISA must be reformed, but only to permit collection against certain overseas threats like al Qaeda terrorists. This is unacceptable. There are many threats that confront our Nation, including military, weapons proliferation, and economic, and we must be able to conduct foreign intelligence effectively on all of them.
  • Some have suggested that we must wait to modernize FISA. This is unacceptable. Congress must act now to give our intelligence professionals the tools they need to uncover plots in time to protect our homeland.
  • Some have suggested that a court order should be necessary before our intelligence professionals are able to gather any information about a foreign target who happens to contact someone in the United States frequently. This is unacceptable.

According to this, our government believes that ‘foreign’ people somehow have less rights than the U.S. citizens in the grand scheme of things. Or at least that seems to be the message, otherwise why would they feel the need to underline ‘foreign’ so frequently. This piece is obviously meant as a scare tactic. To frighten American Citizens into believing that any non-U.S. born citizens are to be immediately distrusted. As if ALL non-U.S. born citizens are out to hurt and destroy not only The United States of America itself but are also out to personally hurt every individual U.S. Citizen. As U.S. Citizens we MUST support this modernization of FISA at the very least and anything less would cause every U.S. law abiding citizen to be under eminent danger. Sounds kinda like propaganda, huh?

Giving the government a 90 day grace period to report any foreign intelligence gathered to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the ability to continue gathering foreign intelligence, even after this court calls the validity of such actions into question, removes any checks and balances inherited in the system, and has no place in a country where personal liberties are held in such high esteem.

I guess the question I ask is this really in our best interests? Is the false sense of safety really worth personal liberties in trade? You could say, “How does this affect me? I am an U.S. raised and born citizen?”. So take a minute and put the shoe on the other foot. How would this affect you if you weren’t an U.S. Citizen? How could this be used to harm others, innocents? Not to mention giving our U.S. government more control, more power in the long run.

Anonymity online is on the rise, allowing people to write, lie and manipulate data without feeling responsible for it. But who’s doing all this hiding? Hint: It’s not angry, pajama-wearing bloggers.

And now the public can see all if they visit Griffith’s Wikiscanner site. Turns out that all the anonymous propaganda and lies on Wikipedia aren’t coming from basement dwellers at all — they’re coming from Congress, the CIA, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Somebody at Halliburton deleted key information from an entry on war crimes; Diebold, an electronic-voting machine manufacturer, deleted sections of its entry about a lawsuit filed against it. Someone at Pepsi deleted information about health problems caused by the soft drink. Somebody at The New York Times deleted huge chunks of information from the entry on the Wall Street Journal. And of course, the CIA has been editing the entry on the Iraq war.

Proof of why we should always question the validity of every bit of information that passes our way. Research the information from multiple sources until we become educated enough to have an opinion. And long before we pass that information on to someone else.

The winds howl in the black shuddering night
Holding you in her arms is Pandora’s delight
A carnival of hearts
A festival of amusements
Her wicked grin in reply to you commandments
The Devil, she entices
You can keep no secret, she knows all your vices
A wicked grin erupts from her blood stained lips, sinisterly she cackles
Stalking and circling like a pack of jackals
She knows the battle of your soul she has already won
You’re lost alone within a fiery sun

I wrote this a little over three years ago. This was inspired by one of my favorite SWG toons, Xhyanne ‘lanthia, and it is written in her point of view. At the time she was a very hot headed, stubborn little BH. Eager to take her place among the elite BH’s in the Intrepid galaxy, as well as prove her worth in her mother’s eyes. I hope you enjoy. :)

After coming back from a long hunt I decided to step into the local cantina to rest my weary bones for a few moments. I slowly walk to the back of the cantina and take a seat in one of those private alcoves. As I listen to the band play I relax and close my eyes letting my battle fatigue melt away. I quickly notice a musician playing the same few notes over and over again. Like a broken record..no flourishing…no nothing.

I get up figuring it was a new musician just starting out. Maybe I could help steer the guy in the right direction. My mom was, after all, in the famous band “The Def Stars”. As I walk up to him I realize that I was wrong. He was not a novice…he was a master! He was AFK and not even macrotaining. To my utter astonishment I realize I recognize this guy – it was someone the founders of DEF were considering for membership.

I stare in total and complete shock at his face. The world around me comesinto sharp focus. All I see is his cold blank stare with a deafening “Whooornal!……Whooornal!” from his playing Starwars1 on the chi horn. The sound itself was driving me insane. It was like nails on the chalkboard. Then when I think I can’t take it anymore…..

SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I grab him by the scruff of his neck and drag him out of the cantina. I throw him face first into a nice big pile of torton poodoo. He so conveniently becomes ATK at the best possible moment! Yeah you guessed it, when his face was buried in that huge mound of juicy…Ok I am getting a little carried away…

“What the hell is wrong with you ?!?” he screams.

“Did you really think you would get away with it ?” I said calmly.

“Away with what?! WTF?!” he yells.

I stare at him silently

“….I was only AFK for a moment!” he argued as he flailed, “if that!!”

I slowly and methodically pull out my LLC and point it at him. Fear was etched on his face. “So… do you want to do this the easy way,” I said evilly, “…or the hard…” A look of terror comes over his face. He turns from me and bolts. “…I was hoping you’d say that.” I said in a dark voice.

He was running for his life, but little did he know it was pointless. I already had him. For a moment there was no sound. Then….BOOM!!!…CRACKLE!!!…the first shot goes off. His whole body freezes for a split second and then he falls to the ground with a thud groaning all the way. I casually walk toward him. He scrambles to his feet slipping several times. He was trying over and over again to runaway, but he is slower this time.

Still walking towards……silence….BOOM!!!…Crackle!!..shot two goes off. His body jerks and convulses a little but he is able to stay on his feet this time. He slowly turns to face face with a pleading look on his disgusting face.

But it’s too late. BOOM!!!…..CRACKLE!!….hiss…..

Since I don’t know how to be anything but honest. I find I am having a hard time coming up with the inspiration required for me to write. That is one of the main reasons to start a blog. I need to get back into the routine of writing regularly. Pen and paper journaling just doesn’t do anything for me anymore. With a paper journal I have no audience except myself and that makes me care less for structure and proper wordage. Ever since a few years ago, I was angry with myself and my writing ability, I haven’t been able to write anything with substance since. That night I took everything I had ever written and threw it into the fire. A huge mistake. Something I’ll be kicking myself for the rest of my life. All that blood, sweat and tears I poured out on paper is gone, it’s existence snapped out of memory, forever.

It shouldn’t have mattered that I was a far cry from Shakespeare. I am not sure Shakespeare was enough of a Shakespeare for Shakespeare(if that makes any sense) as it is under speculation on how many of his works were actually written by his hand.

Part of me is struggling with the whole self worth issue. When an idea sparks in my head with a possible subject to write about I clam up and the bully in my head ridicules me for even thinking I might have something of value to write about. I know that if I adhere to this long enough I have a chance at retraining the way I think and in turn will eventually silence that bully once and for all.

You see I am what they call a Constitutionalist or least that is what I consider myself to be. The second amendment is very near and dear to me. For me it is the very essence of freedom. So I pretty much shrugged off the idea of blogging and sharing my thoughts, feelings – my life, as “not for someone like me”.

Until one day something clicked. It was one of those days where I was ranting and raving at some new horror I had just discovered that existed in MY world. I felt helpless. Like I had no voice. I felt as if could scream and scream until there was no more breath in me and not a sound would part from my lips. It is quite a little nightmare of mine. Anyway, I was once again feeling like I was in the minority with my seemingly unpatriotic views. I realized that no matter how I personally rebelled against the injustices of the world. No matter how long I stood ranting and raving in my living room, it wasn’t constructive. It wouldn’t change anything. It wasn’t doing me any good. Except for an unhealthy spike of my blood pressure. That’s when it dawned on me that by not taking full advantage of the technology that is available to me today, I was in a way, denying myself my first amendment rights. That and I was running out of excuses to tell Creeva why I couldn’t give it a try.

So my hopes is that by channeling some of my anger, fears and joys into this little space and time, I can flush out ideas, opinions and evolve as a person. And maybe… just maybe… one day I’ll actually get up the nerve to share some of these pages with all of you.

 
First Commercial Cellular Network NTT

The Sony Walkman Introduced Sony

- Year End Close Dow Jones Industrial Average 838

- Interest Rates Year End Federal Reserve 15.25%

- Average Cost of new house $58,100.00

- Average Income per year $17,500.00

- Average Monthly Rent $280.00

- Cost of a gallon of Gas 86 cents

- Sony Walkman $200.00

- Jox Trainers $14.99

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVHhg67RVd4]
YouTube – Life of Brian (1979) Trailer

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah1KVJOvZ8o]
YouTube – Broadcast Yourself.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpZXP5tigQs]
YouTube – News at 545 with Leonard Parkin (1979) Part 1