It's Good To Be Free

Hi again. Time for hopefully what is a quick update. This past week has been a welcomed change to the previous ones. First off, work got a little easier since I did not have to run a study this week. That was a welcomed relief. Instead I spent it doing data analysis and report writing. As per my usual weekly routine, I went to talk by Mark Brecke who did a slide show of photographs he took detailing the genocide in Darfur. I felt more than a little guilty because I attended the talk while eating my free food. Seeing that they are people starving in Darfur it made for an ironic contrast. In other news, I signed up for a "boot camp" fitness class. Now it is nothing like R. Lee Emery yelling in Full Metal Jacket. Basically, we do a whole bunch of exercises in a row without any breaks for a full hour. So basically I signed up/paid to get my ass kicked three times a week. I am still a little sore from the last workout on Thursday. Just goes to show how out of shape I am.

In other news, Vishnu and Paul came into town again for a fly by night visit. So I hosted a welcome back/poker night at my place. Only a few played poker and I busted out early. I got killed when I had a Ace-King-Queen-Jack-Ten straight and Nick ended up with a flush. Pictures of the party are, of course, available on Flickr. I've notice that when people come back from grad school, they end up interjecting things they are learning into conversations. So since Vishnu, Nick, and others I know have gone to law school, they using end up talking lawish, meaning citing cases, rulings and other stuff to explain a point or something like that. At that point in time, I tend to tune out since, yeah, I am not a law student. I didn't get to do this very much when I went to grad school since noone else I know is even remotely interested in what I studied (Human-Computer Interaction which Vishnu equates to robot sex and CWP$ thinks is "just IT") Therefore, I found it very hard to throw in things I studied into conversations. I think the only thing I was able to work in was a little on network theory because Friendster was all the rage a couple years ago. I also saw Borat these past weekend. Quite honestly, it was hillarious but so so wrong. It's offensive, disgusting, and way over the line at times but man, ever so funny in its expose of the racism, stupidity, and bigotry of some Americans.

Oh yeah, I cannot forget to mention something about last Tuesday's elections. My reaction: It's about goddamn time Apparently, the voters of this country finally realized our nation was being run into the ground by a group of people I wouldn't trust to run a beauty pagent. So eat that Republicans and conservatives! Geez, what did they say oh so many times? That anybody who disagreed with them was really supporting terrorists? Oh so I guess by their logic the majority of people in this country support terrorism. Shows how completely empty the Republican agenda these days. If the only thing you have to run on is bashing gay people, attacking John Kerry for one thing he said in one speech, and warning that the fucked up mess that the Republicans created in Iraq would get even more fucked up if Democrats won, then you know you have nothing to stand for. This shows that democracy does work somewhat and that in some little way, we may some accountability for the greatest foreign policy debacle since Vietnam. As I have said many times before, if you were going to invade an oil-rich, MIddle east nation like Iraq, you have a responsibility to do it right. It is clear the Bush administration and their Republicans put as much thought into it as frat boys who are planning their next keggar. That's an apt methaphor since it turns out a bunch of frat boys actually ended up working for the CPA in Iraq, most famously a bunch of them (fresh out of college) were put in charge of administrating Iraq's prison system. Hecka of job they did.

But enough of my ranting. Hopefully with a Democratic Congress, we might see improvements. I would settle for not fucking up things even further. I suppose that is enough from me. Until next time, peace.