In response to the last email my Grandmother sent

Grandma; Next time you want to get a hold of me, you'll have to call. I don't want to deal with having to delete, disprove, or hash out every single little lie that you forward. I have asked, over and over and OVER that you stop sending me these kinds of emails. To actually talk to me, say hello, ask how I am doing, have a conversation. And you don't. So I am taking the next step: I am routing all email that you send to me to the trash. I will not see it, ever again. I'm done with being polite with you or tolerant of you and I'm tired of complaining about it. So I'm just going to ignore your email from here on out. love

Social failings

I lamented to some friends that I couldn't get laid in Mass Effect 2. I just couldn't play the characters in such a way that was mentally consistent with my imaginings AND hook up with someone. So all that was going to change in Mass Effect 3, right? Totally going to get it on. I am going to be devious instead, because fuck it: I saved the galaxy. Nookie deserved. Nope. Hit on the one lesbian of the crew, make it all awkward. My real life is supposed to contain the awkward situations, thank you very much.

Videogame update

So, I played Outland and thought it was pretty good. Until I got to the last section and got a big ol' dose of FUCK THIS. There was a moment that I realized I wasn't having any fun and the previous skills I'd acquired didn't seem to matters. So I quit, never to bother with it again. Bummer, because the artistic style was great, the controls were tight and there was a great deal to be said for it. But when I got to the end it felt like a bulletshitstorm and not a pattern I could defeat. I also finished Uncharted 3 and it did, from a gameplay perspective, what it was supposed to do very well. The story, however, feel on its face. Three times, the main character is asked: "Is what you're doing worth it?" Because it's shown that Drake is willing to ignore friends and lovers in pursuit of treasure. And it never seems to get any deeper than that. He's not on a mad quest to know who he is, he's not desperate to prove himself, or redeem his soul or avenge his friends. Nope. He just wants shiny shit to sell and nobody seems to get fed up with that. And that sucks a lot of the soul out of the game for me and I just don't know that I want to play any more of Drake's adventures. Now I'm knee deep in Mass Effect 3 and hip deep in Borderlands.

The last ten years

More than most decades, this was the one where I had to deal with heartbreak.

The break of a dream that I didn't know how to plant. The break of a career I didn't understand how to develop. The break of days and nights lost to women whom I couldn't understand no matter how desperately I tried.

But I learned I still love to write, dream or no dream, how to evaluate work better, so I don't get stuck in the same loop and understanding myself better, so the women aren't as confusing.

I have good friends and there is beer and a kick ass girlfriend and things don't suck. Mostly.

So yeah, that's cool.

Letter sent 3.21.12

Dear Mr. President,
I hope you’re well. As always, if you can’t reply, that’s fine: I prefer nothing over a form letter. To whomever may be reading this because it’s their job, I thank you for your time, especially on this one.

Sir, I’m about to turn 40. As is the tradition in our culture, birthdays are often times of reflection and ideas and I’d like to, instead of talking to you about what seems to be going wrong, what America could do.

While reading The American Soul by Jacob Needleman, I’ve come across a very interesting idea; America is a country about big ideas. Big ideas rooted in a core that says that all human beings are created equally and we should treat them as such.

I’m sure I don’t have to articulate our failings as a country along those lines to you. But I do want to suggest that this is something we are missing in our country; the big idea. So I figured I’d talk about a few big ideas I’ve had, and at the end ask us: Why not?

Big idea: Americans deserve better government.
We really do. You know it, I know it: everyone knows it. But how do we get there? I have three ideas here: first make government more transparent.

Mr. President, you have been one of the worst offenders in this category, foiling FOIA requests and going after whistleblowers with more fervor than your predecessor. But one way to get people involved is for them to understand how things work and to be able to speak out fearlessly when they feel something is wrong. But how will our citizens know something is awry unless they are given information from those who comprehend how it works and are able to point to those accountable?

So I call upon you to make good on your promises of a more transparent government. We deserve it.

Second: Make November 4th a national holiday. If voting really is important, give us the day off to do it. (Plus, it gives the citizens a little bonus. Who couldn’t use some extra time off or, time and a half for working on such an important day?)

Third: institute mandatory sunset dates.
This is a huge step. If policies like the PATRIOT Act have mandated sunset dates, then they have to be revisited or let to go away. If certain farm subsidies, say for corn, were sunset in order to subsidize farmers making under $250,000 a year, for example, that might improve the agricultural backbone of this country. Plus; of the corn growers of America aren’t successful by now, they won’t ever be.

If the management of organizations; the Fed, the CIA, the FDA, the SEC had to resign after say 15 years-long enough to master it and make recommendations to the next group but without the security of a lifetime appointment-then perhaps the new blood would help refresh agencies with men and women who have ideas that can help change things. But not change things so much that we eliminate critical services nor find ourselves perpetually at the mercy of those who would distain government’s role in important matters.

Big idea: Americans need a common experience.
It is, by now, blatantly apparent to anyone paying attention to our discourse that Americans just don’t work together like they used to. The idea of America and being an American just isn’t quite enough: we need to have a common experience, an action that causes us all to, as was said in the movie Heartbreak Ridge “Eat a little of the same dirt.”

So I suggest making a mandatory civil service, for every unmarried American, to serve between the ages of 18 and 20. This service can be avoided by enlisting in the military, if one so chooses. The point is; by bringing young people from different walks of life together and giving them tasks where they have to rely on one another, there is an opportunity for Americans to actually see and experience different points of view.

We have a technology that allows us to share our experiences but we lack a common experience to share! This is one reason that cooperative politics have declined so much since the 1980’s, I believe: the statesmen who were once often bound together due to the draft, have moved on from public life, leaving those who have never had to step outside their own circle of experience.

As an added bonus, this would give young people an opportunity to see the country, to network, and to mature a little bit before entering college or trade school or whatever path of higher learning they might choose.

Big idea: Americans deserve equal access.
There is a rapidly decaying system of infrastructure in America, Mr. President. Roads and bridges in decline, a water and sewer system just waiting to implode and, just as importantly, a realm of information that is only available through technology, access to which hasn’t been updated in decades. But just as important as access to transportation and clean water, so is our access to the realm of the internet.

I am not suggesting that the government merely give away internet access to people or companies. Just as the government does not give away cars for people to use the roads with, nor sinks for people to run water through.

Let us rebuild; making the country more efficient, using new technologies to replace the roads, pipelines and wires that service us, to make this country a better place that allows for people to have the opportunities they need to make a life in this country.

And when we build for access, let us remember the importance of safety, not just in our physical world but in our online interactions. Let’s be a country that protects the privacy of our citizens online. It allows us to entertain unapproved or ‘dangerous’ thought and this is one of our greatest strengths as a nation. Protect it.

Big idea: America wants to be a beacon to the world.
Our standing internationally comes from two places, as I see it: our culture and the policies our government chooses to follow.

Our society has allowed us to develop a culture that is everywhere, that nearly every country is influenced by and takes part of: the movies, the videogames, the television, the books, sporting events and the music all flow out. Much less of the world’s culture flows in. That’s a good thing.

Now please, get the government to stop wrecking that. Two not so simple things that would probably go a long, long way.

First: we end the drug war. It’s been shown to affect poor Americans, and especially black Americans, disproportionally and is a mostly a way for law enforcement to make money, while our 4th Amendment rights are eroded.

Ending this war not only gives us money to invest in access and schools, it would probably go a long way for improving our relations with countries to the North and South of us, in addition to ending some of the most horrific violence I’ve ever heard of in Mexico. It would give the US a reason to stop fighting wars over opium and start providing humanitarian aid to those who need it.

It would end what has been forty years of failed policy. I think we would all agree, that’s more failure than anyone should have to stand.

Second: we cease giving military aid and backing to Israel.

Mr. President, the nation of Israel is not special. At the moment, I’d even go so far as to say they are acting like the spoiled little kid who acts like a bully, because they know their big brother will beat up anyone who tries to stop them. They are just as complicit in the evils of war as any other party involved in that area and until we stop supporting them unconditionally and start being more evenhanded to everyone in the region, a huge part of the world will hate us and rightly so, because we are being unfair, and being unfair is just an Unamerican value, sir.

If we value justice, we cannot be unjust.

We will have to make apologies. We will have to work harder than ever to talk to and create peaceful circumstances.

But it can be done. The question is; are we willing to do it? I hope so and it will have to start with you saying: no more will America support this failure.

Big idea: America needs to be the best country.

Mr. President, our country started off in a very unique way; we started off as an idea. All men are created equal and bestowed rights merely because they exist.

And as we’ve grown up, that idea has been something that has been allowed to do what it wasn’t, 200 years ago: encompass all the people of this nation and provide us with more ideas. It has been allowed to grow, to evolve beyond the limitations of the men who created it! That. Is. Amazing. By any view of the world that is just jaw dropping.

We have survived and thrived, I believe, because we had the best idea(s) and we allowed people to pursue those ideas, even ideas that were unpopular. Every time we have expanded upon the ability of the people to expose themselves to new ideas, our country has prospered in so many ways: from the abolition of slavery, to the rights of women, the GI Bill, allowing more men and women to go to college, the great society, to the civil rights movement, the Americans with Disabilities Act, even through today, with the use of the internet to expose more ideas and support the rights of gay and lesbians across the country, those ideas of freedom and dignity and access, have been what has brought men and women from across the world to live here. We never had the smartest race, we brought in the smartest people.

We need those ideas again. We need to support ideas again.

Mr. President, we need educated people, more than we ever have before.

And by educated, I don’t merely mean universities. I mean trade schools, community colleges, high schools. Anywhere an American goes to learn something about the world around him or her. Ideas need to become a priority for us again, because we can create our future out of them.

But we have to support the realm of ideas, the place where we dream something new! Take the money from the drug war, from the incarceration of millions, and put it into schools and teachers and programs that support the endeavors of Americans to be more to the world than just consumers.

We were founded on ideas. Let’s love them too.

A new shape to our ideas are coming, Mr. President, involving how we interact with each other. I want you to help us get at the forefront of it.

I got to try the L’Agent Orange from Cascade Brewing. Sour ale kept in Makers Mark barrels. Pretty amazing, though you’ll have to come to Portland to get it, sir.

Sincerely,

The third decade

I got laid a lot.

Of course there was much more to it than that, but...I got laid a lot.

I also learned how to drink, learned how to be social in a group, how to navigate situations where I was a stranger. I did this in a manner that allowed me to see a chunk of the world that many people do not and for that, I am eternally grateful.

I realized that being mean was leaving me lonely and unhappy, so I decided to do something different. Being kind has worked much better, though it has taken me a little while to get there.

I was a less than good boyfriend. A chunk of that decade as about learning to be a better one.

As a matter of fact, I think a great deal of that decade could be described as the one where I tried to improve everything, one way or another. It didn't always work but it certainly kept my mind open, at least in a personal way.

Professionally...that's another beast.

The second decade

This is the decade where I learned to be mean.

I don't entirely blame myself for this: my examples were poor, I was being mistreated in school, things were very, very difficult. It's certainly possible I could've become a kind person at that time in spite of it all but it was unlikely.

And so I wasn't. It was partly a way to keep people from humiliating me, partly a way to filter out who could be or wasn't my friend. It also put me in touch with my own darkness, or certainly brought it out, which is something I have to admit, I needed in order to understand myself better.

But I was not kind and I have a few regrets as a result.

I learned a bit about how to treat women, who had previously baffled me: like I would a man, was my decision. I learned that didn't always work out but it wasn't a bad place to start. I even ended up dating one, for the first time and what I learned from that could be its own short stage drama. So let's not go there.

I also learned how to tell a joke, how to find comradery in the trenches of shitty jobs, tell stories that people might want to hear, read books that let me know there was a more interesting world out there than I knew and probably most significantly, I learned about heavy metal.

Man, did I love heavy metal. Still do-it's one of those threads that wind through my life, even now, nearly twenty five years later. I still love heavy metal.

I'm not entirely sure what that says about me, except that when I love something I tend to love it for a long time. My favorite color is still green. Most of the few friends I've had I still have: there aren't many but they're still around, is the point.

That's pretty lucky.

Letter sent 2.27

Dear Mr. President,
Lately I have been finishing off Stephen Erikson’s Malazan series of books. I prefer to read while taking the bus to work, since books still seem to be one of the best ways to really engage in a story and it allows me to tune out the daily commute. I have no idea when someone in your position might get reading like that done; one of the biggest drawbacks to being in charge has got to be having to rely on other people giving you information when you used to get your own. The Malazan books are a high fantasy series (sword and sorcery) that, as it approaches its conclusion, has an undercurrent theme of the decline of an empire.

For example:
“The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when the multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.”-Duiker, Toll the Hounds

It is difficult, as an American, to not read passages like this as though they are a commentary on my own country. I never thought we, of all countries, would have an empire but the signs are too great to ignore. Which is mostly an aside, really: the situation is what it is.

It does seem, however, that the battle is between the have and the have nots. I seem to read daily about how corporations are getting their way because they have the money to walk the halls of power, while individuals find themselves increasingly marginalized and, as a result, behaving in less and less appropriate manners. An easy example of this would be the recent SOPA and PIPA acts; things that were so blatant in their attempts to suppress “piracy” that they actively overstepped the rule of law, yet were being seriously considered, seriously enough, anyway, for massive protests to be required in order to put a stop to them. Of course that isn’t the end of it, so what it demonstrates to me is how much effort is spent to increase or insist upon control.

A very similar argument could be waged against the drug war: we have lost it under any rational metric. However, instead of changing the policies of failure, a change that has shown demonstrable improvement in Portugal, we continue to fund increased surveillance and bigger prisons.

Why else would we do that, except to ensure control against a society that is increasingly insisting upon their rights?

And who benefits from having all these people jailed? Who benefits from ensuring that the authorities know what kinds of thoughts we are interested in?

This is the question I find myself asking over and over: Who benefits from this? Who benefits from curbing our rights so, to extending copyright beyond what it should be, to concentrating money at the top, starving schools for funding and imprisoning our citizens?

The answers seem to keep coming back to large corporations.

If, as you said in the last State of the Union, you believe that government should only do for people what they cannot do for themselves and no more, then why should our government assist any corporation that is successful? Corporate subsidies, laws dangerously slanted to their advantage, no-bid contracts: how is this not stepping into do something for these entities that they should be able to handle on their own?

They are dangerously close to creating a tyranny of the minority and what I need from my government is to protect me from that. Or at least level the playing field so that, as a nation of laws, I can expect those laws to apply in a just manner.

I think you also missed a golden opportunity in the State of the Union, sir. You said that you would sign a bill banning insider trading tomorrow, if it was sent to you. Which is great! However, there was an opportunity for you to tell the people of the country to motivate our representatives and it went by, lost. There was a chance to talk to us and I’m thinking you need to take it, sometime. The State of the Union was critical for Congress when television didn’t exist but now it’s a moment when everyone is watching and I believe you have a chance to challenge Americans to continue to do something great.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got for now. Other big ideas will come next time, I’m sure. My beer recommendation is Deschutes’ Red Chair NWPA (northwest pale ale—just a fancy name for a solid IPA) and I’ve just started reading Jacob Needleman’s American Soul. I’m about ten pages in and I’m thinking everyone should read it.

As always, I hope we get to have a discussion of some kind, someday but if not, that’s alright. Best to you and yours.

Sincerely,

The first ten years

It's not easy to recall what I learned when I was very young and everything gets put through a filter; time makes some things seem not as bad or less awesome. But I don't want to approach it that way, too much: the things I loved I loved. The things that were bad, not so much-even if now, it doesn't seem so.

I want to focus on the positive but I almost feel like that would be doing myself a disservice. I learned things and they weren't all good.

I learned that I would be mocked for loving something people didn't understand much about (in my case, dinosaurs and space exploration.) I learned that I didn't want to be different but I was; my clothes, my glasses, my interests. I learned to be exclusive, because I was afraid of being teased by newcomers and I didn't take teasing well at all from anyone, especially people close to me. I learned that being smart didn't seem to matter to anyone else but my parents.

I learned to hate work. I remember my parents bought me a 'Slave Boy' t-shirt because of my complaints. I think I took it pretty well, all things considered. I wore it, at least.

I learned that going to people in charge was no way to ensure that your problem would be taken care of. That one hurt, quite a bit.

I think I learned a lot of things that would make me sad, later and mean, too. But there were some important and good things too.

I learned the good guys didn't always win and that bothered me. They should. Being right matters-though at the time, I thought that being right meant getting your way.

I learned that you stand by your friends; the promise you make to them matters, because I didn't like it when someone broke a promise to me.

I learned that thunderstorms, light sabers and giant lizards with teeth were cool, that maybe the monsters weren't all bad. I learned to ride a bike. I learned I like to walk around and see the city. Wintergreen was tastier than spearmint. That there was something about girls that I couldn't figure out but I liked-or at least wanted to like. They scared the hell out of me. Women, not so much; they at least talked to me about things I could understand-or let me talk about things I understood.

I learned to build spaceships from Legos and Tinker Toys. I learned to tell stories and draw maps and all that mattered was that things were cool.

I learned to read and to love stories. I'm sure I'm missing more but there are three more decades to go and only so much time.

Letter sent 1.26.12

Dear President Obama,
I hope your holidays were enjoyable! I’m writing this too soon to tell you about mine though but I have high hopes that things will be fine.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the saying “The good is the enemy of the great”?

That’s what I’ve been thinking about, when pondering some of the issues facing our country. Mostly, sad to say, how we as a nation seem to be settling for good and what good is defined as seems to be sliding towards the negative, wherever it can slide.

When I read about how your Justice Department fails to go after the people who broke (or likely broke) laws governing Wall Street so that our financial markets remain secure, or how people or corporations who were brought to trial were imposed paltry fines, I feel like we have merely accepted what is good, instead of what is great.

My brain drug up that saying, “The good is the enemy of the great”, after watching a piece on 60 Minutes, the one asking why nobody was being prosecuted for corruption on Wall Street, as a result of the housing crisis. During that broadcast, a woman charged with following up on reports of corruption at Countrywide said that she was told by a broker (I’m paraphrasing here) “I’m not paid by the quality of the mortgages I bring in.” That statement alone says much about what we are OK with as Americans, now.

It took about two days before I remembered a report I read on food in this country and why farmers are reluctant to switch to practices that are less harmful to the planet and provide better tasting food but will give them a lower yield. Again, I’ll have to paraphrase: “I am not paid by the quality of the tomato, but by how many tons I ship.”

On a personal level, I see this all the time: people ordering Pabst Blue Ribbon at a pub instead of an excellent microbrew, when the difference can be as little as seventy-five cents because they want more, not better.

Mr. President, if I want volume I’ll listen to Metallica. The 80’s stuff: I can’t stand anything done between 1990 and 2002.

In great societies, justice is something that comes to everyone, regardless of their station in life. Is pursued with appropriate vigor and more importantly, is celebrated. A society that recognizes and settles for the powerful doing what they want, regardless of the rules, is one that has settled for the good.

Neither of us is foolish enough to believe that the powerful will never find themselves in situations where they are untouched by the consequences of the law but to use that as an excuse to do nothing misses the entire point of having a society where one of the defining characteristics is that everyone is equal under the law, entirely because they are NOT equal (and in some cases cannot be equal) in many other places.
Yet here we are as a nation, in a situation where Americans don’t think that they are getting treated fairly in comparison to the wealthy. In many cases, they can demonstrate how this is true, pointing to situations both social and legal where a wealthy person had power they should not have. The proof is right there in front of their eyes and most are not in a position to change this.

To extend this to the farming world; the groceries I am able to purchase that are made with corn subsidies are significantly cheaper. I can get more of that food, but they are terrible for me in volume. Every respected study demonstrates this. Yet what is emphasized is more, instead of the quality of the food and the ability to feed ourselves as a nation and beyond, into the future.

Now, I don’t know how to address that mindset, precisely, but I do know that the consequences of relentless greed in our country have been more than adequately demonstrated and because we have decided to accept the good instead of strive for the great, those people who instigated this set of circumstances are not investigated nor prosecuted. That fact eats at us, as though we are being fed unhealthy food, especially when we see that your Administration has gone after government whistleblowers with a vengeance or that people responsible for our current woes as a nation, especially fiscally, are being put in positions of power in the government.

I don’t know how we become great until we expect greatness and that expectation has to come from the top as well as the bottom, Mr. President. I think we can be great; give us the circumstances to do so.


In the meantime, if you haven’t had a chance to try Sam Adams’ Mighty Oak ale, I recommend it. Solid malty brew with a hint of vanilla. I just don’t want to end on a down note, you know?


Sincerely,


P.S. Nice State of the Union address. Maybe I’ll talk about that next time.

Welcome to the internet

Read this bit and some of the subsequent thread.

I have to say: this is why mob justice is frightening-it simply does not know when to quit. Dude was an asshole, dude deserved to be fired from his job.

But so many people didn't want to leave it there and so they end up threatening a wife and child. How is that OK?

You want the power of making right wrongs, bros, then you have to know when your right becomes a wrong.

Just sayin'.

Letter sent 12.21.11

Dear President Obama,
This is, admittedly, a little strange: as a public figure-one whom I employ, no less-I have a sense of you but we’ve never met. Yet I’m writing a letter, something that, in this day and era has become, I hope, a bit more personal than it used to be. That you don’t know anything about me is what makes this unusual, at least from my end.

Perhaps a few details will help: I’m 39 and I just bought my first house in Portland, OR. I’ve lived in the Pacific NW all my life but I was fortunate to travel to Europe in college and that did a great deal to broaden my horizons. I’ve also been lucky enough to have enough money to indulge the occasional whim and still keep a roof over my head. I brew beer and play games as a way of making and strengthening my social circle. I’ve been dating my girlfriend for seven years and I’m very glad she likes me as much as she does. I read as much as I can, write when I’m able and walk every day to get some exercise.

I don’t expect you will read this, nor have the time to respond. That’s OK: I’m writing this just as much for me as I am to you. If this letter is fortunate enough to make it to you personally, then I count myself lucky. I’d prefer not to get a form letter back. I’m a citizen and I have some things to say. If we can’t have a discussion, well that’s alright but I’d ratjer we didn’t have a discussion because you’re the President and busy and I’m a citizen and busy than us having a ‘pretend’ discussion where I get pre-stamped responses.

Maybe when this is all over, and the letters have been written, your term is done and things settle down a little (which may be some time away, I understand) then we could have a beer. In the meanwhile, let’s get to talking, shall we?

I’ve been watching things as closely as I’m able and I’ve heard you use the phrase “it’s the right thing to do” in the State of the Union Address. I’m not sure that you and I agree on what the right thing is, unfortunately. Is the right thing to do prosecuting, with even greater vigor, whistleblowers in the government, or firing people who have a different point of view?

Does doing the right thing include using drones against faraway people, especially those whom the government has not used evidence to prove they are a threat to the citizenry, not going after the fraud on Wall Street, despite the tremendous wave of economic damage they have wrought upon not only our country but the world, or advocating the rights of corporations through things like the SOPA act, or dangerously extending the government’s powers via the Patriot act, up to and including bill S. 1867 which would allow for indefinite imprisonment, even of US citizens, accused of terrorism, and that they be tried via the military instead of the civilian court system?

Is the right thing to do to employ many of the architects of our current crises with the direction of fixing it? To allow the people to get away with crimes both fiscal and moral?

That, of course, is just a sampling of things that I am aware of and when I hear you talk about the right thing to do, I can’t help but question what it is that you know about the right thing versus what I know about the right thing to do. I accept that you are privy to information that I am not but I would be willing to bet that in most of those cases, the information you know doesn’t change a thing.

Naturally, I don’t blame all of this on you. You have to make choices and they can’t all be good ones. The health care debacle that came last year, the manufactured debt ceiling crisis; these events do not settle on your shoulders alone.

But you’re the person I talk to, because you’re the person who needs to speak up.

Which leads us to what I think is the next problem.

America suffers from a lack of vision. As the President of the US, I expect you to articulate a vision for us, to raise the bar and tell us what the great thing is that we, as a country, should be striding for.

But you do not articulate that vision. You articulate standards or, sadly, you articulate nonsense. The best example of the former I can think of is in the last State of the Union, you told us that our goal should be to cut fossil fuel dependency by 80%.

No. That is not our goal. Our goal is to cut fossil fuel dependency for personal vehicles 100% by 2030. No exceptions. That’s a goal. Anything else is a standard, is something that can have exceptions made to it.

Of the latter, the phrase ‘win the future’ comes to mind. This is a tragic use of language for anyone who is paying attention. No one can win something that doesn’t exist, Mr. President, and the future, by its very nature, is always out of reach.

My problem with that language is simple: Americans don’t like things that are unwinnable, (see our dispassion for soccer, a game that willfully accepts ties) and despise things that allow us to get away with less than our best (see the public’s current contempt for Congress.)

We want to be challenged, Mr. President. More than anything else, I think this is what is lacking: great things are not asked of us, expectations are no longer high, and when someone maliciously screws up, they are no longer punished. I don’t mean punishment for failure (although I think consequences still should exist,) I mean punishment for wrongdoing. It may have always been true that people with wealth and power could get away with more but at least in America, for a time, there was an effort to ensure that everyone was equal under the law.

This includes those who hate us. Which is why, yes, it IS hard to bring terrorists to trial in order to bring them to justice but it is something that we, as a country, need to do. It is painstaking to ensure economic equality, to prosecute for difficult crimes and yet by not doing these things, you and those like you in the Beltway, are essentially saying: We don’t think America can handle the difficult choices or make the needed sacrifices.
But we can, so long as it is fair and just.

We need to do the difficult thing, Mr. President. We need to be challenged to be our best and we, as a people, need you to articulate that goal for us, so we have something to reach for. Something concrete and accomplishable, something that does not allow for failure, something that is bolder and defies the wasteful paths of the last three decades.

And we need you to set that bar and then let us meet it. I am, as a citizen, expecting great things from you, because those expectations need to be met and I voted for you in part because of the merits you brought to the table, suggesting that you would be able to the task. Ask of us. Ask great things of us, but ask them of all of us or do not bother, Mr. President.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you, your family and friends, sir.

Sincerely,

Crazy from self inflicted injuries

Hurt myself on Monday-something weird on my ribcage. Probably going to have to see a doc about it and that is not something that I ever look forward to. Especially with a long drive coming up, and moving after that.

A friend of mine who doesn't talk to me anymore has returned to the continent. I still see the circles of the universe she travels in from time to time and...it saddens me that we don't talk. But I wish her safe journeys and excellent beers.

In other news, this collaborative track of Lou Reed and Metallica is not very well done. The music isn't bad-though it's not great either-but they vocals are horribly matched to the music.

And in case you can't get enough bummer in your day, here's David Simon talking about how things are going downhill...in 2007.

All in all, it's a glum Friday.

New hypothesis

Men want a new sex partner at about the same rate that women want a new puppy/kitty/baby, and for about as long.

All things must pass

And so it will be that my sister's beloved cat, The Reverend Horton Heat will soon be put down, likely in the next few days. He's been in the family for over fifteen years and seen a lot of road, climbed a few trees, beaten off his fair share of idiot dogs and meowed his way into the house more times than I can remember.

He's old and he's very sick and it's the right thing to do. He's not himself; I got to catsit for him a month ago and while there was a little bit of old cat grumpiness in him, he mostly wanted to be left alone, or to be pet. The playing with rubber bands or strut to go outside, these were gone and he was weak and a bit frail, now. He warmed up to me near the end of the second day, sat on my lap and even slept nearby and I am grateful to have gotten the opportunity to care for him.

He's a good cat though; one of the best. Didn't take any shit and was perfectly content to walk away, unless you bugged him, then you got the bite you deserved.

Most of all, he reminded my sister that she was loved during times in her life when she didn't feel very loved and perhaps her brother was not doing his best to let her know this. She needed him and he never failed her. Not much more you can say about a good pet, is there?

He was lucky to have someone as awesome as my sister and she was fortunate-as was my family-to have him around. I'll miss him when he's gone.

I only can ask that the Universe do as it does with all good souls; guide them gently to the next place.

Godspeed, Rev.

Unnecessary Validation

With the glory of Google+ coming up all the events that haunt me about previous social networking sites come up.

There's being made invisible, there's finding myself in splintered communities-one too silly and insular, the other too small, serious and insular and neither of them having people I connect to anymore.

I just don't have anything to say to those active and they seem to feel the same way about me. That's a theme in a couple places.

There's also just a general annoyance with the circular nature of people. I can all too frequently predict what conversation I'm going into or what will be said in response to a topic and that has become dreary. Again and again it's the same; 'Approve of my feelings/thoughts/whatever'. It does not teach me anything-and it's hard work to actually pay attention to repetition.

Yeah, yeah; it's not them, it's me. Still, it's grinding sometimes and I don't have places to bitch about it...so here I am going for my own unnecessary validation. The irony is not lost on me.

Gear up for it

I have to get a cover letter written and a resume sent for a job. I can do this.

I can.

grrrrr

Immediacy

I'm having trouble living in the now. Part of this just has to do with a general element of gloom that has settled on me for a few days.

But part of it is about the future. I have about $120 bucks left-after all the other bills are paid, to enjoy the month with. Assuming, of course, that everything else comes in at or if I'm fortunate, under, budget.

Last night at the OBC meeting, there was a call to go get a beer at the Green Dragon. I said I couldn't afford it and someone said, 'Hey, I'll catch you this time and you can get me next.' And I still had to say no, because there isn't going to be a 'next time' where I could afford to do such a thing.

Which is goddamn depressing. Everything I do has to take the next 30 days in mind. I am already meeting someone for a drink tonight, in order to get some writing going for the beer blog and the girlfriend and I are having pizza Saturday.

So...there goes $25-ish.

Everything I do has to be about the future. Nothing can be about the now because I don't have resources to fall back on, should the future throw curveballs. So I can't be happy about the future-it's just a gigantic space of 'what ifs'-and I can't be pleased to exist in the now because the now is presenting me with opportunities I cannot take advantage of.

Scheduling

So, PAX is sold out of tickets. I will, once again, hardly know anyone. Kind of a drag, that.

/I just look forward to playing Magic a bunch and it hardly ever works out

Also, because my Dad wants to come up and see the family, I am attending the wedding for a cousin I haven't met-or at the least, haven't seen in nearly twenty five years.

However, as a result of going to this fucking event where I will see people I don't care about, I will miss an event I care very much for: Bailey's 4th anniversary party. That Fuz will attend.

In summation; August, you'd better be good.

Dead Space 2 wrapup

Finished Dead Space 2 last night. I played the game on hard (survivalist in the game language) and it's the first time I've done that in a long time. I'd read the game was a bit too easy on normal though and since I'd bought the game I had no reason to go through it hurriedly so I played on hard.

I'm not sure I'm going to play through on hard again. Even with the FAQ guidance (which I was using to make sure I didn't miss any Gold Nodes-the critical components for upgrading your weapons and armor) that game would fucking stress me out.

So I found myself in a hurry to finish the game because I was looking forward to the anxiety being over. If I play it again, it'll be at an easier difficulty level but I may take a crack at other games on hard, because accomplishment is a reward that's nice to have. But the frustration level was, occasionally, a little too high.

That said, reflecting upon the experience; it was only frustrating when I went in without a strategy-or when the strategy would just barely miss. Everything had to be very, very precise at certain points and I tend to be a little sloppy when I play videogames.

It brings me to two points though: First, the end boss.

I felt as though I had very few metrics for whether or not I was actually doing damage and no metric for how effective the damage I was doing was. I realize that health bars are gauche now but I needed something to tell me how effective I was being aside from gruesome death scenes.

Second; at one point in the game you come across a regenerating baddie who chases you through rooms. It ceases to chase you after you...take an elevator.

Really? You couldn't have some kind of system or laser defense or something? This thing survives being sawed into tiny pieces and crawls through ductwork like a snake but the harsh environs of an elevator defeat it?

Aside from that, I rather enjoyed most of it, though it plays more like a bloody horror game than a creepy event that really sucks. Granted, for 15 hours that's a lot of atmosphere to try and keep up on. The occasional splatter is advised-and probably necessary if you want to put giant monsters in the game. When Dead Space 2 is creepy, it's seriously creepy-that those moments are few and far between is alright.

What I really needed was some proper audio. The mindfuck moments have a character-a fairly crucial one-not always properly audible and that's pretty relevant to sustaining the kind of dread that the game wants to put in.