I can’t really believe I’m bothering to comment on something Chuck Norris said, but I just can’t help myself and it segues nicely into something that’s been bothering me very much.

First a little back story.

According to his entry on Wikipedia (don’t worry, it’s got several legitimate references on what I’m about to mention, check them out for yourself) Mr. Norris has done the following:

• Married Diane Holechek in 1958
• Had his first son, Mike, with Diane in 1963
• Had his first daughter, Dina, not with Diane in 1964
• Had his second son, Eric, with Diane in 1965
• Divorced Diane in 1988
• Married Gena O’Kelley in 1998
• Had twins with Gena in 2001

So what am I getting at, and why is Chuck Norris a giant douche?

Recently Mr. Norris posted a little diatribe to the internet about the recent protests proceeding the passing of Proposition 8.

Now, before I continue I will say one thing.  I do agree with him that these protests should not involve violence.  Causing physical injury to others or damaging personal property is clearly sending the wrong message.  Martin Luther King Jr. understood in the ’60’s that peaceful protest was the best method and so should those continuing the fight for equality today.  (Odd that we are still fighting for equality in the US four decades later don’t you think?)

All that said, I’ll get to my point.

Mr. Norris claimed that the protests and rallies occurring in California and around the nation equated to a desire for anarchy.  That somehow these hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people that are publicly displaying their outrage for the passing of this hateful legislation are giving up on democracy and calling for anarchy is outrageous.  Mr. Norris has clearly never heard of or fully understood the concept of “tyranny of the majority” and would presumably be a-ok with a majority of his fellow citizens taking away just about any of the rights currently bestowed upon him by the US or his states constitution.

Before I cut Chuck Norris out of this I will mention why I felt the need to provide a mini bio on Mr. Norris earlier.  Here we have a man that is ok in defending those that proposed and passed a proposition that’s aim was to “protect” marriage.  Now he may not have said that he stands behind Proposition 8 exactly, if he did at some point I couldn’t find a reference to that effect, but in defending the actions of those that supported it, and saying to the opponents, tough luck, that’s democracy for yah, he might as well have.  If you accept my argument that he’s indeed defending the defense of marriage argument, I have one question.  Who is he to be defending those that think they are defending marriage?  The guy cheated on his wife between his first and second child, subsequently fathering an illegitimate child, divorced, and later remarried.  Marriage is under attack not by those that don’t have the right to marry, but by those that do!  That’s enough of Chuck Norris.  I promise never to mention his name again.

My Generations Fight for Equality
Californians just wrote into their constitution legislation that flat out takes away rights from a minority.  Just to say it again.  The majority of human beings in California decided that a minority of other human beings are not worthy of the same rights and privileges that they are.  If that doesn’t absolutely disgust you I honestly have no idea what would.  Every generation seems to have it’s own fight for equality and this is my generations.  Although this time it’s a little different.  This fight is being fought on two fronts.  On the one hand this fight is to grant rights to a class of people that has truly never had them.  On the other hand the fight is against those that are not happy enough with people just not having these rights, they want the rights specifically taken away from them if current laws don’t make it clear enough already.  What year is it again?

Bigotry in America?  You betcha!

Well, if it isn’t obvious enough yet that I vehemently oppose Propositon 8 and any law that tries to accomplish the same goals, then you haven’t really been paying attention.  I supported No on 8 financially as best I could.  I couldn’t vote or fly to California to help oppose the proposition physically, so I did what I could.  For that matter it seems like others from out of state did what they could to support the proposition.  The Mormon Church (Utah), The Knights of Columbus (Global), Focus on the Family (Colorado), and countless individuals.  I think it says a lot about the people supporting the proposition and their reasons for supporting it when you realize that these religious organizations, and their followers, were among Proposition 8’s largest donors.  I may not be religious myself, in fact it’s this very type of religious bigotry that pushed me away from it all together, but I honestly have no problem with you following whatever religion you’d like.  Be that a religion that’s extremely out of touch with the issues facing the world today, you can name just about any main stream religion as far as I’m concerned, or a religion that’s based on the writings of an unsuccessful science fiction writer.  Believe what you must to get you through the day.

Do not, however, think that you can take your dogma and force it on me or anyone else that disagrees with you.  Define marriage as it pertains to your religion however you’d like.  I don’t care if that means only men and women can get “married” in your church or that a man can “marry” however many women he’d like, or that the color of each individuals skin must be the same to “marry.”  Make up whatever crazy rules you’d like and “protect” YOUR definition of marriage, whatever that may be.  My definition of marriage affords every human being the same rights and I am in no way forcing this definition on your religious beliefs.

These bigots, religious or not, fail to recognize time and time again that marriage at the state/federal level is completely different than at a religious level.  Marriage at the state/federal level grants rights that only that level of government has the power to do so.  Over 1000 individual rights depending on who’s counting them and how they’re counting them.  Marriage at the religious level grants religious rights only.  The two are completely independent.  If I’d like to get married tomorrow all it takes are a few forms and signatures at the local courthouse, not church.  Likewise if I meet the requirements of a certain religion I would have no problem marrying in their church.  That marriage in itself does not entitle me to the rights millions of Americans are demanding.  In order to be granted those rights I would have to, you guessed it, go to the court house and acquire a marriage license administered by the government.  What’s so hard to understand here?

I’m absolutely disgusted that millions of Americans were given the opportunity to vote hate and unequal rights into their own constitution.  I’m even more disgusted that some chose to use that opportunity to force their bigoted views upon millions of others that merely want to be treated as equals.

I’m sure I could go on, and I might in a later post, but for now I’m done.

John

We’re headed to Times Square!  It’s a mere 7.5 miles from here but a cab costs $60.  Wonderful!  We’ve got other plans to get there but we’ll see how that works out.  Bye for now and Happy New Year!

Here they are.  I’m sure I’m missing some good ones but here’s a start.

Detroit

Driving through Canada

Niagara Falls

Driving to Philadelphia 

John and Jenna

So the election is nearly over.  Well, as long as there are no legal issues surrounding electronic voting, turning away voters, counting votes, or any other number of issues this country has with elections.  The results so far are pretty sweet.  At least as far as governorships and Congress goes.  Here’s a breakdown as of this posting…

Governorships
Democrats: +6
Republicans -6

House of Representatives
Democrats: +27
Republicans: -26
Independents: -1

Senate
Democrats: +4
Republicans: -4

Although the last two remaining races are close it looks like the Democrats have a shot at winning control of the Senate too.

With all this change across the nation there is someone out there that needs to be thanked.  George Bush did a fine job convincing people that maybe, just maybe, they made a mistake in 2000/2004.  It really says something when your approval rating sinks so low that candidates don’t even want to be seen with you.  Not that you’ve done much good for the country in the past 6 years but hopefully with these sweeping changes you’ll be able to do even less.  Enjoy your final years in the White House.  Feel free to say some stupid shit on your way out so that publishers have enough data for the next few years of Bushism’s calendars.  Seriously though, thanks for effectively paralyzing your own party!

In other news here is a list of states who’s majority is about as dense as a rock and demands just as much respect…

Colorado: Shot down domestic partnerships (54%) AND Same-Sex Marriages (56%)
Idaho: Also banned Same-Sex Marriage (64%)

South Carolina: Banned Same-Sex Marriage (78%)

South Dakota: Banned Same-Sex Marriage (52%)

Tennessee: Banned Same-Sex Marriage (80%)

Virginia: Banned Same-Sex Marriage (57%)
Wisconsin: Banned Same-Sex Marriage (59%)

Pretty sad that it’s 2006 and people are this ignorant.  I really can’t say much else about it.

And for some slightly better news…

Missouri: So far on track to allow for stem cell research (51%)
South Dakota: Shot down an almost total ban on abortion (55%)

That about sums up the most important aspects of the election.  Now all we can do is wait and see what happens.

John

Is it really time to make a few changes? Maybe. The real question is, how much will it matter?

Hmmm…

John

What would Halloween be without drunken stupidness…or is that stupid drunkenness.  Wow.   Thanks Halloween for proving once again that the college social life ain’t for me.  Catch-22.

John

Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don’t belong
And no one understands you

If you don’t get the reference yet, don’t worry, it will hopefully make sense shortly.  Until then we have some business to take care of!  Let’s go!

The Internship

As most of you should recall I begain working at COUNTRY back in May of this year.  The first meeting I had with my manager was a little briefing about the project I was to be working on and I was rather excited.  The project was roughly a year into it’s planned 18 month life and millions of dollars and thousands and thousands of man hours were being poured into this project.  I thought to myself, “Wow, a huge project that I get to work on.  If this isn’t real world experience I don’t know what is!”  Well,  just last week, after working on this project for roughly 5 months, and more importantly putting over 100 hours into a little app I was writing for the business developers, I gained a bit more real world experience.  Last week the rumors were not rumors, they were fact.  The project I had been working on was canned.  On the day that I was to show my work to my “customers” I found out that what I had worked on would no longer be needed.  Truly a sad day.  Rest in peace HTML Help Converter!

Another Suprise

Last Friday was the day!  Rebecca had decided that she would do something for Neils birthday that would pretty much take the cake of dorkiness.  Not only was she not ashamed to have come up with this idea in the least bit, she was actually quite proud of herself.  Not to say she shouldn’t be, but most women I know wouldn’t have anything to do with this sorta thing.  Anyway!  There was to be a suprise party.  Not just any suprise party though, a suprise LAN party.  For those of you without knowledge of the bajillion and one acronyms out there LAN stands for Local Area Network.  That’s right, we set up a good old fashion network right in our very living room and played games until the wee hours of the morning.  This is what that looks like!

And I totally forgot!  What would a LAN party be withouth a whole bunch of Bawls!  That’s right, Jake and I purchased 12 bottles for the party.  They can be seen scattered throughout the picture.  I was so excited I even took my own picture!  Look how excited I am!

That’s all for the LAN news!  We hope to have another in the near future!

Rock Climbing

After getting to bed at 6am after the LAN party, I woke up at 9am and headed to Bromenn for a bit of volunteer work.  Once home I wasn’t really that tired so I lounged about in the apartment until 3:15 or so when it was time to head to Upper Limits.  I have always wanted to climb up those silos and this was my chance.  We had to train on how to tie knots, how to properly communicate with your partner, and most importantly how not to kill your partner.  You’ll be happy to know that Bill and I both passed this test with flying colors!  We climbed around in the main area of the gym for a bit before heading to the silos.  Bill made it to the top and I was determined to head on up before leaving as well.  Sixty-five feet later and I was hanging out at the top.  Afterwards Bill and I decided to head out and see what there was to climb outside.  Crazy thing about rock climbers, they’ll climb just about anything.  So, sure enough, the entire wall of the building itself was covered in rocks.  Bill, fitted with a nice warm hoody and tied tightly to his end of the rope decided he was going to climb to the top.  Keep in mind it’s quite dark outside (naturallly), its a bit cold and breezy, and the building is 110′ tall.  In a relatively short amount of time Bill was safely hanging from the top of the building posing for tons of pictures.  Meanwhile I was on the ground keeping him from falling to the ground.  Exciting!  After belaying him up there for a good 20-30 minutes withouth a sweatshirt of my own I was quite chilly.  So I went inside and warmed up my hands in some warm water.  I figured I was ready to make the climb myself.  Unfortunately my hands had another plan.  Maybe a little more than a quarter of the way my hands refused to grip onto the rocks.  I knew there was no way to get to the top so I repelled to the ground.  I will get you next time building!

…and now the Katamari Reference

A while back I came across a game at EB.  This game had a nice countryscape on the front with a rainbow, a cow, and a big huge ball of random crap.  At first glance the game looked to be rather dumb.  Oh was I wrong.  After talking about it and seeing it again I decided I had to have it.  A trip with Eric and Amy to Blockbuster late Saturday night yielded nothing.  Family Video also was out of Katamari.  I was thoroughly dissapointed.  Sunday morning Neil and I head out to Best Buy where I purchase Katamari Damacy, the first of two games. 

To some of you this is going to sound stupid but this is the plot of the game.  The King of all the Cosmos goes out with a friend one night and gets a little drunk.  They end up destroying all the stars, and the moon in a drunken stuppor.  Morning comes and people are not particularly happy with the King.  He decides he has to fix the problem and enlists his son the Prince to roll up all sorts of shit on Earth to be turned into stars in the sky.  Keep in mind that Prince is only 5cm tall and has to eventually roll up Katamari that are in exess of 300 meters tall.  To me the game is fun because its addicting and simple.  Simple means I use less of my brain, which, on certain occassions is much better than putting a ton of thought into a game. 

The game can best be described as the combination of Japanese software makers and large quantities of crack, or, as is found throughout the game, shrooms.   Whatever it was that motivated these people to make the game doesn’t really matter.  The game is a ball of fun!  (Cheesy pun intended) 

Something that bugs me

Now for a slightly different tone but I feel as if I must write about this.  I HATE when people refuse to be themselves and do what they want to do.  Recently I’ve seen several circumstances where people choose not to make plans or visit only for a minute because they are worried about what others may think.  I’ve seen people that were once good friends who were constantly hanging out together move to friends that see each other almost never.  I don’t really understand how people can give up control of their personal life by letting their lives revolve around someone elses.  If you are really forced to choose between one person and your friends on a regular basis you’re probably making a huge mistake.   Don’t put your life on pause just because you’re not sure what someone else may want to do.  If an opportunity presents itself, you would be foolish to pass it up just because someone else may eventually come up with something else to do.

This leads me to another irk of mine.  If you really don’t want to do something , just say it.  It  really bothers me when people tell you that they would be interested to make plans with you, but arent sure what ____fill in the blank_____ may be doing.  It’s really saying one of two things.  The first was already mentioned above.  The second is “That does sound fun, but I think I’d rather wait for something/someone more exciting to come around.”  I HATE that!

Even more off topic

What is with those little white trucks.  You know the ones.  Orkin, Terminex, Parts Plus, etc.  All of those companies provide their employees with little white S-10 to do business in.  That’s not the part that bothers me.  On almost everyone they feel the need to put a sticker that says “Caution: Makes Frequent Stops”.  NO!  I’ve never EVER seen any of these vehicles stopping right in the middle of the street to make a delivery or kill a bug.  The only vehicles that SHOULD have these stickers are mail delivery trucks and garbage men.  Those people really DO make frequent stops.  Stupid!

There it is.  All 1,472 words!  That’s all for now!
                                                                     ^
                                                                       1,482!

John

PS.  Just in case you didn’t figure out the reference.  In Katamari you roll up random stuff to become larger.  This entry, like a Katamari, is full of randomness and is quite large.  That is all!

I’m sleeping my way out of this one
With anyone who will lie down
I’ll be stuck fixated on one star
When the world is crashing down

1. How my internship experience is different.
2. The Suprise LAN party.
3. Rock climbing.
4. Rolling shit up.
5. …and more!

Until I get the motivation to type all that out, you’ll just have to wait!

John