Friday

All I will say in this post is that FRIDAY IS HERE! Holy crap am I glad.

Opinions?

I am in the market for a small calibur concealable handgun. I know I am likely to get a ton of comments about being a "gun nut" and about gun control, but I am not going about this lightly. I have recently taken a handgun safety course and applied for my concealed carry permit. My reasoning is this; First, there have been several high profile shootings, robberies, and kidnappings here in K-town of late. I know the likelyhood is still stacked way against any personal experiences, but I would rather know that I could protect myself and my wife if need be. Second, on the topic of the homefront, the last time I called 911 in my area there was a two week response time. No joke. There was a group trying to gain access to my neighbor's house so I called the sheriff's department. The group got in the storm door, tried for about 30 minutes to get into the inner door of the house, evidently got bored and left. Litterally, 2 weeks to the day the sheriff himself called and I quote said " Hello neighbor. I understand you had some problems a few days ago. Did you get everything taken care of?" So my guess is if anyone tried to break in to my house I won't have many options as far as appropriate responses go. In that case I would prefer to call and report myself firing on someone than my parents calling to report my or my wife's murder. As far as experience goes, I have handled guns since I was around 8 (under close adult supervision) and consider myself responsible.
I am considering a Walther .40 cal PPS. I like the idea of a 19 oz 3 inch .40 calibur. Although, I am also looking at the Taurus Millineum line. They manufacture a nice .45 that isn't much heavier (22oz) and about the same length.
The long and the short of it is that I feel strange even writing this, but like Bob Dylan said "the times they are a changin".

Heroes

Well as I said in the official try it again post I don't think I am going to talk about many deep topics this time around. One thing I would like to say though is that the NBC show HEROES is quite possibly one of the best on television. For about a season and a half now I have watched the show and had a slight tinge of disappointment after each episode. Nothing I can really explain, just the typical "TV is so contrived" feeling. On Monday night, however, my opinion changed dramatically! I think it is the first time I actually picked up on the fact that the entire show was shot as a live action comic book. Each scene frames the dramatic or important points in a still life portrait (or approximation thereof) reflecting a comic illustration. The dialogue, which at first seemed terse and one dimensional, is also written as if lifted from a speech bubble. Sub-titled scenes featuring Hiro and Ando have always thrown me off with the placement of the text, until I watched in the context of a comic.
So I know most readers will consider me a bit daft for not picking up on these points sooner, but honestly my thought processes just seem to flow along a different current. I think this "epiphany" has given me some insight into how I normally perceive the world, mainly by extracting the facts from a story and discarding "irrelevant" information such as style. This insight agrees with a personality test that I took a while back that labeled me as an introverted, intuitive, thinking, judgemental.
Maybe there is something to that whole Jung-Briggs-Myers thing after all. If anyone would like to take the time to take their own test I would love to see the results and discuss the accuracy. MyPersonality.info

Why not?

So a buddy of mine decided to reopen his blog a few days ago, which for whatever reason has rekindled my interest in the good ol' fashioned blog. It is strange to look back at things I said four years ago now and try to remember the thoughts that were bouncing around my head at the time. I don't know how much time I will have to keep up to date or to bitch about politics now that I am in a different program and am working in a productive lab. I guess time will tell.
It is also an odd notion to come back to a blog post facebook and myspace. It seems like although those sites are essentially the same thing the blogger sites of the world provide more of a blank page to compile thoughts on. In the end though it seems all things are vanity, I mean who really cares what one person says when the multitude screams to be heard? Not to sound Nhilistic.

Riddle me this...

I watched CNN this morning as they reported on the recent "insurgent" attacks in Mosul a question and a criticism came to mind.

First, when did we start referring to non-military personell who take up arms and use tactics to inspire widespread fear and panic among a populace as insurgents? Between the recent rocket attack or suicide bombing in Mosul and the attacks on Iraqi election officials it seems to me that the "insurgents" act a lot like terrorists.

Before I pose my second question/criticism readers may need a brief history refresher, so first click here, here, and here...

For those of you that didn't want to check out the links they are simply biographies of past American Presidents. Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Zachary Taylor. All of which served the office with distinction, and all of which were more than simple politicians. Jackson was a veteran and a hero by the time he had taken office( Battle of New Orleans), as was Roosevelt ( Lt. Col. of the Rough Riders) and Taylor spent 40 years in military service and was credited with maintaining the Union during the early rumblings of southern cessesionists.

While listening to the report of Pres. Bush sending his condolences to the families of troops killed in the recent "insurgent" action in Mosul I felt along with sadness for those who were killed a bit of anger and disgust at our modern politicians. I am not harping on Repulicans today, nor Democrats, the President, nor Congress. My complaint is against the whole slew. It is a cry against all that would support a war without ever having known battle. Against those that would send the children, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers to die and go to all extent to keep their own uninvolved. How many Senators or Congressmen have family that are in Iraq or Afghanistan? Why was one of the main topics of the recent Presidential election based on trying to prove which candidate actually followed their commitments to the military and which may have been lying about their service? It is a disturbing that this occurs, but perhaps even more disturbing is that we, as a nation, tolerate such behavior. Perhaps, over the last several decades we have been conditioned to accept hypocracy as a form of governing, or perhaps, we have been ground neath the heel of the political aristocracy that we feel that there is no choice, no other option than accept a group of businessmen, bankers, and war mongering cowards as our masters. Unfortunately, the truth may lie in a more mundane region than all this. Perhaps our nation as a whole has grown more apathetic, to pathalogical proportions that undermine the very definition of democracy. How can a people lead their own destiny when we barely lift our faces from the muck of tedium and our own microcosm and are only vaguely aware of the world around us. Perhaps those in offices of power are there because the new ignorant masses have bent our backs to allow their ascension. For a final ort of information to chew and roll around your mental teeth contrast this (or any of the presidential biographies for the last 30 years) with those that have been previously mentioned.

As I close this complaint I leave those of you who have read thus far with a thought from one of the great minds of our day. Not usually known for his political views Albert Einstien once said "All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field."

Good day.

Warp factor love baby!

For us that don't care about the prime directive...
lets go from warp factor 9 to warp factor love!!!

Finally folks the holidays are here! I will bee outta the lab for the next few days so I hope to catch up on the blogging, until then enjoy...

Dude! Finally some research that we need!

(Please note: heavy sarcasm ahead)

I have finally witnessed a good use for research funds! Forget AIDS, cancer, and genetic disorder research! Those guys were all yesterday's news. Now this guy has the right line of questions to ask.

Dude -- professor studies 'dude'
A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word "dude," contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers.
Kiesling says in the fall edition of American Speech that the word derives its power from something he calls cool solidarity -- an effortless kinship that's not too intimate.
Cool solidarity is especially important to young men who are under social pressure to be close with other young men, but not enough to be suspected as gay.
In other words: Close, dude, but not that close.

So dude, seriously, I think we could find better uses of time and money don't you?