Today in the News

Abandoned Babies

K if you read this story, you'll see how much of it doesn't make sense. It
says this girl abandoned 3 new born babies. So did she have triplets? It
doesn't say. Or did she abandon each baby each time she had another one?
Why keep on having kids? Then she took a 4th newborn and put it in the back
of a pickup truck, hoping someone would find it and give it a better life
than she could. Then the story goes on to quote her lawyer saying that it
wasn't her fault. She was young and she was on drugs. Ok so which bad
decision was caused by being on drugs? Putting the newborn in the truck or
simply having four damned kids when you didn't want to have ANY to begin
with? So as long as you're on drugs, then you shouldn't be held
responsible for your actions, according to this lawyer. Brilliant.

In another story, some rich guy called 911, saying he shot and killed his
wife. Then later, he said she shot herself. The judge bought it and let
him out on $100,000 bail, which is the equivalent of me paying $1.00 to get
out of jail for murder. Then he gets out of jail and gets to go back to his
comfy mansion, of course not before having his maid clean up all his wife's
brain matter off the floor. Huge punishment for this guy though. He's got
to stay home between 10pm and 6am.

So what have we learned so far? If you're on drugs, you aren't responsible
for your actions and if you're rich, you can walk by giving the judge the
change in your pocket.

Oh but I have one more story. This other girl didn't kill anyone and has
$1million bond. She's poor. Has no chance of coming up with the money.
She is accused of child endangerment. Not been convicted yet or anything.
She gave birth and stashed the kid in a closet and then went to the hospital
claiming she miscarried. After inspection, she had obviously delivered a
baby. Police went to the house and found the child in the closet . The
child survived and will be okay.

So...in recap. Kill someone but have enough money for an expensive lawyer,
you can walk by paying a minimal bond. Don't kill someone, but be poor and
have no lawyer, and get a $1million bond. The girl's only hope is that
she's on drugs in which case of course she's not responsible for her
actions.

In another story, some loser is trying to sue Dr. Phil for all kinds of
nonsense. Some investigation was done and this woman was found to have
attempted to sue several other people and places over the past and she's
recently filed bankruptcy. Obviously a sue happy idiot trying to make a
quick buck. I've some experience with some of these people and let me tell
you. Sometimes they run upon someone that they just shouldn't have fucked
with

NFS: Shift Review

It looks like EA is finally done milking the last viable drop out of the Street Racing car game genre. Pro Street actually looked kinda cool. More of an actual licensed street course type racing game I took it to be. Undercover was just...lame as hell I guess is the best way to say it. YEARS after other car racing games have set the precedent for what racing games should be like in order to be GOOD, EA has finally shifted the course of the Need for Speed car racing series. Honestly, there hasn't been a decent racing game from EA since Motor City Online. Ya feel meh? UNNNHHHGGG!!!

What? My writing style seems different today? Yeah...I've had some Oreos and some milk to wash them down. Please forgive my excitement.

Toca Race Driver 2. Toca Race Driver 3. Forza. GTR Legends. GTR 2. GTR Evolution. Heaven forbid should I say... GRID? Even DIRT had it's moments. DIRT 2 feels like poop on the demo anyway. Not sure if I'm going to try the whole game. Probably will. Eventually. But is there going to be a PC version of Dirt 2 after all these years of local PC racing game fans? Would Codemasters dare leave us...ahem..."in the dust"? Gosh golly gee. I hope not.

I'll tell you what other game feels pretty good is Forza 3. Just played the demo. Feels nice. Works well with wheels and with controller. Of course, I'm using my sidewinder precision racing wheel for my PC to play the XBOX 360 version of the game. Yes yes...don't ask. XIM360.com. NFS Shift feels like crap no matter what you do. I honestly don't see this game getting any better than what it is. It's not going to grow on me.

Once again, EA has finally decided to switch up the genre and try to make a legit racing game. The problem is that what they are attempting to do now is to catch up with franchises that have been tweaking this genre for YEARS to provide the products they are delivering now. EA's first attempt at a legit racing game is not HORRIBLE, but it's just so far behind in development, it's got no chance of surpassing any other racing game out there, especially Forza 3. You've got Forza 3 and Dirt 2 that are going to dominate the genre right now. NFS Shift will have it's mindless EA fanboys that continue to buy every NFS game that comes out, but that'll be it. There will be no new customers. NFS Shift is an EA failure. Good bye now.

Why you Shouldn't Hit Your Kids (or mine)

If you don't like your kids and your kids know you don't like them, they still count on you for everything they have in their lives from birth on forward. Some parents are parents because they have to be or because they want to be but only some of the time. Other parents do the best they can with their children and when their children disappoint them with their actions, they become angry. Some parents are very loving parents but get stressed out sometimes and don't want to deal with the day to day routine of raising kids.

Let me tell you. If you have kids, that's your life. Whatever you did before you had kids is over now. Sure you can still do some of the same activities and you can get a babysitter and go out from time to time. But the days of doing everything you want all the time are over. RIP your party life.

What hurts worse? When parents who hate their kids hit their kids or when parents who love their kids hit their kids? The loving ones of course. If you play with your children and show them love and affection, they love you back and want to be with you all the time. Then if you hit them, they are so very traumatized by it. "This person who is supposed to love me all the time just inflicted such horrible pain on me in anger and I feel very bad that I made them angry but now I question their love for me."

They may still grow up to be a great person, but they are always going to have that issue with love and trusting people for the rest of their lives...unless they get alot of counseling. It could help.

If parents hate their kids and they hit them, well the kids don't expect much from their parents anyway. They are going to grow up probably hating everyone and taking out all of their anger and rage about their parents on everyone else in the world. Not everyone turns out like this, of course. Some people turn out to be great people despite their shitty parents.

Even the best of parents are subject to losing self control once in awhile. The easy way out is to hit their kids. But ask yourself. If an adult did the same thing, would you hit them too or are you just hitting your kids because you know they can't fight back? If so, you're a coward and you should have your kids taken away from you.

Jackass...

Obama calls Kanye a jackass "off the record".

Honestly...it's the reporters who were the jackasses in this story.

Chupacabre CAPTURED!!! OMGz!!!!!

Chupacabre Video on CNN

It's a FUCKING COYOTE!! Geezus people in hicktown are fucking stupid.

"Oh well it's legs are longer than usual." "Oh well the teeth are sharp". WTF? Some people are taller than others too. That doesn't make them not people. Jackass....

On Christianity and other Religions

Some thoughts on Christianity and alternative religions.

Some Christians and Christian families are some of the nicest people in
the world. They have Brady Bunch or the Cleavers type of family. For
you youngins, like the Seavers or the Huxtables. Younger? How about
the Griffins or the that troop from 7th Heaven? More likely, and MUCH
more important to Christians, is the perception of having such a family.
Having been involved with and close to a number of families who call
themselves Christian, I can tell you that the ones I've seen usually
have rampant alcoholism, child abuse (verbal or physical), generally
loathing toward other family members, and a sense of "I wish you would
all die." So pleasant. The children are often so out of control.
Into drugs or drinking or smoking at an early age. Not paying attention
to their parents. And why would they? Dad's an alcoholic who is never
home. Mom is pissed off at Dad and takes it out on the kids. Then you
want the kids to respect you? It's ok though. So long as you go to
confession and you are right with the Lord, right?

Many other families that I've known, or just individuals, are perceived
to live in a world of such sin. It's outwardly visible to people on the
outside looking in. They see someone who dresses in all black, for
example. They see a man with earrings or with a rock 'n roll t-shirt of
his favorite band. Even worse, they see a woman with more than one
earring in the same ear or with dark makeup or dyed black hair. Oh my
gosh!! However, when you get to know them and become involved with
their family, you see they have very well behaved children who are not
overly disciplined. They respect their parents simply because their
parents practice what they preach. They may drink, ever so sparingly.
They may even do some recreational drugs that the kids never find out
about. But, they live a life of strict order. Things are meant to be a
certain way with them and so they are. The kids eat a diet that is put
forth by their parents and is adhered to by the children. Once in
awhile there may be some variance to the rules. Bent but not broken!
The children are always dressed nice, too. There may be some
questionable material on their t-shirts or shoes with spikes on them if
they're teenagers, but their clothes are always clean. Neat and pressed
if applicable. Hair impeccably groomed and well defined. The boys are
handsome and the girls are beautiful. Most important of all, there is
mutual respect between the parents and the children. Why is that?
Because the parents haven't been spending their whole lives trying to
convince God that they are something they are not.

As much as a Christian will tell you about their faith and their beliefs
that "God will be my judge", they care very little about that until the
very end of their miserable lives. What they care MOST about and will
DENY the most is the importance of the judgments made by other people
that also call themselves Christian. They can't stand non Christians
because they can see right through the charades and that frightens them,
yet they still try convince non Christians that Christians are better
people as a whole and that they themselves are better people than anyone
who is non Christian.

Entire civilizations have been wiped out in the name of "spreading the
word" of Christ. Belief systems thousands of years predating
Christianity were all but eradicated by those who forced conversion unto
them. Those who refused conversion were killed "in the name of Christ
our Lord".

Today, it's not as bad, granted. Thank God!! The worst they do now is
flood our television with meaningless drabble every Sunday morning.
Once in awhile, they walk around and try to recruit new members for
their church. Usually because their church is broke and is about to be
shut down. Not because they care about spreading the love of Jesus.
How annoying are these people, right? The only time I go door to door
and engage in face to face relations with random people whom I don't
know is on Halloween and only enough to say "Trick or Treat" for my
young daughter who is too young to do it for herself. I think this year
she'll take care of it though if she's not too shy. Thankfully, not
everyone has children or they don't go with them. If everyone was out
walking the streets on October 31st, who would be home to give out
candy?

What, then, is the purpose of Christianity? I think it's a group of
laws and morals to live by to live life as a good person and to treat
others with respect and kindness. Yet, so very few people that call
themselves Christians actually do it. The greatest people I've ever
known were not Christian or at the very least did not practice it or
advertise it. People are nice people if they are raised that way. If
they have happy lives. People who were raised poorly and have lived
miserable lives will continue to pass that on to their children, who
will no doubt be Christians because they too were brainwashed from birth
with a list of contradictory commandments and ideals to live by. Not
contradictory on their own, but contradictory to their parents actions
and the way they were raised.

And another thing. How can God be omnipresent and man have free will?
Isn't that in itself contradictory? Do you actually have any choices if
God already knows the choices you are going to make? We're getting into
some Matrix shit now. I'll save that for another blog.

What's going on with us?

So how about an update? Well, Lestat started school this week. He's doing
fairly well. He did have one incident on a bus yesterday where he thought
he would make someone stop singing when they chose not to stop singing when
asked. He felt kicking that person might help. It didn't. He's also had
some recent problems with using foul language when in the presence of
adults. Kids are going to talk like they do when around their friends. As
we were kids and probably did the same thing (yeah you did.don't lie to
yourself), we grew up and learned when and with whom it's "safe" to use such
language. He hasn't learned that skill just yet. However, he was good in
school that same day. When he got home, he was told he was grounded and had
to stay in his room. However, I chose a different disciplinary strategy
when I got home. Instead of sitting in his room doing nothing, he got to go
out side!! Yay!! Yes he got to go outside and pull weeds and water the
garden and pick up junk from the yard. He also got to come out of his room
to do laundry, take out he trash, clean up the living room, and maybe one or
two other things that I made him do because I really didn't want to. I
didn't mind watching someone else do them though. Of course I did supervise
each of his actions and did help him out and actually taught him how to do
these things that he didn't know how to do. For crying out loud, he's 9
years old. He should have SOME responsibilities. Yes, he may not do some
things correctly, but the point is he tried. Even if I have to go behind
him and help him out a bit, I really don't mind so long as he did some work.


Of course, the entire time we were working, Lindrielle was right there
practically begging to help. She wants to do everything we do even though
she's obviously too little. Right now, it's enough that she thinks she's
helping. I might have her hand me some clothes from the dirty clothes bin
and then I'll put them in the washer, for example. Obviously, I could have
grabbed more clothes and got the job done a lot faster myself, but so long
as she's got the attitude that she wants to help, I'm going to encourage
that every chance I get.

Lindrielle is talking a lot and can pretty well mimic everything we say.
Unfortunately, it's not always something you want to hear from the mouth of
an over talkative 3 year old with a brain like a sponge. She has a little
difficulty with changing her routine. Since Lestat started up with school
again, we decided that both kids should follow a similar routine. They
shower one after the other and are both put to bed at the same time every
night. She struggled with this at first, but a few days into it and she
knew what was coming and really didn't seem to mind.

My sister Bobbie got married a couple weeks ago. She had a really good time
in Jamaica for her honeymoon. I gained a new nephew and a niece. Uriah
rocks out on the guitar on a regular basis. He has put together a few songs
of his own as well as does several covers of other bands. He does them
very well. I had heard that he plays quite a bit, but hadn't heard him play
until yesterday. Knowing myself and how picky I am with guitarists, and
being a fan of a particular type, I was a bit skeptical on how good he was.
I had, after all, only heard from my sister and his father about how good he
was. Family can be so nice and also be so mean in trying to be nice.
However, I checked out several videos of him playing live on YouTube and I
can honestly say I was blown away. Great job Uriah! As lame as "great job"
sounds. How about this. I'm picky. I have an ear for music and I think
you're very good.

However, I know next to nothing about the art of the guitar and you yourself
are the only one that really knows how good you are. For example, I can do
some yo yo tricks that blow people away even when I mess them up. I kick
myself for messing them up. You may have messed up a bunch of notes that I
didn't know were messed up. See what I mean? Just watching you play,
though, I can tell you know what you're doing and really have a passion for
it. If you ever hit it big one day, whatever that means for you, and you
get a band together and you're out on tour and one of your band members get
injured or sick or whatever, give me a call. I play a mean cowbell.

Maria. I know nothing about how. Forgive me for not divulging any sage
advice or encouraging your talents here. I don't know what they are.

Juanita has been doing pretty great too. She's made some really good
dinners in the last few weeks. Don't get me wrong. She always makes great
meals, but the last few times she's cooked, she's made thing she doesn't
make regularly but she's still done a knockout job. She's anxious and
scared about her near future. I won't get into that here out of respect for
her.

I'm doing good. Just working and coming home for and handling kids for the
most part. I don't mind. However, we did shake things up a bit by going
camping last weekend at the Great Sand Dunes here in Colorado. That was a
lot of fun. That was the first time I've been camping, if you can believe
it. Out in the wild with bears and coyotes and having a good time. I hiked
up to the top of the tallest Sand Dune and had a great time doing it. I
really had to push myself to get up there. I was ready to turn back several
times. Juanita nearly made it to the top but decided to head back to camp
to get dinner going. Turns out, her hike back to camp was probably more
difficult than my hike to the top of the dunes. I have a bunch of pictures
of the camping trip on my flickr page if you care to check it out.
http://www.flickr.com/ub3rn00ber. Enjoy.

Well that's all I have to share for now. I'll be back soon.

It's Hailing Outside

In the beginning, relationships are nothing but fun. Two people that
want to be with each other day and night, want see each other every
chance they get. After awhile, you get used to being with that person.
After awhile longer, you do more and more things together. After awhile
longer, you start doing less and less things together. After awhile
longer, you find yourself doing more and more things alone or with other
people, but still that one person remains your tree trunk, your solid
ground. After awhile longer still, you grow to enjoy the time you get
away from that person. Now that you've been together so long, you know
all the good things about this person and you are beginning to learn
things that are not so good. They may have habits that you don't like.
They may act a certain way in certain situations that you don't
particularly enjoy. Some things they do may even anger you. You might
think they actually do certain things just to get a negative reaction
out of you and maybe they do, just to stir things up. Just to have
interaction with you because they are missing all the closeness that you
used to share. You find yourself having more discussion about things
that are bothering each other rather than things that you both like.

Sound grim? Sounds like this relationship is going downhill? If your
answers to these questions are "yes", then you are doomed to a life of
short, shitty relationships. These times of what are sometimes heated
discussions or arguments are called "building". You love the person so
you don't want to harp on them and you don't want to make them feel bad
by telling them they are doing things that you don't like so you tend to
keep those feelings to yourself. That is understandable, but it is not
the healthiest thing to do in the long run. If you feel like you can
live with what they're doing forever and it doesn't bother you all that
much, then great. If it's something that really irritates you or
progressively bothers you worse, though, then you had better do
something about it. Maybe they won't stop doing what they're doing, but
at least they'll know you don't like it and may make a conscience effort
to bother you less. Maybe they'll do it more on purpose to hurt you.
Get out now. This process works both ways, of course. It's NEVER a one
sided thing no matter how much it appears that way at the time.

This building process is only for the good of the long term
relationship. Some people will tell you that they've been happily
married for years and they never argue. While that's most likely a lie,
the rare case does exist where people think so much alike that they are
nearly one person instead of a couple. In those cases, I don't see a
lot of excitement. Contentment is a good word for it and many people
are content with contentment. Good for them. For the other 6.2 billion
of us, there is a lot of work involved in relationships. While we don't
start a relationship with someone with the plan to make it a full time
job, it quickly becomes one right in front of our eyes and many people
never see it coming.

In this full time job, there are several long time goals and long term
career resolutions. You can stay at this job your entire life until
it's time to "retire". The retirement might be yours or it may be your
spouse. Either way, that part of the job is over. Nobody said it would
be easy. Nobody said you'd like the answers. Someone walks up to you
and punches you in the nose; you aren't going to enjoy it. You can get
fired from your job. Your spouse can decide that the work is too much
and decide to kick you out of the work program. You might have to find
another job or maybe you'll choose to retire. Getting fired is a tricky
situation because in this effect, the person doing the firing loses
their job as well. You could go on hiatus. Maybe a good deal of time
apart will be great for your relationship in the long term. You have to
be away from each other long enough to get over that "I'm use to them
being here" feeling. I say that because when you've build a life with
someone, you count of them for certain things. Many of those things you
simply take for granted until they aren't there anymore. Sometimes
there are things you didn't even take notice of. Things you didn't even
know they did until suddenly you have to do them yourself and you find
it hard to do those things at first. You have to get into the routine
and learn to be by yourself and be able to be happy by yourself before
you can make a clear decision that you actually WANT to be with the
other person and that you do not need to be with them because they help
you out by doing things you don't want to. A good example of this is
with children. One spouse may rely on the parenting and watching of the
kids for while they work or do other activities. Suddenly you don't
have someone else there for you so you have to figure out what to do
with the children. Of course when children are involved it makes things
much harder. A hiatus is hard on the entire family so before utilizing
this option, you really need to think about how it'll affect everyone
else before you decide to act selfishly. Sometimes it's great for the
kids. It just depends on the living situation.

In the building process, you may have to make sacrifices. No. That's
wrong. I can guarantee you will have to make sacrifices. You may have
to change some things that you've always done a certain way. Maybe the
way you fold clothes. Maybe the direction you hang a hanger. Maybe the
direction you put the toilet paper on the roll. Those aren't huge
changes, but they are examples of simple things you might do to ease
things over with your spouse just to make life a little easier for them
and to make you easier to live with.

Nobody is expecting you to change the essence of who you are. If
someone wants to be with you at first and then decides they want to
change who you are to better suit their needs, then that's not going to
be a very smooth relationship. It'll only get harder and harder until
you or both of you go insane. Get out now. You can bend to a certain
extent, but don't allow yourself to break. By the same token, don't
expect to go into a relationship with the intention of breaking anyone
else. Enough.

On to family members. Some are great. Some are not great. Some you
have to deal with. Some you don't. Express to your spouse those people
who you would choose to avoid if at all possible. Work with each other
to iron out problems so that you need not be forced into uncomfortable
situations time and time again. It just ruins the whole day. If you
find yourself with a spouse who is uncompromising in the family visits
position, and you continue to have issues with those family members,
then the problem you are having is with the spouse and not the family
member.

Stories From the News....WOW

I read a story on CNN news that a guy murdered his roomate with an axe and then went to a place called "Hideaway Motel" to try to elude the cops. You gotta be a special kind of stupid. He probably flipped through the phonebook looking for a place to stay and he looked up "Hideaway" and found that motel and thought nobody would ever find him there. Stupid bastard.

I read another story on CNN that says there was a funeral in Chicago and gunmen showed up and fired into the crowd. So you kill someone, then show up to the funeral to try to murder their friends and family at the funeral. How big of a fucking coward do you have to be to do some shit like that?

Finally, there's this guy (in the pic) who was caught having sex with a horse...twice...and it was the same horse. Dude was on probation for doing it the first time when he was arrested for doing it the second time. I'm thinking his junk must just be too big for human females and the only vagina that he can use is that of a horse or a whale and a horse is much easier to catch.

On the Henry Louis Gates Jr thing...

He was locked out of his house. He was breaking in to his own house. Someone saw this happening and called the cops. The cop, Sgt Crowley, showed up and confronted Gates who called Crowley a racist and said a number of things about Crowleys mother. Things that weren't very friendly. Crowley could have let it go once proof was given that Gates lived there. I haven't seen a ton of details come out about the case yet. How was proof given, for example. I know Gates was leasing the house from Harvard and so someone at the school could have proven Gates lived there. He could have shown mail with his name and address on it and shown ID. The cop followed protocol and did his job. Gates threw a fuckin' fit about it like little kid.
Time and time again, people who are educated, and usually white, believe the law doesn't apply to them. They think that laws are just for criminals. The scum that live on the other side of town. Yes yes..that's what the cops are for. To protect me from those undesireables. To keep them out of MY neighborhood. I have money and a nice car and my peers respect me, there fore I am above committing crimes and if someone DOES accuse me of having done so, they are simply baffoons to be rediculed and called out.
Here's how it works, Mr. Harvard law man. No matter how well you THINK you know the law, you are not above it. Do you get it? Do you understand, Mr. finely educated professor man? Or do I need to sprinkle it down for you?
As I said, it's usually educated WHITE people that pull this shit thinking the laws don't apply to them. But it's especially amusing (for lack of a better word at the time) when an educated minority feels they are being treated improperly when they commit a crime and are punished for it. It's far more amusing because they can then pull the RACE CARD and claim they are being mistreated because they are hispanic or black or asian or anything else other than white. And we all know what happens when someone pulls the race card. That's right. Al Sharpton gets his hair done and starts making television appearances all over all the networks. Jesse Jackson shows up here and there. Fox News blows it up bigger than shit and it becomes their top news story for at least the next 3 days until some little white girl goes missing again.
In my hobbies, bowling, video games, hiking, biking, billiards, swimming, poker, strip clubs (I wish), I have come across all manner of people from all manner of backgrounds. Some that were raised by college deans. Some that grew up in foster homes. Some that did time in prison. Let's talk more about the people who spend time in prison. Everyone I know that was in jail for someone admitted that they were indeed breaking the law. "Yep...I did it...yep...I got caught." Simple as that. They may have been stupid to do what they were doing, but they were not slow to accept responsibility for what they did.
People that are not common criminals, but yet still break a law and get caught all want to show that they are a victim in one way or another. EVERYBODY is a fuckin' victim these days. I can't watch TV for an hour without seeing 15 commercials about calling a lawyer to sue someone else for YOUR dumbass mistakes. Don't know how to do your job because you're a lazy fuck that doesn't pay attention and then you got hurt because you fell asleep while you were operating a lathe? Call me and we can sue your company for $200,000!!!
Oh...I'm being punished for committing a crime because I'm a minority. Oh I'm being punished for committing a crime because I'm young. Because I'm old. Because I'm fat. Because I'm skinny. Because I'm a boy and have an earring. Because I have baggy pants. Because my hair is spiky. NO MOTHERFUCKER...IT'S BECAUSE YOU COMMITTED A CRIME!!!!