Blog of Billy

I think that every shot I've taken in the last 6 months or so has been in honor of Pvt. Matt Steenson. So is today's title.

Intrigue hit 125,000 on the 20th of February. Backtracking, I found out that I drive right about 20,000 miles per year. After an oil change and transmission flush today, hopefully she'll make the next 20 as easy as the last.

Doug made his decision. I'm proud of him.

Doug's experience brought up an interesting discussion with an interesting womun, about what amount of civil disobedience is justified in a society under the rule of law. Despite my revolutionary attitudes, I tend to side with the law in most instances. I like the existence of a police force. I think that a lot of flouting the law is juvenile rebellion that was fun when the consequences were minimal, but is counterproductive to the way that I want my life to go, not just because of fear of punishment, but because they are honest-to-God idiotic things to be doing. Drug use, for instance. The place I run into trouble is when people are actually being hurt by laws that are achieving the exact opposite of the goal that they are trying to get. Not just if it's easier to skirt the rules than abide, even by silly ones. Not if the program just isn't working very effectively overall. I'm requiring a failure in a specific case, along with a specific harm. An example is my Uncle Phil. He's in the hospital right now, and is not expected to be with us much longer. He worked for Rainbow Bread all his life and retired with a modest pension which he used to raise his kids, including a daughter with Down's Syndrome. Where this gets him is that while his income invalidates him for Medicaid, he still can't actually afford health insurance for himself. So, his options are:

1. Cut off his daughter to keep more money
2. Die painfully but cheaply instead of in a hospital
3. Funny magic with the taxes

He's going with the third option, and I'm 100% fine with it. In this case, the goal of Medicaid is to let people who don't have enough money to pay for health insurance not die painfully. That goal is not being met, and is at the same time hurting either my uncle or his daughter. I think the same applies for Doug.

There I go justifying the Rev again.

I've decided that I'm moving domains off of GoDaddy, just as soon as I can find a competitive host who does not run their servers on a closed OS, and whose advertisements are not quite so sexually charged.

One instance where sexual advertisements are currently not bothering me is in the wonderful land of Triscuits. As mentioned before, Rachael Ray is the only womun capable of getting me to eat those little chunks of grass. She's also the inspiration for peach salsa on top of the triscuits. Even better. She's so hot.

Hertz, whose owners paid themselves almost $1.4 billion in dividends last year, will cut jobs primarily in the U.S., as well as Canada, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. The reductions will cost $9 million to $11 million in the first quarter, the Park Ridge, New Jersey-based company said today in a statement.

Great.

And we'll never see a city not marred by advertisements,
And we'll NEVER have a future not working for those companies,
And it's sure as shit not getting better so we might as well accept it now, oh.

Well, so much for New Year's Resolutions. All the best ones last just until February anyway.

As I type this, I'm sitting in a sports bar in Chicago, up here with Patrick hanging out with the wonderful young womun who shared our same company in Paris those three whole months ago. Chicago is actually pretty nice. It took me a day or so to get acclimated, but of the larger towns I've been to, it's one of the better ones. Traffic is terrible and bizarre, but there's a pretty decent train/subway system that keeps me from having to borrow Patrick's foreign SUV in order to get around. Sadly, there are no Cubs games going on for me to disdain. Instead, I'm watching competitive jump roping which I didn't even know was a televisable event, and listening to "Living on a Prayer" which I didn't know was this listenable a song. Educational in all respects.

In other news, Blake and Conor are the best debaters in the country. Probably ever.

The power of the internet is now situated in user-generated content. It defies the historic/archaic channels of even complex communication, and will likely end up just flat replacing them. It's that distributed understanding and integration that keeps the incredible innovation coming. Too bad MS still doesn't get it. Open standards are not "MS standards that were pushed into a larger forum." There's a process to these things, and all input and modifications are important.

Video games and gaming have captured a bit of my attention recently. I had my first Wii-sperience a couple of weekends ago. Let it be known here and now. I am the greatest bowler in all the virtual land. Current plan is to pick one up around Spring Break, presuming that housing negotiations are in full swing. It should provide at least a couple hours of entertainment. Now to get a TV that is of a size that can enhance the fun...

Further on that train of thought, I was given a copy of the new Zelda game which I was able to course through during some downtime. It's really fun. An actual and valid successor to Ocarina of Time, with more subgames and whatnot to break up the hack-and-slash bits.

Why is it so hard for me to come up with things to write to Jon? What does someone say to a friend in prison?

How come noone told me?
All throughout history, the loneliest people
were the ones who always spoke the truth...
should I take that risk, or just smile?

Driving home from work the other day, I was (treated|subjected) to a dazzling display of light and color, along with a small plume of smoke. It seems that Pancho's LiquorTown's sign had decided to erupt in flames. The sign itself is in two parts; the upper old-style florescent-backed part was the one that pulled a phoenix. Really the only long-term implication of this is that it will be a little harder to explain where the best liquor store on the Northwest side is to newcomers, at least up until the sign finishes the whole cycle-of-rebirth thing.

I'm still considering buying a house this year, and to that end, I looked up my credit report. Turns out there are still a couple of leftover bills from the time before that are throwing kinks in my plan. I may end up having to make momma cosign, though I do not look with eager anticipation on being back under her financial thumb. My repayment for sullying her good legal name will likely come in the form of an adorably inept roommate who happens to share many of my genes. Probably not the worst case scenario.

School starts tomorrow. I'm back to taking 6 whole hours, which should work better with the work schedule. Maybe I can bypass round 2 of layoffs.

And now it's sleeting again. The news is all a-twitter. Fleece-lined jeans are awesome. As is the new Zelda. As are 40 oz bottles of Camo brand malt liquor. As is croque madame. As is hot tea.

Rachael Ray is proof of either the advancement or devolution of culture. Ms. Julia Child would never have been in FHM. She also would never have gotten me to eat Triscuits.

A single shot rifle and a one-eyed dog

Not so good a day. As recent reports have indicated, about 200 people are "no longer with the Hertz Corporation." Luckily for me at least, the sword of Damocles missed my neck. It didn't miss those of my friends, though. In all, about 100 of the 200 layoffs happened in the IT department. Hopefully that's the end of it, at least until the outsourcing happens...

Otherwise, I'm in Dallas for the UTD debate tournament, but only as a judge. Judge and "hospitality verification specialist." Just don't put me in any early-morning rounds, though that's generally a bad idea anyway.

Oh, and my credit is terrible. More on that later.

Just tryin' to keep my customer satisfied

Some New Year's resolutions:

1. Post smaller, more frequent bloggy updates.
2. Get back on a budget/diet/exercise regimen.
3. Habitually build something new: Doug's corner, websites, MCATs, something.

All three bowls that filled my New Year's Day with shouting and boozing ended badly. Gadget plays? Statue of Liberty? I'd be madder if OU hadn't used them before, and about as effectively. Next season, by golly...

Here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again.