Bootwhistle
It's been a while, unfortunately my new years resolution to actually put some effort into the blog site hasn't succeded. Oh well, those things aren't that serious anyway (resolutions I mean). Not much happened in the news... well unless you consider Canada getting a new Conservative minority government, the TV show Arrested Development being cancelled and Dick Cheney shooting someone in the face, not really news worthy. Though for some reason I think the last two news items will be more well known than anything that has to do with the Canadian government... well,unless the Prime ministers wife hits somebody with a soapstone carving. *sigh* I miss Chretien (former PM... do a google search).

I'm sure there is actually a lot more interesting stories but seriously who has the time to read all of them when there are video games to play and movies to watch... there aren't enough hours in the day to keep up with the massive amounts of entertainment media that surround a 'wired' person. It reminds me of a quote I read somewhere, something about how 'the corruption of a society can be determined by the amount of money spent on entertainment'. Honestly it does seem to be a bit obscene, with all do respect to actors - do they really need 20 million dollars for one movie? Actually the problem is that these industries make so much money that they can afford to pay people 20 million dollars. (I have a similar opinion about sports but I'll save that for a different rant) Entertainment is so addictive to, and with the internet it's getting worse. Illegal downloading aside, one can find almost any media online a near endless supply of time wasters... at this point I'm tempted to start getting into some of my deeper musings about existance and purpose but I think it's best I call it a night. Anyway here's hoping some of those new years resolutions can be salvaged in some way.

A merry Christmas, finally another mad holiday rush is over. All in all Christmas was relatively peaceful, oh sure there was the occasional family fight, but everyone still has all their limbs and virtually no property damage. The most stressful part of the whole 'X-mas' experience was deciding on gifts and last minute shopping (I'm a consumer whore). As much as one would want to take a moral stand and say "No gifts this year... I'm putting the Christ back into Christmas!" or some such noble sentiment, if you are the only one who doesn't give anything... well you kind of look like the biggest jerk in the world. Like it or not, giving Christmas gifts is an important part of the holidays and the best one can hope to do is to put some thought into gifts instead of last minute bargain shopping (though some of those boxing day deals are awesome). Personally I think giving gifts is great, its only when you get to wrapped up in the hype and senseless consumerism that meaning gets lost.

I've been thinking, which is hardly a productive event yet nevertheless usually some partially interesting thoughts are given expression. Lately my belief that 'humanity is neither inherently good or evil - just incredibly stupid', is starting to depress me, as all idiotic behavior does. It's not that I have any real sympathy toward the idiots of the world, more its that cleaning up after idiots is extremely tiring. So for someone as lazy as myself even the thought of someone out there just creating unnecessary work is enough reason break out the alcohol and binge McDonald's. Lest I seem to be judgmental, I count myself amoung the throngs of idiots. It is with certainty that there is someone working a little harder than they should, because of some idiotic thing I have done. There isn't anyone innocent of being idiotic, (which according to some dictionary is: showing a complete lack of thought or common sense) seriously who has the energy to think through every decision in their life? I guess the problem isn't with people making mistakes, its the willingness to repeat ones own idiocy over and over again. Most of us know when we're doing something completely stupid, unfortunately it is actually pretty comfortable being an idiot. To an idiot the world doesn't have to make sense, nothing has to be taken seriously and as long as they get what they want - how and why doesn't really matter. Though I suppose ignorance contributes much to the idiocy of the world, the whole "If only we knew then what we know now" bullshit. Honestly I like being ignorant of a lot of things, especially if knowing about something means I have to deal with it. Society doesn't help matters much either, much of our economy is idiot based. If people bought only what they really needed probably 99% of the companies out there would go bankrupt. This isn't a condemnation of our economy or anything, just a bit of inane rambling on my part. I guess being idiotic is just another part of daily life, though one would be much happier if they were ignorant of that.

Another late night, I honestly tried to publish a post that was well researched and had pictures links.. the whole nine yards, but by the time I was finished the issue was pretty much closed. So now I'm trying to decide if I should rewrite the entire post or back publish it. Now I understand why so many sites disappear after about a year... unless you're making money or don't really have a life (I might be able to claim the latter) it doesn't make much sense to invest a lot of time in a personal website. Though I guess avoiding real work could count as a vaild excuse as well, ah well. Personally I enjoy writing occasionally in an 'unstructured' manner every now and then so unless blogspot starts charging for webspace will probably at least keep this site up, if not really updated frequantly.

So the Telus strike continues, it would be funny if it wasn't so... well, y'know. Everyone seems a little stunned from the union employees vote to reject the Telus offer (which was basically the same deal they had before) and of course the finger pointing began shortly after. The union blames Telus, Telus blames the Union, BC employees blame Alberta employees, striking workers blame the picket crossers... picket crossers are probably trying hard to avoid the whole situation. The circle of blame complete it is back to the bargaining table, now the question is who is in a better bargaining position now? Telus who openly declared that they could go on indefinitely or the Union who agreed to the contract and is running out of strike funds. I wonder how tempting it would be for the negotiator to just resubmit the old proposal and hope it is taken a bit more seriously this time. At this point I'm sure everybody involved just wants to get the whole thing over with and start the wonderful stress that is the Christmas holidays. If I had the energy this would be the perfect time to rant about the pressure of holidays overtaking any real significance they once had... but that is for another time (pretty soon hopefully).

Bootwhistle
After my last post I realized that while blogging this site is definately fun, my writing style is becoming increasingly juvenille. Not really a bad thing for a weblog however it would be nice to have a more professional sound. Unfortunately that would mean more work, editing entries and actually looking for and quoting sources, creating links and so forth. As well I've been advised that a few visual aids may make the page look better... *sigh* (wonder if that is proper style) anyway, with the next post it should be easy to see any changes. Though the prospect of outsourcing sounds appealing, wonder if there are any bloggers in need of some extra ranting space.

Bootwhistle
Life is stranger than fiction, in most cases anyway - haven't seen any penguins riding unicorns lately (must be the wrong season). Anyway a while back a very loud and... well loud lawyer by the name of Jack Thompson started a crusade against violent and obscene video games/media. He got especially upset with the GTA series of games lambasting (hehe lambasting) the creator Rockstar games for making a 'cop killing simulator' and was representing the families of cops shot in the line of duty. Well for the most part Jack seemed like the good ol'crusader of decency/medical malpractice lawyer however the more he opens his mouth one realizes that he is about six different kinds of crazy. If what I've read can be believed (its like a 50/50 chance anyway) Thompson has a bit of a persecution complex... to put it mildly. The deal closer is an interesting tale, at some press conference Jack challenged developers to make a game where:
[t]he CEO of fictional company Take This, Paula Eibel, is murdered along with her husband and children. Should any developer agree to make the game, Thompson will donate $10,000 to the charity of choice of Paul Eibeler, the CEO of Take Two.
(http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=12259)

Now challenging computer geeks isn't really a good idea, unless it involves some form of physical activity. Of course his challenge resulted in a slew of games ranging from text based adventures to a mod of GTA: San Andreas. Jack declared that his statements were meant as satire, and not to be taken literally... I can understand the part of the CEO killing game being satire but donating to charity doesn't seem like 'satire', then again I'm not a lawyer.
Here is where it gets really interesting, a couple of guys from the online comic/store Penny Arcade decided to donate the $10 000 to charity and even put the donation in Jack Thompson's name! Surprisingly Jack didn't take this too well and wrote a letter to the police demanding the guys from Penny Arcade be arrested for defamation and threatening him!? Clearly any credibility this guy had is slowly (make that super turbo nitro speed) circling the drain, even the National Institute on Media and the Family of whom Jack claimed support decided they really wanted nothing to do with this raving madman, even demanding he take links to their site from his webpage.
Looking at all of this the real question I have to ask is - why on earth did anyone pay attention to this weirdo in the first place?