Every once in awhile, I will get a comment about how I attack the left more often than the right. This apparently comes from the confusion with one dimensional political charts that define everyone as left, right, or center. Because I am not Democrat or Republican, I must be centrist. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have said many times before that I am neither fair nor balanced. The truth is, I'm a reformed leftist. As in HARDCORE leftist. I was a firm believer in the nanny st...

In about 8 1/2 hours, I will walk out of this office for good. I will unload my truck, head home, and we will load it once again and head up to a new house, new college, and Monday, to a new job. It's a process I've undergone many, many times in my life. Although most of my other moves have been somewhat more tumultuous, I have to say, orchestrating a "smooth" move isn't any easier. We've had the school squared away for two months, the job squared away for one month, and the house squared awa...

My on again, off again dieting is on again. Now, it's not total yoyo dieting, as I didn't revert back to my biggest weight (at my worst, I neared the 400 pound mark; I got down to about 280 and plateaued; for the last four years I've been about 320), but still, I've gotten sidetracked on getting to my goal weight of 250 (I should probably be lower, but I figure I'll aim for 250, see how I feel, then go from there. Baby steps.) So it was with some delight that I stepped on the scales last nigh...

One of my pet theories about creating a functional society deals with micro- vs. macro- socialism. I've detailed the two before, so I won't revisit that here. One of the reasons that microsocialism doesn't get much airplay, is because true socialists don't like it. And the reason why shows precisely why socialism is wrong. Say you have two communities. Community A is, basically a commune. Everyone contributes equally to the commune, everyone shares equally in the commune's wealth. It's a b...

(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. ...

I got really pissed off in a conversation yesterday. Seriously, genuinely and truly pissed. And the conversation is such a perfect illustration of why I do not like the welfare mentality that pervades so much of the American left. I was talking with a couple in town who are chronically out of work. Not chronically out of work because of the job market, mind you, but chronically out of work because, frankly, they don't want to work. In the three years I have been here, it has been a continu...

OK, Now that the dust has (almost) settled and everything came out OK, I can share a story from last week, with a MAJOR word of caution. A customer brought in a Dell Inspiron 1501 processor. The more I find out about these things (sadly, I own one), the more I am convinced they are overpriced, overhyped pieces of garbage. The computer had been running slowly and we didn't detect a problem when it came in earlier for repair. The problem was that the CPU usage spiked to the 90-100% range as ...

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...

As I've finished up part of my schooling in IT and am moving to the next chapter, I've found a fascinating trend. The number of parents who, inspired by their child's endless games of Guitar Hero or Halo, have decided that their child has unlimited potential in the IT field. It's a ludicrous assumption absent evidence of other skilld, and I'd like to put a stop to it. To most Americans, computers remain in that mysterious ether, not quite magical, not quite scientific. They don't know how ...

I have to admit to being late to the game on this one, and I find it interesting to wonder why. For a long time, I have taken a stance on Guantanamo Bay that has been less than popular with the right wingers. Some (a very small minority, but enough to be noted) have even gone so far as to question the patriotism of any who deviate from the Bush administration's hardline position on maintaining the base and denying basic human rights to its occupants, claiming that the fact that they are well ...

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....

One of these years I'm going to get around to burning a CD of my favorite Christmas songs (which are almost anti-Christmas songs). In the meantime, though, I'm going to hand it over to the Kinks. The following are the lyrics to one of my all time favorite Christmas songs ever. Merry Christmas, everyone!: When I was small I believed in santa claus Though I knew it was my dad And I would hang up my stocking at christmas Open my presents and Id be glad But the last time I played father ch...

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...

This is a song I've been working to put together right for awhile. It still needs work, but I thought I'd present it as is. Merry Christmas, JU! It was Christmas Eve in nineteen seventy something, The trees hung heavy with the winter snow. We sledded down the hills in cardboard boxes We huddled up and shivered from the cold. We lived in a small two bedroom apartment My mom, two brothers, a sister and me, We'd come home every day and make our dinner While mom finished her shift at the...