| Still Waiting for my Stim Chex |
[May. 7th, 2008|10:56 pm] |
The car is still broke, but I have made progress. Lo and behold, I have to remove the central driveaxle hub nut, which I didn't know before. I have to buy a 35 millimeter deep-enough-well socket, and hope to Zeus that it fits on the superfied long wrench bar I have.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) roytheboy, I am done with two of the three card layouts you requested. Again I apologize for the delay, but as soon as I am finished with the third, I will email them to you for your review. I'd email you the two I have done now, but I am a jerk and want to keep you on the edge of your seat brimming with anticipation.
Yay for the semiannual Trip to Puerto Peñasco coming up in a week and a half! I am excited to travel to the wonderful land south o' the border, where the police have AK-47s and the children come up to you and ask you if you want 'dulces o helados' or maybe some cheaply made metal trinkets. I think I should get my dollars converted to pesos and bring them back, so I can exchange them in a few months and have more dollars.
So it seems Spore will have some kind of convoluted DRM scheme such that you will be required to have an internet connection so that it can "phone home" every 10 days. If it can't, you can't play the game. Sure, this game is pretty much being designed for online play, but it just shows that the days of "buy something once and play it whenever" are slipping away. "But Tim, you have to pay fifteen bux a month for WoW of Warcraft!" I know, so that's why I don't play World of Warcraft. I can still hope for a reversal in trends when enough gamers out there have basically had it with all this and so migrate toward the games that 'hearken back to the good ole days' and let people just play them without all the bullshit.
It's a shame, because I really wanted to check out Spore. But frankly, my ISP doesn't have the most stellar record with providing me an "always-on" connection and so I am not going to pay for that hassle. EA, you just lost a sale because of this. |
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| Blarg! |
[May. 5th, 2008|05:00 pm] |
Unless you already read it in Jessika's journal, I have grave news to tell. My car is broken. More specifically, the hub nuts that prevent the wheel from falling off are broken. There are only two lug nuts on the front passenger side wheel, and there are supposed to be four. Repairing it has been a pain in the posterior, due to the fact that the bolts are clinging to the plate tighter than..um...a fat kid to his Pop-Tarts® Brand Sugary Tart Delights. I am at my wit's end with getting the bolts off, so I think I am just going to drill them out. I am not sure how much of the wheel hub I will be damaging by doing that, but at this point, I am out of options. Here is what I have attempted thus far to remove this oh-so tenacious of bolts.
1. Regular socket wrench (Stripped the bolt.)
2. Adjustable wrench (fell faster than the Orc army in The Return of the King after the Dead Oathbreakers of Dunbarrow showed up.)
3. Channel locks (Really stripped the crap off the bolt.)
4. Dremel tool with grinding wheel attachment (used to recut the hex shape of the bolt. The only thing that did work, though it didn't ultimately remove the bolt.)
5. Liquid Wrench Penetrating Oil (Did shit to loosen the threads.)
6. Tapping one side of the bolt with a flat tip to at least get it started (All that did was to shear off more metal from the now badly deformed bolt)
7. Holding socket wrench on as hard as I can with one hand to prevent slippage while pounding the handle with a hammer with the other hand (Just broke the socket wrench adapter bit. Cheap Wal-Mart-bought Chinese-made piece of crap.)
I am not sure what else I can do, other than to drill it out. I'd really hate to damage the brake disc, to which this panel is attached, because I am sure buying a new one of those will cost a pretty penny. Maybe, if I am lucky, I can go into work and machine new threaded holes into it before I would resort to that.
Bah!
Happy anniversary of birth to toewigglingelf. I'd send her a cake-shaped birthday card, but I don't know her address. So here is the third next best thing!
NOTE: The green and yellow bottle like things are supposed to be bottles of Corona, one with a lime! |
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| Observations... |
[Apr. 10th, 2008|09:29 pm] |
Here are some things I have noticed about life and myself. I decided I would share them with youse all.
1. The more willing someone is to talk about or lie about someone else to me, the more I worry that person is talking about or lying about me to someone else.
2. South Park episodes are a lot shittier than they used to be...
3. I have read a Newsweek article that acknowledges that politicians lie and Americans are okay with this. When I read that, I realized the sad truth; people can do evil things and the majority of humanity will be too focused on their own lives to care. This is how we will lose our freedoms to tyrannical rule.
4. I seem to be regressing culturally. I find myself looking to increasingly older media to augment the cache of knowledge tidbits in my brain.
5. Though the mathematical odds are stacked severely against me, I rationalize buying a lottery ticket by saying that if Lady Luck is going to smile on me, it will be regardless of having one ticket or twenty.
6. People enter their vehicles and their minds change. The nicest, most humble and polite person becomes the world's worst asshole when behind the wheel of their mobile fortress of solitude. And they get out, and they are nice, humble and polite again. Strange...
7. Watch out for those big business fucks who preach how the government needs to stay out of the free-market economy. Because when times get tough, and the free market starts punishing companies for the bad decisions of their leaders, guess who's all too willing to go to the government for a taxpayer-funded handout.
8. It hurts to drip molten solder on exposed skin, but it doesn't leave a mark. I think this is because as soon as the solder hits the skin, it splashes off into little solid spheres, thus not contacting the skin long enough to burn.
9. I don't know why, but it is immediately funny or cool when any other show/comic/cartoon/whatever makes reference to Star Wars.
10. If your savings account or money market or wherever you have money is making less than 3%, you're getting ripped off. Any less than that and the real value of the money is going down by sitting there because of inflation, so you would be better off spending it all now than to keep it in an account making less than 3%.
11. I said that, and currently my savings account is making only 1.25%. I'd move it to somewhere else, but I am too lazy and unmotivated to do it right now.
12. Papa Johns' Pizza isn't as good as it used to be.
13. It is important when considering one's priorities to remind oneself that there will be a time when you are not on this world. People don't like to think about being dead, but it has to be acknowledged before any serious long-term considerations and reflections of one's life can be made
14. In the late '90s and early 2000s, it was actually much cheaper to buy your own computer hardware and put it together yourself to build a working box than to go out and buy a pre-made PC. This is no longer the case.
15.The preceeding doesn't apply to Apple computers, and I don't think it ever will.
16. It's official. The five-dollar bill is now more queer than the three-dollar bill.
17. Everything exists, even the things that don't exist. I could think up a five-wheeled, automatic, self-cleaning, 5-foot-tall, green oven that has 17 handles on it and can be set to 4200 degrees Fahrenheit, and because I thought of it by describing it and you imagined it by reading it, it must exist. If it doesn't exist, than nothing that isn't purely tangible can exist. For that matter, nothing that is saved electronically can exist either, so give up on your level 60 priest in World of Warcraft, because it isn't there!
18. McDonalds is promoting themselves as the purveyors of food that gives you energy to be active. If you don't believe me, just take a look at the McDonalds cups and bags next time you're there. It will show people biking and playing tennis, et al. If that isn't doublethink right there, I don't know what is.
19. The legal drugs are caffeine, nicotine and ethyl alcohol, and are okay in moderation. The rest are illegal and, therefore, bad under all circumstances. Why is that?
20. They print all of the Xs of your blocked-out credit card number on receipts when you pay by card. So at the bottom, it says XXXXXXXXXXXX1234. Why? What happens if two people who actually do keep a meticulous record of their receipts happen to have the same last 4 digits on their cards?
That's about all for now. I urge all of you to consider moving to rectangular states. They need to be filled up! Have a good night. |
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| Tempus Fugit... |
[Apr. 8th, 2008|11:40 pm] |
Where does the time go? It seems everyone is always looking for time..they ask others if they have the time. Do you have the time? I don't have the time, but I know we all share the time. There is only one time to go around, and I think we all just get a little piece of it. A short time. A little while. Once the time is used, you can't get it back, so I have to wonder why it is we waste it on things that don't matter. There is too little time to ponder that.
Why is it as kids, time seemed to go by much more slowly than time does now? Stephen Hawking said in A Brief History of Time that one's perception of a unit of time is a ratio of that unit to the number of units that person has lived. So an hour to a one year old is 1:8760 where an hour to a 60 year old is 1:525600. Whether this is true, all I know is that as a kid, a week seemed like a long time to me, a month longer still and a year was unfathomable. And I don't recall that time itself passed any slower than it does now, I just feel as though the day lasted a lot longer when I was a kid.
I have a few theories about why that is. The bad thing about having any theories nowadays is that usually someone else already came up with them, so the thought is not genuinely original. Notwithstanding, my theory about the sped-up sense of time is that when you're a child, you have less responsibilities than when you're an adult. As a child, your main concerns are keeping the room clean and surviving the six hours at school. Beyond that, a kid's imagination is free to drift off wherever it is kids' imaginations drift off to. As an adult, there are much more things that need to be done that occupy the same narrow 24-hour timespan. The 6 to 7-hour school day is replaced with 9 to 10 hours devoted exclusively to work, and then there are all the other fun things that fill up the rest of the balance, such as going to the post office, buying groceries, washing the laundry, preparing food, keeping one's car in working order, writing out checks to people you don't know, making sure one has the latest and greatest cell phone or other mobile Internets device. And on top of that, we still have to keep our room clean!
For each minute adults spend on doing stuff they have to do, they also want a minute doing stuff they want to do. Leisure time becomes spread more thinly as an adult, because most childrens' lives are spent in leisure nowadays. The lack of as much "free time" as an adult is, I think, the key to why time seems to speed by; it is during this down time that people are free to reflect on life and ponder the state of things, even if just subconsciously while watching So You Think You Can Dance. There is less time for vegging out in adulthood, so we perceive that as less available time during the day at large.
I wonder if there is a hardware upgrade that can increase the front-side bus of my brain so that time can pass more slowly. It'd be nice to have the increased reaction speed, as well... |
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| No point to this post... |
[Mar. 31st, 2008|09:17 pm] |
The way Jerry Seinfeld said it: We don't understand death. And the proof of that is that when you're dead, they lie you down and give you a pillow.
Today was Monday. And it sucked. But now Monday is nearly over, and tomorrow will be 2/5 as good as Friday will be. Especially because Friday is pay day! Yay! Grey!
Now I am off to study electronics and IC theory and application. |
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| Crusty Old White Men... |
[Mar. 27th, 2008|05:30 pm] |
I am not anti-big business. After all, were it not for large and efficient corporations doing what it is they do best, we wouldn't be living the oh-so-comfortable lifestyle we live today. My only concern when it comes to what big business does on a daily basis is this: are the people in charge doing the right thing? Are they obeying the law and maintaining some sense of decency in what it is they do? This is a fuzzy issue because the function of a corporation is not to do the right thing but rather to make money. Pure and simple. There is no James-Bond-like evil to it, but there also is no promise of benevolence. And because of this, we get incidences like Union Carbide, PG&E, Enron and many others.
Why do I even bother bringing this up? I just voted my mere fraction of a share I have in one of my Fidelity mutual funds' proxy votes. Normally when I get them, it is just to vote to keep the same people on the board of trustees in the fund and possibly some insignificant procedural change to the fund. But this one had a different line.
"Proposal 5. Shareholder proposal for Fidelity Canada Fund, Fidelity Diversified International Fund, Fidelity International Discovery Fund, Fidelity Mid-Cap Stock Fund, and Fidelity Overseas Fund concerning Board oversight procedures to screen out investments in companies that substantially contribute to genocide."
At the top of the proposal is a recommendation from the Board of Trustees.
"THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES RECOMMENDS A VOTE AGAINST THE FOLLOWING"
So...the Board of Trustees recommends AGAINST screening out investments in companies that contribute to genocide? I guess the saying is true... 'sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable.'
It doesn't matter really...after all, I only have a fraction of a share in this fund that represents a tiny portion of the total. I am sure there is some other rich person out there on a board like this who already has the majority stake in this fund anyways who promptly voted against this proposal also. So why do I even bother bringing it up? I simply don't understand how it is that people can become so comfortable and selfish that they are able to rationalize something like this. Where does one's morality go when they think that a higher rate of return is more important than making sure that people aren't exploited, oppressed and ultimately exterminated. I am sure all of you out there wouldn't want your mutual fund to buy stock in a company that gives to Al Qaeda or one of those African dictators. And just try to imagine the legal ramifications if you yourself were to donate, even unknowingly, to a terrorist group. It's not tolerated in society, so why is there some kind of buffer around businesses that allows them to get away with such huge and obvious lacks of morality?
Sigh... |
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| Happy (Insert Holiday Name Here) Day! |
[Mar. 17th, 2008|11:46 pm] |
I hope all of you spent your day honoring St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland in the most honorable way imaginable; by consuming large quantities of spirituous beverages. Nothing shows more respect for the task of driving the heathens out of the snakes and then the snakes out of Ireland more than partaking in the traditional Irish activity of binge drinking.
Yeah, that's all I gots to say about St. Patrick's Day. I am not Catholic nor do I possess more than a mere modicum of Irish heritage. I forgot even to wear green today. For shame, I know. I am still waiting for St. Kazimieras Day to catch on in the U.S., so that I may honor my proud Lithuanian heritage by excessive fasting. But until then, I will just say a little Latin prayer in my head.
Still waiting... |
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| The Purpose of Life... |
[Mar. 16th, 2008|08:17 pm] |
..is something that eludes me. Sorry for those of you who read the title who thought I might have made some remarkable revelation. All I have managed to come up with so far is the very pragmatic notion that the question of the purpose of life assumes that life even has a purpose to begin with. Only living creatures that are somehow aware of their own aliveness could want to ponder it. However, some stuff has been happening to me lately that has made me realize that, in fact, there is actually a little more to human beings existence than simply some desire to reconcile and justify ourselves being here that is based from a latent pattern-recognition system we have hard-wired in our brains. But I digress...
I have been feeling very uncreative for the past few years. It could have a lot to do with the fact that I have actually not been very creative for the past few years. And whenever I don't do something creative for creativity's sake, I feel very unproductive. And this unproductive feeling is uncorrelated to how much work I have managed to do at my job. I have kind of come to the realization that, to be truly happy, I wasn't meant to work a regular 9-5 job. I have also come to the realization that there is a very small niche for people who don't work regular 9-5 jobs and it will be very unlikely that I will be able to leave that realm.
Nontheless, irrespective of how many widgets I can actually produce at wherever it is I am working, I feel very unproductive when I am not creative. It is something I have thought about a lot, especially ever since I have moved to Arizona which has been scientifically proven to be a black hole of culture and creativity; not even artistic skills can survive in the desert, which is why anyone talented from here manages to find a way to move far away. Every time I think of how empty I feel when not doing something creative, I am reminded of a Home Improvement episode. In this episode, Wilson tells Tim that men try to create things because men can't have babies. The tool man does his trademark grunt in inquisitive form, and Wilson follows up by saying that since women are the ones that create life, men innately feel compelled to create anything else they can that they may feel improves (or in come cases, destroys) life. Mulling over this has lead me to wonder how much of the crap that has gone on in out history has been a direct result of men trying badly to justify their own necessity.
On thinking about this very fundamental truth, I cannot help but wonder; would I feel 'uncreative' if I were a woman, knowing that I would have the ability to bring another life into this world? Do I somehow feel empty when I am not playing with a photo in Photoshop, drawing something out or making yet another .gmax rendering of a building because I subconsciously think that a life spent not doing these things would be a life wasted? Or is it some sort of evolutionary self-preservation tactic devised by the creator to ensure that men don't get too distracted with beating the crap out of one another to go and become fathers and raise a family? I don't know.
Since I am more than likely not going to become a best-selling author or world-famous artist, I have to acknowledge that I will be a blue-collar slob who won't have an entry in the history books or a Wikipedia article. However, I am okay with that. The question I have is this: Knowing all of this, how can I still make a positive impact on humanity; do something for mankind that betters it, even if I am never acknowledged for it? That, at least right now, I don't know. |
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| The Stimulus Package... |
[Mar. 8th, 2008|04:13 pm] |
I just got a letter in the mail describing how the IRS is riding in on a white horse to save 130 million Americans with a small pittance. The so-called economic stimulus payment will be available for anyone who earned between $3,000 and $75,000 last year and anyone who had a tax liability greater than zero. If your tax liability was less than $600, then your payment will be whatever that amount of your $0 < liability <$600 was...
I looked on the IRS Webpage about it, and saw this little line near the bottom, regarding the notices they will send.
"Taxpayers will need to save this notice to assist them when they prepare their 2008 tax return next year."
Well, completely disregarding the fact that the IRS is going to send the notice and the payment check separately, which is a complete waste of postage, I wonder why it is we would need to hang onto it to "assist" us in our 2008 return? My only theory is that because we are going to have to pay back this handout in some fashion, either in full or as taxable income.
It's an issue not being discussed and in the whole discussion of the stimulus package helping out the Americans hardest hit by this phantom recession, not one of our benevolent elected officials has mentioned how this $600 handout was going to be paid for. Don't get me wrong; I support a lowered tax burden wherever I can. But the federal budget, like any fiduciary matter, is a zero-sum game. Therefore, I can foresee only the following possible outcomes when the piper comes to collect payment for piping so spryly and vigorously:
1. Existing federal programs will need to be cut. Not likely, since in the 7 years of the George Bush presidency, the size of the federal government has nearly doubled in terms of revenue spent. There were a few piddly cuts made for the FY2008 budget, but those were in such unimportant things as education, government-assisted living and other non-cool things like that. And even those were more akin to saving a quarter on gas to justify spending five dollars more on lunch
2. We will have to just pay the money back directly next year. This one is a very likely possibility, since it happened with the last stimulus check handed out in 2001. And with reading that line up there, I kind of foresee that happening again. And if it does happen again, I just sure hope our economy isn't really in the shitter come April 15, 2009.
3. Our government borrows the money from the National Bank of Middle-Eastern and Asian Countries. I am sure they have every intention on paying them back, but when interest payments alone make up 8% of the federal budget, I kind of wonder how long we planned on keeping up the minimum payments on our Federal credit card bills.
4. They raise taxes. Well, actually, to pay it back any other way than cutting programs, it would ultimately mean raising taxes. Because even when we have borrowed as much as we can, the payments will continue to come due. It seems kind of counterintuitive for us to keep a little more money now at the cost of paying it all back plus more later, but it is appropriate in the whole "I'll work on it tomorrow" frame of mind that exists in our culture. They basically gave us a cash advance that will cost more to pay back later. I can just only hope that the payback is just cleverly disguised so we aren't so harshly reminded of it.
To everyone who reads this who has a taxable income: Be sure to adjust your withholding accordingly to compensate for the amount of a "stimulus payment" you receive. At the very least, just keep in mind the very real likelihood that you will have to deduct it from or pay it back on next year's tax return. Or, you could make it easier on yourself and just put the check away into a savings account until next year. I know that runs counter to the purported function of the payment, but I seriously doubt that a $300-$600 check sent to everyone will give our quasi-lagging economy the kick it really needs to get us out of this funk, especially since most people I have talked to said they are going to use it to pay off debts anyways...
That is all. I am shocked if any of you actually read all of this long and pointless rant about something as boring as taxes. |
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| Happy Extraneous Day Caused By The Lack Of Resonance Between The Orbit And Rotation Of Our Planet!! |
[Feb. 29th, 2008|10:26 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | cat, leap day, life | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Audio Adrenaline - The House Plant Song | ] |
I hope all of you spent your one and only leap day for the next four years doing something special. A guy at work and I agreed that Leap Year Day should be a holiday by virtue of it coming around only once in 1461 days. I somehow doubt my employer will recognize that claim, but oh well.
My girlfriend received some very positive acknowledgment in a very practical form today that the hard work she does is greatly appreciated. I told her that it had a lot to do not only with hard work, but her attitude. I have come to realize that the best way to accomplish something is to change your attitude about it. If you decide that a challenge is completely insurmountable and approach it as an overwhelming task, then it will be. But if you look at the challenge and break it down into smaller components, not worrying about the overall picture as much, it will seem much less foreboding. This is particularly true when repairing Electroglas wafer probers...
One more thing. Don't make plans for the leap day of February 29, 2100, because that year won't have a leap day! It turns out that every 400 years, a leap year is skipped, because even the leap year system isn't perfect. We should start a movement right now to slightly speed up the orbit of the planet so that we can reclaim our stolen leap day! Do your part by jumping up and down as much as you can at sunset and kicking the planet up a notch in speed! |
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| Health Insurances... |
[Feb. 25th, 2008|05:46 pm] |
I applied for the super-basic health insurance through Humana. It will cost me about -$70 a month to be covered, thanks to my wonderful employer. As I was reading through the details and fine print of the plan, I saw that the following is not covered by my health insurance, pending my approval:
"...War or any act of war, whether declared or not..."
I was surely hoping that when I go screaming headlong into the Land of the Commies exacting my own particularly vengeful brand of freedom-spreading and I were to suffer from some slight cuts and bruises, they'd cover me, but alas... |
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| Revival of the shit-list |
[Feb. 12th, 2008|04:28 pm] |
Don't let the title of this entry fool you. I simply wanted it to be a play on words. But I am going to do something that hasn't been done in years, and I only rediscovered it whilst reviewing old entries. That's right, I am bringing back the List! And this time, it's for money!
Woke up
Grabbed lunch
Drove to work
Clocked in
Retrieved a cup of coffee from the break room
Drank a few sips from aforementioned cup while checking work emails
Hammered and bent metal panels
Polished and cleaned metal blocks
Hammered some more
Bent some more
Went to lunch
Unpacked crate containing EG 4090 prober
Made room in shop for aforementioned EG 4090 prober
Cleaned up
Did stuff
Drilled holes in a metal panel
Clocked out
Came home
Checked Facebook
Opened up LJ and typed this entry
Not very exciting, I know.
To any and all of you receiving an "economic stimulus" tax rebate check of some multiple of $300 in the next few months: Remember the following. The amount of the check you receive will most likely be added to the income tax you owe for 2008. This means that if you receive a check for $600 in June, you might end up paying it back in Spring 2009. It happened with the last so-called "tax rebate" in the earlier part of this decade, so don't be shocked if it happens again. There is very little information available out there as to how the federal government plans to pay for this $160 billion plan, so I have no reason to think that this little tab won't be called upon to be paid on April 15, 2009.
For those who intentionally have a lot more withheld from their check, this will mean your refund will be much less. If you only have a little bit extra withheld, you might end up having to pay the difference, in which case I would evaluate now how you will fare paying this back later. And if you have just enough withheld to pay your regular burden, you can expect to pay all of it back, and so you should probably just save the money in a bank account, so that way, you can earn SOMETHING on it before you have to just give it back. Sure, that runs contrary to what the function of this rebate is supposed to do, but this way you can just go about your life as if the rebate didn't exist, which, very well, it will probably be a zero-sum entity at the end. |
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| Old Jernel |
[Feb. 8th, 2008|08:11 pm] |
My Livejournal account is 4 years and 3 months old.
That isn't very long in the grand scheme of things, even in the world of the Internet which has been universally accessible to more than just nerds on Usenet groups for about 15 years now.
But it is long for me.
Somehow it seems like forever ago that ngyoshi gave me this account, since back in those days, you had to be invited to Livejournal Land. It has survived me being an elated senior, it has survived me moving from the Great Land of Texas to the Great Desert of Arizona, it has survived me being a college student working at Walgreens, through the 10 or so employers I've had since then, and becoming a college dropout/wafer prober repair technician. It has survived countless other personal social-butterfly/blog/whatever accounts, even trumping MySpace.
Maybe it's just the simplicity. Maybe it's the lack of ads. Maybe it is that somehow, even after all these years, the same people that I knew to consistently use it before continue to use it, even if their use is few and far between.
This is the very first entry I made in Livejournal. There are others predating this one, but those were from a hard-code-updated blog I had before the term "blog" existed.
Yo ho...it's true....the journal is online for you! And MEEEE!
Yep. Thanks to John's new 1337 gift to me, I can tell the world how I feel. Well, I suppose I already COULD...but this way, I won't have to go to evil freewebs and do it. Plus for some reason, I can be compelled to update this one some more than the other one...I dont know why.
Well I am off to Arizona tomorrow. No sooner had I received this nice new Journal gift from John am I going to go and not update it for a week. Oh well. I will have to make it up then by decking it out now, and making it hella-pimp-tacular. Or something. Until then, Entry one will be bland and short. S'long!
In looking over some of these past entries, I have discovered how depressed I was when I was younger. And having viewed my interview tape from high school Speech class, I am shocked at how even more bleak my outlook was. I am sure it is no surprise to anyone that a teenager be meaninglessly depressed, but I didn't see myself that way until looking back on it after five years. I wonder if anyone else feels this way or if I am just becoming more and more hopelessly optimistic about life.
Have a good and safe weekend, all! |
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| Why do I let it bother me so much? |
[Feb. 4th, 2008|11:16 pm] |
Just when you think that the Invisible Property whore-mongers can't do anything more outrageous, they manage to somehow top themselves.
RIAA wants royalties to artists lowered, The Hollywood Reporter, Sides Chosen in Royalty Tussle
As the content providers themselves clamor for lower payments to those who actually MAKE the so-called intellectual property, the RIAA is moving in to widen the profit-margin on its new and seemingly lucrative business model of extracting the most possible revenue from their claims of copyright. At least they are approaching the task of raping the most money for themselves as possible from all angles.
"The labels contend that the music publishers have gotten fat as their business has starved and want the payment method rewritten."
Perhaps they should consider how fat the lawyers have gotten off of all of these male-cow-feces copyright suits.
"According to papers filed by the RIAA at the Copyright Royalty Board ... "While record companies have been forced to drastically cut costs and employees, music publisher catalogs have increased in value due to steadily rising mechanical royalty rates and alternative revenue streams made possible, but not enjoyed, by record companies."
Alternative revenue streams made possible by record companies? The only "alternative revenue streams" in music that I can think of are downloads from the internet, and as I seem to recall, the record industry has pretty much had their collective craniums planted firmly and deeply within their own rectums about how to approach the issue of music downloads. Furthermore, I am not sure what doublethink or wacky hallucinogen is required to even begin to believe that the record companies have somehow "made possible" these alternates; given the evidence of just the past 8 or 9 years, it would seem that the extent of RIAA's making possible was limited to the only people, groups or companies they didn't have a chance to sue out of existence.
I am sure their completely valid and poignant argument (hint: the preceeding was sarcasm) could be applied to other areas of life. Consider the record companies' prospective response to their sending a crazy drunk person with a gun to rob a bank.
"We have been forced to pursue other alternatives to make money in a down market. After all, security guards and police force revenues have increased in value due to steadily rising crazy-drunk-people-with-gun stopping rates and other revenue streams made possible, but not enjoyed, by gulag-neofascist-mafioso record companies."
Did I get off track? So sorry...
"DiMA argues that paying a high rate will undermine what is a new business model and exacerbate the piracy problem that has been decimating the labels."
Hmm...music piracy will be solved by paying the artists less money. Actually, that point is valid, logically. After all, if you take more money from the musicians, they will be less inclined to make new music, and so therefore there will be less music out there to be pirated than would have been otherwise. Not that it matters all that much anyways, since about 75% of all the new music produced now is a steaming pile of shit. I wonder if the record companies and these so-called "new-media" companies calculated the overall lousiness of their product into play when figuring their losses.
The point of all my rambling is this: If there is nothing else to be learned from the actions of the middle men whose importance is waning, it is precisely that they will do whatever they can to justify their existence. By making this stance, they have, to me, completely nullified any moral argument they might have had in saying that, by suing the ever-living poo out of people, they are simply trying to protect the artists. On one hand, RIAA is trying to extort $150,000 per song out of people in their trumped-up infringement cases, and now on the other hand, they are trying now to take more money from the people that make their product. It is completely retarded.
The star burns brightest right before it burns out. I call on anyone who reads this to do what they can by boycotting Sony BMG, EMI, Warner Music and Universal Music Group. In fact, just boycott all of the 1,600 record labels that are represented by RIAA. Don't buy their products and don't pirate it either. Just cut it out entirely. Your life won't be affected all that much by not listening to the Top 40 station on the radio, and I am sure you will discover a wealth of wonderful music from the independent labels and local groups out there. Try perhaps making your own music and promoting it out there. I call on everyone to do what they can to make the world of music so fragmented that the record companies will have to come to terms with the reality of the situation, instead of grabbing what they can from whomever they can. And if they don't come to terms with the reality of the situation, they need to expire, like the failing business models they are. |
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| Sigh |
[Jan. 25th, 2008|11:04 pm] |
Mark 11:25 (NIV) "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
Hebrews 8:12 (NIV) "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
Proverbs 24:17 (NAS) "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles."
Ephesians 4:31-32 (Phi) "Let there be no more bitter resentment or anger, no more shouting or slander, and let there be no bad feeling of any kind among you. Be kind to each other, be compassionate. Be as ready to forgive others as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you."
The news of Heath Ledger's untimely death sparked sorrow and remorse as to the circumstances of his passing. But one group, the Westboro Baptist Church (more popularly known for the site godhatesfags.com), decided that his death wasn't untimely but rather was a result of the 'abominations' that he has committed by portraying a gay person in the movie Brokeback Mountain. They are intending on protesting his funeral and just causing a general ruckus, past the ruckus they have already tried to create to bring attention to themselves.
The scope of this post is not to debate the morality of homosexuality from a Christian standpoint, but rather to bring to attention the sheer hipocrisy of this group's message. The Church has been known to make some even further outlandish claims and, even in a religious context, their message is dubious at best.
John 7:24 (Phi) "You must not judge by the appearance of things but by the reality!"
John 7:24 (NIV) "Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment."
1 John 4:1 (TEB) "My dear friends: do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere."
Matthew 7:1-2 (Phi) "Don't criticize people, and you will not be criticized. For you will be judged by the way you criticize others, and the measure you give will be the measure you receive."
The basis of the Westboro Baptist Church's claim is that because Heath Ledger played the role of a homosexual in Brokeback Mountain, he is 'perpetuating' the cause of the 'homosexual agenda.' As I said in jest before, the reasoning at work here can open a slippery slope (and has, I'm sure, for the members of this church) that just having taken part in the movie is as wrong, in the eyes of God, as actually committing a homosexual act. And so too would merely watching the movie..or even talking about it.
Sadly, their claims go much further than that. The church says that all of the tragedies that have happened to the United States, such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, were the direct result of God taking vengeance upon us for our collective homosexual transgressions. Personally, I think the only real point of the screaming that this small group of people do is to make a fuss and be acknowledged if for nothing else but cheap bublicity, but it seems that if they are going to take the word of God and make it so fire-and-brimstone by stretching it out as far as it can conceivably go, they may want to look at some of the other verses in the Bible aside from Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.
Do I want the people of Westboro Baptist Church to go away? It would be nice. I can only hope they realize the respect they should show for Heath Ledger's family and not patronize and judge him during their time of mourning. And I am sure there are thousands of times more people out there perfectly willing to judge them with the same hatred they are willing to dispense. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. But as inane and close-minded as I think their message is, I want them to continue to say it. Not just for the reason that I believe in free speech, but for the reason that the louder these people scream, the louder others will scream back.
I would leave the members of the Westboro Baptist Church with one last verse from the Bible
Matthew 7:1 (KJV) "Judge not, that ye be not judged..." |
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| Looking to the future |
[Jan. 23rd, 2008|05:27 pm] |
My mind was wandering at work and I was thinking about how the events of today will shape our immediate future. Perhaps it's all the bombardment about this presidential election or the supposed downturn in the economy, but I was wondering how things would be a few years from now.
So therefore, I submit to you..
The News Headlines for Wednesday, February 19th, 2014
World:
-Republic of Kurdistan slated as next staging ground for Tehran assault
-Russia and Turkey apply for European Union membership
-Disneyland resort in Dubai opens as the largest theme park in the world
National:
-Ohio man arrested in Weissen-Frauen murder case
-Clinton Universal Health Care Plan projects severe budget shortfalls; Congress calls for amendment or repeal
-Tax-code legislation receives popular support on news of economic slump
Local:
-Phoenix metro area population passes 5 million; growth slows as average home price continues to rise
-Phil Gordon announces candidacy for Arizona governor
-City of Tonopah incorporated on approval from Town of Buckeye
-Planning and development begins for Loop 404 freeway
Financial:
-Solar Tech Stocks continue to glow on news of $150-a-barrel oil
-JPMorgan Chase seeks approval of merger with Citigroup
-Reports shows that taxes are woe to the consumer
-Ecuador to switch currency peg from the dollar to the renminbi of China
Science/Technology:
-HD/Blu-Ray sales fall below sales of online movie streams
-X-CUBED to be bundled with Total Immersion System for Halo 5
-Blizzard to abandon discs, World of Starcraft to be released through their content management interface
-Strong radio spike detected in NGC 6397
Religion:
-Pope Benedict XVI proposes reinstatement of universal Latin mass, calls ecumenical council
-Cruisian Scientologists seek split from mainline Church of Scientology
Entertainment:
-J.K. Rowling to come out of retirement with long-awaited Harry Potter epilogue
-Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley have second child, named Pomegranate
-Britney Spears re-enters rehab program after latest bender
Sports:
-NFL proposes more expansion teams on Super Bowl XLVIII victory by Los Angeles
-NHL moves for relocation to Canada
-Brett Favre Hall of Fame opened in Green Bay, Wisconsin
Of course, the only problem with predicting the future is that I will be proven severely wrong... |
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| Can't Think Of A Title |
[Jan. 18th, 2008|04:52 pm] |
The Baby Steps to Financial Freedom, courtesy of Dave Ramsey. Don't begin the next step until the previous step is completed or if the previous step doesn't apply to you.
Step 0: There is an implied Zeroth Step here; it is the decision one makes to decide that one is no longer going to be in the debt cycle and constantly owe money to others. The Zeroth Step is also deciding that in order to enact a change, one must be willing to sacrifice and discard the lifestyle that got one into debt in the first place.
Step 1: Ensure you pay for the essentials only: food, water, shelter, clothing and utilities. Pay only minimum payments on all debts, and concentrate on saving up $1000 for an unexpected emergency.
Step 2: Continue minimum payments on all debts, except for the smallest debt you have, on which you pay as much as you can afford until it is gone. When the smallest debt is gone, begin to pay down the next smallest, attacking it with the money you used on the smallest. Continue until all debt (except for your mortgage) is paid off.
Step 3: Begin to save a larger emergency fund. Save up 3 to 6 months of total expenses in a savings or money market account as an emergency fund which is not to be touched except in the case of a real emergency.
Step 4: Put away 15% of your income into tax-deferred retirement accounts. When you want to make major purchases, do not go into debt to finance them; rather save up the cash you need to pay them off immediately.
Step 5: When it can fit into your budget, save up enough to pay for your children's college education.
Step 6: Pay your mortgage off early.
Step 7: Continue to build wealth and also give to charities, your church, or anyone that you feel needs it the most.
I recently saw a documentary called Maxed Out. It is available on DVD and I highly recommend it. |
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| Yay!! |
[Jan. 6th, 2008|06:21 pm] |
Facebook - A site that people can sign up for so that they can find other people that signed up for the site and send them messages and do stuff. It's amazing how simple a concept can be so damn popular... |
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| Happy Christmas! |
[Dec. 24th, 2007|08:33 pm] |
A journal entry about myself seems inappropriate on Christmas Eve, so I will keep it succinct.
2007 was a year of positive change for me. There have been several things I needed to undertake and there were many events in my life which I may not have been prepared for at the time, but all in all, things have turned out for the better. But I have been blessed to have a wonderful family there for me whenever I need it and an amazing girlfriend who has returned the love I have given and so much more. Plus now I have a wonderful job where I know I will be challenged and will learn a hell of a lot.
That's all I will say about that. I hope that all of you out there have the most wonderful of Christmases and that the new year brings for you all the best that I have had this year. |
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[Dec. 4th, 2007|04:07 pm] |
The recent changes in my life are the cause for my own personal hell of technological regression. I can only admire the irony in that only after my Website domain and hosting have expired and during this brief hiatus of having my own internet connection, am I actually receiving real and lucrative offers to do site design and development for paying clients.
I should have my Christmas cards printed up within the week and will be sending them out by the week's end. So this is the last chance to give me your address if you haven't already done so.
Starting December 22nd and going until January 1st, I will not be working. I am looking for suggestions as to what to do during that rather long time off of work. Any suggestions?
Be happy and safe if you are going to any school or work-related holiday parties. And if it is a work-related party, remember to comport yourself as if at work, not as if at a party. |
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