Thursday, July 31, 2003
Sunday, July 27, 2003
Okay, so I know that last update was really long and probably boring to many(all one) of you. So, ignore it if you don't want to read about my ramblings on wargaming.
Two things today I want to talk about. It seems I'm becomming more and more amused at the views of some far right wing conservative christians. Which is kind of odd, but there you go.
First, a couple of weeks ago, this letter to the editor appeared in The Free-Lance Star. The guy is basically saying that homosexuality is abnormal and a disease, and needs to be cured. Well, someone else wrote a letter a few days ago, parodying this guy's logic. It's REALLLY funny. Observe:
I want to thank Al Rios for sharing his insight on homosexuality as a disease ["Science hasn't shown that homosexuality's a 'given,'" July 15]. Webster says the word "abnormal" means not "normal, not average, not typical," and the word "disease" refers to health and illness. Mr. Rios' contention, however, is that any abnormal function of the body, even if it has no effect on health, is a disease.
That being the case, I want to point out another diseased group: lefties. To use Mr. Rios' words: "The majority of humans throughout history has been socially and culturally" right-handed. That makes the natural inclinations of a left-handed person different. Not average. Not normal. In other words, the body of a left-handed person functions abnormally and is, according to Mr. Rios, diseased.
Do we hate these people? No, but they must be cured.
Society once took "proper action." Schools forced inflicted children to use their "proper' hand, and parents were told to tie down the offending appendage while at dinner so the "normal" hand would hold the fork. Even so, some of these diseased children would be caught in their room, late at night, doing unspeakably abnormal things with a pencil or ball.
Still, progress was being made; children were being cured, until those bleeding-heart liberals on the "left" (A coincidence? I don't think so) started telling lefties that they weren't diseased, just different. And slowly, one by one, they started "coming out of the glove." Now some of them are brazen enough to even demand their own scissors.
What is next. Left-handers in the military? Sure, we can teach them to salute with their right hand, but in the shower room, when decent right-handers are at their most vulnerable, I think we all know in which hand these miscreants will be holding the soap. And what about adoption? How could two left-handed people possibly raise a child to be right-handed?
It is shocking. It is an outrage. It must be stopped.
HA! I found it highly amusing.
Second, I was reading another article somewhere in which someone basically said that anything that got in the way of a pregnancy was abortion, specifically contraceptives and birth control. Latex is murder! Okay, so if anything that gets in the way of a pregnancy is abortion, then everyone should cease doing things that prevent pregnancies from occuring. Well, abstinence is preventing pregnancies. Look at all the people who abstain from sex who could be getting pregnant or getting other people pregnant! It's horrible, all the abortions they're doing! They need to start having sex, and right now. And for those poeple that are having sex, well, they need to be having sex all the time. The horrible people think they can sleep and eat and go to work without having sex, they're murdering millions of infants too! And I highly doubt that most of them are having sex with lots and lots of people. Afterall, the more partners you have the better chance they or you will become pregnant. So that's the only solution to this horrible horrible abortion problem. EVeryone must have as much sex as possible with as many people as possible. It's the only way!
HA!
Not that I believe it, but it does kind of follow from that person's logic.
Kind of.
On another note, Eddie is coming to DC on Monday the 27th, and Tuesday the 28th of October. Warner Theater. I'm SO there.
Two things today I want to talk about. It seems I'm becomming more and more amused at the views of some far right wing conservative christians. Which is kind of odd, but there you go.
First, a couple of weeks ago, this letter to the editor appeared in The Free-Lance Star. The guy is basically saying that homosexuality is abnormal and a disease, and needs to be cured. Well, someone else wrote a letter a few days ago, parodying this guy's logic. It's REALLLY funny. Observe:
I want to thank Al Rios for sharing his insight on homosexuality as a disease ["Science hasn't shown that homosexuality's a 'given,'" July 15]. Webster says the word "abnormal" means not "normal, not average, not typical," and the word "disease" refers to health and illness. Mr. Rios' contention, however, is that any abnormal function of the body, even if it has no effect on health, is a disease.
That being the case, I want to point out another diseased group: lefties. To use Mr. Rios' words: "The majority of humans throughout history has been socially and culturally" right-handed. That makes the natural inclinations of a left-handed person different. Not average. Not normal. In other words, the body of a left-handed person functions abnormally and is, according to Mr. Rios, diseased.
Do we hate these people? No, but they must be cured.
Society once took "proper action." Schools forced inflicted children to use their "proper' hand, and parents were told to tie down the offending appendage while at dinner so the "normal" hand would hold the fork. Even so, some of these diseased children would be caught in their room, late at night, doing unspeakably abnormal things with a pencil or ball.
Still, progress was being made; children were being cured, until those bleeding-heart liberals on the "left" (A coincidence? I don't think so) started telling lefties that they weren't diseased, just different. And slowly, one by one, they started "coming out of the glove." Now some of them are brazen enough to even demand their own scissors.
What is next. Left-handers in the military? Sure, we can teach them to salute with their right hand, but in the shower room, when decent right-handers are at their most vulnerable, I think we all know in which hand these miscreants will be holding the soap. And what about adoption? How could two left-handed people possibly raise a child to be right-handed?
It is shocking. It is an outrage. It must be stopped.
HA! I found it highly amusing.
Second, I was reading another article somewhere in which someone basically said that anything that got in the way of a pregnancy was abortion, specifically contraceptives and birth control. Latex is murder! Okay, so if anything that gets in the way of a pregnancy is abortion, then everyone should cease doing things that prevent pregnancies from occuring. Well, abstinence is preventing pregnancies. Look at all the people who abstain from sex who could be getting pregnant or getting other people pregnant! It's horrible, all the abortions they're doing! They need to start having sex, and right now. And for those poeple that are having sex, well, they need to be having sex all the time. The horrible people think they can sleep and eat and go to work without having sex, they're murdering millions of infants too! And I highly doubt that most of them are having sex with lots and lots of people. Afterall, the more partners you have the better chance they or you will become pregnant. So that's the only solution to this horrible horrible abortion problem. EVeryone must have as much sex as possible with as many people as possible. It's the only way!
HA!
Not that I believe it, but it does kind of follow from that person's logic.
Kind of.
On another note, Eddie is coming to DC on Monday the 27th, and Tuesday the 28th of October. Warner Theater. I'm SO there.
Hey hey hey!
Nearly all summer travelling is done. Just one short jaunt over to Harrisonburg to do one last cleaning of the apartment and to hand in my key. Huzzah!
Alright, so the Phi Mu Alpha conference in DC was wonderful. Great experience. I got to meet a lot of cool people, see a lot of cool things, got to hang out with Alice and Paul some, blah blah blah, fun was had. But that was nothing compared to this past weekend.
OH MY GOD. Historicon was the greatest thing, ever. It's a giant wargaming convention using tabletop miniatures. It is the largest such convention in the US, possibly the world. And it was heaven. There were just SOOO many tables and SOOOO many games. Some things were so elaborate, it was unbelievable. I cannot beign to say enough about how cool it was.
I played in a DBA demo game against Tom on Thursday twice. DBA is a system for fighting during the ancients time period. Tom was the infidels, and I was the heretics. The first battle had the largely foot composed heretics attacking the infidels. My foot actually did virtually nothing. My little bit of heavy cavalry and my peasant militia-esque troops kicked some major ass, though. The second battle had the infidels attacking the heretics, and I decided to have my cavalry charge the infidel knights. If I won the charge, I'd win. If I lost, I'd lose. We went back and forth for a few rounds, but Tom was able to eventually flank me and slew my leader, os the heretics ran for it and lost. It was fun though. THEN we recreated the battle of Salem Church, which is REALLY close to where I lived. Tom and I were the flanks of the Union army while this other guy took the center. Tom, incidently, was controlling the 96th Pennsylvania (which did not run and was actually his most useful unit), of which my great great great great great who nows how manys greats great grandfather was a member. I spent most of the battle running through the woods at high speed on the flank in an attempt to completely outflank the rebel scum whilest the rest of the union army tried to apply as much pressure as possible. This worked, and the Union forces won the day, routing the Confederates. We changed the course of history!
Friday morning I played in a big ancient Caesar game, and controlled the gallic forces which Caesar was trying to convince to join his side. Unfortunately, the guy playing Caesar was something of an idiot and I basically had to wait forever to get to the action. In fact, I only had one piece of cavalry engage in battle, charging across the river into some other cavalry, totally routing them and causing the rest of the army to become disordered. In fact, I think I did more than Caesar actually managed to do. But to his credit the supreme commander of the opposing forces was really good and had a brilliant plan to counter the romans. I then played in a game set in the French and Indian War game, which was really chaotic and fast paced, assuming you weren't the wagon train, of which Tom had the most unfortunate role. Woo hoo for sitting around wandering aimlessly because you had no point in existing. We then did the Battle of Princeton from the Revolutionary War between the two of us, and history repeated itself. My british got the crap kicked out of them. So march for effective charging. The battle of Fredericksburg was also fought using a board game, and my confederates successfully pounded the union forces back across the rappahannock with artillery, which happened 150 years ago anyway.
Saturday was WEIRD. I played in a Rennaissance game with all of Leonardo's inventions come to life. Tanks, aircraft, knights, thigns that blow up. It was bizarre, but a lot of fun. We iddn't take the bridge, before time ran out, but we did completely wipe out the left flank. But our right flank was gone too, so it was just nothingness on that side of the field. Then, in what was most certainly the most bizarre game of all time, I played in The Lost Skulls of Atlantis. Basic idea is that we're all characters from the 30s pulp fiction era, (Indiana Jones, The Shadow, The Phantom, Tarzan, Sam Spade, a bunch of other weird guys) starring in a movie and just trying to be as ridiculous and over the top as we could. It was lots of fun, and I shot a bunch of nazis. And for the first time ever in recorded history, there was NOT a secret passage behind the waterfall! What gives??
The convention rocked. I am SOOOOO going next year. And in November too, when a smaller one is in Maryland.
w00t.
TWO MORE WEEKS!!!!
Nearly all summer travelling is done. Just one short jaunt over to Harrisonburg to do one last cleaning of the apartment and to hand in my key. Huzzah!
Alright, so the Phi Mu Alpha conference in DC was wonderful. Great experience. I got to meet a lot of cool people, see a lot of cool things, got to hang out with Alice and Paul some, blah blah blah, fun was had. But that was nothing compared to this past weekend.
OH MY GOD. Historicon was the greatest thing, ever. It's a giant wargaming convention using tabletop miniatures. It is the largest such convention in the US, possibly the world. And it was heaven. There were just SOOO many tables and SOOOO many games. Some things were so elaborate, it was unbelievable. I cannot beign to say enough about how cool it was.
I played in a DBA demo game against Tom on Thursday twice. DBA is a system for fighting during the ancients time period. Tom was the infidels, and I was the heretics. The first battle had the largely foot composed heretics attacking the infidels. My foot actually did virtually nothing. My little bit of heavy cavalry and my peasant militia-esque troops kicked some major ass, though. The second battle had the infidels attacking the heretics, and I decided to have my cavalry charge the infidel knights. If I won the charge, I'd win. If I lost, I'd lose. We went back and forth for a few rounds, but Tom was able to eventually flank me and slew my leader, os the heretics ran for it and lost. It was fun though. THEN we recreated the battle of Salem Church, which is REALLY close to where I lived. Tom and I were the flanks of the Union army while this other guy took the center. Tom, incidently, was controlling the 96th Pennsylvania (which did not run and was actually his most useful unit), of which my great great great great great who nows how manys greats great grandfather was a member. I spent most of the battle running through the woods at high speed on the flank in an attempt to completely outflank the rebel scum whilest the rest of the union army tried to apply as much pressure as possible. This worked, and the Union forces won the day, routing the Confederates. We changed the course of history!
Friday morning I played in a big ancient Caesar game, and controlled the gallic forces which Caesar was trying to convince to join his side. Unfortunately, the guy playing Caesar was something of an idiot and I basically had to wait forever to get to the action. In fact, I only had one piece of cavalry engage in battle, charging across the river into some other cavalry, totally routing them and causing the rest of the army to become disordered. In fact, I think I did more than Caesar actually managed to do. But to his credit the supreme commander of the opposing forces was really good and had a brilliant plan to counter the romans. I then played in a game set in the French and Indian War game, which was really chaotic and fast paced, assuming you weren't the wagon train, of which Tom had the most unfortunate role. Woo hoo for sitting around wandering aimlessly because you had no point in existing. We then did the Battle of Princeton from the Revolutionary War between the two of us, and history repeated itself. My british got the crap kicked out of them. So march for effective charging. The battle of Fredericksburg was also fought using a board game, and my confederates successfully pounded the union forces back across the rappahannock with artillery, which happened 150 years ago anyway.
Saturday was WEIRD. I played in a Rennaissance game with all of Leonardo's inventions come to life. Tanks, aircraft, knights, thigns that blow up. It was bizarre, but a lot of fun. We iddn't take the bridge, before time ran out, but we did completely wipe out the left flank. But our right flank was gone too, so it was just nothingness on that side of the field. Then, in what was most certainly the most bizarre game of all time, I played in The Lost Skulls of Atlantis. Basic idea is that we're all characters from the 30s pulp fiction era, (Indiana Jones, The Shadow, The Phantom, Tarzan, Sam Spade, a bunch of other weird guys) starring in a movie and just trying to be as ridiculous and over the top as we could. It was lots of fun, and I shot a bunch of nazis. And for the first time ever in recorded history, there was NOT a secret passage behind the waterfall! What gives??
The convention rocked. I am SOOOOO going next year. And in November too, when a smaller one is in Maryland.
w00t.
TWO MORE WEEKS!!!!
Monday, July 14, 2003
I saw Senator John McCain at Busch Gardens yesterday. He was behind me in line for Apollo's Chariot, and we rode at the same time. Very cool.
This story is really sad and horribly degrading. That anyone would do this is just disgusting. Their website is bad, too.
Saturday, July 12, 2003
So I took this presidential candidate selector thing and it told me that I am 100% for the Green Party Candidate, 93% for Kerry, and 86% for Dean. Bush got only 34%.
Matrix Ping Pong.
Matrix Ping Pong.
Thursday, July 03, 2003
So, it's the beginning of July. The busiest month, ever. So here's my travel itinerary, for all you stalkers out there:
Thursday July 3 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for Cape Cod, Massachusetts (so Cape Cod isn't the exact town name, it's Brewster, but the Cape is more recognizable so pffffft!), driving time: 10 hours
Wednesday July 9 leave Cape Cod, Massachusetts for New Ringgold, Pennsylvania, driving time: 7 hours
Friday July 11 leave New Ringgold, Pennsylvania for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 4.5 hours
Saturday July 12 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for Virginia Beach, Virginia, driving time: 2.25 hours, leave Virginia Beach, Virginia for Richmond, Virginia, driving time :1.5 hours, leave Richmond, Virginia for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 1 hour
Wednesday July 16 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for Washington, D.C., driving time: 1 hour
Sunday July 20 leave Washington, D.C. for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 1 hour
Wednesday July 23 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for New Ringgold, Pennsylvania, driving time: 4.5 hours
Sunday July 27 leave New Ringgold, Pennsylvania for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 4.5 hours
Also, on either the 20th or 27th I'll be taking a trip up to Harrisonburg (1.75 hours) and back (1.75 hours). So all in all, not counting random driving around towns, I will spend 40.75 hours on the road.
Jesus.
Thursday July 3 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for Cape Cod, Massachusetts (so Cape Cod isn't the exact town name, it's Brewster, but the Cape is more recognizable so pffffft!), driving time: 10 hours
Wednesday July 9 leave Cape Cod, Massachusetts for New Ringgold, Pennsylvania, driving time: 7 hours
Friday July 11 leave New Ringgold, Pennsylvania for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 4.5 hours
Saturday July 12 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for Virginia Beach, Virginia, driving time: 2.25 hours, leave Virginia Beach, Virginia for Richmond, Virginia, driving time :1.5 hours, leave Richmond, Virginia for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 1 hour
Wednesday July 16 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for Washington, D.C., driving time: 1 hour
Sunday July 20 leave Washington, D.C. for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 1 hour
Wednesday July 23 leave Spotsylvania, Virginia for New Ringgold, Pennsylvania, driving time: 4.5 hours
Sunday July 27 leave New Ringgold, Pennsylvania for Spotsylvania, Virginia, driving time: 4.5 hours
Also, on either the 20th or 27th I'll be taking a trip up to Harrisonburg (1.75 hours) and back (1.75 hours). So all in all, not counting random driving around towns, I will spend 40.75 hours on the road.
Jesus.
