So, is anyone really all in dire straights about this writer’s strike? It seems that the very idea of it hurts a lot less than it did the last time, back in the late 80s. An end to this strike doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. Talks broke down last week, the writer’s are staunch in their position–which is certainly understandable. Internet profits are certainly an untapped resource. Their work is deserving of due compensation, and they aren’t being duly compensated in this arena at this point.

Nevertheless, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll be slightly disappointed that I won’t get to see more Lost for a while, or that the end of Galactica might not happen, or that I won’t see the possible end to Jericho for the next good bit. The disappointment is much slighter these days, though.

TV is not the most important thing on the list right now, nor are movies. The Internet is full of distraction, books are more important to me than when I was as young as I was during the writer’s strike of the 80s.

And the TV studios have it even better…reality shows.

On a brighter note, I’ve gotten Call of Duty to run under Wine in Linux 😀 This makes me happy…it’s my favorite game to play on ye olde computer with the bro.

So, I have some kind of ear infection thing going on, me thinks. I don’t know. I’m headed to the doc later this morning to get it checked out. It feels like there’s cotton in my ear whenever I lay on my right side for an extended period. It almost feels the way my ears felt whenever I was on a family trip and needed to use ear plugs to keep my folks’ snoring at a tolerable noise level. lol. They were the silicon jobs that you put over the opening. When I took them out in the morning, my ears would still feel plugged 😐 It makes me wonder if some of that gunk ever got in here… 😐

If not, if that’s just dire pondering, then perhaps it’s just a crazy little ear infection. It seems like whatever it is that’s causing it started about a week or so ago. It only happens when I lay on my right side for a time. Maybe I should lay on my right side when I am given a room at her office. lol.

Compound this with having awakened at 3am because of it, and I am not one happy camper this morning 😐

So, a bunch of friends and I watched the first part of Tin Man…

I swear, TV needs to get better

Yea, I’m hating politics more and more. It seems totally useless to me–full of contradiction, stupidity and general thoughtlessness…basically, it’s the worst of humanity wrapped up into one little package called politics. It leads to nothing but misery, conflict, war–and that’s just between ourselves.

My latest funk when it comes to politics comes from the campaign trail. The Dems have outlined their plans for the manned US space effort. Oddly enough, Clinton actually sounds the most sane in this regard, mirroring the path that NASA is progressing down as I type.

Obama, on the other hand, is the source of my beef. He suggests pitting the education system and the space effort together for money. He suggests “pausing” the space program and funneling that money towards education. WTF?!?! This is so wrong on so many levels. It’s the cart before the horse. You kill the space program to fund education? When you do that, what do you need education for? What’s going to inspire young people? What bigger inspiration for young people to continue in school, particularly striving in math and science, if not the space program?!?!?!

The space program takes up about $16 billion dollars per year…the entire budget of the United States is about $3 trillion. For those of you who aren’t all that good with math, that means that the space program takes up 0.53% of the budget. We’re exploring Mars with robots, persisting an aging and expensive shuttle program, and planning new moon and Mars efforts and a bunch more with 0.27% of the entire US budget….and that is too much for Mr. Obama.

The space program has always been in the same pile as HUD, so it has always fought an uphill battle when it comes to funding. Bloody hell, though. What’s the good with education if it’s not for the betterment of humanity? The space program is the staple of bettering of humanity. This solar system, particuarly the moon right next door, is full of resources the likes of which we may not have even thought of yet. There’s also the possibility of life on Mars–and perhaps even clues as to why we are here.

And imagine what it’d be like if we were to start pulling Helium-3 off of the moon…the energy independence we would theoretically gain. But, no. Obama wants to “pause” the space program until 2024, when China will be reportedly beginning to put landers on the moon just for that purpose. All of the education in the world won’t overcome energy dependence on China when that time comes, if we don’t have a moon program in the works by then 😛

Hence, cart before the horse–you need to have a reason for all of that “education” he seems to be touting. Flippin’ idiots.

(link)

Well, I’m quite ready for this week to end. It was one of those mornings where it would’ve been awesome to just keep laying there, vegging out. Boooooo!!! I’ll get over it 🙂

So, my DVR has been profoundly awesome, thus far 🙂 The only things I’m really pulling right now are Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, The Twilight Zone, MythBusters, Dirty Jobs and Robot Chicken. Atlantis is set, too, which comes back on Friday. It’s just so cool, watching TV at your convenience. You never have to worry about missing a thing anymore, unless the networks purposely run a show over schedule. Booooo!! Anyhoo, some say that DVRs hurt ratings…others say they don’t. I would tend to think that cable and satellite companies have the ability to monitor your watching habits, perhaps the networks have access to this. I really don’t know *shrugs* Hopefully, this won’t kill off shows I like–although I think the writer’s strike might do that just fine itself 😛

My bro’s in town again; he’s slowly making his way to Atlanta. He’s leaving Sunday, so it’ll be good to spend a bit of time with him. Tonight, we play more of The Simpsons Game! 🙂

Galactica Goodness–very good schtuff

Is there a day out there as crazy? 😀 I was very sound asleep at 4am, while tons and tons of people were crawling all over each other just to save a few bucks. I totally agree with the effort of saving a few bucks, but geez! 🙂 I certainly hope no one was killed or maimed anywhere.

Personally, I’ll be just as happy saving a few bucks on Amazon or eBay a lil later 😀

Poor Ruthie was out there, and couldn’t checkout at Goody’s because the lines were so long :\ It sounds like she had a good time, though, and was her usually perky self at 7:15 when I called her this morning 😀 And that’s without coffee! hehe.

HAPPY THAKSGIVING!!!!