Gaming the Night Away

Beccano and I play Arkham Horror Photo by: Suna

Beccano helped Suna and KP prepare wedding decorations. We stayed out of the way and played Arkham Horroron the kitchen table while they worked in the media room.

I haven’t played AH since my friend from work moved up north. It is a fun game where a band of lunatics save the world (if they win) from an Elder One from HP Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos. Of course, they are completely devoured if they lose, and all humanity suffers the consequences. No pressure there.

We were just playing to refamiliarize ourselves with the rules and game play. KP joined us just as we got started, and we played for a few hours.

Adios

The Director of Human Resources

Original art by: Rev. Jim Vandewalker

I had a bittersweet lunch today. I got to see some old friends from my old team and enjoyed visiting very much. The occasion was both uplifting and sad. My old Cthulu buddy has taken a job at the University of Wyoming, and we were gathered to bid him farewell. Seven years of restructuring and cutbacks had taken their toll, and he decided on a preemptive strike.

He said one thing that was very interesting. He told me that the further away from Austin he interviewed, the more his experience at ALE carried weight. Local employers treated him like damaged goods for having worked there so long. But people who weren’t intimately familiar with how the company works still respected the brand and the people who had helped build it. That may be something Suna and I should consider carefully.

The rest of the team is surviving on the block, although there were some noticeable absences. The team has been merged into an offshore management structure. My understanding is that this move has only bought them a little time. They are still not allowed to backfill any voluntary departures.

All-in-all, I am glad that I escaped when I did. I am glad Cthulu’s Bane is making his escape, too. For the others, I am hoping that the extra time buys them a chance to order their finances and escape on their own terms.

At the lunch I was asked if I would return to work at ALE. Not as an employee. There is no future there, only the illusion of one. I much prefer the clarity of contract work to the cynicism and disillusionment that kind of environment engenders.

At least the visiting off-shore manager I met there picked up the tab. He seemed really nice, too.

Ideopathy

Thanks, Trackgrease. I wish life could have been easier for you, but then you wouldn’t be who you are now. At least, you learned how to fight the ideopaths.

Beneath the complexity and idiopathy of every cancer lies a limited number of “mission critical” events that have propelled the tumour cell and its progeny into uncontrolled expansion and invasion.

—Evan & Vousden (2001)

I take today’s quotation from wordsmith.org’s word of the day. Wordsmith defines idiopathy as “A disease of unknown origin or one having no apparent cause.” From this entry, I looked for the word ideopathy, which I found in use but not on any of my favorite dictionary sites. It makes sense to define ideopathy as an idea or political movement that has become pathological. In this case, it fits the description of cancer that Evan and Vousden provide above.

Which leads to my decision not to vote in the Republican primary this year.

The other day, Suna got a recorded call from John McCain. In the recording, he promised to further the Bush administration’s attacks on the Constitution, fairness, and choice. He vowed to continue the war against science. While I realize McCain was probably trying to appeal to his rabid base, his (hopefully) disingenuous rhetoric convinced me that he is now owned by the ideocrats (read ideopaths) of the far right.

Perhaps Cthulu would be the lesser evil. Besides, he is the heir apparent to the Republican nomination. Voting for him in the primary would accomplish nothing.

That leaves Ron Paul, who has as much chance of being the nominee as I do. Voting for him would also be throwing away my primary vote.

So I am back to my usual course—voting in the Democratic primary—and my original dilemma. I still can’t decide which candidate to vote for. Clinton has the baggage that comes with experience. Obama has the vague optimism that speaks of inexperience. I still have a few days to agonize over this decision.

Grateful Monday

So that is what I am grateful for today. I am grateful that I live in a country where I can agonize over such a decision and speak publicly about that agony without fear of repression or reprisal—at least not yet.

And I want to thank Trackgrease for doing his part to help ensure that I have something here to be grateful for. He served four years in the Army and eight years in the National Guard. The operative word here is served. He was not an officer or a decision maker. He simply did what he could to put his nation’s safety and health above his own.

Let us all do what we can this year to protect and serve our democracy. If nothing else, vote. As Edmund Burke said, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Let this be the year we stop doing nothing.

References:

Gerald I. Evan and Karen H. Vousden (17 May 2001). Proliferation: cell cycle and apoptosis. In Cancer. London: Nature. In Wordsmith.org (13 February 2008).

Wordsmith.org (13 February 2008). A.word.a.day—idiopathy. Available: https://wordsmith.org/words/idiopathy.html

Children of the Night

The source of today’s lyrics and one of the best albums of all time. Photo source: Amazon.com

Sure must be fun to watch a President run

Just ask the man who owns one

—John Kay

I recently participated in a survey of registered voters who plan to vote in the Republican Primary. Since that is my current plan, I answered in the affirmative. It was a fairly stilted survey. The questions were not as poorly written as some. There was nothing like, “Would you rather be safe by giving up all your rights under the Constitution or help the terrorists rape your family and farm animals while you watch?”

Some of the questions were:

Who do you plan to vote for: Ron Paul, John McCain, or Mike Huckabee?

I pressed 1 for Paul. As my mom used to say, “As often as this country gets screwed, we need a gynecologist in Washington.” He’s a good man. My family has known him all my life. But I still wouldn’t really vote for him. He’s just a little too whack for me.

What is more important to you: the economy or the war on terrorism?

Duh! If the economy goes to hell, we can't afford a war on terrorism—as if we needed one. It’s always the economy, stupid.

Only after the survey was over was I informed that the poll was paid for by the McCain organization. I wonder if I would have had the opportunity to answer the other two questions if I had not pressed 1 to say I was going to vote in the Republican primary. Probably not. I wouldn't have mattered then.

That was a little over a week ago. Today, McCain all but has the Republican nomination in hand. The pundits say that if Huckabee wants to be VP, he should bow out of the race sooner, rather than later. But I don’t think he wants to be VP, Romney wants that job. No, Huckabee wants to drive the party platform to the right. So, I apparently don’t need to vote Republican to get my least-evil choice.

But I still don’t really care for either of the remaining Democratic contenders. They both cancel each other out.

And last night, Obama won his ninth straight primary, and the pundits are starting to talk as if he has already been anointed. So, I still don’t know who to vote for in March. Oh, well, it won’t be the first time I’ve made up my mind while looking at the ballot.

Maybe I will vote per the bumper sticker I saw the other day. “Cthulu for President: Why choose the lesser evil?” Probably not.

Cosmik Debris

All that glitters is not gold. This golden rock ruined crashed through a family’s roof and landed in their bathroom. Photo source: National Geographic

Hey there, brother,

Who you jivin’ with that cosmik debris?

—Frank Zappa

Wouldn’t this just make your day? The object in the picture crashed through the roof of a house and landed in the family’s bathroom (National Geographic News, 2007). It would certainly be surprising to reach for the TP and grab this thing. Even though the article said scientists would be able to identify the object by the end of the week, I have not been able to find any information on the results. There is a strong possibility that it is a melted portion of a satellite or other contraption.

And speaking of things from falling out of the sky, one of our spy satellites is coming down (National Geographic News, January 28, 2008). The satellite cannot be controlled as it falls and contains hazardous materials. There is even a good chance that it could it somewhere in the North America (Baldor, 2008). So carry a big umbrella for the next few days.

This NASA image make it look like we have a metal shell encircling our planet. Photo source: National Geographic

And we have created a lot of this space litter since Sputnik. There are thousands of pieces of space junk in orbit around the planet. A NASA image makes it look almost like Earth has a metal atmosphere. Only 5% of the objects orbiting the planet are natural (Sullivan, 2008). At least 17,000 artificial objects have reentered the atmosphere in the last 50 years (Baldor, 2008).

Luckily, the bureaucrats have the situation under control Ten space agencies, including the European Space Agency and NASA, joined forces to create the Inter-agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (https://www.iadc-online.org/).

I didn’t intend for this entry to turn into a rant, but the stars are aligning (or at least the space trash is). Cthulu will soon start throwing rocks at us.

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References

• Baldor, Lolita C. (January 30, 2008). Dead spy satellite could crash into US. National Geographic News. Available: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-satellite.html
• National Geographic News (January 5, 2007). Photo in the news: Mysterious space object crashes into house. National Geographic News. Available: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070105-space-rock.html
• Sullivan, Eileen (January 28, 2008). Disabled spy satellite threatens earth. National Geographic News. Available: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080128-spy-satellite.html