Over Time

I'm decent at remembering where I know someone from, even if I tend to be very average about remembering their name.

Today, however, I was asked "Where do I know you from" by a young man operating a cash register.

I had no clue.

He had the kind of eyes that I would not quickly forget, so I assumed I didn't know him and he must have mistaken me for someone else.

Then he remembered where he knew me from.

He lived with his dad next door to me (2000-2003ish) and must have been just starting high school. Everything about his face seemed different... except his grin.

I always get a kind of temporal vertigo when I run into an adult that I last saw as a child. I feel like I've jumped forward in time quite abruptly.

It was very cool to run into him again, and I hope his dad is doing well. The neighborhood hasn't been the same since they moved away.

Super Sporific

I've been playing Spore since it arrived this Thursday evening. Above you see my first three to reach the Space Exploration Stage, each along different tactics: Religion, War and Economic.

The game play is fun, some stages fly by to quickly, some drag a little. Chief complaint is not being able to reverse the up/down controls. The "SIM-speak" the creatures yabber in while in the Tribal Stage cracks me up every time.

The final stage, the space exploration part, seems endless and diverse, from diplomacy to colonization and terraforming, trade to conquest, improving your ship and fleet as you advance.

I've already run into creatures created by several real-world friends at various stages in the game. Sadly, many such friend created creatures went the way of extinction. They will be missed. (Mainly because they were tasty.)

9/11/08

Never forget how the Republicans used 9/11:

... to bully the Democrats into silence for four years.

... to invade Iraq.

... to spy without oversight into the private lives of Americans.

... to suspend The Great Writ of Habeus Corpus.

... to get re-elected by claiming they alone can save us from another 9/11.

... to violate the Geneva convention and institute the practice of torture.

... etc etc etc.

9/11 gave the weak Bush administration strength it did not come by honestly. And they abused it more ways than we may ever know. Those abuses of power will most certainly go on, unpunished, if this country elects McCain/Palin.

Lake of Fire

I can't describe how much I dislike the idea of Sarah Palin as Vice President.

Can we please pick leaders that take Christian End-of-Times scripture with a bit of salt, instead of working to bring about the rapture?

She is not a "Maverick". She's a loose cannon, with the words "Holy War" scribbled all over it.

Bad Apples?

More fun with photoshop.

I laugh everytime I hear the righties spew their fearful: "But is he ready to lead?" Obama-attack tactic, because clearly their candidate is "No Longer Ready To Lead." (if he ever was at all)

We don't need yet another blundering mouthpiece of corporate interests, rubber-stamping our country into financial ruin.

The Grotto of Lost Souls

I just ran across an excellent video clip made by Dizzy Banjo of my exhibit in the "NPIRL Garden of Delights" (NPIRL is a collective of artists and fans experimenting and exploring things that are "Not Possible In Real Life")

The event is over and the exhibit only exists in storage now, so it's very nice to have some visible recording of it still around. =)   Take a peek at:

Metamusic Podcast 04 - The Grotto of Lost Souls by Jopsy Pendragon

Taxes?

My mind wandered seriously far afield while perusing some of the Obama / McCain ads.

So, I went a-googling around a bit with some random questions and got rough answers:

The national debt is roughly three times the national budget. (Imagine having a credit card with 3x your annual income racked up on it!)

Fortunately, only 10% of our tax dollars go to making the minimum interest payments. (It'd be 20% to 30% of our income if we owed 3x what we made yearly!)

10% of our yearly tax dollars.

That's more than the annual budget for Education, Transporation & Vet Benefits combined.

That's around of the budget for the Military... for half a year.

And that 10% doesn't help reduce the debt... or help pay for those "must have now" expenses of years past.

Think of it this way:
* You *NEED* a spiffy new $1200 large LCD television, so you use your credit card.
* Every month you make the minimum payment of $10. ($120 each year).
* Ten years later, the TV breaks down, you need another.
* Your check your credit card statement. It says: You still owe us $1200.
* You lament in vain: But I've already paid you $1200 for the TV!
* You take your credit card to the store and... buy a new $1200 television anyway,
* 10 years later you've paid enough in interest to buy two new TVs.
... and you haven't even started paying for the ones you bought yet.

Now... see, the government wanted this spiffy new war back in 2002. Had to have it. Of course, they probably haven't even started paying off the loans for the previous war... or the war before that.

The only way for the government to rack up more debt (and still manage to pay for everything else) is to devalue the U.S. dollar. Weaker dollar means higher prices, demand for higher pay and.. of course, more tax dollars. With enough inflation, the government could keep the ratio of tax used for interest payments around 10%.

Which works fine until dollars bills become cheaper than toilet paper.

Which reminds me... San Francisco is considering christening their largest sewage works the "George W. Bush Sewage Plant". Hmm.