T-39 Days...and counting...

Do I have a lot of work to do before I am out of Memphis. I can get back to tracing now that shutdown is over. Working 50 hours in 4 days isn't a whole lot of fun, though at least everything went in, somewhat on time. 2.5 departments left to go. It couldn't go by any faster.

Onto day 2 of generating content for Web 2.0 (aka, me posting to my hardly used blog). I guess this would be a case of "everybody's doing it", so I should join in too. So what if I'm only one of millions creating blog entries, something that would bog down the bandwitdth of the Internets.

Just a few thoughts I collected today:

Rant on balance of Conservatism and Liberalism online
Either there are very few conservatives online, or that the liberals are quite spoken out. It seems like the internet is a bastion of liberalism, with a whole lot of hating of everything "religious" or "moral". There is way too much hatred for government. People are complaining about civil rights being taken away, the erosion of the Constitution, and how they can't wait for PRESIDENT Bush to get out of office so they could have their rights back. Tell me, are there any wiretaps on your phone? When was the last time you were thrown in jail with no charge? Are your Internets tubes being plugged with Big Bad Government spying on you? We reserve these measures for TERRORISTS, not John Q. Citizen. How else would you like it... another 9/11, or being safe. How many liberties have you given up today? I'm no constitutional expert, far from it, an Engineer, but can you still worship what you want? Can you still say what you want? You can go buy guns, right? I'm sorry, but you can't kill your unborn child. That's called murder.

The Wii
On a happier note...we're getting close to the debut of Nintendo's Wii. Mind you, the Revolution was a much cooler title than "Wii", but it's just a name. Watching the gameplay videos only makes me think of what could possibly be done with it. Swinging a sword, charming a snake, paddling a boat, fishing, brings a whole new world to video gaming. Heh, maybe this will start helping America's obesity problem. Instead of exercising our fingers, we can get started on the whole arm. I'm rather scaring myself. I don't know if it's the viral marketing I've been seeing with the Wii, but I'm actually starting to dream about getting one. Heh, we'll see.

Contractions, and what makes Star Wars good
Now I remember why Star Wars IV-VI is so much better than I-III. Contractions. Simple elements of language that turn mechanical dialogue into normal speech. Harrison Ford gave a much more casual performance of Han Solo than Hayden Christensen could of Anakin Skywalker. I think a better analogy would be of Luke and Anakin as young men, say around 18. The infamous line, "But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters" was well played to be a whiny boy going to have fun with his friends. Anakin whines throughout his entire performance. Anyway, the new Star Wars has too much mechanical dialogue because of the missing contractions. Listen closely, and almost every word is said just as it is written.

Well, that's all for today. Tune in tomorrow for more of my ranting, maybe.