| Presidential Election |
[May. 20th, 2007|08:46 pm] |
Let me just say that I am elated to see the number of presidential candidates in the running and soon to be. I am very interested to see some more hot debate with Mike Gravel and Ron Paul involved. I also feel this year is the year the media loses control and we realize we are gaining our power back due to the internets.
That's all I have for now, and Rudy - you gotta lose that lisp!
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| An understatement |
[Sep. 29th, 2006|06:58 am] |
The understatement of the century:
"Rumsfeld: No one anticipated insurgency's strength"
Donald Rumsfeld's Iraqi war plan worked beautifully for three weeks. U.S. troops quickly deposed Saddam Hussein and captured Baghdad with a relatively small force and with lightning speed.
But with Iraq on the verge of civil war three years later, the secretary of defense now admits that no one was well-prepared for what would happen after major combat ended.
"Well, I think that anyone who looks at it with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight has to say that there was not an anticipation that the level of insurgency would be anything approximating what it is."
Well there are a few things we could have done:
-not confused Afghanistan with Iraq
-waited for a vote from Congress before going to war
-gathered proper intellegence before invading another country
-sent enough troops to get it done the first time, why not send a sledgehammer to crack a walnut? Cost? I'm sure it would be nothing compared to how much it costs right now if we could have had it finished
-KNOW YOUR ENEMY! - kinda hard to do when you are just pork barreling for your buddies (Haliburton) right?
While I'm at it, how about not using "fear" or "terror" in EVERY news segment since 9/2001? This seems oddly familiar, I think I saw a nation like this in my history class and they were led to be unified against a common goal, hating Jews. This sounds very familiar. I agree the extremists Muslims can go to hell, but that doesn't mean that Muslims should be persecuted. I always find it humorous that we even try to reason with them though. You cannot reason with the type of person that sees killing themselves as a promotion. When we are at war, I also understand that it is nasty, bloody, ugly, and not to be used unless utterly necessary - when it is used and you pander to the media, it's nothing more than a sham. Women and children will die! We must also match savagery seen by the enemy and finish it while instilling fear in the enemy - not just hatred. |
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| Grammar |
[Apr. 7th, 2006|11:47 am] |
I am not sure when this started happening, but I am noticing a lot of grammatical laziness these days. The gratuitous apostrophe is rampant. you're/your and they're/their seem to be hopelessly intertwined, and shortcut words make you sound like a 13 year-old!
pls stop usng wrds lke ths.
Just because we are on teh fAstarWeb, doesn't mean you can talk like you are in the AOL chatrooms. This is especially disappointing when seen in professional and corporate communications. |
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| Germany trip. |
[Mar. 12th, 2006|11:59 pm] |
The snowboard trip to Germany was awesome. I kinda wish it was longer or maybe I could live there for a bit, too much to see and experience. I will get some pictures and write more about it soon. For now I will just put up one:( Hello! ) |
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| Google is AMAZING, fanboys unite! |
[Jan. 20th, 2006|07:15 am] |
No, not really. First off, I think I said a while back that Google will be a target of our gub'ment since it does not have a privacy policy to throw away old data! It uses this data to make the service better -- Uncle Sam would like to use it for other things, like finding children looking for porn (child pornography)??? Anyway, they are fighting it, but one day they will lose, it is inevitable.
On another note, they are adding an awesome feature to Gmail, and you may not even know how to use it. It's called:
The Delete Button!!!
Wow, now these guys are bright. Why didn't I think of that? Instead of archiving my junkmail, or using the "move to trash" dropdown, I can now just click a button. Next problem: world hunger. At the rate these guys are going, I expect it to be tackled by dinner tomorrow. |
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| New Car |
[Jan. 15th, 2006|10:19 pm] |
I finally got my car, I pick her up tomorrow. She looks much like this (only mine is silver):
 |
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| Small update. |
[Jan. 5th, 2006|11:04 pm] |
Site of the day:
Punctuation Made Simple
The Facebook is actually displaying pictures pretty quickly, so I uploaded a good few up there now.
Welcome to 2006.
Pretty cool game I have been playing lately (click the ribbon for stats). |
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| Update, because I can. |
[Dec. 28th, 2005|10:31 pm] |
This is the kind of update I hate; stream of consciousness. Here goes:
That being said, I got a myspace account [http://www.myspace.com/osbjmg], because that is another buzzword I loathe. The local newspapers are just getting wind of myspace/livejournal/blogger/xanga/thefacebook and blaming them for kids dying1? I will fill the myspace with junk, I just wanted to secure my place in the craphole that is the teenie-net. I may even get some crappy song to play really loudly as soon as you enter my page :)
And for all of those using Web 2.0, get with the times! I am on web 3.1 Preview Release, and it is wonderful! Seriously, I don't want to hear that word (web 2.0) ever again.
1Speaking of blaming someone for people dying, how about Canada eh? "We suck as border patrol, and we think your guns got in here somehow, and that kills Canadians." Well guess what? When Americans kill Americans, do we blame poutine? NO! When Canadians kill Canadians (I don't even think the guns came from the U.S.), somehow that is the collective fault of another NATION? At least blame it on Grand Theft Auto, or television, sheesh!
Gaim 2.0 is out.
The meanwhile plugin is an excellent alternative to sametime.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gaim/
Increasingly addicted to digg :(
last.fm rocks!
Check me out, yo: http://www.last.fm/user/osbjmg/
This is the best wiki/link ever.
Yet another reason to stay in Durham.
Things I should doing right now:
Find a good todo list online.
Plan for the snowboard trip to Austria (February).
Planning for newyears.
Reading up on IGRP.
Listening to Third Eye Blind.
Listening to Gorillaz. |
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| Just a thought... |
[Oct. 12th, 2005|07:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  good | ] |
| [ | music |
| | ATB - Believe In Me | ] |
I think the #1 thing we can all do to make life a bit more simple is this:
If someone asks you something to which you do not know the answer... just say you do not know the answer.
I am growing very tired of people who just want to give me an answer and do not actually care if it is right or not. If I wanted a guess or a blatently wrong answer, I would have come up with that myself and not asked in the beginning!
Seriously, consider it -- I'll bet you do it way more than you think.
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| something really dumb |
[Oct. 11th, 2005|11:22 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Alkaline Trio - Continental | ] |
I am about to embark on a stupid purchase in the next 6 months here - the NEW CAR. We are all taught that this is the worst investment you could possibly make, but what about that trip to Disney Land? That is all lost, and the investment is in FUN. All I have to say is: "Can Mickey Mouse do 0-60 in < 5 seconds?" Or, could he do 60-0 in 114 feet? The answers there would definately be a big no. My investment will be in fun. =) Honestly though, it is safer having all wheel drive and a car that can get out of dodge if need be.
Offensive driving is the best defense. |
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| Studying again. |
[Oct. 9th, 2005|11:40 pm] |
I have started out on a long-term goal to pass the CCIE written and lab by ~summer 2006. I don't find this interesting, but I want to have it documented somewhere so I am not tempted to back out too easily. A study group has been formed and we are posting all progress @ http://ccie.osbjmg.com |
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| Political Alignment. |
[Sep. 26th, 2005|10:14 pm] |
You are a
Social Liberal
(60% permissive)
and an...
Economic Conservative
(63% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Centrist
Link: The Politics Test |
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| iHave a mac! |
[Apr. 22nd, 2005|07:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | ecstatic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Tusnami Bomb - 20 Going On... | ] |
I have no idea what to do with it, but it is very sleek, small, and spiffy.
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| Stuff |
[Nov. 22nd, 2004|12:04 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Rammstein - Sonne | ] |
Work is picking up, but it is great becuase it keeps me occupied all day; I never have to look at the clock. I have also been spending a lot of quality time with myself, it is going great. I drive a lot and listen to my music, really really loudly. This weekend I went to a show: The Bouncing Souls with The Loved Ones, Let it Burn, Against Me!, and Murphey's Law. The show definately rocked. The place was called The Cat's Cradle, and it is the perfect size; big enough to hold maybe 300 people, but with about 500 actually in there. My ears are still ringing and every time I ask someone to repeat themselves, it makes me remember how live it was =)
I am going home for Thanksgiving on Wednesday night, hopefully I can get the laundry done before then. I find laundry is the most challenging thing in my life, I may be a little bit retarded. My plans for Christmas break involve going to Whistler, BC for 5 days... this mountatin is huge and it promises to be an awesome trip. Later in January, my friend Levon and I are going to head out to Salt Lake City to check out Snowbird--which will also be awesome.
Bring on the 3 day work week, I hope everyone else has a great week coming up! |
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| A bit of grammar |
[Nov. 9th, 2004|08:42 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bob Marley - One Drop | ] |
In case you were not privileged enough to attend elementary school, here is a quick reminder of a common grammatical confusion:
their is the possessive of they
they're
is a contraction for they
are
your is the
possessive of you
you’re is a contraction for you are
Taken from: Grammatically Correct, The Writer's Essential Guide, by Anne Stilman.
PLEASE get this straight, I know you can do it!
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| Places I have been... |
[Nov. 9th, 2004|08:16 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Everclear - One Hit Wonder | ] |
I thought I would put this down for the record. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lem had this on one of his older posts and I have been meaning to put it in here for sometime.
Countries I have visited:
States I have visited:
Provinces of upstate New York (a.k.a. Canada) I have visited:
Provinces of Canada I will have visited by the end of the year:
Close up of the old country:
Tempting:
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| Busch Gardens |
[Oct. 21st, 2004|08:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Ferry Corsten - Punk | ] |
I am going home tomorrow because we got free tickets to Busch Gardens at work. I can't pass up free tickets to Busch, especially off-season and at night! Howl-O-Scream is always great. I especially like riding the coasters at night.
The other option this weekend would be to stay here and go to the State Fair. The fair has been going on all week and wraps up this weekend. It sounds pretty cool, and I hear there is a *lot* of fried food there. However, I feel riding rollercoasters for free could be a lot of fun, especially when I get to hang out with friends from home whom I do not get to see often. Hopefully the lines are short and I get to ride over and over and over. Did I mention I love rollercoasters? |
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| MERGE! |
[Aug. 12th, 2004|05:47 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Machine Head - From This Day | ] |
Here's the deal on merging due to a lane ending:
The first thing you need to do is realize you are not driving alone out there.
Did that sink in?
Good. Now, realize that everything you do may impact someone else. We need to drive while being conscious of this fact. If you get over immediately then obviously, the lane that is ending is totally unused and that seems wasteful. If you get over too late, this causes heartburn due to the fact that EVERYBODY must slow down for you.
The rule is to get over when it is convenient (earlier better than later) and then let someone in, heck maybe even a few. Just don't slow traffic, this is your traffic, you need to care about people behind you (you will be grateful when people in front think of you too). You can slow down to a safe speed in order to give room for merging, this is required, but it should be done generally without applying brakes. Toward the end of the merging lane, you know once there are about 6 signs that told you to get over, and I left about 4 car lengths in front of me the whole way, you are not going to get in. The people that got over are now angry at you, you are the reason they had to slow down in the first place and you are clearly the selfish type. You do not deserve to get in.
There is no reason you can tell me that can justify such a closed-minded approach to merging as "well I wanna be up front." This problem is your fault if you do not take the opportunity to at least attempt to merge before the end. Exceptions should be left of course for the occasional distracted motoroist that kinda forgot the lane ended because he is new to the area, traveling, or from out of town. Just take a look at the driver, and if they look back at you with big puppy-dog eyes (and have their blinker on), you may be able to allow them in (not required though).
MORAL: Get in and let someone else in, if it's only one person, you've done what's expected of you. Your job is also to teach the jerks that have not yet seen the light. I know many people agree with me, but still let the jerks do as they please. This is almost as bad as being one of the jerks. As long as we do not waver, this will work, and driving will be better--do not let them in at the end! Let them know this is how it will be and they have not choice but to merge in a timely fashion. BUT, if you let people in because you feel "sorry" for them, well you compromise the integrity of the whole system and thus it cannot work.
Note: The right lane is for driving, the left lane is for passing. Use it that way.
Thank you, that is all. |
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