So I was listening to XM22 this weekend and heard Everlast's What it's Like. Heres the lyrics for the song:

Verse 1

We've all seen the man at the liquor store beggin' for your change
The hair on his face is dirty, dread-locked, and full of mange
He asks a man for what he could spare, with shame in his eyes
"Get a job you fucking slob," is all he replies
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes
'Cause then you really might know what it's like to sing the blues
Chorus

Then you really might know what it's like
Then you really might know what it's like
Yeah then you really might know what's it like
To have the blues
Verse 2

Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom that said he was in love
He said, "Don't worry about a thing, baby doll
I'm the man you've been dreaming of."
But 3 months later he say he won't date her or return her calls
And she swear, "God damn, if I find that man I'm cuttin' off his balls."
And then she heads for the clinic and
she gets some static walking through the door
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner
and they call her a whore
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
'Cause then you really might know what it's like to have to choose
Chorus

Then you really might know what it's like
Then you really might know what it's like
Yeah then you really might know what's it like
To have the blues
Bridge

I've seen a rich man beg
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry
I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie
I've seen the good side of bad
And the downside of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup
And smoked the finest green
I stroked the fattest dimes at least a couple of times
before I broke their heart
You know where it ends, yo, it usually depends on where you start
Verse 3

I knew this kid named Max
who used to get fat stacks out on the corner with drugs
He liked to hang out late
he liked to get shit-faced and keep the pace with thugs
Until late one night there was a big old fight and Max lost his head
He pulled out his chrome .45, talked some shit, and wound up dead
Now his wife and his kids are caught in the midst of all of this pain
You know it comes that way
at least that's what they say when you play the game
God forbid you ever had to wake up to hear the news
'Cause then you really might know what it's like to have to lose
Chorus

Then you really might know what it's like
Then you really might know what it's like
Yeah then you really might know what's it like
To have the blues

Anyways What I learned was that beside the normal things that will get bleeped so will the following: god damn, balls, and whore. Needless to say the song while was still good was mostly unbearable to listen too like that. Although in this day and age I wonder realistic it is to keep the whole bleeping thing around.

So heres a tv commerical that is done so well it makes you feel guilty for not going out and buying the game and playing it.

The mailbox is always an adventure, especially for me. Today I got both my phone bills. Here's how they break down:

	Sprint	Verizon
Access	$40.45	$35
DSL	$39.99
Random Monthy Charge	$4.00	$5.58
Taxes and Surcharges	$39.15	$4.97
Total Monthly (without DSL)	$83.60	$45.55

What the hell? It costs me twice as much to have a phone that I never use?

BTW my Local service phone bill was $343.47, yah they had some major fuck ups on it, like partial montly fees that were wrong (since it took them two weeks to get me my dsl package from the time I ordered it), and they double billed be $100 for DSL hardware and setup.

Okay so its Monday, and time for my weekly ponderance. This thought began yesterday, and continued through the evening, fermenting overnight and is to be spewed forth now.

What if you could poison oil wells?

That's right, what if you could take the oil digesting bacteria that have been created and insert them into large oil reserves? What if you created a particularly hardy and vehement strain, so strong in fact that it would rapidly move into the deepest recesses of the earth to eat oil out of the wells, a strain that with even the mildest contact with other oil it would contaminate it, effectively shutting down any facility that were to handle it for fear of contaminating clean oil.

Now lets say one prior to doing this founded an alternative energies company offering devices that ran off of renewable source, or had renewable energy power plants (although coal fired power plants wouldn't be affected by this, the surge in electrical demand would require capacity to exist). Also lets say that company had formed partnerships with the major oil companies that would become the next "energy" companies, forming maps of those regions that would no longer be producing energy. That would be worth a tremendous amount of money.

So what wells do I think would be worth eliminating? Well Saudi and Iranian ones of course. All the countries that were made rich by oil would now perish by the lack of it. All of a sudden all that money they had would be gone and they couldn't continue living the way they currently do, there would be major upheaval in the population by the vast lifestyle differences. This would be especially dangerous in a country like Saudi Arabia where the entire population are servants to the one ruling family. Basically, the whole Saudi family would probably get eliminated in short order and their wealth redistributed if such a revolution were to occur. But sadly of course even after that the people would still continue to sink farther into poverty because there would no longer by a viable economic need to the world that they could provide.

In the short term one could use this sudden change to significantly help out a countries like Georgia and Russia with much needed funds and jobs from the oil that would pass through from the Caspian sea. Of course all good things will come to an end so they would have to already have other industries in place by that time. Hopefully the world shock would force people into changing over to be less dependent upon oil so that way if a cure would be found for these poisoned wells it would by that time be worthless.

Such a dramatic change the switch to renewable would probably be fast enough that we wouldn't even deplete the remaining wells in the world. This could be a saving grace for places like the United States and to a lesser extent Europe returning manufacturing and engineering jobs back since this energy source shift would allow these places to be suppliers instead of consumers.

Anyways, back to designing snubbers.

Okay so this evening’s shower time generated thoughts about off planet colonization. This is of course a good source of many thought problems (or as Einstein phrased them thought-experiments, of which I forgot the german name for...its kinda nifty so if anybody remembers feel free to post).

First, of course, is the fact that if we honestly look at it there is not practical reason for colonization. For simplicity’s sake I will refer to mars for the duration of this entry, but as I was saying economically if we were to create a colony on mars what would it do for the remaining earth bound society? Absolutely nothing, the mars colony’s economy would have to be totally isolated and of course much similar because it would go back to the more basic fundamentals of trade, a good for a good, a service for a service. I don’t think under these circumstances that a pecuniary system would actually function well in a small colony, I think it would have to be over a thousand individuals prior to that being effective.

Second, to create this colony it would require initially quite a bit of investment on earth here that will never see any return, after this initial one the colony would have to support itself fully, the ability to manufacture all the goods it requires, including construction materials for expansion so future missions would only require transportation of people, animals, scientific equipment, etc. In terms of society of course each and every person on the colony should have a useful skill, and have to work well with others, and of course have to be good parents, which leads to the next thing.

Thirdly, colonists would have to initially be picked from a broad group of genetics free of the vast majority of bad recessives. As a slight aside its kind of interesting that would of course mean that a decent number of the people there will not be attractive by today’s standards because as a society most of the united states and Europe have been breeding women that can not truly have children, actually there is a theory that is one of the reasons the Neanderthals died out.

Finally, the problem with having an isolated colony is the fact that everything coming to the colony would have to go though some sort of biological contaminate cleansing, as well as the fact that nobody would ever be able to come back to each for two reasons, the first being it would be far too inconvenient and economically infeasible to transport people back and forth and because after time the colonist immune systems would not be able to handle all the diseases that breed on earth.

Well that’s just a rough list of the ideas I had, the of course require a substantial amount more work.

So anyways I was in the shower, for some reason hot running water is so relaxing that I often forget where I am and just stand and think for quite a while, and I came to realize that I hardly will ever use a term of respect. I don't ever use sir or ma'am. I'll use Mr. Doe or Professor Smith, etc but I don't often use anything else.

Being in an introspective mood I've found that more than likely its because for the most part I view everybody as equals, because everybody will teach you something. There is always opportunity to learn from somebody no mater their age, position or qualifications. So in this train of thought everybody I know I treat as an elder naturally, and to arbitrarily assign one person a title and not another would in retrospect be highly disrespectful of the later.

Now if everybody is an elder then it is not a large leap to say that everybody is a peer. I of course would never mean disrespect towards a peer either, so really in my mind the terms are superfluous. Of course I will address somebody in a more formalized fashion using their earned title, but for the most part that's the extent of it. However, I always try to use a persons name, I don't create nicknames for people, I don't shorten names, or mispronounce them (well other then occasionally when my tongue doesn't seem to move right and everything comes out screwed up), so I guess in my mind that's the extent of how I address the need for respect in language, by acknowledging each and everyone's distinct designation.

This is the scale of how things work in the electronic rhelm.

A) Magic. This is when electronics works
B) More magic. This is when given the correct set of circumstances the thing works, otherwise it doesn't.
C) Magick. Electronics that work only when you touch the right spots.

I blame dave for this song being currently stuck in my head:

The Ones - Flawless
Flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless
Absolutely flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless
Absolutely flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless
Absolutely flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless
Absolutely flawless

Naturally your entrance is grand
Red carpet rolls out on the side they stand
Worshipping you like a goddess (like a goddess)
Somehow, you've remained modest
Flashbulbs pop, paparazzi goes wild
With amazing grace you walk and smile
They answer to your beck and call
You're flawless
After all overqualified for the position
Your dreams see fruition
Mere class on a higher plane
Everyone wants to know your name

Just like perfection
Needs no correction
Like no other
Absolutely

Just like perfection
Needs no correction
Like no other
Absolutely flawless
Flawless
Flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless
Absolutely flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless

Just like perfection
Ego alert, flawless
Absolutely flawless

News for today. I no longer have free cable and its hella windy outside. Weather.com says its at 41 mph gusting to 49. Well maybe the wind has knocked something out and it'll come back.... Well one can always hope right? :)

Also there are two problems the first being my room gets cold at night for this reason. And I'm afraid to put up the storm windows even though I have them, for this reason.

And the song that somehow got stuck in my head today is:

Artist: King Missile
Song: Detatchable Penis

Lyrics :

I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
And my penis was missing again.
This happens all the time.
It's detachable.

[background singing begins: "detachable penis" over and over]

This comes in handy a lot of the time.
I can leave it home, when I think it's gonna get me in trouble,
or I can rent it out, when I don't need it.
But now and then I go to a party, get drunk,
and the next morning I can't for the life of me
remember what I did with it.
First I looked around my apartment, and I couldn't find it.
So I called up the place where the party was,
they hadn't seen it either.
I asked them to check the medicine cabinet
'cause for some reason I leave it there sometimes
But not this time.
So I told them if it pops up to let me know.
I called a few people who were at the party,
but they were no help either.
I was starting to get desperate.
I really don't like being without my penis for too long.
It makes me feel like less of a man,
and I really hate having to sit down every time I take a leak.
After a few hours of searching the house,
and calling everyone I could think of,
I was starting to get very depressed,
so I went to the Kiev, and ate breakfast.
Then, as I walked down Second Avenue towards St. Mark's Place,
where all those people sell used books and other junk on the street,
I saw my penis lying on a blanket
next to a broken toaster oven.
Some guy was selling it.
I had to buy it off him.
He wanted twenty-two bucks, but I talked him down to seventeen.
I took it home, washed it off,
and put it back on. I was happy again. Complete.
People sometimes tell me I should get it permanently attached,
but I don't know.
Even though sometimes it's a pain in the ass,
I like having a detachable penis.

[background voices continue to sing "detachable penis" for
a while, then out]


I guess I should be careful of what I listen to just in case it gets stuck in my head....

You know alcohol is nice...but then again utterly annoying. As in after three shots of j&b and two guinnesses I don't feel a whole lot other then just being calmer and slower moving (no I am not dumb enough to even think about driving). But lets say I'd wanted to party hard on a weekend what would it take then? hrm.... last night I did actually dream and remembered the dream which is fairly unusual, the odd part to this dream was my knowledge that it was a dream, since that was an integral part of it. But sorry folks no details here.

wow I've posted too much today, I'm guessing the rest of the week will be fairly dull after this. So anyway I had a fairly interesting chat with Sal again in #rassm, not nearly like the previous one. But anyways the end result of which I've come to the following:

Premise A) America has exported a lot of its blue collar jobs
Premise B) America is starting to export a lot of its white collar jobs
Premise C) America has the largest and best equiped military
Conclusion) America should rename itself the Peacekeepers (yes this is a farscape reference) and be the military police of the world.

Okay for some really weird reason I thought of this song...so I had to search my mp3 collection and of course I found it, then listened to it, and I still have yet to figure out if its supposed to be a dirty song or if the guys were just high when they wrote the song. So I got the lyrics, yah it sounds dirty, but who knows.


Presidents of the USA
Peaches

Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches
I'm movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat me a lot of peaches
I'm movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches
Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man In a factory downtown
And if I had my little way, I'd eat peaches everyday
Sun soakin' bulges in the shade

Movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches
I'm movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches

I took a little nap where the roots all twist
Squished a rotten peach in my fist
And dreamed about you woman
I poked my finger down inside, made a little room for an ant to hide
Nature's candy in my hand or a can or pie

Yeah, yeah...

Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free...Look out!

Well I've come to the realization that I use this neither as a journal nor as a log. For the most part it just ends up a my strange semi-(insert appropriate adjective)social commentary. I wonder if I should choose to change the focus it takes, but then again for the most part I only get sporadic comments anyways.

On a heavy note far too many of my friends and some not-acquaintances-but-not-really-friends seem to be sinking in some kind of strange depression. This is not good for many reasons. All too many of them seem to be relationship based and it is just too incredibly hard to try to counsel somebody in regards to relationships since it is something each and everybody needs to come in terms with themselves. It would be nice if there were some kind of magic solution to make all my friends not depressed. And of course you can never say "I know such and such with the same problem" because that just trivalizes the problem and everybody deep inside actually feels their problem is the biggest one ever and really just need understanding from someone. So yes I understand, but only because down inside everybody is the same with the same problems. To quote myself again everybody needs to be wanted, nobody wants to be needed. That simple fact covers both ends of the problem spectrum.

Somebody is actually starting to make sense in the whole RIAA vs the world battle. Sony Release New Music Protection Scheme. Of note is the quote at the end by Sony Music Chief Technology Officer Phil Wiser, "All copy-protections can be hacked, But if give people what they are asking for in terms of value, they won't go out and steal it. It's called trusting the consumer." Wow I'm impressed now if you can only get the rest of the folks to realize that we are sick of a) no way to previewing a whole album, b) having to pay huge prices for an album we haven't heard yet, and c) are ready for the music industry to lead technology instead of being stuck in the stone age.

You have to love the brits. The Jerry Springer Opera. Thats right, an opera based off the tv show. Pretty amazing, I think it would actually be interesting to watch for as Richard Thomas the composer said, "It's got tragedy. It's got violence. There are people screaming at each other and you can't understand what they're saying. It's perfect for opera."

To all those websites out there in internet land. If you take cookies I expect you to present banner ads that A) Are maybe a little bit targeted to my age group (not some stupid yahooligans christmas banner) and B) not annoying (the Atkins butt-in-yer-face ads)

Okay so time for what I call "Today's Duhs in the News"

• US Says Al Qaeda Aims to Topple Saudi Royals Un huh... what would you expect of an exhiled Saudi citizen who just happens to be the most wanted terrorist?
  
• Young U.S. Sniper Suspect Set for Trial on Monday. Blah, Blah, Blah, Insanity Defense, blah, blah, Brainwashing. I guess its a good thing that it never really does much for the defense cause on one hand you get spared the death penalty but on the other had you basically admit to the fact you did it, so you may as well just plea bargin.
  
• Gore rips Bush on civil liberties. And this is news?
  
• Storm over Russian billionaire’s arrest. "...but analysts say the detention has more to do with politics than economics..." Un huh... this is oil we're talking about.
  

Random quote: "No Duh. Duh is a product of fear" Kitty from Donnie Darko. Great movie, you should watch it. You know what another great movie is? Monkeybone, you should watch that too.

Reason number one that diesels make sense:

Cost per mile for me driving my truck pulling a heavy-ass trailer with a truck on it is not that far off from cost per mile for me driving my car. Sad? I would say so.

Basis of this analysis:
Vehicle 1: Chevy 1/2 ton 6.2L Diesel, fuel consumption during trip: 15 gal, trip distance: 180 miles, fuel cost per mile: $0.11
Vehicle 2: Oldsmobile Intrigue 3.5L V6, average fuel consumption: 27 mpg, fuel cost per mile: $0.07

Granted the costs aren't really close, but given the differences in tasks (need I mention the weight this weekend was probably along the lines of 11,000 lbs) it is surprising how close they are.

Okay so today's topic: Sort term economic stimulus. To prevent the economy from dipping into an "recession" what do you do? First off lets identify some things. The strength of our economy is, for the most part, measured by GDP and CI. There is nothing really built in to measure efficiency or power or reserves in comparison to the rest of the world. So basically a recession is people are less willing to buy new, thus companies produce less, thus companies are forced to become more efficient. Keep in mind we are still talking about short term. Since we are living with taxes right now and we can't eliminate them fully here is why giving a substantial tax break to the lower income ends up helping the economy more than having a fixed percentage across the board (basically it turns into an optimization problem between how much you're willing to give up in tax revenue and how much you get out by keeping the economy out of "recession" the ideal of course is to make out better then not giving the break). The everyday American doesn't save, this is very nearly one of the axioms behind the current economy. If you cut taxes to middle class and below they will spend it, they probably won't pay off debt, they'll probably buy new. This of course helps with how we measure economic strength, and everybody becomes happy and then the economy does return to strength because everybody thinks its strong. You have to create the appearance of strength to create strength. This of course increases the stock prices, etc and eventually means money for those who invest their surplus. Now on the other hand if you were to cut taxes on the upper part the same as the lower part, it is very likely that money would not go back into the economy as money to blow on new goods, because the upper could already purchase those new goods when they desired, so the money returned would go into paying of debts and towards investments, basically the smart choice. Does this give us the appearance of a strong economy? No, because how we measure strength will not reflect these investments. Stock prices, etc will then continue on plummeting and eventually the "recession" increases in effect. Also think about stock prices on the short term, a company does not create new jobs, change budgets, or anything of the like with a short term stock rise. They pay dividends, or else do nothing. So all in all, the whole picture needs to be taken into account before a hasty judgment is made about the rich making if off worse then the poor because their tax cut is less. Do you see any of them complaining about it? Maybe there's a reason, maybe they're willing to forego a little surplus to keep the market from dropping into "recession" which has long term effects for everybody. Need I bring up that the upper crust that is creating the tax cuts to begin with?

There shall be one thing I will always find first and foremost annoying as well as insulting and abusive. This would be any vehicle wiring harness that is now a rat's nest because of someone who tore through it in a search for that "one wire" without trying to preserve the sanctity that was the wiring harness.

Turkey has now accused the US of showing favoritism towards the Kurds. Hrm lets see, most of the important oil fields are to the north in kurdish land. Turkey always tries to gain control of that land, its almost sickening how often they try stunts behind our backs to gain control. So who gives a rip about iraq anyhow? We want the northern oil fields, we like the kurds, so its going to stay this way. And if an independent nation of the kurds arise so be it, that just makes our lives better right?

Okay so we were doing some web surfing the other day to find something (I don't remember what it was since it was Friday) but we found this article. I think the whole idea is pretty damn wild, I wouldn't mind having one of the camouflage suits myself.

We also found this article. The gist of this one being about competitive economies and that some how a tiny nation, Finland, topped the list. And the reason? "Honesty is a big factor, as the nation had high scores for judicial independence, property rights and the absence of crime and corruption." Now go figure honesty and integrity are a major factor in how well a country's economy performs? What a concept! I mean who'd of thunk it?

I understand making a Fashion Statement. But Damn! Keanu I don't think work boots and a suit work.

Well so far here is an interesting turn of events for the next xbox microsoft is planning on releasing. While I don't play any console games I do find the choices interesting.

	...Xbox...	...Xbox 2...
Video	Nvidia	ATI
CPU	Intel	IBM
Chipset	Intel	SiS

So it seems like microsoft is betting on the "other" guys this time around. Maybe its to "prevent" the linux comunity from taking advantage of cheap PCs.

Those in the eastern time zone go look at the moon at 8:20pm on Saturday, November 8th.