I'm certainly no news source, so I'm not breaking any ground on this story about 5 white kids killed in a fiery auto wreck.
But I will offer my two cent criticism to the media.
This is certainly tragic, but I don't know why it is headline news, listed no less than three times on the front page of CNN.com, including as the main story. Actually that's not true, I do know why its listed as the main story, as Drew Curtis from FARK pointed out, in his recent book, news media is not about giving us important news, its about giving us stuff that we want to hear/read about. And apparently, people want to read about some white kids who died in a wreck. Isn't there any other news to report on? Any politicians doing anything totally insane? Any service-people or civilians dying in American wars overseas? Any genocide going on?
And just when I thought I'd gotten a break from news coverage about another white woman. Oh, two white women actually.
Link: Wikipedia article on Missing White Woman Syndrome.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Updates on stuff
Quickly, because I'm busy at work today..
Krissi has been involved in a production of the play Oklahoma our our local theater, the Desoto Family Theater. She's enjoyed it mostly, and griped about it a little. I'm glad that she's had the opportunity to get into this, as she takes to Theater like I take to Role Playing Games. So I think its fantastic, and I've gone to see one of the shows, and am going again this evening.
Her folks were staying with us over the weekend, and I developed a quick cold virus, so so I did run on Friday and Saturday of last week, but I did not run Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. I did run on Wednesday, did 5 in ~50 minutes, which is cool. It rained cats and dogs on me part of the time, and I had my new running hat on, and I was so glad to get out and do a run, as I felt overdue. The Firecracker 5k is this coming Tuesday, the 3rd. I'm a tad nervous, not about the run itself, but about how my time will stack up to last year. Its silly, and no big deal, but it still makes me just a touch anxious.
We watched Death of a President last night, a faux documentary that is set some time after the assassination of George W. Bush. It talks about the assassination and the investigation and reaction afterward. It is, of course, political, and I enjoyed it. Know what's scary? Dick Fucking Cheney at the helm.
I think that's it. The rest of my time has been filled with Hearts of Iron 2, TSoY Drow, and other funness.
Krissi has been involved in a production of the play Oklahoma our our local theater, the Desoto Family Theater. She's enjoyed it mostly, and griped about it a little. I'm glad that she's had the opportunity to get into this, as she takes to Theater like I take to Role Playing Games. So I think its fantastic, and I've gone to see one of the shows, and am going again this evening.
Her folks were staying with us over the weekend, and I developed a quick cold virus, so so I did run on Friday and Saturday of last week, but I did not run Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. I did run on Wednesday, did 5 in ~50 minutes, which is cool. It rained cats and dogs on me part of the time, and I had my new running hat on, and I was so glad to get out and do a run, as I felt overdue. The Firecracker 5k is this coming Tuesday, the 3rd. I'm a tad nervous, not about the run itself, but about how my time will stack up to last year. Its silly, and no big deal, but it still makes me just a touch anxious.
We watched Death of a President last night, a faux documentary that is set some time after the assassination of George W. Bush. It talks about the assassination and the investigation and reaction afterward. It is, of course, political, and I enjoyed it. Know what's scary? Dick Fucking Cheney at the helm.
I think that's it. The rest of my time has been filled with Hearts of Iron 2, TSoY Drow, and other funness.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Running Roundup
Hard to keep myself in the habit of putting my running info on here.
Letsee.... I ran (I think) Tuesday and Wednesday, then Friday and Saturday.
My time on Friday for 5 miles was 48 minutes, my time on Saturday was a terrible 56 minutes for 5 miles. I blame Saturday's time on the huge hamburger I'd eaten just an hour or two before running.
Did not run Thursday/Sunday, and probably will not run today, as I feel the effects of a head-cold at the moment.
Letsee.... I ran (I think) Tuesday and Wednesday, then Friday and Saturday.
My time on Friday for 5 miles was 48 minutes, my time on Saturday was a terrible 56 minutes for 5 miles. I blame Saturday's time on the huge hamburger I'd eaten just an hour or two before running.
Did not run Thursday/Sunday, and probably will not run today, as I feel the effects of a head-cold at the moment.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Its hard to get a job
Apparently, its hard to get a part time job as well.
I'm just looking for it as supplemental income. We're not in a spot in which I have to get another job or anything. We're not under the water, we're just treading water - or have been, anyway. Now we're trying to swim. /analogy boy
We paid for lots of movies and restaurant trips and DVDs and other bullshit on credit cards, and fell into the good ole american creditdream nightmare. Well, as I may have mentioned here, I went to a Dave Ramsey seminar some time ago that Maddie and John were kind enough to give me a ticket to. I'm skeptical of anyone who wants to sell me anything, especially if its some variation of a "recipe for success", so I went in wonder how much smoke would be blown, and it turns out, not very much.
Now, I'm about as far removed as you can be from an accountant, banker, or anything else that you would associate with informed and responsible money handling. More simply, I'm a poor manager of money. I don't make terrible decisions, but I've made alot of poor decisions. So we find ourselves in a situation where are are not, as I said earlier, over our heads. I know that there are some people who owe more per month than they make. We're not there, though we weren't far from it. Basically, we're now on a budget. And I don't just mean that we "have" a budget, but we still buy random bull shit and just write it into the budget later.. We're living by it, baby.
And y'know, its not especially difficult or painful. We have of course our Bills - everything from our "Holy Fucking Interest Rate, Batman" Credit Card(s), to water/gas/light/cable bills, etc. Then we have our funds (envelopes!), like Groceries, Gasoline, and when we can afford it, Recreation. And it goes pretty well. We eat out less, which is okay. We buy less stuff, which is okay too, though I like buying stuff. We are a little more selective at the grocery store.. but we get what we need. We're not eating ramen noodles and crackers - we're still doing the diet/eat-healthy thing, and so I've found a few dozen fun and interesting ways to prepare chicken and some combination of rice or potatoes and green veggies. It's just tightening the belt. The idea here is that we can focus the money that we're now not using for Taco Bell and Best Buy and use it to pay down our car payments/credit card debts. We're about two months in, and its working for us. :)
But as I was saying - its apparently hard to get a part time job. Strikes me as a touch funny, I'm a white-collar professional, capable of holding down a steady and fairly well paying job, but for some reason, cannot seem to get the manager of a pizza joint to call me back and give me a job driving pie around town. I don't relish the idea of giving up a large chunk of my free time, but the additional income would put us just that much more in the black, and let us pay down that debt faster, and go back to buying DVDs at Best Buy - with cash that we own, instead of credit that we don't own.
ka-ching!
I'm just looking for it as supplemental income. We're not in a spot in which I have to get another job or anything. We're not under the water, we're just treading water - or have been, anyway. Now we're trying to swim. /analogy boy
We paid for lots of movies and restaurant trips and DVDs and other bullshit on credit cards, and fell into the good ole american credit
Now, I'm about as far removed as you can be from an accountant, banker, or anything else that you would associate with informed and responsible money handling. More simply, I'm a poor manager of money. I don't make terrible decisions, but I've made alot of poor decisions. So we find ourselves in a situation where are are not, as I said earlier, over our heads. I know that there are some people who owe more per month than they make. We're not there, though we weren't far from it. Basically, we're now on a budget. And I don't just mean that we "have" a budget, but we still buy random bull shit and just write it into the budget later.. We're living by it, baby.
And y'know, its not especially difficult or painful. We have of course our Bills - everything from our "Holy Fucking Interest Rate, Batman" Credit Card(s), to water/gas/light/cable bills, etc. Then we have our funds (envelopes!), like Groceries, Gasoline, and when we can afford it, Recreation. And it goes pretty well. We eat out less, which is okay. We buy less stuff, which is okay too, though I like buying stuff. We are a little more selective at the grocery store.. but we get what we need. We're not eating ramen noodles and crackers - we're still doing the diet/eat-healthy thing, and so I've found a few dozen fun and interesting ways to prepare chicken and some combination of rice or potatoes and green veggies. It's just tightening the belt. The idea here is that we can focus the money that we're now not using for Taco Bell and Best Buy and use it to pay down our car payments/credit card debts. We're about two months in, and its working for us. :)
But as I was saying - its apparently hard to get a part time job. Strikes me as a touch funny, I'm a white-collar professional, capable of holding down a steady and fairly well paying job, but for some reason, cannot seem to get the manager of a pizza joint to call me back and give me a job driving pie around town. I don't relish the idea of giving up a large chunk of my free time, but the additional income would put us just that much more in the black, and let us pay down that debt faster, and go back to buying DVDs at Best Buy - with cash that we own, instead of credit that we don't own.
ka-ching!
Monday, June 18, 2007
More tacky shit
I posted here about a ridiculously tacky - and in my opinion, in bad taste - coin memorializing the WTC. I saw it on TV, and it was so ridiculous that I wrote about it on my blog.
Here we are again.
So last night as I'm standing in the kitchen making delicious chicken-potato-broccoli-and-cheese casserole, I happen to see on the TV another OMG HOLY SHIT-FUCK just when I thought that advertising/consumers couldn't possibly become more stupid, I saw this. As before feel free to skip the link: I'll explain. Its a legal tender one dollar coin, that is a 100 year anniversary corvette coin - with light up headlights. For $20. But it's "triple-verified", whatever the fuck that means.
I don't know why I'm so appalled- I'm overreacting. We're not talking genocide here, but I just cannot believe that anyone would sell this, much less fucking buy it. Really, who buys this fucking shit???
/digress
[edit: Its slightly more funny, again, that people would pay $20 for something that is clearly marked, and advertised as being worth one dollar. I'd like to see a NASCAR fan pay for his snuff with that shit.]
[edit again: "The Republic of Palau’s government has authorized this groundbreaking legal tender issue. [...] It will never be released for circulation. "]
Here we are again.
So last night as I'm standing in the kitchen making delicious chicken-potato-broccoli-and-cheese casserole, I happen to see on the TV another OMG HOLY SHIT-FUCK just when I thought that advertising/consumers couldn't possibly become more stupid, I saw this. As before feel free to skip the link: I'll explain. Its a legal tender one dollar coin, that is a 100 year anniversary corvette coin - with light up headlights. For $20. But it's "triple-verified", whatever the fuck that means.
I don't know why I'm so appalled- I'm overreacting. We're not talking genocide here, but I just cannot believe that anyone would sell this, much less fucking buy it. Really, who buys this fucking shit???
/digress
[edit: Its slightly more funny, again, that people would pay $20 for something that is clearly marked, and advertised as being worth one dollar. I'd like to see a NASCAR fan pay for his snuff with that shit.]
[edit again: "The Republic of Palau’s government has authorized this groundbreaking legal tender issue. [...] It will never be released for circulation. "]
Update - running and gaming
Last week was kinda a poor showing for me on the running front. I think I did (as previously mentioned) 6 on sunday the 10th, then 5 on monday, then off on tuesday, 5 on wednesday, off on thursday, and I planned to do 5 on friday, but I helped my dad move some stuff, ate pizza, then went and tried to run at 8pm. I cut it down to 4 miles, but then only really ran 3 of the 4. =(
Didn't run Saturday/Sunday either, even though I kinda meant to both days.
Ran Werewolf on Saturday. It went well. It sparked some after gaming conversation - also Maddie was kind enough to listen to me ramble/rant about RPG theory and gaming for like 3 hours on Sunday - but it brought up discussion about various meta-gaming topics. During the course of the session, the characters were somewhat beat up, and on their way back to their lair when I plunked down something shiny - where "something shiny" equals the shadow of a log cabin in the spirit world, filled with webs - this almost certainly meant Azlu, the Spider Hosts. The players bit, and their characters (bloodied) went in to investigate, and were WALLOPED by the Azlu hiding inside, its presence practically promised. In truth, I was rolling really really well, and they were rolling poorly. It nailed two of the characters with wicked hits, and they didn't get a hit in at it. They bolted. The discussion after had to do with there being some small feeling of "Well you put it there in front of us, apparently you meant for us to check it out. Why did you put a big-bad-monster in our way when we were already hurt?". Which of course leads in to hours of me going on about "living world" vs "linear/fixed/arcade/video game style", and how I put it there so that the players/characters would have to make a choice. There was an obvious implied threat about the place. They were bleeding already. Would they check it out anyway, or pass it up? RPGs are about making choices, the more difficult the choice/more consequences related to the decision, the better.
Good times!
Didn't run Saturday/Sunday either, even though I kinda meant to both days.
Ran Werewolf on Saturday. It went well. It sparked some after gaming conversation - also Maddie was kind enough to listen to me ramble/rant about RPG theory and gaming for like 3 hours on Sunday - but it brought up discussion about various meta-gaming topics. During the course of the session, the characters were somewhat beat up, and on their way back to their lair when I plunked down something shiny - where "something shiny" equals the shadow of a log cabin in the spirit world, filled with webs - this almost certainly meant Azlu, the Spider Hosts. The players bit, and their characters (bloodied) went in to investigate, and were WALLOPED by the Azlu hiding inside, its presence practically promised. In truth, I was rolling really really well, and they were rolling poorly. It nailed two of the characters with wicked hits, and they didn't get a hit in at it. They bolted. The discussion after had to do with there being some small feeling of "Well you put it there in front of us, apparently you meant for us to check it out. Why did you put a big-bad-monster in our way when we were already hurt?". Which of course leads in to hours of me going on about "living world" vs "linear/fixed/arcade/video game style", and how I put it there so that the players/characters would have to make a choice. There was an obvious implied threat about the place. They were bleeding already. Would they check it out anyway, or pass it up? RPGs are about making choices, the more difficult the choice/more consequences related to the decision, the better.
Good times!
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