Ignoreland Nov. 4th Edition

Did you vote today?

Why the hell not?

Are you going to vote today?

Good.

Despite what George Carlin may think, if you don't vote, you don't get the right to complain. I will pimp slap anyone who doesn't vote who complains about anything even vaguely related to this campaign. That includes prices of anything, traffic, the environment and Kenny Rogers.

So get out there and support the candidate of your choice and I hope its the one with the only remedy for the fever that this country has...

Monty Got a Raw Deal

I'm hoping to have multiple posts today. I wanted to start with an example of a group calling itself Christian, having no idea what it means to be Christ-like. Some of you may have heard this already. Apparently, during Gen Con, there was, as per usual, an attempt to raise money for a charity. This year, in commemoration of the death of Gary Gygax, they decided to donate to his favorite charity; the Christian Children's Fund. Over $17,000 was raised to help impoverished children around the world. That donation was rejected out of hand, apparently because some of the money came from the sale of Dungeons and Dragons books.

Let me repeat that. $17,000 was to be donated to a charity and they rejected it because it came from gamers.

Every year, our various roleplaying groups tend to raise at least $1000 in cash to be donated to charity, and a lot more in toys given to Toys for Tots. This charity rejects that. I'd like to find somewhere in the Bible where it says "Take not the money of the gamer, for... um... hold on, there's got to be something... he drinketh the coffee and the Mountain Dew, therefore you should know him as unclean? Does that work?"

Now and then I'd like to have a machine that helps me have a conversation with the guy who started their religion.

Me: So Jesus, a bunch of guys who claim to do what you want rejected a $17,000 donation because it came from a group of people who occasionally sit around a table, roll dice and pretend to be fantasy characters.

Jesus: Say what?

Me: I'm trying to remember the sermon you gave about roleplayers being unholy, can you help me with this.

Jesus: No man, I've got no idea what those crazy m0therf@ck3rs are talking about.

I sent a letter to them in my disgust, and I think I was fairly level-headed for an angry antitheist.

Good morning,

Every year a roleplaying group I am involved with raises hundreds to thousands of dollars to donate to charities. During the crisis around hurricane Katrina our small group of less than 20 was able to make a donation totalling over $1000 raised within the period of 6 days. Recently it has come to my attention that your charitable group refused a donation of more than $17,000 from the organizers of GenCon. I have yet to find a reasonable explanation for this rejection of money to help those in need.

Refusing the donation of this money raised in memory of a man who donated to your organization countless times cannot be considered at all Christ-like. I am confused at the explanation you are giving the children who will not receive this well needed funds. Have you told them that they will not receive the sanitation they need because a gamer wanted to give to them? I have found no mention of this rejection on your website. Have you in any way communicated this rejection to your other donors?

I am confused at your actions, but primarily I am sad for the children. I am in the process of making this rejection aware to my friends, many of whom are gamers, to find alternative charities for donation. Please reconsider this stance as those who are trying to make a difference are trying to aid you.

Thank you,

So, many of you know that I have a general contempt for religion and wouldn't have donated to them anyway, but can someone who practices a religion help me out with this?

Testing

This is a test.

Moral Kiosk - update

Friendship is a strange thing. We have rules, ways of behaving that we expect one another to know, one another to live by. Sometimes these rules are spoken aloud; more often then not they are merely assumed. Usually we have no logical creation of these rules, only a deep seated sense that they are right.

When one of these rules is violated we are hurt, severely, but we rarely know what to do. "These rules shouldn't ever be violated," we think "everyone is aware of them."

I want to forgive, but I can't.

I want to hate, but I don't.

Moral Kiosk

Something happened to me this weekend that made me fairly depressed for a while. After chatting with some good friends in person I felt much better. Its amazing how many times you can think that an emotional wound is healed but when rubbed the right way it chafes and burns.

On that note, this may be the first time I've ever posted lyrics in a post other than as a brief quote. It's usually not my style, but as I continue to heal I heard this song and it felt so right.

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don't matter, anyhow
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin' anyway
So don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

-Bob Dylan, 1963

I Wanted to Be Wrong

So, I'm listening to "This American Life" (I've been doing that a lot lately), and this guy is interviewing people about how they feel about him; they all think he's an @$$hol3. He's asking his friends about it, and asks one of them:

"If you think this way about me, why are you still friends with me?"
"I don't know... inertia."

And I thought about that. How many times are we friends with people not because of any real reason we want to be together, but because we have been for so long?

...oh, this isn't a comment about any of my fine readers. I was just thinking of an earlier conversation I had with a friend.

Wanting to be with Jenn on some level was just due to inertia.

So, here's to overcoming inertia.

So, in a vain attempt to avoid doing work, I have, once again, been playing around with Netflix. I now have 414 DVDs in my queue. Assuming that each disk is only 2 hours (which many of them are more, especially if they are a disk of some TV show), it would take me 818 hours, or 34.5 days to watch them all. That's right, I've dedicated 35 days of my future life to watching movies.