Thursday's Here?

Time flies when you're having fun. . .

Or when you're just busy working on homework and other miscellanious projects.

I feel lately that if I'm not working, I'm doing schoolwork. And when I'm not doing schoolwork, I'm most likely asleep on the couch. Which is strange considering I have this nice comfortable bed that I can always sleep in, but if I go to bed in that, I tend to not want to get up in the morning.

Tomorrow, I shall be buying a bag of nice juicy ripe tomatos, and making them go *SPLAT* against a brick wall. And then I will photograph them.

This splattered tomato will then be used on a poster for my image editing class. . .

I've learned new techniques in Photoshop. I'm in love. . .

I just spent the last forty minutes reading old blog posts.

I'm also trying to figure out why my archive hasn't been updating since February.

Mysteries.

I need to find better things to write about. I remember when I used to have an interesting blog.

EDIT: Well, in an attempt to fix this problem, I just erased my entire archive so I'll work on this dilemma after work.

Death to Comcast

I've been getting these phonecalls from an area code i don't recognize, and overall I've been kind of ignoring them because I don't get a message or anything. Well, finally I answered one of these calls and low and behold its Comcast on the other end. The conversation went something like this.

Comcast: Hello, this is Comcast, is Kami there?
Me: Speaking.
Comcast: I would like to talk to you about paying a part of your bill to avoid a disruption in your service.
Me: Excuse me? I have it set up so it takes the bill out of my paycheck automatically!
Comcast: Oh. Well that takes about six to ten weeks to go through.
Me: Why didn't the website say that then?
Comcast: It says that on the following page when you sign up for the recurring service.
Me: *goes to comcast payment site and scrolls through the terms of service which mention nothing about this.* No it doesn't. It just tells me to pick a 'One time Payment' or the 'Recurring payment and forget about it!'
Comcast: Well, did you want to pay that now?
Me: I wanted to pay it last month! I set up this thing to pay my bill automatically as soon as I got my billing statement!
Comcast: So did you want to pay it online or over the phone?
Me: Can you scrub my late fee?
Comcast: We can do that once as a customer courtesy.
Me: Damn right you will. Can you also tell your higher ups that this is bullcrap? When it says Recurring Payment, I expect to be able to sign up and forget about it!

So that was basically the condensed version. Please, tell me, when you see a page that looks like this. . .

. . .that you assume that if you click 'make it a regular thing' that it will automatically take it out of your checking account?

Granted, I should know better about making assumptions, but in this case, I didn't expect to be getting a call about a possibility of disruption of service when I set up my Comcast payment over a month ago!

Yep, that's Comcastic!

What? Me Highstrung? Whatever gave you THAT idea???

Sleeping Ferret

I took this a couple weeks ago. Ferrets are the most flexible animals with a backbone on the face of the planet I'm sure.

Politics, and the Glenn Beck Program

You know what truly speaks volumes about this past election? From all appearances, conservatives have been going 'eh', instead of proclaiming the end of the world and complaining about how stupid people who vote democrat are.

This means one of two things.

1) Conservatives are more mature then liberals.

2) The Republican party needs to get its act together.

Actually, I think both are true. The older you get, traditionally the more conservative you get. But that's not always the case.

And lately, the Republicans are pandering more to the NeoCon far right wing and not paying attention to the real issues.

I just got this month's copy of Fusion Magazine in the mail (did I mention I'm a Glenn Beck fan?) He made it completely unbiased so no matter what, whatever party wins it will speak volumes about why the other lost. And you know what? I read it cover to cover and thought to myself 'Wow, do I really agree with what this guy has to say!'

Of course, who am I kidding? I assume most of my readers (well, whatever ones that are left that is) probably listen to him anyway.

I don't have cable. I almost got it mostly so I could have the History Channel, Discovery Channel, TLC, and Glenn Beck on Headline Prime. I'm waiting for Comcast to have another one of those specials so I can get it without having to pay the instillation fees, but until then, I'm game to wait it out as I work at a video store again and can get all of the movies I want on discount. And there's always the internet.

Meanwhile, is there any possibility of a third party coming out of the debris and actually making a difference in today's political field?

Georges Sada

For those of you who don't know, Georges Sada is a retired Iraqi General that served under Saddam Hussein. Through World Compassion Ministries, I was able to hear him speak on the status of Iraq, and being a religious venue, more specifically the religious freedom of Iraq. Interestingly enough, Georges Sada is a Christian. At times the lecture got a bit too evangelical for my tastes, but the information was very interesting and I came home with his book (Signed!)

This brings into question the reason why we are in Iraq, and why we went there in the first place. Granted, I wish things were going a little smoother now, but I find it odd how many people seem to want to trust Saddam Hussein over George W Bush. Especially as the war came closer and we went in to invade.

Well, according to Gen Georges Sada, Saddam did have WMD and they were transported into Syria before we invaded. Granted, he did not personally see the weapons get transported, and because we cannot verify whether his statements are true or not unless we actually go to Syria, a lot of the book has to be taken on his word.

I found him to be a very personable and friendly person, and his stories are very interesting, especially in regards to how he survived for so long under Saddam Hussein.
Interview with Jon Stewert.

I'll have to read the book and let you all know what I think. . .

Movie Reviews - College Style

For my Critical and Creative Thinking class, we had to write a movie review for a movie we saw recently. The point of this assignment was to use language in a way to give the reader a clear idea of what the movie is about and how we formed our opinion on it.

We were to avoid a review such as : "This Movie is really neat. I liked the characters and the story was really fascinating. . . blah blah blah."

Neat, interesting, nice and the like are vague descriptions, you're definition of what makes something 'neat' or 'nice' may be different then somebody else's, right? So I tackled the review with this in mind.

I chose "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an engaging and clever film. The main premise involves a mild mannered man named Joel (played by Jim Carrey), who realizes that his eccentric girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has recently gone through a revolutionary procedure to have him and their entire relationship erased from her memory. Confused and angry, Joel decides to do the same, only to realize as the memories fade that he doesn't want to forget her. The movie takes an unusual twist by showing events out of chronological order, as Joel's relationship with Clementine is revealed in reverse, from the last argument they had to the moment they met. The casting director also did something rather unorthodox by casting Winslet in the eccentric role instead of Jim Carrey, and both actors perform their parts brilliantly. I found this particular film fascinating as it engages your mind and makes you wonder about what you would do if presented with a similar situation. It also mixes humor with drama and presents itself in a light manner while remaining deep and thought provoking.

I felt I covered the assignment and I posted my answer. Of course, I have to read other people's reviews and post in reply. One struck me as particularly, well, bad. I get the impression that she didn't read the instructions and only saw 'Write a Movie Review'.

The movie I saw a couple of weeks ago was about a man who became a cop so he could get the down low on his mob friends. The other guy was a cop how was sent to the mob to be under cover. In this movie the main mob boss was trying to find out who was the snitch or undercover cop in his mob. He was giving the other cop information about all of the guys under him to see who was a cop. The movie starts out with this bad cop handing out with the mob boss as a child. He is taken in like an orphan. Then it catches up to this day in age. I liked the movie and I just can't give a way the end it would ruin the whole movie. I came to this conclusion based on my perception of the movie.

My reply:

. . . Huh? Ok, two questions. One, what is the title of your movie, and two, Huh? You lost me, as this appears to be a rambling mess and I have no idea what I just read.

Ok, so I didn't particularly say that (though I want to) but I'll probably write something similar (and toned down for proper netiquette) but still, what in the world?

I would say, and this is just me, that this is below standard for a 400 level college class. I feel compelled to reply to this girl. I mean, seriously, can I critique something like this without coming across as an ass?

It kind of makes me a bit weary about continuing with my education at this institution. We shall see, eh?

Voting Results Continued

So, Democrats gained the house and may have the senate, depending on one race in Virginia.

I was hoping Maria Cantwell would get kicked out of office but who am I kidding? I live in Washington and apparently it's very progressive to have two female senators and a female governor, look at us!

Well, my congressman is a woman too, but I actually voted for her.

I'm interested in seeing where exactly the country goes over the course of the next two years, if the Democrats can actually make it any better (I doubt it) or if the Republicans can take a look at this and think 'well, gosh, maybe we should actually listen to our base if we want to stay in office'.

To tell you the honest truth, I think both parties are pretty screwed up and I've coem to think that I probably can't trust a word that comes out of either party's mouth. In a perfect world, I would probably vote libertarian more then anything else, because I'm not a fan of big government, and it used to be that the Republicans were the ones who fought against big government.

So now I expect that these next two years nothing will get accomplished except for a lot of bickering and name calling in the upper government. Bush probably won't be able to accomplish much because the Senate and Congress will likely fillibuster and block anything that he tries to pass, in effect, largely making him a 'lame duck'.

I just hope my stocks hold up.

Here's looking to 2008. I just hope that Gore, Kerry, or Clinton Female is not in the running for the Dems. I wouldn't mind Lieberman, but he's probably to conservative and pro warm for the Democrats to stomach, that and they already wrote him off (still glad to see him make a comeback as an independent) I'm not sure who I would like to see as the Republican candidate.

Slave No Longer

I have an Announcement to Make.

After a few short weeks of making a confession that I actually shop at Walmart despite my frequent proclamations that they are run by the Devil himself, they have gone back on my Crapper List.

The reason for this is that they have made themselves decidedly inconvenient by selling crap products. Who knew?

Actually, I did know, I just didn't know to what extent.

I got sidetracked from homework quite a bit last week when one day I went shopping at the devil store itself and saw a TV stand that looked perfect for what I needed it for. I recently bought a flat screen LCD TV and I really didn't like the entertainment center it was currently on. This entertainment center looked perfect for what I needed. I literally stood there staring at it for probably fifteen minutes debating in my head whether or not I should get it. After careful consideration, the fact that I own Ferrets made up my mind and I put the thing in my cart and took it to the front.

This specific stand actually looks pretty nice for a Wal Mart Product. It also has a piece where you mount your flat screen from for more space, and right now I needed a little more space.

The screen however, came with no screws to screw the TV into the stand. The instructions insist that these screws come with your TV.

No, the TV instructions insist that these screws are provided by the stand! TVs don't come with a wall mount, the wall mount provides the screws.

So I went to Walmart to figure out if they sold these screws. Procede with the Wild Goose Chase. When I went to the Hardware department, they sent me to the freakin' place that sold me the TV! From there, it was confirmed that the mount provides the screws, so I had to find out what kind of screws these were so I could go to an actual hardware store and get them. But low and behold, the screws don't fit quite as well as they should into the back of the mount, so I had to get a Washer as well.

I spent probably a good five hours putting together a stand and running around town trying to get the parts when I could have been using this valuable time working on homework! And WalMart was completely unhelpful.

Despite the fact that Walmart is about a one minute car drive away, I have decided that I will be a slave to conveniance no longer. If I want something, I'll actually drive five minutes to get it instead.

School News and Latest Going Ons

I tested out of Computer Applications, which is great news, btw. And by the freakin' hair on my chin too. I had to pass the test with an 85% and I scored exactly 85%. What a load off! A little close for comfort, but I did it! One more class I won't have to worry about.

Meanwhile, my Image Editing class is doing pretty good. I'm still learning some new stuff, but a lot of it is reenforcements. I probably could have tested out of this class, but its to late now so I'm going to have to do it. My latest assignment is to make a poster for some kind of performing arts venue, and to be quite honest, performing arts really isn't my forte'. I'm thinking of doing one involving the Lippizanner Stallions, but if that won't be excepted, I have to find another idea. I'm thinking a Poetry slam might work.

In fact, I have an idea for a poetry slam as I type this. Hmm, so a Poetry slam it is! Or Lippizanner Stallions. One or the other.

So far, I love my Critical and Creative Thinking Class. At first, I was a little worried that I would grow bored with this class, or feel overwhelmed by it. But I'm getting back into the swing of things and fell right into a routine. I have struggled most with this class then any of them, but the content is awesome. I would like to consider myself a Critical Thinker of sorts, and I feel while taking this class that I am one. And I think it will help me be a more well rounded individual in other areas as well.

Success Strategies can be described as a 'welcome to college' class, with some ideas of how to better yourself as a student and a person in the work field. It does have some very helpful information, and I have discovered more then a couple links between this class and my critical thinking class. Most of the students in my critical thinking class are in their later terms in college, coming toward the end, where this class you take within your first couple . I specifically asked for the critical thinking class so that I could get it done, and looking back, this was the perfect quarter to take it.

And so far, I'm getting all A's. I'm not sure if the method of grading is just more slack then a traditional classroom or if I'm just better suited for this type of learning environment. Honestly, I have found that I am absorbing the material and doing it at my own pace better then I had been in the normal classroom, but fortunately I tend to be a good student regardless of where I learn. I'm just glad that I am able to adapt to this style of learning so well.

We'll see how it goes!

Election Day

Well, another election year, and now hopefully we'll see a disappearance of those annoying political signs.

I voted yesterday (mail in) which is how everyone in our county is voting this year. There were some issues that I chose not to vote on due to the fact that I didn't know as much about the issues as I felt I needed to know to give a good strong opinion on how my vote should go, so I refrained.

Meanwhile, Republicans lost control of the house but still have the Senate. In some ways, this is actually probably a good thing, and in the same way a bad thing. A good thing because it adds a little more to the checks and balances of the government, but bad because Nancy Pelosi is now Speaker of the House and I don't think anything will ever get done as the most that will likely happen is a bunch of bickering and backstabbing.

One reason why I have decided to refrain from entering politics myself. No thanks.

I still consider myself conservative, and I generally vote along party lines unless I am stirred enough by the opposing candidate that I feel like I agree with them more then the republican. Republicans haven't been doing to hot these days in my opinion. So maybe losing the house will help them pull their heads out of their asses.

Question: Am I now sorry for voting for Bush? Hell no, and I won't regret it even if I decide after his presidency that he is the worst president in history. Mostly because at the time I went by the knowledge I had and I have no proof supporting whether Kerry would have made a better president or not. And you know what? We'll never know, will we? So Nope! Still not sorry!

But in closing, I do have this to say. Lieberman got reelected as an Independent, after the Democrats turned on him. And that to me is fantastic news.

Angst From LiveJournal

So I'm a member of this LJ community called FerretAttitude. The moderators asked as a courtesy that people do not edit their posts mostly to help reference later.

So a girl gets on and asks a question about ferret foods and how to prevent her ferret from tipping over the food bowl. And people gave her the answer.

Feeling that she got the answer she needed, she edited her post to say that she had the question answered.

In light of this, the mods asked her politely to not do this in the future, so people can reference the post and know what it said. Maybe three people actually made this suggestion.

And what does she do? She freaks out. She starts cursing everyone in the community and leaves, but not before posting a picture of a fat guy whacking off about thirty times.

The mods were able to delete the post, but the girl obviously has severe social problems. If you have a Live Journal, feel free to flame her until she deletes this post.

Trench

Sometimes I help my sister out when she sells things on ebay, and ever so often we get into a goofy mood and start being dorks. Like when we were posing in the park and saw the leaves everywhere, it was a giant invitation to kick them around.

I REALLY like this jacket. I'm thinking about asking my sister if I can have it. She says that if I just outbid them on eBay that it can be all mine. (I can make it payment for helping her take pictures)

I'll wait until the auction is close to the end to see how well its being bid on before I just outbid everyone.

Its also fun to kick leaves in. Which she was doing too. . .

It's Snowing!

The first snowfall happened Sunday Night. Today we got a nice dusting of powder on the ground.

The Snow Season should be spectacular this year.

Priceless

This has probably made the blog rounds, but I thought this was worth jumping on.



Still not a fan of John Kerry.

Hat Tip: Liberpolly

Halloween Aftermath

So Halloween has come and gone.

I got dressed up briefly for answering the door, but it became to much of a hassle to finaggle with the costume so I put it to the side and answered the door with a Ferret on my shoulder. I was a demon cow pirate.

I guess I'll put up some pictures in a little bit.

Meanwhile, we watched Night of the Living Dead (classic), Return of the Living Dead, (cheesy) and Evil Dead 2 (cult fave!). Mostly we had them on in the background.

All in all, exactly 27 trick or treaters throughout the night. I still have some candy left, which I really don't need.

Also, put up a Halloween Centric Comic. Lot's of laughs. Or not?

Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator

This is a professional grade personality test that grades you on sixteen different types of personalities. The first time I took this test was with the Army a few years back. I don't quite remember what I got then, but I think it hasn't changed much from the test now. I actually took it twice with some other online tests and got quite a range of results. However, when I took it with the school's version, I got the accurate result I feel I had recieved last time I took it.

MBTI Jung Typology-
HumanMetrics
SimilarMinds
TypeLogic

I got INTP - The Thinker (The Architect)
Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
DOes this fit me? I would think so, and most people who know me personally probably agree.
Defining INTP

Actually, depending on my mood, I can act extroverted, and in some circumstances, I will be an extrovert. But overall I tend to be into my own little world and oblivious to what is going on around me. Yeah, that's totally me.

In The Halloween Spirit

I mutilated a Pumpkin this week. Its been a while since I carved a pumpkin.

I had to plan out the pumpkin of course.

My sister's pumpkin is the 'cute' one.

Once I got the idea of what I wanted to do, I grabbed the knife and dove right in.

If you put anything that can be used as a weapon in my hand, I guess I get this happy look in my face.


This is the final product. Um, nothing too fancy. I've never been an artist at carving pumpkins.


The two pumpkins in the front were done by my niece and nephew. They are 3 and 4, and we thought maybe they were a bit young to be handling knives, so we gave paint brushes instead. There were faces on those pumpkins for a minute. . .

Friday Ferrets

I took my ferrets to their first visit to the vet today. They did fairly well for Ferrets, and they appear to be pretty healthy. They weren't to fond of the rabies shots however.

Since I already had them out of the house, I decided to take them to the pet store (I needed to pick up some things) and brought them along. Abby does not stay in her harness, and I found out that unless its on him prety tight, Blaine will slide out of his so I had myself an interesting situation where I kept Abby perched on my shoulder (which she does pretty good at for a while if you can keep an eye on her) and attempted to do some shopping.

I have decided for future endeavors that if I take a ferret out again, I'll only take one with me. Double trouble is just to much to handle in a public place.

Meanwhile, the easiest time to take pictures of the little furballs is if you wipe them out enough that they pass out. I've been leaving them out for longer periods lately.



Aren't they cute?



These guys have really grown on me.

Image Editing

So far my image editing class has been interesting. A lot of this stuff is repeat of things I already knew but I'm also reinforcing techniques and picking up on some stuff I didn't know. I've been enjoying the class immensely.

My first assingment I was given three black and white photos of butterflies and was told to put them into a collage in some manner. This was in essense a practice of the Marquee, Lasso and Magic Wand Tools. This is what I came up with.



Nothing fancy really, me mostly playing around and messing with the color.

The second project was reinforcing the ideas of the first, except for we had to find a full body image of a human either online or a picture of ourselves and at least five additions to it, whether it be articles of clothing, background or what not. I didn't feel like searching for an already made image, so I used myself. I mean, i have Photoshopped myself before. And then I looked for the strangest outfit I could find. It was really tough finding a pair of shoes that would work. But overall, I had a lot of fun.



I actually bought a hat like that in Bulgaria. More for the novelty of it then anything.

This week's assignment was a practice with the Gradient Tools and an enforcement of colors. We had to create a 'still life' using geometric shapes. Well, I wouldn't really call this a Still Life so much, more of me goofing around (which a lot of these assignments seem to be) and for a bit I was thinking that this wasn't going to work. And then I messed around with it a bit more and then discovered that I actually really liked it! I'm not much of a color person, I'm more into subtle tones, monochromatics and neutrals. This is bright and cheerful, and it looks sweet! I see one thing I should probably go back and fix but overall, cool!



I do one to two images a week like this, one major assignment for that week. The fact that I have prior experience with Photoshop (and a lot at that) has really helped, and so does the ownership of a Wacom Drawing Tablet. Don't do Graphic Arts without it!