JDspeeder1's Xanga

Crap I'm Into: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:14:30 GMT

Ender's Game, originally published in 1985, is only slightly younger than me, so I'm clearly demonstrating how edgy and current I am. Sadly, the underlying message about war is just as relevant today, and possibly even more so. Here's the gist: Humanity has just started to establish a gentle foothold beyond Earth and we've already found an enemy. An insect-like race, colloquially known as buggers, responds to its first accidental contact with humanity with horrifically efficient destruction. The humans' International Fleet only survives by the desperate, hail-mary tactics of one commander Mazer Rackham. The IF is fearful of another attack and is planning a preemptive strike on the bugger homeworld.

This leads to 6-year-old Ender Wiggin. Genetically engineered to be hyper-intelligent, Ender is his parents' third attempt to raise a military genius. His oldest brother Peter failed the IF's rigorous screening process by being far too sadistic (he tortures small animals out of intellectual curiosity, for instance). For the next attempt, the Wiggins chose to have a girl, who they name Valentine, in the hopes that she will be a kinder/gentler version of her brother. She also flunks out, due to her unfortunate tendency to be genuinely nice to people. The IF then makes the bold move of allowing the Wiggins to be exempt from the two-child limit in order to conceive Andrew, who takes the nickname Ender. He surpasses the military's wildest expectations in both intelligence and emotional character and, at age 6, is "asked" to enroll in Battle School, the IF's orbital officers' academy that turns super-kids into Earth's finest.

He really isn't given much choice. It was basically, "It's entirely your decision, but if you don't, all of humanity will be wiped out by giant ants." In Battle School, the IF administration does everything possible to stack the deck against Ender short of openly shooting him in the face. They isolate him from his peers by showering him with undue (for the time) praise and make him survive it all alone, even when his life is threatened. So begins the crushingly depressing aspects of Ender's Game. Despite their MENSA-worthy IQs and emotional development, the students at Battle School and the Wiggin siblings back on Earth are children, 6 is the standard age of all new recruits. Children dealing with the whole spectrum of wartime pressures that would break any adult. But they manage to cope as well, or even better than, some grown soldiers today. Despite the pervading feeling of helplessness, I found myself unable put the book away. Writer Orson Scott Card manages to create real characters that a reader can relate to and root for, inspite of their bad choices, and sometimes because of them. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that Ender excels in Battle School (owing almost entirely to his talent for thinking three-dimensionally in the school's zero-g mock battles) and goes on to defeat the buggers, but I won't tell you how he does it. That little twist left my jaw in my lap.

The aftermath of the war leaves Ender wracked with guilt and his quest for atonement is just beginning on the last page. His worst fear is that the IF's molding of him into the perfect general has turned him into a psychopath like his brother Peter. In some ways, it has. But was there in other way? Could the war have been avoided? I don't know. Another point that dropkicked my cortex was when one of Ender's fellow recruits suggests that the buggers aren't even a threat and the IF is just going through the motions to keep the public afraid and themselves in power. Sound familiar? That theory is never explored enough to confirm or deny it.

My final verdict is that any sci-fi or war story fan SHOULD read Ender's Game. It's somewhat depressing and Card makes some disturbing choices; Peter is truly a serial killer or global despot in the making, Ender's relationship with his sister Valentine toys with incest, and one of the climactic scenes features two boys fighting naked in the shower. It gave me the Wiggins (sorry, I couldn't resist), but that doesn't diminish the fact that this is a war novel that transcends the categories of pro-war or anti-war and asks why and how we make soldiers.

Out with the old, in with reviews

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:00:14 GMT

Since politics has been so depressing lately, apart from the fact that we'll probably be a democracy again for the first time in 8 years soon, I'll be trying something new in the coming weeks. I'll be reviewing whatever media I've recently consumed, be it TV, movies, music, games, books (I've been a voracious reader the past few months), or whatever. I can't promise my choices will be current, but I hope my reviews will be interesting. I welcome feedback, as always.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:02:09 GMT

I remember

deep breath With much reservation, the first Republican debate (part 1)

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 07:34:23 GMT

I'd better get a cookie or a hug or at least a thank you for this... This is my first attempt at semi-live blogging (I'm watching the MSNBC.com video in one window and occasionally pausing it to type here). I was just going to do a short summery like I did for the Dems' debate, but I quickly realized the only way I was going to be able to stomach this was to have an outlet for my rising levels of snark. As such, I’ll be dividing this into multiple parts.

We open with a short video commemorating Latter Day conservative Saint Ronald of Reagan, whose Presidential Library is the setting for the debate. Moderator Chris Matthews comes out, introduces Nancy Reagan and the Governator (who earlier made waaaaaay too big a show of walking her to her seat), and introduces the candidates (wingnut, douche, douche nozzle, douche bag, fatcat, skeeze, whackjob, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, slimeball, and ass). Matthews lays the ground rules, which eliminate opening and closing statements and thanking the hosts, puts time limits on responses – with a penalty of steadily increasing electrical shocks – and gets straight to it.

First Question: How do we raise the public's opinion of the nation's direction?
Giuliani answers, but all I hear is "platitude, platitude, when I was Mayor of New York, platitude, cliché, platitude, Reagan, trope, trope." He also says we should fix our healthcare without socialized medicine, because we don't want to risk being compassionate. And oh by the way, fight terrorism (read: stay in Iraq).

Second Q: What does the Commander-in-Chief need to win in Iraq?
McCain's A: Support our President, our troops, and our current strategery. He then jabs his finger in the camera and rails on the "defeatists" calling for withdrawal. “Psst, McCain. The war-mongers in the audience aren’t allowed to applaud. Cool it.” Incidentally, I don’t think he answered the question. Matthews subtly suggests this point by asking “what should we do now?” McCain backpedals slightly with “it was bad before, but we have a new strategy.” That strategy being “Same great taste, but now with 57% more dead people!”

3rd Q: Basically the same question
Tommy Thompson’s A: Tommy-Thom spasms out “Support our President” and I yawn, but then I realize he might be talking about body armor. “Go ooooooooon” I say, in a horrible Jon Stewart impression. He says we should have the Iraqi government vote on whether they want us there and if they say “No,” we leave. “Holy crap, that’s actually SENSIBLE!” I glance down to make sure this is still the GOP debate. He also suggests we have the Iraqis set up “state” governments for each of their 18 provinces in order to stop the violence. “Yup, these are Republicans.” All I can see that that would accomplish would be to make the Iraqi Civil War look more like ours. Then he says the oil profits should be divided between the federal and state governments and the Iraqi people (one third to each). Then they’ll invest in business. “Yo, dude. You realize Iraq doesn’t want to be America 2.0, right?”

4th Q: H-
Duncan Hunter’s A: Before Matthews can even ask anything, Hunter jumps up to his mic and gives his Iraq plan. Basically, it’s “when they stand up, we’ll stand down.” That’s what he was so excited about? Really?

5th Q (from POLITICO.com): Why shouldn’t the President listen to the 55% of Americans who say victory isn’t possible (source: WSJ poll)?
Romney’s A: Well, if Presidents just listened to polls, we could just “plug in a TV and let it run the country. And no one wants Gregory House as Surgeon General.” I'm paraphrasing slightly. Then he panders to the non-crazy voters with “I want to bring the troops home too,” but don’t want to destabilize the region. “Because it’s so very stable now,” I say, nearly scratching a cornea from rolling my eyes so hard.

6th Q: How do we win when our behavior just makes more terrorists?
Sam Brokeback, uh Brownback’s A: Ally with the moderate Muslims who like us (Bob, Joe, and Cat Stevens) and confront those who don’t, namely Iran. I was with you on the first part, Sammy. As a friend of mine recently said, 99.9999999999999% of Muslims hate terrorists as much as we do. Then you started poking Iran with a stick. If we so much as sneeze at Iran, we’ll convince the radical Muslims that, yes, we are imperialist pig-dogs bent on global domination. And then,......it’s on, mf’er. Matthews adds that even in the moderate Muslim countries only about 10% of the population supports us (source: Zogby poll). He asks if we should make nice or keep with the killin’. “Both,” Brownback weasels, “we cannot be weak on this whatsoever!” I'm wondering how we can ally with a country when 90% of their population hates our guts.

[At this point, I took a looooooooong break. It was several weeks, in fact. When I came back to writing this, the Republican debate was gone from MSNBC.com. You can thank (or blame) YouTube for the continuation of this post.]

7th Q (from POLITICO.com): Would you have fired Rumsfeld before last November?
Mike Huckabee’s A: He kinda says yes, but he’s quick to defend Bushie. He says Bush followed the bad advice of the suits instead of the generals. From here, “I <3” Huckabee goes off on “following the bad advice of the suits instead of the generals” being the cause for everything bad that’s happened in Iraq (“and by the way, generals are hot” he adds on the subliminal channel). But now that it’s screwed up, we have to fix it so we don’t have to come back later.

8th Q: Do you think a shake-up in this administration’s cabinet would help?
Bill Gilmore’s A: Bill apparently heard some other question from the one I heard, because he goes off on something about the legacy of the Cold War and Reagan tearing down the Berlin Wall. For those keeping score, that’s two Reagan-checks in under 30 minutes (Reagan Count: 2). And that relates to the current war – somehow. We have to pay attention to the ENTIRE Middle East, not just Iraq and the president has to rally Americans behind that goal and MY GOD he wasn’t even listening to the question, was he? I kept waiting for Chris Matthews to call him on that, but he didn’t. Bad Chris!

9th Q (from POLITICO.com): “Congressman Paul, you voted against the war.” Why is everyone else on stage wrong?
Ron Paul’s A: “That’s a very good question,” (read: STALL STALL STALL). Then he points out how 70% of Americans are now against the war – according to a poll he just made up (though it’s probably true) – and how Republicans got ass-raped in the mid-terms (**stab**). Then he says we should return to a traditional, isolationist (or as he calls it, “non-interventionist”) foreign policy. He goes on about how America the Republican Party have benefited from isolationism. He says Eisenhower was elected to get us out of Korea (“maybe,” I say) and Nixon was elected to get us out of Vietnam (“do who to the wha?” I blather in confusion. “Gee, I wonder how that worked out”). By extension, he says that his party won in 2000 by touting a non-interventionist policy:

“How did we win the election in the year 2000? We talked about a HUMBLE **Clintonian thumb-fist-point** foreign policy. NO **thumb-fist-point** nation building. DON’T **thumb-fist-point** police the world. That is a CONSERVATIVE **thumb-fist-point**; it’s a REPUBLICAN **thumb-fist-point**; it’s a PRO-AMERICAN **thumb-fist-point**; it follows the FOUNDING FATHERS **thumb-fist-point**....” And also they won by not counting votes for the other guy. But I digress.

He continues about how he tried to say that if you want to go to war, declare war, go to war, and win it, but don’t do it for political reasons “or to pretend the Iraqis were a national threat to us.” BOO YAH! I almost like this guy. If it wasn’t for his “if the name of your country doesn’t end in ‘America’ and begin with ‘United States of,’ you’re on your own” attitude, I might.

10th Q: Two-parter: Do you agree that Iran has already committed acts of war? What would be your “tripwire” to attack Iran?
McCain’s A: First of all, he starts smirking when he hears “acts of war.” Creepy. He doesn’t answer the question per se. He goes on about how Iran is a threat to the world, sponsors terror, exports IEDs and jihadists, encourages Hezbollah, kicks puppies, and beats up old people. He dances around saying “attack” and just calls for diplomatic, economic, etc. pressure. He wants to find a way to encourage democracy in “Iraq, um Iran, sorry” **smirk**. And by the way, don’t let them get nukes. Matthews reminds McCain about the tripwire thing. He says that if Iran gets nukes and there’s a threat to neighboring states (like Israel), that’s the tripwire, “but,” he emphasizes that that’s the “final option.” From McCain, this is a speck of sanity in an ocean of crazy.

11th Q: If Israel was preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear sites and asked for America’s help, (cue Dennis Hopper voice) “what dooo youuuu dooooooo?”
Tom Tancredo’s A: In way more words than necessary (and much stammering and stuttering), Tancredo says that he’d help Israel because Mahmoud Ahmadinisanjayajad is a madman with delusions of apocalyptic grandeur. Matthews prods Tancredo for a simple “yes” or “no” to whether he’d help. Tancredo somehow manages to stretch his answer out to be both affirmative and wishy-washy and trip all over his words like Dick van Dyke over an ottoman. Hey, I got it! He’s acting presidential!

12th Q: Same question
Giuliani’s A: He hems and haws around it, saying “it depends on what the intelligence says.” Apparently, something in that response triggered one of Rudy’s pre-programmed speeches because he connects “madman with nukes” to the nightmare scenario of the Cold War. From there, he jumps to Ronald Reagan freeing the Iranian hostages with his mere divine presence (Reagan Count: 3). Ooh, it’s 6° of Ronald Reagan!

[End of part 1]

Part 2 will be shorter, I promise.

I feel the obligation to chime in with my totally useless opinion

Fri, 04 May 2007 05:44:11 GMT

I really wanted to blog about all the wild and wacky news, but everything happened too fast. Here's the quick and dirty:

Crazy astronaut lady plots to do disturbing things to a romantic rival, wears diaper: JealousAstronaut.com
Ad campaign for ATHF movie causes panic in Boston, little blinky LiteBrite-ish Mooninites mistaken for bombs:
Anna Nicole Smith dies. Media cares because she had gi-huge-ic boobs.
Anna Nicole Smith's baby's paternity narrowed from 5 potential skeezes to one specific douche.
On April 15, I turned 23. I had tickets to Blue Man Group but missed the show. We went to see Meet the Robinsons in 3D instead. I liked it way more then I expected.
On April 16, the nation went mad... I don't want to politicize the tragedy, but this couldn't have happened if Cho Seung-Hui hadn't had access to a gun.

Last Thursday, we had the first Democratic debate. I went in leaning heavily towards Obama, but he honestly seemed like he left his balls at home. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel seemed to have shared Obama's relinquished scrotal contents between each other, with Gravel getting the larger ball and a side-order of Crazy Fries. Dennis Kucinich impressed me most. I (and about 12 other people) actually voted for him in the '04 primary. To me, he represents what the Democratic Party should be and hasn't been in a long time. *cough*Also,hiswifeishot.*cough* Mike Gravel was a trainwreck. Even though I agreed with most of what he said, he was so shrill, he came off like the guy from Network. I kept expecting him to yell "You damn kids get off my lawn!" and shoot a Hatfield.

Tonight, the Repulicans had a debate. I haven't seen it yet and I really don't want to. But I will, G-d help me. Keep watching this blog for my analysis of which candidate has the deepest cranio-colon relationship.

Debatably yours,
Jamie

I'm William Gibson? Cool!

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:03:12 GMT

I am:

William Gibson

The chief instigator of the "cyberpunk" wave of the 1980s, his razzle-dazzle futuristic intrigues were, for a while, the most imitated work in science fiction.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Cyberpunkishly Yours,
Jamitron 7000

We Have Smelled The Toot of Our Nation

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:12:37 GMT

And It Is Strong

W-to-the-Bizush gave his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, and I held off on commenting because drowning in pigshit, the overall theme of the speech, is kind of a downer. Later (around the time I was typing the previous sentence), I realized that drowning in pigshit is, in fact, HILARIOUS. Other, more responsible sources will have transcripts of the speech or more in depth analysis (such as a certain friend of mine), but I was more intruiged by the audience reactions. Sometimes I wondered if they even knew what they were clapping for. For instance, when Bush pulled out his '80s-sitcom-esuqe catch phrase "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here," both sides of the eisle errupted in an involuntary patriogasm. I think I saw something red, white, and blue dripping down McCain's leg. Do the Dems realize they were applauding troop escalation? Maybe they were just happy to be on TV.

Here's Ze Frank's spectacular take on the speech:

Patriotastically Yours,
Jamie

Gitmo:

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 02:52:17 GMT

Like Jurassic Park but with waterboarding

A lot of us lefties suspected our POW camps might be occupied by people with "unconfirmed guiltiness status," but here's a story that makes it all too real:

Get involved at projecthamad.org

The issue here isn't whether this man is guilty of anything - the evidence in the video and on the website is insufficient for laypeople to decide that. This issue is whether Mr. Hamad should be allowed the chance to defend himself. At present, there is no method for detainees to prove their innocence. As Stephen Colbert says, if you are in there you must be guilty.

boingboing's referring link

Save the Wha?

Say you're an endangered species, but you're not cute and cuddly, powerful and majestic, or delicious? EDGE is like the National Wildlife Foundation for mutants. The Yangtze River dolphin, for example, is hardly Flipper, but it's so endangered, it may already be extinct. And there's my personal favorite, the Hispaniolan solenodon - a venomous rodent. Someone needs to help these critters get some o' dat Panda money, yo.

boingboing's referring link

Activistically Yours,
Jamie

The Year in Rebuke

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 12:33:01 GMT

Looking both back and forward - even without a wandering eye

Well, the giant ball of dirt we call home has just finished another trek around the massive lit fart we call Sol. I guess I should post a witty and/or insightful retrospective with a hint of forecasting for seasoning.

2006 sucked but 2007 is showing slight promise. Thank you.

Oh, you want more? Ok, then.

In politics, people started realizing that the current administration's rosy, shiny, happy portrait of reality is actually a cheesy diorama made of paper-mache, macaroni, and navel lint. And the macaroni is attracting flies. And seriously, that Saddam looks like a bad Groucho Marx.

I think the wheels started to come off the Bullshitmobile with the Mark "I follow high school baseball WAAAAY too close" Foley scandal. Or was it the new Bob Woodward book? Or Fiasco? Or Hubris? Or Cobra II? Or The Greatest Story Ever Sold? Do you see a pattern emerging here?

Allow me to break down some of the high(low?)lights:

We learned about Arabic-translators who were fired for being gay, even though we're sorely lacking them.

CO: Do you speak Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, or any non-English language?
RECRUIT: No, sir.
CO: Do you like boobies?
RECRUIT: Yes, sir!! Love 'em!
CO: Welcome aboard, son!

We learned that the administration within Iraq, in charge of the rebuilding effort, were selected for their political ideologies rather than any relevant skill.

CO: Have you ever overseen a reconstruction project of this scale?
RECRUIT: No, sir.
CO: Have you ever overseen ANY reconstruction project?
RECRUIT: No, sir.
CO: Do you have any construction experience?
RECRUIT: I once owned a sizable Lego collection, sir.
CO: Do you speak Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, or any non-English language?
RECRUIT: No, sir.
CO: Are you familiar with Arab or Islamic customs?
RECRUIT: No, sir.
CO: Do you know the difference between Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds?
RECRUIT: Which ones wear the curly-toed shoes?
CO: How do you feel about a woman's right to choose?
RECRUIT: If it's a choice between cooking me chicken or steak, I'm all for it.
CO: Welcome aboard, son!

As I said, Mark "Get 'Em While They're Young" Foley resigned amid revelations of his fondness for typing one-handed IMs to Congressional pages.

Like a bullfrog, House Speaker Dennis Hastert expanded his apparent body-size as a defense mechanism.

We found out about lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who looks like someone who claims to be a “legitimate businessman” but is actually a mafia don or the leader of a cadre of supervillains or something, basically buying influence in Congress.

Among his “associates” was Texas Senator and professional smiler Tom DeLay who was WAAAAAAAAAY too happy in his mugshot. It’s almost like he wasn’t worried about getting in trouble. Hmm.

Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face. I don't have anything to add here.
In completion of Operation: For the Love of G-d, Please Help Cover My Ass, the Iraq Study Group released its report. Bush appears to have said, "Thanks guys, now let me hear from the people who call me Captain Awesome." In response to whether the ISG Report can be read as anything but a condemnation of Bush's current Iraq policy, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow replied that "yes, it can." This is possible through a special reading method known as "being retarded."
Just before being dropkicked into a lucrative private sector job, Sec. Def. Don Rumsfeld claimed the best way to get an accurate view of Iraq is to fly over it. You could also get the same perspective from wedging your head completely inside your own ass.
And as the ultimate punchline, the Democrats totally bitchslapped the Republicans in both the House and Senate in the mid-term elections largely on the platform of not being Republicans. It remains to be seen whether they'll actually make any real changes, apart from returning us to the Pre-Crazian era. Hopefully.
Former President Gerald Ford passed away at age 93. Does it make me a bad person that I immediately thought of this old SNL sketch?

In celebrity news, celebrities are getting way too much news coverage, which makes me ashamed to even be talking about it, but here goes.

We learned from Mel Gibson that being drunk can make you a raving anti-Semite. Mark Foley had previously posited that alcohol can also make you a pedophile. I wonder how far this’ll go.

PROSECUTER: Please tell the court why you gunned down 30 people while dressed as The Incredible Hulk.
DEFENDANT: Well, I’d had a few tequila slammers…

In other celebrity meltdown news, Michael Richards flew into a racist tirade at a pair of hecklers during a stand-up performance at The Laugh Factory. I’m not sure if he was going for an Andy Kaufman-esque make-the-audience-hate-you satirical anti-comedy thing, but it didn’t work. And also, even with my complete non-experience in stand-up comedy, I know that comedians should EXPECT hecklers. The good ones even work comebacks into their acts. **gasp**
Apparently, “baby” is the new black. Brangelina and Madonna both adopted kids and Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, through some alien budding process, spawned a space baby. I wonder how long it’ll be before people start collecting foreign babies and making them fight like Pokémon.
Many young celebrity women have been seen sporting the latest trendy fashion accessory: vaginas. Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton have all developed a catastrophic allergy to panties. In a related story, there has been a sharp increase in black hole-related deaths.
James Brown passed away on Christmas day. There’s nothing funny about the death of one of the world’s greatest performers. He left behind his fourth wife, four (known) children, and his beloved and loyal hair.

Internationally, stuff tended to only make the news if it was bad.

A Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons depicting a certain Muslim prophet (let’s call him Schmohammed) and Muslims in general, as violent, reactionary extremists. To express their protest, extremist Muslims reacted violently, rioting across several countries and leaving an estimated 140 people dead.
North Korea tested a new missile that reportedly could reach the US. Apparently, it has no explosives but is designed to cause laugh-induced strokes when targets see it’s called the Type O’ Dong II (yes, I know it’s spelled Tae-po Dong, but it’s just funnier spelled phonetically). Later, North Korea reportedly detonated an underground nuclear device. The claim was verified when a plane detected higher-than-normal levels of charred gopher.
Horrific genocide continues to engulf Darfur and America continues mostly to not care. Unless the US radically changes its foreign policy, or Darfur strikes oil, I don’t see much hope here.

In the sovereign nation of Technostan, the Internet continues to expand and evolve into a second layer of reality.

We saw the first web celebrity (weblebrity? cewebrity?) breakup, of sorts. The co-creators of leading news vlog Rocketboom, Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon parted ways on nasty, scratchy, bitey terms. It’s probably impossible to sort out exactly what happened, but here’s what I gathered from what both people have posted online:

Amanda planned to move from New York (where Rocketboom had been recorded) to L.A.
Since most production was digital anyway, Amanda had planned to continue Rocketboom from L.A., but Andrew interpreted the move as Amanda leaving the show.
Andrew, in full WWII melodrama mode, stood on the proverbial pier, waving his hanky at the departure of the S.S. Amanda, despite her repeated insistence that she planned to keep working with him.
On July 5, 2006, Andrew posted a message on Rocketboom.com saying Amanda was moving to L.A. "to pursue opportunities that have arisen for her in Hollywood."
Without the Rocketboom job, in fact, Amanda couldn’t find anywhere to live so she ended up living with her parents in Connecticut.
Within a few days, Amanda had been replaced at Rocketboom by former MTV Europe VJ Joanne Colan.

Personally, I’ve tried to give both parties equal respect even though I think Andrew was, in this case, a demon-spawn from a plane of existence similar to Hell but nastier for the eternal soundtrack of Michael Bolton, Kenny G, and Yanni. Since the debacle, Amanda hosted a vlog chronicling her cross-country road trip. Upon finally arriving in Los Angeles, she has become the official vlogger/tech correspondent for ABC News, started her own vlog, and is in production of a series for HBO. Andrew…is doing exactly the same thing he’s been doing since last year.

iTunes sold its one billionth song. I'm proud to say that none of those songs were purchased by me. I'm strongly against the stranglehold of DRM. I only use iTunes for the occasional free podcast.
Search giant Google purchased people-getting-hit-in-the-crotch emporium YouTube for $1.65 billion. Since Google will feel pressure to remove all copywrited material from YouTube, nerd soothsayers have predicted that its popularity will plummet. To an extent, that's what happened, but as long as there are creative and/or stupid people with cameras and copywrite holders who aren't so uptight, YouTube will have an audience.

In Sports....aw, who am I kidding? I don't follow sports. All I know is that Mark McGwire wasn't voted into the Hall of Fame. It might be due to his conduct at his steroid hearing, at which he ate a live moose.

The coming year has some potential for good. The legislation that would've killed net neutrality never made it to a vote. Bush's proposed troop increase in Iraq is being met with outrage from Dems and Reps (I think I saw torches and pitchforks at Condi Rice's hearing). On the other hand, the Democrat's much-hyped First 100 Hours wasn't nearly as sweeping as promised. Bills for raising the minimum wage, increasing stem cell research funding, introduction of stuff recommended by the 9/11 Commission, and ethics and lobbying reforms were introduced, but they also took time off for the BCS championship game and had a resolution acknowledging Elvis' birthday.

In my personal life, 2006 was rough. My Mom still hasn't recovered from her surgery, and it seems like she takes two steps forward and......bursts into flame. Nick has had a spiritual awakening, which isn't really a bad thing, but his transformation from agnostic to borderline-Orthodox Jew has been shockingly fast. Nana is still plugging along as much as ever. Louie (the mafia dog) has slowed down some, but still takes time out to roll in interesting smells. CC (the schizophrenic poodle)'s light grip on sanity continues to weaken as she keeps playing "Snuggle Bite." She'll snuggle up next to you, in the pretense of being sweet, and then out of nowhere, attack! Here is an undoctored photo of CC, during one such psychotic break.
As for me, I met, and lost, my first potential girlfriend in years. We met on true.com and right before we were about to meet in person, she went back to her ex . My health has been good overall, except for a lingering pain in my right shoulder. The orthopedist I went to basically said "I'm made weird" and other than repositioning and pain meds, I'm screwed. I'm kind of at a crossroads in my life right now. I'm not in school and I don't know if I'm going back. I want to make a living as a writer, but I don't know if I'm physically able (this post has taken me two weeks off and on). I feel like I'm in limbo without any visible opportunities for change...

Retrospectively Yours,
Jamie

The one with too many videos

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 07:52:37 GMT

http://www.truemajorityaction.org/takeback/