Alcoholism
Posted: 2008-06-22
I've started writing some stuff about alcoholism. It's mostly from a personal perspective. It's taken a lot of time to mull over the decision of whether or not to publicly announce that I'm an alcoholic, but I eventually decided that I had stuff I really wanted to talk about in reference to it and to do that, I had to come clean.
So, the first article is this piece which is just my personal story. As I got near the end, I started discussing an episode of Penn and Teller's show, Bullshit, in which they attack Alcoholics Anonymous. This episode always really bugged me because it was just such a coomplete misrepresentation of AA, so I wrote this in response.
Stop Uwe Boll
Make the World a Better Place
Posted: 2008-04-08
If you're not familiar with Uwe Boll, he's a movie director/producer. He is, arguably, one of the worst. Of the 20 or so movies he's made, several have the distinction of being on the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) Bottom 100 movies (as opposed to Top 100 movies which would generally be considered the good ones).
His highest ranked movie ranks a 4.4 on IMDB's 10 point scale, but most rank somewhere in the 1s and 2s.
He's most reviled by video game enthusiasts for his hack job on making movies from video game themes. I don't play many video games and I've avoided those movies because even if they were made by a competent director, the subjects don't interest me.
I have seen some of his "better" (if that's even a valid word in this context) movies, though and they were pretty horrendous.
For some reason, people continue to throw money at him to make movies.
In an effort to make the world just a slightly better place, some thoughtful people have started a petition to get Uwe Boll to stop making movies. Boll has said that if they can collect a million signatures, he will stop. Currently the petition is getting about 50 signtatures a minute. At that rate, we can only hope Boll will stick to his part of the bargain and retire from movie making in about 12.5 days from the time of this post.
Want to help make the world a better place? Sign the petition!
Taxes, Income, and Other Lovely Things
Less taxes doesn't necessarily = more income!
Posted: 2008-02-24
I got an e-mail from a cousin today who, for some unfathomable reason, supports the Republicans. The e-mail was showing the differences in taxes between Clinton and Bush, and as I expected, it showed people paying marginally more in taxes under Clinton than Bush and this e-mail was as if to say, "See, you're better off."
My reply was along these lines: We're paying, on average, say 5% less of our income in taxes under Bush, but if you account for the CPI (Consumer Price Index) and the mean or median incomes, people are making about 20% less under Bush. So, yeah, I might be saving 5% on taxes, but I'm still screwed by 15% on everything else, and that's just my immediate earning.
That doesn't factor in the massive amount of debt the Republicans have accumulated on my behalf in the last 7 years. I have to help pay off that debt. So do you. People like to think of the national debt as some nebulous, meaningless thing, but it's not. It's money we owe and money we have to pay interest on, and it's not trivial. It's a staggering, unfathomable number, but different countries around the world have a piece of it, and each year, they get a staggering amount of interest off it, making them better off financially, and us worse off by the difference. Look at it this way: Let's say China has $200 and I have $200, but I have to pay China $100 in interest on debt I have to them. Now China has $300 and I have $100. See, the difference between us isn't $100, it's $200 now. (I didn't pick China at random, we probably owe China more than any other country).
If Democrats are "tax and spend" (as Republicans are so apt to say), then Republicans must be "cut taxes and spend more." Or, to put it another way, Democrats like to pay in cash. Republicans like to pay on credit cards.
It's easy to pick any single statistic and say, "See! You're better off." But try picking 3 related figures or 5 related figures and still show that you're better off, and that can get a lot more difficult. The economy has a lot of numbers and by most of them, we're not just a little worse off than we were 7 years ago, we're A LOT worse off than we were 7 years ago.
Under Clinton, the annual budget deficit dropped from $347 billion to a mere $18 billion. A little more time on that course, and we might have been able to start paying off some serious principle on our (then)less than $6 trillion in debt. Instead, of course, the debt has jumped to over $9 trillion and estimates are we'll get another $3 trillion over the next 10 years. Certainly that'll be the case if we get another spend happy president.
Thomas Jefferson once said, "I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
As far as I know, Thomas Jefferson isn't featured in any video games or comic books, so I doubt Dubya knows who he is.
To Z'ha'dum and Back
Sci-Fi and stuff
Posted: 2008-02-21
I really need to post on a regular basis. Don't know why, but I just never think to post stuff here.
Years ago, I tried watching Babylon-5 a handful of times. I love good sci-fi. Always have. I never could get into Babylon-5. I made the obvious mistake of "judging a book by its cover." Babylon-5 had the really CGI-looking CGI effects and that always bugged me, in Babylon-5 and a lot of movies as well. And a few of the characters are just ridiculous, and that bugged me.
I knew among computer nerds, the show had a pretty big following. Computer nerds tend to like the same kinds of stuff I do, being as I'm a computer nerd too, so I decided to give Babylon-5 a real shot. The first half of the first season was pretty mediocre and I was getting close to calling it quits, but then things suddenly started to get interesting. I ended up watching it through the end of season 5 and I also watched some of the movies based on the show.
I now think, story-wise, Babylon-5 is probably the best sci-fi I've ever seen. See, any real sci-fi fan will tell you, it's not about the tech, it's about the story. Babylon-5 has an incredibly well planned, well organized, and well told story.
They have story connections that are separated by an entire season or more. Somebody will say something that seems trivial say, half-way through season 1. Then in Season 3, it turns out that what they said was crucial to the story-line and connects with what's going on. And they do it constantly. The references and connections are simply amazing. I'm now going through the entire series a second time just so I can try to find more of the pieces.
The other story elements are amazing as well. Some of the races are truly creative. Some have incredibly detailed cultures that unfold over the seasons.
The acting is, overall, pretty amazing. Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar is incredible, especially as Citizen G'Kar. Bruce Boxleitner (Commander Sinclair) came in as a welcome replacement to the first season's Michael O'Hare. Sinclair's relationship with Mira Furlan's Delenn (many people would recognize Furlan as Danielle Rousseau on Lost) was really well done and came off really well, I thought.
Other highlights include the various religions, the constant discussions about freedom of speech and press that have more meaning today than it did then.
I've just found it amazing and would highly recommend it to anyone who couldn't stomach the CGI like me. Just get a few episodes into Season 2 and you'll be hooked.
Terms of Endearment
(Why English Sucks!)
Posted: 2007-08-16
I don't know why, but I started thinking about terms of endearment and how pathetic they are in English. I thought, if you really love someone with all of your soul, what would be a good term of endearment for them. I was at a loss. So of course, I scoured the web. I came across lists of terms of endearment in English and they're all so lacking. No wonder the French and Latinos are so much better known for their "love".
The best I could come up with to express love was, "my love", just "love", and maybe "beloved". Everything else is so shallow sounding or gushie and pathetic. Beloved is actually okay, but still, it's not great.
In Spanish, on the other hand, I can rattle off terms of endearment that put English to shame. Mi alma (my soul), mi corazon (my heart), mi todo (my everything), mi vida (my life), mi reina (my queen), mi cielo (my precious, though literally, "heaven"). Maybe "my queen" in English.
Man, if I was going to call a woman "mi alma" or "mi todo", I wouldn't even be able to convey the sense that would have in English. I mean, that's true love...
Anyway, I was just thinking how sad our choices are in English.
French, I'll admit, has some really bizarre ones. Ma puce (my flea), mon chou (my cabbage) (though I believe the term actually derives from a pastry, pate de chou which makes more sense), but they have tons of great ones. In fact, here's a list?
Really makes English look pathetic, doesn't it. And those are mostly really affectionate, not like "babe" or "cutie".
Anyway, I guess I'm just rambling. It was my thought of the moment and wanted to write it out somewhere...
