Diary of a Wolfeman

Tonight I watched the Bush v. Kerry debate, and I have to say, I was pretty unimpressed with Bush’s performance. The main topic tonight was foreign policy, although some domestic policies were touched on briefly.

The first ten minutes of the debate seemed alot more to me like the debate management playing directly to Bush, and Bush himself seemed to be merely speechifying. As the debate moved forward, the questions (thankfully) grew more serious. Unfortunately, so did Bush’s inability to speak. He spent the entire debate hemming and hawing, stuttering, and falling back on silence while he scrambled to come up with a response.

Senator Kerry, on the other hand, was on the ball. He came off as much more prepared, more sure of himself, and just generally in control. I also liked his answers alot more than the President’s, but I had expected that going in. He was at a disadvantage prior to this mainly because the people haven’t heard exactly where he stands on some of the issues, and tonight he explained that he has plans for Iraq, he has plans to deal with North Korea specificaly and nuclear (not nucular) proliferation in general.

Both candidates made some veiled (or maybe not so veiled) attacks against the other, but Bush came out the loser there. Kerry kept his temper and his composure, so his comments were more simple criticisms than attacks. Bush, on the other hand, repeatedly went back on how “the Commander In Chief can’t say this is the wrong war at the wrong time.” Over and over again. Evry time Bush went there, Kerry came back saying he thought the war was started too soon, that Bush jumped the gun and didn’t go through all the diplomatic chanels before launching the attacks on Iraq. Now that we were in the war, however, he would support our war effort, and get this situation resolved as quickly as possible, perhaps even being able to start bringing troops home within 6 months.

End result? The CBS News team had 200 ‘fence sitters’ watching the debate from their homes across the country and using a WebTV device to rate the debate in real time. The highest rating point received was given to Kerry while outlining some of his 4-year plan, while the lowest rating went to Bush while he was hemming and hawing. According to these folks, Kerry won the debate, and as of right now 50% of those folks said they would be voting for Kerry, 20% sang for Bush, and the remaining 30% were still undecided.

Me? I’m still voting for Kerry, now I just feel better about doing it. Before tonight, I was voting for Kerry as the only way to get Bush out of office. Now, I think the Senator might actualy do a decent job of it.

Damn! You know you’re getting old when you really start taking politics seriously…

I think I have to admit now that the chances of me getting an industry job are too goddamn slim to mention. Time to go grab myself a McJob and pray for something better to eventually come along.

So, if you’re hiring, you know how to find me. Just about anything other than hard labor at this point. (I’d do that, but my knees and wrists wouldn’t take it for long.) My non-industry job history includes washing dishes, flipping burgers, pumping gas, running a deli and some light carpentry.

This kinda shit just really pisses me off. Here I am, an IQ close to 140, a decent education and a ton of skills and I can’t find a fucking job because the economy went to shit. Our glorious president has granted tax cuts to companies who ship jobs overseas and refuses to acknowledge the fact that he is in that office to serve the people, not the corporations and has no fucking regard whatsoever for the poor schmucks like me who just want to go to work every day and earn a living wage. I don’t need to be rich, I just need to feed my kids, pay my bills and got out to dinner a couple times a month. Is that too much to fucking ask?

So, while I’m not above taking charity, I’d much rather work for it. Support your local Techie From Hell: break a computer. Back up all of your data first, then just right-click on your antivirus tray icon and select ‘disable’. Now, open up Internet Exploder and do a websearch for pr0n – that should do the trick.

To the sales staff over at New Horizons Institute:

I can understand that you are frustrated in our current economy. Though the pundits proclaim the recession is over, unemployment is still on the rise, and people are not likely to be enrolling at your fine academy.

However, when you blatantly advertise on job-search websites offering ‘certification internships’ that do indeed cost money, without ever mentioning your tuitions, don’t be surprised when the folks you call are quick to decline. And when they do decline, don’t vent your frustration at your lack of sales by slamming the handset down in the cradle.

To the rest of you, this is what happens when you stupidly base your salary on commission: the economy takes a nosedive, everybody stops spending money, and you wind up with no sales. Get some skills and get a real job, salesfeeb.

Made some adjustments top the layout of the comments pop-up, justifying the text and losing the “HTML allowed” blurb. Let me know what you think about it.

Once again, commenter Casey has gone completely off the mark. To wit:

Comparing gay marriage to inter-racial marriage is not only ignorant, it’s offensive to people of color like myself. Banning inter-racial marriages was wrong not because it was unfair to people who wanted to marry across ethnic lines, but because ethnicity is an inherent, genetic characteristic trait that cannot be discriminated against by definition of the Constitution.

Homosexuality, however, doesn’t enjoy such a luxury. There is no such thing as a gay gene. There is no such thing as being born gay. Contrary to what you might read in Willamette Week or the Mercury, being gay is not an inherent, genetic characteristic. It’s a result of nurture and environmental factors.

HOWEVER… Read the rest of this entry »

Casey was had some serious thoughts about my “No on 36” stance, and I felt I should bring them out here for a little discussion.

You make some good points, but you should look at the larger picture. Let me explain:

What is the basis upon which homosexuality hangs its hat? It’s the assumption that being gay is a natural predisposition to being attracted to the same sex. Okay, whether you agree or disagree is irrelevant. But if we say that it’s okay for homosexuals to marry based upon this predisposition, what do we say to someone who says they’re predisposed to being attracted to children? How about someone who says they have a predisposition to a group of people? After all, they were born that way, right? Well, maybe so, maybe not. But we’re talking about what our Constitution should say about being the best marriage institution for Oregon. Read on…

This is a long post folks. Read the rest of this entry »

For those that may not have seen this published in your favorite magazine:

Excerpts from the GLAT: Google Labs Aptitude Test

4.) You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. There is a dusty laptop there with a weak wireless connection. There are dull, lifeless gnomes strolling about. What dost thou do?

• A) Wander aimlessly, bumping into obstacles until you are eaten by a grue.
• B) Use the laptop as a digging device and tunnel to the next level.
• C) Play MPoRPG until the battery dies along with your hopes.
• D) Use the computer to map the nodes of the maze and discover an exit path.
• E) Email your resume to Google, tell the lead gnome you quit and find yourself a whole different world.

9.) This space left intentionally blank. Please fill it with something that improves upon emptiness.

18.) What’s the coolest hack you’ve ever written?

Oh, alas and alack that I am not a programmer!

I’ve seen alot of bumper stickers and posters going both ways on the subject, and I thought I’d officially voice my opinion one last time.

In 40 days, Oregonians will have the opportunity to vote on the adoption of Constitutional Amendment 36, which would once and for all define ‘marriage’ as a “one man, one woman” situation, I.E., no same-sex marriages or other spousal recognition for same-sex couples in our state Constitution.

Read on for my opinion. Read the rest of this entry »

Fleshlight – The #1 Male Masturbation Adult Sex Toy

Yeah, there’s an angle for you – combine sex with tools. Ugh.

I went to follow a link off of /. to a New York Times article today, and was re-directed to their registration page. Many on-line news sources are trying to get their users to provide personal information in an effort to increase their advertisership in some form or another. It is largely a useless endeavor, however, since so many folks like myself want no part of it and provide false information.

Having run into this sort of thing countless times, I promptly entered a username of ‘blah’ and email address of ‘blah-at-blah-dot-com’.

Already in use? Okay, we’ll try ‘blahblah’. No? How about blah1blah? at blahblah.com? Maybe blah……

It finally got down to a username of blahblah623 with email at blah1blah-at-blahblah.com.

That’s right, folks – 622 previous registrants had given false info. That doesn’t even take into account the other stuff they asked for, like birth year, salary and job title. (I’m now the CEO of a computing/networking firm pulling down $150k+ a year *smirk*)

Ya wonder if they’ll ever get a clue. Probably not.

Password is ‘blahblah’, by the way :)