(Note. This is a rant. This is only a rant. While it was triggered specifically by a response by a specific individual, some of the comments in here are very general and do not represent my feelings towards that individual, whom I generally like despite our disagreements). There's a trend on the Internet that has me pissed off. It's a trend for us to look at any post on the Internet that is written with proper grammar and spelling and a smidgen of intelligence as having the weight of law. ...

Last semester ended on a high note for me, a low note for some of my colleagues. Not only did I finish my Associates maintaining a 4.0 through all three semesters that I attended this college, but I got my Network+ certification. And the "rest of the story" is where the topic of this article is going. The first year students were able, through an arrangement with the college, to get one free shot at their first A+ exam. Always looking for an angle, I approached my instructor about extending t...

For years, we've had to suffer through the annual "war on Christmas", a hyperbolic happening invented by "conservative" talk show hosts to boost their ratings. I've always had a cynic's eye view to the proceedings, though, and I find what they view to be "persecution" of Christians to be laughable; frankly, any "persecution" that doesn't involve lions, fire, or torture is, to me, more than a bit of a blessing. If you want to see a war on Christmas, though, go to New Delhi ( http://news.yahoo....

It's Christmastime There's no need to be afraid One of my personal holiday traditions is to listen to the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (the original, not the remake). Thanks to YouTube, I can not only listen to it, but watch it in all it's hair-riffic splendor (does Simon LeBon cringe every time that video is shown?) At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime ...

One of the things that has always intrigued and repulsed me about Christmas is that it is usually a day when grudges are put aside and "peace on earth, goowdill towards man" are the order of the day. Indeed, even in the trenches of Europe in the early years of WWI, the now legendary "Christmas truce" brought together soldiers who had been shooting each other the day before, and would soon be shooting each other again. But the hypocrisy of joining together with people we hate and putting on pl...

Dear Mr. President, I am writing you because of the current economic conditions. You can read in any paper and see the foreclosures of several families' homes, and the dire economic circumstances that haunt us all. I am writing you because I need help. You see, my meager salary is not enough to pay my rent, and I figured if the government can help bail out citizens of Louisiana to replace their belongings because they would not evacuate the city when ordered, the government must bear some ...

About 7 years ago, I sat in a marketing "class". Oh, don't get me wrong, it contained a lot of good information. A lot of VERY good information, in fact, that I use to this day. But the marketing class was just a sales pitch for the latest Internet marketing company that had set up shop. At the end of the day, we all received a very nice quality certificate, printed out on quality parchment paper. It was well presented, but all it was, effectively, was a sales pitch. It was at the moment t...

Over 12 years ago, when our first child was born, we named her "Destiny". My wife suggested it, I went along with it, and that summer she was born. Over the years, we've gotten a couple of comments on the name. While most like it, you get a few who shy away from anything outside of Mary, Betty, or the other standard names. Unfortunately, those idiots are usually the most vocally. We lived, like most parents, in the hopes we wouldn't have a child who would grow up to hate her name. Well, se...

Well, as of yesterday, it's all over but the shouting. For too many years, I've had to live with the stigma of being a "college dropout". It never matters the reason, once you have the tag, there are some individuals who feel it makes you substandard or somehow less of a person, or worse yet, that having a degree makes you a more substantial individual. Well, as of yesterday, the issue is, if you'll pardon the pun, academic. I am officially a college graduate. Yes, it's just an Associates,...

Working towards my degree has reminded me of why I left higher education in the first place. While I'm older and hopefully a bit wiser and realize the tangible benefits of having a degree, I have no greater love for the bureaucracy and the "we have you by the cajones" mentality that seems to pervade the administrations of our institutions of higher learning. To begin with, there's the issue of financial aid. In preparing to transfer, I added the school code of the school to which I will ...

This weekend I unwittingly got a glimpse of my future, and it ain't pretty. It started Friday morning, when I had a tightness in my right knee. My right knee is arthritic to begin with, and rain was in the forecast, so I just chalked it up to life's aches and pains. By Saturday morning, it was clear that it was more than that. The knee had swollen somewhat, and I limped through the day with an Ace bandage wrapped joint. When I came home at night, the pain had worsened, and I could not bear...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_fe_st/odd_where_s_christmas;_ylt=Aqg0kMUSBiEI.2tbGayQ9wQZ.3QA A Spokane Public Schools calendar recently sent out had an important omission on it: Although Kwanzaa, Human Rights Day, Hannukah, and Eid al-adha made the cut, Christmas was conspicuously absent. The school is calling it an error of omission, and, frankly, I'm willing to believe them. I personally believe the "war on Christmas" is just a nice tool to help Bill O'Reilly and Michael Med...

Yesterday, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, federal agents arrested one Bernard Van NotHaus, seized his computer and all of his property. Nothaus' crime? Producing an alternative currency known as the Liberty Dollar. Unlike the money that has been produced for years by the Federal Reserve Bank, the Liberty Dollar was based on gold and silver standards, the way money had been minted for thousands of years before our government decided to write us what are essentially promissa...

I feel sorry for Oprah Winfrey, I really do. I know that she meant a world of good when she set up her school for girls in South Africa. She meant to give them a hope and a promise of a better future. And that makes Oprah Winfrey a marvelous woman in my book, regardless of the actions of her staff. But she learned all too well that the liberal mantra that "it takes a village" is so deluded, so wrong, as to be dangerous. It's the same lesson that we should learn from our own US foster care ...

I've always had people appreciate my ear for music. Before I sang, I would have people buy me beers to select the playlist on the jukebox. When I started singing but before I began playing, I would have people buy me drinks to sing their favorite song on karaoke. But a couple of weeks ago, I received my first buck as a musician. A friend had come in from out of town and I was at work. I went to meet him after I was done at work. He was at a restaurant, which was closing. I pulled into the par...