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No Reports  Preface: 1. Where did you take your default pic? A picture of snow falling on a white canvas... 2. What exactly are you wearing right now? Blue Shirt, Navy Slacks, belt, shoes and undergarment 3. What is your current problem? Me need Cable and Internet. 4. What makes you most happy? When I' happy I tend not to measure in degrees. 5. What's the name of the song that you're listening to? Idle office chatter (remix) 6. Has anyone you've been really close with passed away? All my grandparents have moved on. Have not lost a peer 7. Do you ever watch MTV? No 8. What's something that really annoys you? Cable companies who have yet to provide cable and internet. People who use the royal we. ---------------------------------------- Chapter 1: 1. Middle name? A. (I'm so.. giving my child a one letter middle name) 2.Nickname(s)? I'd answer this but I would accidently create more in the process 3. Current location? Work. 4. Eye color? Blue. ---------------------------------------- Chapter 2: 1. Do you live with your parents? No. 2. Do you get along with your parent(s)? Yes. A few hundred miles helps. 3. Are your parents married/divorced/remarried? Married 4. Do you have any Siblings? Two ---------------------------------------- Chapter 3: Favorite... 1. Ice Cream? Mint chocolate chip is my general default answer. Becky is obsessed with soem pumpkiny thing from Trader Joe's at the moment. 2. Season? 2 of West Wing, 1 of Veronica Mars, 1 of Lost.. ---------------------------------------- Chapter 4: Do You... 1. Write on your hand? Not on purpose 2. Call people back? Eventually 3. Believe in love? Yup. Although I don't believe it to be as unique as most 4. Sleep on a certain side of the bed? The side with the stuff on the floor. Hmm maybe I'm missing the cause and effect 5. Have any bad habits? Nah I'm perfect. (Don't read the previous answer.. Or talk to anyone who knows me) 6. Have any mental health issues? Is crazy a disease? It is? Damn. ---------------------------------------- Chapter 5: Have You.... 1. Broken a bone? Not since I was two 2. Had physical therapy? Nope 3. Had stitches? Nope 4. Taken painkillers? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeees. I mean Yes 5. Gone SCUBA diving or snorkeling? Nope. 6. Been stung by a bee? Once I think. 7. Thrown up at the dentist? Possibly. I think I would of blocked that out. 8. Sworn in front of your parental units. Nope. 9. Had detention? Where did it say in the classroom rules that you couldn't play cards in Bio 10. Been sent to the principal's office: Not that I can recall. Then again that fits for about 98% of high school 11. Been suspended? Nope. 12. Bought new stuff in the past week? Yes. Bought used stuff too. ---------------------------------------- Chapter 6: Who, what or when was the last... 1. Movie you watched? Fantastic Four. The commentary is painful. Hoping for a revisionist Coming of Galactus where Galactus steps on the Invisible Woman. 2. Person to text you? Rich 3. Person you called? My Sister 4. Person you hugged? Becky 5. Person you tackled? I don't remember. My life needs more physical violence 6. Thing you touched? Mouse 7. Thing you ate? Chicken Parmesian Frozen Lunch and Whoppers (How many food groups is that?) 8. Thing you drank? Agua 9. Time you cried? Don't recall 10. Wished upon a star? Last time I was unemployed.. 11. Person you hung out with: Becky ---------------------------------------- Chapter 7: Misc 1. When is the last time you held hands with someone? This morning 2. You wake up next to the opposite gender; what's the one thing you do? This is normal. Go back to sleep. 3. Have you ever crawled through a window? Yup 4. Where is your mom? Home 5. Are you a morning or a night person? Are you serious? 6. Do you have a crush on anyone right now? No 7. Things about the opposite sex you notice first? Expression 8. What do you do when no one is watching? Surveys 9. Ever been in love? Yes. 10. What's something your friends make fun of you for? Remember the part where I said I was perfect? Yeah they make fun of me for that. I'm too perfect.. 11. What is your curfew? No 12. Would you ever dye your hair red? Probably not 13. What's your worst personality flaw? Like I said overly perfect. 14. What career would you wish to be in? Something tells me I would enjoy working in baseball a bit. 15. Which place would you like to visit? San Diego, Seattle, Baltimore, Italy, Tour of Europe, New Zealand, ... Its a long list. 16. Do you want a well paying job or a job you enjoy? It is all relative. I can turn a lot of money into enjoyment and security. 17. When were you last on the phone? Last night 18. What were the shoes you wore today? New black ones. 19. Do you like math? Numbers good 20. What about history? More then I did in school mostly cause it is the worst taught subject (other then maybe economics) Plugs Lies My Teacher Told Me. 21. Have you ever seen 5 squirrels at one time? You went to Bradley too? 22. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Not quite. 23. Do you have a brother? Yes. He is in Korea. The one that doesn't want to kill us.. as much. 24. Did your great granddad fight in the civil war? Nope. They were too busy Immigrating. Trying to turn this into a rant advocating open borders but not succeeding. 25. Who's your favorite person to talk to online? Deryl i guess 26. Have you ever used photobucket? To view pictures 27. Do you like hugs? Yeah, as long as it's somebody I know. 28. Do you want to be a doctor? No 29. Have you ever fallen asleep with gum in your mouth? No 30. What do you do right before you go to bed? Fall 31. ...right when you get out of bed? Stumble 32. Do you want to be famous? Would be useful. 33. Do you spend a lot of time contemplating life? Not recently 34. Do you do your own laundry? With Becky. I miss having laundry in my building. So I am reminded how cut off I have become from my previous worlds. You would think I would continue that with an update about what I've been up, but no. Instead on to politics. I became a bit of a poll junkie in 2004 and it has continued now. http://www.electoral-vote.com becomes one of the first things I go to in the morning. While it is arguable that the democrats would be better off sweeping into power in '08, I'm of the mindset that that one should take power when one can get it. And with only a handful of endangered incumbents and many opportunities for pickups, now is a good time for the dems to regain some power. I'm hoping for enough to cause some level of accountability over the last 6 years. At the moment the democrats need to gain four governorships, 6 senate seats and 14 house spots in order to become the majority. The governor majority is virtuously assured and not especially important. NY and Mass both are going to democratic in land slides (previous there have been republicans to balance power)and another 4-6 are likely or attainable. The house is also likely to go democratic with the main question of by how much. The Foley scandal is killing the reps and the current estimate of seats they will lose is ~20-25. I'll delve into that further another day. For now lets discuss the senate. In the senate there are 9 races that still undecided barring drastic events. They are NJ, TN, PA, RI, CT, MT, OH, VA, MO. Outside these seats the republicans have 48 senators so all they have to do is win 2 of these seats to maintain at least a tie breaker advantage. In CT Lieberman (CFL) has been consistently leading Lamont (D) by 8-10 points with the republican in the single digits. Lieberman is getting nearly all republican support and enough democratic votes to be leading comfortably. Still he has said he will caucus with the democrats, so it not necessary for Lamont to win in order to achieve majority. That leaves us with 8 seats all previously reps held except NJ. Dems need 7 for the majority. In PA Casey (D), a moderate democrat, has been handily beating Sanctorum, a far right republican, in a blue state. In MT Tester(D) has been beating Burns (R) due to the latter's connections with corruption scandals and strange comments (like complaining his firefighters were lazy), OH thanks to scandal and dislike of the incumbant Dewine (R), Brown (D) is starting to pull away. RI incumbant Chafee (R) withstood a strong challenge from a more conservative rep, but is now losing to Whitehouse (D). RI looks like it is deciding a democratic majority is more important then keeping their moderate republican. While there is a still a month to go and things can change, polling in those four, PA, MT, OH, RI show increasing dem leads. The dem would have to be considered the favorite in each race and if they get all the quest for the more majority becomes much more attainable. If they lose any of those seats a majority will be nearly impossible. That leaves us with 4 more NJ, MO, TN, and VA. NJ has an unpopular and scandal ridden democratic imcumbant, but it is a blue state in a good year to be a democrat. Menendez (D) has recovered a little in recent polls against Kean (R), MO has been a tossup for a while with the rep ahead a little more often that not. TN and VA both started with large rep leads which have all but been erased. In TN with Frist's (R) retirement, Ford (D) has been running neck and neck with Corker (R) as of late. The fact that the race is that competitive should tell you enough about Frist's presidential chances. IN VA a number of controversial actions has Allen (R) to drop to within a couple points of Webb (D). He is still winning but not by the margin of a future presidential candidate that Allen had aspired to be. So that leaves us with 4 likely dem takeovers, 3 tossups, and one lean rep. I'll predict dems take MO and keep NJ, lose TN and VA and reach a tie. Not bad for how we were looking a couple years ago. Oh and 7 games from a World Championship!!!!!!! 1. Repeat after me. The Dark Phoenix Saga is not a subplot. It also might help to have the Phoenix Saga first. 2. Overall the reviews seemed about right. It was not in the class of the first two but not a franchise killer. The 2nd half picked up a bit for a lackluster opening act. 3. The big battle was pretty cool. Beast and Wolverine fighting side by side and Magneto leading troops. However it would of been helpful to the X-men if they had someone who had a power to say create rain and produce ice to counteract burning cars. Having some device that gets rid of mutant powers might additionally be useful on a rogue member of one's team. Perhaps even more useful then killing her. 4. Other then the major gaffe of changing the essence of Phoenix (Phoenix is an outside entity that possessed Jean Grey not born inside of her) there was one other continuity issue I was yelling at the movie for. If you want male and female for the Brotherhood it shouldn't be too hard to pick outs which ones. There is no reason those two should not have been Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Magneto's children, and original Brotherhood members. You can't even make an argument that they wanted Callysto for her powers. She doesn't have those powers she used in the movie. 5. Beast and Kitty Pryde, my favorite two X-men, were both very well done. It is kind of like West Wing where a new guy brings in interesting and well developed new characters (well some of them) but royally screws up all the existing ones. 6. Has there ever been a character who is in the main team as underutilized as Collasus. Made Archangel look like the star. 7. Was Storm's only purpose to stand around until the perfect opportunity to say cliche lines came up? 8. Cyclops.. Rogue... nuff said. 9. Juggernaut is an unstoppable force thanks to mystical forces. Somehow that didn't quite come across. 10. Magneto abandoning Mystique was a bit out of character but more from a practically standpoint then a moral one. He wouldn't make an enemy of someone who knew so much. 11. Magneto and Wolverine movies have the potential to be very good. Also happily Silver Surfer will be in FF2. Now as long as they don't make the Coming of Galactus into a subplot... I have a little more steadiness with my temp work. I'm working for the Mass school of Art's admission department. While it is somewhat interesting being on the inside of admissions , the work is extremely tedious data entry. It pays better but still not well enough, partially due to the 1 hour required lunch. Though wandering around the artsy parts of Boston is kind of fun. In other news it looks like Democratic Governors have won in New Jersey and Virginia. New Jersey was expected but Virginia was a complete tossup. They actually had a previous Democratic Governor named Mark Warner who was term-limited and thus their were two new entrees. As an aside don't be surprised to hear Warner's name come up for 2008 general election. There aren't many popular Dem governors from red states. Anyways Virginia is a key state that went for Bush by a small but significant margin. The fact that the Dems were able to win in a red state fairly handily (looks like by ~5 points) is a very positive sign toward 2006 and 2008. It really doesn't take that much of a shift to get governmental control again. If Virginia turns blue things won't be that close. Well off to bed. Goodnight moon. One of the original purposes of having a live journal was so I can keep people abreast of the events of my life. I have not done this for any number of reasons but figure I should probably share things like what state I'm living in. I'm in the great state of Massachusetts. I'm living in Brighton which is or isn't in Boston depending on what definition you want to use. It is about a 25 minute T (a nice, cheap, and slow mode of transportation) ride to downtown (or 5 minutes by car). My address is 1715 Commonwealth Ave - Apt 7 Brighton, Ma 02135 Feel free to send house warming gifts... like furniture ;) I also believe we are having a house warming party at some point though I don't think that is practical info for most who read this. I'll try to answer a few questions that generally come up first. What are you doing... For the moment I'm participating in a guaranteed work program offered by an agency named Professional Staffing Group (PSGstaffing.com). Last Thur/Fri I worked for the accounting wing of EFtours (the people you give money to take school sponsored trips abroad) I processed checks and applications in one of the most boring 16 hour periods of my life. On the other hand I did get to a can on Coors Light at work on friday so thats something. The Guaranteed work program is a bit of a misnomer though. It is more like guaranteed pay program as the grand total of work I have done thus far today was picking up someone's lunch. In fact I'm "working" right now. It does not pay well enough to really live on, but it is something. I get to search for better/more permanent work while being paid. It also gives them more of a chance to look for long-term work for me. So it theory it should work out pretty well. Why Boston? Boston is pretty close to an ideal city for me at this point. It is within 5 hours of home and other major cities. 90% of people you will see on the streets are in there 20's. It is a college city and there isn't anything else like it. It is aA far more relaxing place to live then NY while not being in the middle of nowhere. It is also more then any other place absolutely obsessed with baseball. Having a waiter know exactly what you mean when you say small market success isn't something that appeals to everyone. But it certainly makes me happy. There are more practical reasons too. Living at home wasn't working especially well and a friend from home wanted to Boston where we both have mutual friends. It really was as simple as that. I moved in to my new place Nov 1st and will be here for at least a year. Where are you living? I'm living in a 2nd floor apartment in a 3 story building. It has 2 bedrooms, bath, kitchen, living room, foyer, and a balcony. Fairly spacious place with the only real issue is a general lack of closet/storage space. We still need furniture for the living room and bedrooms but otherwise are pretty set. Which is good since I need to start having days in which more money is made then spent. We also need to make another trip to NY to get the rest our stuff too (Would be trip 3 and there were things brought before we moved up) I think that is all the major stuff. My phone number and e-mail are still the same as before (though I prefer you use joelfriedhr at gmail dot com for gmail is infinitely better then juno). Ask me anything I didn't answer. Byes Hmm seems like it has been a while since I posted. I have any number of things I wish/should write about so lets start with a fun one. Thanks to the help of Matt, David, Anti-Joel and Amy among others an updated version of Geekk is ready for wide-scale play-testing (so contact your local drunk fraternities). For those of you who are unaware Geekk is a game created as a Psi Phi variant of the game Fluxx. The updates include quotes on all Geek cards, new No report card text, blank cards, a replacement card to fix the broken rule, and reformatting of all cards so that they are all uniform. You can download the Word file here Any issues, comments, death threats, etc comment away. I'm also going to invite you to use the comments thread for card ideas for a 2nd (a prequel) and 3rd (a sequel)edition card ideas. Cards can overlap between sets. I don't plan on finishing either of those projects soon but certainly a lit of card ideas will help the process Enjoy. I promise I'll get to the rants. I have the thought process for most just need to take care of some other things first. Anyway I leave you with. A copy of Geekk Version 1b (ie How many games have you made) the home game if you can idenify the source. Feel free to take a guess even if you don't know it. I'm curious on first reactions. "We are innocent They are guilty We tell the truth, inform They lie, use propaganda We defend ourselves They are aggressors We are law abiding They are criminals and outlaws We respect our agreements and treaties and abide by international law They are liars, cheaters, thieves, and oppotunists who break treaties We are Peace keepers. Our use of force is a police action to protect law and order. They are violent, gangsters, a criminal band We stand for justice and civil rights They brutalize, repress, tyrannize both their own and their neighbors Our leaders govern with the consent of the people Their leaders are usurpers with no popular support who will eventually be overthrown. The enemy commits torture, atrocity, and murder because he is a sadist who enjoys killing. We use surgical or strategic violence only because we are forced to by our enemy." Current mood:  complacent.
Yoinked from that guy and that other guy it's the Make Me Rant game. Here are the rules: Comment with any subject that you would like me to rant on. Any subject--I don't even have to agree with it (although I may rant on the opposite side in that case--it's my rant, after all). Watch my journal for your rant. Post this in your own journal, so that you may rant for others. Current mood:  blank.
Will have some more substantial posts whenever I get tired of this being on top of my journal page. This might take a while. It is now the week after. The shell shock is subsiding. There are allegation of strange voter results in Ohio that should be investigated, but for now we must assume we lost. The depression is slowly turning into determination. It is not in our best interest to give up on this country. We cannot and we will not. So the choice presented to us is one of how. This is written for the democratic base. A strong Bush supporter would be hard pressed not to be offended. If that is who you are, then this piece is not meant to deal with you. It is meant for us. For every person who is stunned that half this country voted for Bush I ask that you read this. These are my opinions but I think them important. Feel free to share yours. You may not consider yourself a democrat, but for this we must act as one unit. What shocked the people of Boston and New York and all the other metropolises was not that Bush won, but rather that 59 million people thought reelecting him was a good idea. The lesson to be learned is we have not done enough. There are those who will always support the republican. Those are not the votes we can get. Take out everyone who voted for Alan Keyes and you are left with a people who can be convinced. We have four years to convince them. The people who voted for Bush did so on a group of facts that was different then ours. They thought the Iraqi war was going well, that Iraq had a connection to 9/11 and, that perhaps the bible would be banned. The media failed. We failed. We have the facts on our side and knowledge is power. But we need to be able to use it. We need to go into the rural areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania and everywhere and show the truth. Those who know the facts vote overwhelmingly for the democrats. They talk about the age gap but the education gap is just as impressive. We must make sure the country is smarter place and then it will be a better place. The fourth estate let us down. Rather then search for truth they have become what Jon Stewart aptly called partisan hacks. Most people know what fox news is, but CNN is really not much better. The thing that angered me most about watching Fahrenheit 9/11 is the fact that this movie had to be made. That the mainstream media failed to ask the questions that they should of asked. It shouldn't take an independent film maker to find out what Bush did initially after the attacks, what the Patriot act said, or to ask about the connections between Saudi Arabia and the Bush family. Sure some of Moore's theories were probably wrong, but they deserve to be investigated. It is tolerable for the media to make a mistake in trying to get truth in a story. It is intolerable for an administration to lie about the facts that cause a war. The media created Michael Moore and Air America because they failed to do there jobs. When we go to war it is there job to question it every step of the way. We need to know if there are WMD, how the world reacts to our moves, and if there are connections between Iraq and 9/11. There role is to tell us the truth, and not blindly support a war, because we just made it wartime. We need facts and not spin. They are our eyes and ears and they must give us truth, not rhetoric and sensationalism. Even when they try to give truth with "fact checkers" they try so hard to be even-handed that everyone is made out to be the same. Well we are more honest then our opponent and we to have that come across as such. What is worse is this sentiment that the media is biased towards the liberals so even when the media is even we get blamed. We need to rid the world of that stereotype. If we are going to be blamed for being liberal then let’s actually be liberal. Our first step is to be us again. We need to stop hiding from the term liberal as if it’s this dark mark upon us. We need to make Howard Dean the head of our party. We need a voice of anger and determination. We can't tell society that our way is a little bit better then there's. We need to tell them that they are wrong and why they are wrong. Why neoconservatives will hurt them in the short run and the long run. The decision needs to be as obvious to the people in the rural Midwest as it is to us. John Kerry did what he could, but we need a candidate who makes the simple case that we are the right choice not one to panders for the independent vote. We need to go after the republican vote. We need to not run away from lines that initially cause us to be attacked. When we say there is a global test then let us stand behind it. Let us say we live in one world getting closer together and of course we should consider the ramification it will have on the rest of the world because that will affect us. When they attack us for being complicated we need to say, as Clinton did, that wisdom and strength are not opposing virtues. Lets not run away from gay marriage because its unpopular, but champion it because its right. Let us show people our values and that the republicans don’t own the book on them. We, the individuals, likewise have a role to play. The ones crying, cursing, bitter need to do our part. We need to be become teachers and to do that we need to learn. We need to become experts on the issues so we can debunk myths and argue our side effectively. When we here lies we need to point them out. We need to not avoid topics that cause confrontation because we don't like to argue. We assumed that people would see the light. But people are sheep and they can't listen to what isn't said. Don't argue the fundamental issues that aren't going to be changed like abortion, but argue the war on Iraq, argue what causes terrorism, and argue our role in the world. The responsibility of educating the ignorant falls upon our shoulders. The makeup of the country leaves me pessimistic about taking back the house or the senate anytime soon. However we were not that far from the presidency. We convince 100,000 people in Ohio or a bit more in Florida and the country is ours to run again The next step starts now. It is a longer process then we thought. We have lost our idealism and our trust. But there still is a war to be fought and we must fight it. We mustn’t risk the alternative. The Red Sox won the World Series this year after 86 years of untold misery. That is enough of a reminder to me that there is always hope. Find your reminder and join me on the battlegrounds. The battle for '08 has already begun. Let us find our battle cry. "I am not leaving! Please hear what I said. I am not leaving! I’m staying where I’m at, thank you very much. And as long as I stand upon her soil, She will be my Land of the Free. As long as I believe what I believe, You will see the meaning of Brave! I will not, under threat of tyranny or mob, Toss the place that I love in the ashen pile of lost causes, And walk quietly into a meaningless mist! No, I will stay. And you will listen! You will not lecture me about values! You will not receive the exclusive rights to my morality! Please hear what I said. For wherever I stand upon her soil, I am the deep well of my beloved country’s finest values and highest morals: Fairness, compassion, wisdom, strength, common sense, tolerance. And you shall tremble before them, for they are righteous! So let the cheers for my demise die this night in a million throats! Let the gloating turn to great and frightening doubt! For I am not leaving! My beloved country needs me now more than ever she has before. And I pledge my allegiance to that which she still is, And to that great and shining day that she has yet to live!" Author unknown |
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