A Brief History of the Internet

October 22nd, 2009 by Eric LeVan

While we’re all waiting for HTML 5 and CSS 3 to take a firm grasp of the web world, I thought I’d write about something related to my professional experience for once. I will be describing a general history of the Internet, browsers, their differences and how we went from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to hardcore porn.

It all started with the Cold War. The USSR’s launch of Sputnik really made American’s bat-shit crazy. ZOMGZORZ, the Ruskies know how to put stuff in space, we’re screwed! Although that was the general response, the U.S. Government, which seemed a little more competent back in the late 50’s, early 60’s decided that we should probably put more time into space and related scientific research.

DARPA, which was created after the launch of Sputnik because we needed to stay one step ahead of our Red brethren, was given the task of keeping our shit top-notch. DARPA is the same organization who is responsible for the yearly robotic challenge of creating an unmanned robot to wander through the desert to a target many miles away. You might also remember them from Metal Gear Solid, for those of you who are fans. Anyway, while diving into the new advent of computing, DARPA created ARPANET, a network of computers.

It was our baby for many years until the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), who is now committed to the Large Hadron Collider, got a hold of it and re-branded it, the World Wide Web. Although it now took on the name that you’re all familiar with, it would still be a few years until widespread use and familiarity.

As far back as I can remember, the first browser I used, not including America Online (we try to forget), was Netscape’s Internet Suite. This included the Netscape Communicator, a fully-functioning application to utilize web browsing and POP mail all in one. I think that the mail aspect was glossed over by a lot of people, mainly because no one seemed to use Communicator. Instead, it’s subset, Navigator was used solely for web browsing. I’m not sure what the default email client was back then (probably a base version of Outlook), but I hadn’t much use for email clients because even back then it was mostly web-based portals.

Netscape, eventually morphed into the beloved Mozilla Foundation in which we get all of our open-source, free and wonderful, standards-following web apps. Microsoft had other plans however. Since they felt that they had divine providence over all nerds, they decided that web standards didn’t apply to them.

Up through Internet Explorer 7, things were bad, really bad. While the web world had been led astray by being forced to use tables for site layout due to a lack of working CSS, difference in HTML interpretation by browser was rampant.

SSL technology came along for encrypted all that important information, which really was a huge turning point. Now sensitive actions, usually only undertaken in person at financial institutions and internally among high-security companies could now be done from anywhere you could plug in. More importantly, credit cards could be entered so that people could make online purchases, and so spawned the E-conomy. That’s my word by the way.

Now more recently, with Internet Explorer 8 and the now standardized usage of HTML 4 and CSS 3, things are finally starting to look up. Differences are still there, but in the future, it is hoped that they will be nullified by new standards and Microsoft’s willingness to participate with the other children on the playground.

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Politics and Religion

October 19th, 2009 by Eric LeVan

The two things that everyone loves/hates talking about. And I’m not going to talk about them. I think the American school curriculum failed to involve us in a very important class. Somewhere throughout middle school after the strange new body functions and hair growing in new places occurred, we should have had a class on argumentation.

If I had to name this class, it would probably be called “Debate and Argumentation: How to Not Sound Like an Ignorant Prick”. Unfortunately, no one could teach it because the interview process for selecting an instructor for this class would no doubt spark some unnecessary arguments over which candidate was better, in which case the selection committee would need to take the class they haven’t found an instructor for yet. It’s a classic paradox.

That being said, I’m going to do my best to teach the class now to you in what I’m assuming will be a few lazy paragraphs:

Lesson 1: For Sake of Argument, You’re All Wrong

This is a confusing lesson and probably the most confusing because it is your duty whilst engaging in argument to persuade the opposing party or parties to understand or (god forbid) join your cause. You must assume that all parties are wrong or at the very least, don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. This creates a neutral playing field in which all parties cannot back their arguments up with plain, unadulterated ego. You can’t flaunt an ego about something everyone knows you’re wrong about. You can try, but it’ll just make you look like a crazy person.

Lesson 2: Present Fact

This is easy. After introducing yourself and stating your initial argument. Explain the facts you know to be true that back up your point of view. Please note the fact that I used the term, “point of view”, as your argument has not yet proven valid. We’re far from it. Now, facts are not personal opinions. They never have been and they never will be. Opinions are the legal equivalent of hearsay in a valid argument.

Correct: “Hi, my name is Eric and I’m here today to convince you that Gummi Bears are real.”
Incorrect: “Oh, didn’t you know that Gummi Bears are real?”

Lesson 3: Be Respectful

This should probably be lesson one, but I’m making this up as I go. There is nothing more important than remaining collected during an argument. Blowing a gasket and either insulting or degrading the opposition in any way discredits you to a detrimental degree. Please note the incorrect statement below. This is incorrect because although someone may enjoy the taste of licorice, while it is believed that many do not, he or she may still be a scholar on the subject of sentient sugar-based life forms. Your foundation is now crumbling due to your lack of respect.

Correct: “While I understand that you like licorice, I believe it is well documented that this is not a popular flavoring in candy. This leads me to believe that your knowledge of Gummi Bears is lacking.”
Incorrect: “You like licorice and no one likes licorice so your opinion is stupid and that means you don’t know anything about Gummi Bears.”

Disrespect shows that you can’t control your emotions and therefore aren’t smart enough to objectively present hard evidence that backs up your station. Go eat a taco, because you just lost.

Lesson 4: A Battle of Wits

Using sharp vocabulary and being quick about your rebuttals can throw your opposition off guard. When they see that you are intellectually prepared, they know they have a challenge ahead of them. And if by chance you can confuse them with your quips, they might think that you’re smarter than them and therefore probably know more about the subject than they do. This is sure to rattle their cage. Referencing the incorrect statement below, it doesn’t exactly portray your brain as a working device. In fact, it might suggest that you stumbled into the wrong classroom.

Correct: “Gummi Bears, while being largely fictitious as a sentient species o Earth do present a question of whether candy-based species may or may not exist within the breadth of the universe and it’s seemingly infinite amount of possibilities for life. It would seem feasible that on a distant world, a life form composed solely of fructose may be in existence that closely resembles our Teddy Bear.”
Incorrect: “Gummi Bears are real because like, they’re good and stuff.”

Lesson 5: Empathize

Showing your opposition that you understand what they’re saying is a crucial step toward victory. You must put yourself in their shoes even if you believe they are horribly disillusioned. This is tricky because you must achieve empathy without sounding too presumptuous or like your patronizing them. When they feel as if you understand them, they also feel that you might understand the issue and therefore, that you may even know better than them. This creates a required ideological lubricant in which they can use to lather themselves in and squeeze your point of view into their unruly head.

Correct: “When you say that Gummi Bears can’t be real because no sugar based life forms exist on Earth, I completely understand, however the possibilities of the Universe certainly must be included in our rationale.”
Incorrect: “Just because you say no sugar based life forms exist on Earth, I don’t see why that’s any reason why Gummi Bears could never exist.”

Summary

Those are the basics. Mastery of these five lessons in argumentation can lead to more fulfilling confrontations. You may seem like you know what you’re talking about even when you really have no clue at all.

When everyone in America has a firm grasp on these lessons, we might finally be able to express our individual thoughts and perspectives without wrapping ourselves in our nation’s flag and screaming at the top of our lungs. Congress still won’t work and we probably won’t be able to agree on anything, but at least we won’t sound like a bunch of inbred hyenas to the rest of the world. We won’t hate each other as much and we can build a solid future off of our differences instead of waiting to solve them.

Correct: “Although terminating the life of a fetus may seem evil, the alternate is allowing a child to born into a world in which he or she was not wanted and therefore will most likely not receive the love and support that every human needs to properly grow into a functioning adult, while contributing to overpopulation and adding another carbon footprint.”
Incorrect: “What, you’re pro-life? Are you retarded?”

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Computing Nostalgia and Old Classics

October 13th, 2009 by Eric LeVan

I remember my first experience with a computer. I was on my dad’s old DOS machine, sitting there in his bedroom playing either Snake or Gorillas. The first keystroke I remember learning was “cd” for change directory—something I wouldn’t come back to until I began college. Then there was “dir /p” which returned a directory listing in DOS. I figured out the rest myself. I would guess at commands until something happened, all the while, never smart enough to type “help”. I think if I had seen the help screen though, I wouldn’t even know what to do with it nor have the patience to read it.

When we got new computers it would always be via a bonus dad received at work. They were usually top of the line machines and cost about $5,000. I remember my first experience with a color printer and using up all the ink by drawing stupid shit in PrintShop Deluxe. WordPerfect was my first word processing application. When I was only about nine or ten, I wrote a story called “Sheriff Peapod and the Mystery of the Gold Coins”. I wish I still had it, because it would almost certainly rival some of the garbage circulated in print today.

Games became more advanced albeit still run in DOS until Windows XP. Scorched Earth holds a special place in my heart. It was a game in which two or more tanks would sit on varying two dimensional terrain and try to shoot each other with different weapons by changing cannon direction and velocity. The funky bomb was my favorite, capable of firing several multicolored mini bombs off into the vicinity upon impact. I played the shit out of that game whenever I could get it to work. Years later a developer created a 3D version, but it just wasn’t up to snuff.

In Elementary School, I had the privilege of experiencing what was widely considered the hardest game ever made and probably still comparable in difficulty to its more modern brethren. This game was known as The Oregon Trail. You know it. You love it. The most realistic game every created. It was an educational game so it was not necessarily made to be fun, but goddamn it had it all: survival, hunting, economics, and despair. It was a TPS/Puzzle/Adventure/Strategy RPG and it was the greatest thing since SkiFree.

The Oregon Trail began with you choosing your type of family. There were three kinds: Banker (wimpy 1x multiplier, but a lot of money), a carpenter (ok 2x multiplier, but slightly less money) and a farmer (awesome 3x multiplier and dirt poor). Once you chose a class, you had to buy your supplies, consisting of: bullets, clothing, oxen, food, and wagon replacement parts. Along the way you would need to cross rivers and hunt for food and at almost every turn there was something to fuck up your day. You could break an axle, drown in a river, get robbed by bandits, contract smallpox/cholera/dysentery, or an ox could die. It was like you were really there, vicariously living through one of the most depressive times in American History. If personal devastation wasn’t enough, they added over hunting to the mix. You could go hunting for food and kill an entire herd of buffalo, but alas, you could only every carry back 100 pounds of food.

I played this game today hoping to do what I never could do. I was going to win. I sat down and fired up the emulator, choose my class (farmer), and purchased my goods. The journey started out rather well. Everyone was in good health and spirits. I caulked my wagon and floated safely across the first river I came to. Food was plentiful and I single handedly decimated the buffalo population. Listen, it’s not my fault that they come walking right up to you. I swear one ran right up in front of me and choose to stare down the barrel of my rifle while I aimed at a rabbit. They weren’t the brightest animals and that’s why they were food. I hit a few forts and crossed more rivers, paying for ferries because I didn’t want a few family members and all my shit to float down the Missouri.

Along the way I ran into a tombstone of a dead traveler. It read, “andy, peperony and chease”. I don’t know who this Andy was, or why pepperoni and cheese was misspelled on his tombstone, but I felt a resolve build. I had to make it to Oregon, if not for my family, but for Andy. He was a man who just wanted a simple pizza, regardless of his terrible grammar and bad spelling. A man after my own heart.

After a few bouts with the fever, one case of cholera, two broken legs, one broken wagon tongue, and thankfully, no dysentery, I arrived in the west. As I floated down a river avoiding rocks, I landed at my destination—Oregon. I was home. And my whole family had survived. Our health was fair. If I had been in good condition, the points would have skyrocketed, but I wasn’t greedy. My tally ended at 6,372 points. Huzzah!

I had conquered an old classic. It was a game I had thought impossible to win until we crossed paths almost 15 years later. It should have known not to mess with me in this day and age, but I guess it was just a glutton for punishment. Oregon Trail was high on all those deaths by drowning and dysentery. It was always out for blood. And so I claim a victory this day for all my gaming brothers and sisters who fought hard to make it safely to Oregon, but never could.

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I Live at Ground Zero for the Future Zombie Apocalypse

October 6th, 2009 by Eric LeVan

I have a vested interest in zombies. Apart from being plain scary, I firmly believe they are a possible avenue of armageddon. And as excited as I am for the end of the world, I plan on surviving it.

Now when I say zombie, I don’t mean the “undead” version per se. That crap is reserved for mythical lore and bad movies. The modern zombie is an infected version of a live human with a rather nasty strain of virus. The virus would have to be based off of a communicable relative, like rabies or the flu. It would infect the mind rendering the host in a mental state equal in intelligence and ferocity to that of a rabid opossum. All the individual would know is the most fundamental of motor functions and life-sustaining activities. Those being: unrestricted movement, breathing, eating, and self-defense. Sex might also be one. I don’t think it unusual for zombie coitus to occur if we’re talking about basic functions. But so you don’t have the image of zombies going at in burned into your mind for longer than necessary, let’s move on.

So the reason I say that I live at ground zero for the zombie apocalypse is because within a mile radius of my apartment here in North Wales (or West Pointe) are three Merck & Co campuses. The main one, practicing all the animal experimentation and compound development is among those three. Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m all for animal experimentation. Some furry creatures of this world have lost all purpose except for being test subjects or pets. I consider pets a subset of test subjects, especially if they’re going to be around the harmful hands of small children.  Suffice it to say that most animals alive today would serve zero purpose without our presence. Take the cow for instance. Have you ever seen a wild cow? Of course you haven’t. They exist because we domesticated them a long time ago and they would probably not know what to do with themselves if we suddenly weren’t around. But I digress.

I don’t claim to have an internal understanding of Merck drug protocols and research operations, but since half of everyone I know works for Merck, I feel like I do. I’m suggesting that along the way of development for a “ground-breaking” drug, something might go wrong. A strain of a compound or virus may mutate or become unstable in some way. While animal tests are occurring on this strain, it may cause severe adverse affects in these animals that could result in transmission to humans. And when that happens, prepare.

Thankfully, I think I’d probably receive a phone call from one of my Merck insiders regarding such an incident if it did happen. Unfortunately for those who work at ground zero, you’re fucked. The virus will spread before you have a chance to escape. In fact, I think the large cluster of scared Merck employees trying to escape would create an optimal environment for the virus to get it’s first real head start in the world.

Whenever I hear sirens outside, I always imagine there’s a slim chance that it could be from this outbreak. But when I get word that it has started, oh I’ll be prepared. And here’s my plan:

The Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide

You thought I was joking… didn’t you?

Foreword

This written work is intended to answer one single question. What does it take to survive a zombie apocalypse? After watching one too many Hollywood movies one might be mistakenly led to believe that it’s ninja like reflexes, a scientist’s intellect and a double barrel shotgun. Though those may be helpful, they won’t keep you alive for very long. People get hurt, guns jam and zombies eat brains so being a scientist will likely move you up dinner menu. What most experts would agree on is that a well thought out long term plan will likely be the key to survival. You should know that zombies rarely last forever. The laws of thermodynamics demand that energy spent by zombies (running or walking) must come from somewhere. So remember, they will eventually die if they do not feed. It’s your job not to become their next meal.

When reading through this guide keep in mind both how your world would change during an attack and how quickly you and those around you can react. Pause and reflect on your surroundings and you will gain much more out of this writing than simply being entertained. Its preparation that’s going to see you though impending doom. Start by preparing your mind. Ignoring any step could spell disaster. So make sure to take all warnings and heeds seriously. This is your and your loved ones’ lives at stake. Enjoy.

Survival

Many thanks to Whytie for that foreword. Now onto business. The strategy for effective zombie survival is not to fight off the horde of zombies, but rather to hide. They may be dumb, but they’re Tremors smart. If you saw the movie, you’d know what I mean.  They don’t just come looking for you.  Well they might, but if you hide yourself well, then there’s really no danger of them finding you.  Unless they develop crazy olfactory senses and can smell you out, which would be rather easy after weeks of not bathing due to lack of water pressure from a now nonoperational and zombie infested utilities depot.

The first step is to collect vital resources before the outbreak hits your front door.  And no, I do not mean ammunition.  That’s the stupidest thing you could possible do.  Oh no, zombies, I’m going to go rob a gun store.  You stupid fucknut, what do you think everyone else thinks of the moment they need to protect their shit.  A gun store would be more dangerous than the zombies themselves.  Not only would it be logistically impossible to get to a gun store that was not within walking distance due to the jamming of traffic trying to get out of town (another reason to hole up instead of fleeing), but the owners of the gun store are going to be defending their turf.  And did you forget?  They have a stockpile of nasty things that kill that they really know how to use.  You will get your shit ruined.  So stay home and if you have weaponry at home, then even better, because you will need it.

When I’m talking resources, I mean water and food.  Your goal is non-perishable food.  Don’t worry about water, you can handle that yourself in a few easy steps that I’ll explain in a minute.  It’s time to stockpile nom noms.  Get to your nearest supermarket, preferably within walking distance.  Thankfully, I have a Genaurdis across the street, so good for me.  If you are not close to a food source, then always make sure you are prepared accordingly.  Remember, every time you leave your defensible position you’re exposing yourself to either a possible zombie or a crazy-person-hell-bent-on-taking-your-shit.  Both are bad.  Oh and take a small firearm or other weapon stowed carefully away on your person because you might need it.

At the super market people are going to be fighting for food and water.  The water will probably already be gone, so don’t worry about that and as I mentioned, we can deal with it ourselves.  Besides, water is heavy.  Remember, liquids are a pint a pound the world around.  Go for the food.  High-calorie, precooked, nonperishable goods.  Spaghettios with meatballs would be my choice.  Tasty, right out of the can.  But anything canned is good.  Grab it all and as much as you can carry and proceed back to your place of defense.  If you feel you have time, make multiple trips. Unfortunately for me, I estimate I have about an hour before zombies and looting gets too bad to continue safely pillaging for goods.  One special item that I need to inform you of is bleach.  Chlorine bleach is your new best friend and will keep you alive over the coming weeks or months.  If you don’t have any, get it.  You don’t need a hell of a lot, but get as much as you can carry.  Get the plain kind.  Do NOT get ammonia.  I know what you’re thinking, it’s a better cleaner, steak-free and all that bullshit, and that’s true, but for our purposes we need chlorine.

Now, I know some of you will be thinking, but that’s looting, that’s illegal.  Yes, it is, and because of it, you will live.  Due to your new-found criminality, however, there will be some human resistance, but not from local law enforcement or store owners.  The authorities are busy containing the situation and/or running scared home to their families.  And the store owners are most likely looting right alongside you.  So don’t think of it as illegal.  Think of it as getting caught up in the passion of the moment, you know, the ol’ “everyone was doing it” mentality.  Fear not, no one will question your actions later in the coming months, if there is anyone left to do so.

With your stockpile of food safely stowed away, and before you collect water your base of operations must be fortified and I’m sorry to say that your heaviest and possibly most comfortable pieces of furniture are about to be put to better use than supporting your ass, but go for the bookcases and large decorative pieces first.  Your goal will be to block doors and low-rise windows with as much heavy shit as possible.  And draw those venetian blinds.  Zombies, like primitive animals and T-Rex’s are drawn to movement.  You want to be able to keep tabs on the zombie squatters outside your fortification without them keeping tabs on you.

Secure?  Good, let’s move on to water.  Collect and empty out any large containers you have.  Cleanse the containers with a weak solution of bleach and water, approximately 1 tablespoon for every gallon of water.  Rinse the containers and then fill them with tap water and cover, if at all possible.  Here’s a good tip, use your bath tub.  It holds A LOT of water and since you won’t be using it, you might as well make use.  Just know that it requires healthy elbow grease in addition to your cleansing solution in order to store water.  It’s a dirty, dirty place considering it’s where you go to get clean.  And remember, you only want to uncover your water sources only when in use.

For the first week or so, your water will be perfectly save to drink.  After that I would start transferring the water you want to drink/use to a secondary container where you will treat it with a very mild solution of bleach and wait the required contact time before drinking.  An activated charcoal filter would work excellently to help remove any additional bacteria and the chlorine taste, but the chlorine will be your primary defense against pathogens.  It may not be far removed from pool water, but it’ll keep you alive, goddammit.

Try to keep bathing to a minimum, but hygiene is important to fight off infection.  Wipe yourself down with your mild bleach solution every couple days with a rag.

Waste.  It’s going to be  a problem and everyone is going to need to find their own solution.  Keep a bucket on hand, tightly covered when not in use.  Use it for bodily necessities.  Disposal is the real issue.  Empty your shit vessel as often as you can, but do not advertise your presence.  Dumping from a second floor window is recommended but do it out of visual range of any wayward zombies.  I don’t think I need to mention that last part.

Once you have these basics down, it simply becomes a waiting game.  Find things to do.  Read, sleep, play board games, work on that novel.  Avoid boisterous activities.  Remember, you’re hiding, Nazi Germany style.  And if you happen to encounter any Nazi zombies, well then, you’re pretty much fucked.

Good luck.  And for those of you who are left after this is over, shots, all around.

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The Hubble Ultra Deep Space Field

October 6th, 2009 by Eric LeVan

Since I’m without religion, I like to follow science, since I believe it will eventually answer the question of our existence.  One of the many applications which consistently keeps my juices flowing is space and the universe.  It’s a big place and I do mean big.  It’s impossible to imagine just how big it is.  On the flip side, it’s also impossible to imagine just how small something is—the basic building blocks of matter for instance.  Our minds simply can’t cope with it because we are still too young as a species.  With that in mind, I want to show you something you may or may have not seen before.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit because on Earth, the atmosphere did not permit us to see distant bodies with hardly any detail at all.  So we spent $36,000,000 to take some pretty pictures above the atmosphere where we could get a clear view.  It was like the Hubble was a little girl wanting to see a parade, so her father, Earth, lifted her up on his shoulders to get a better view.

Blurry image due to near sightedness.It turned out to be a disaster.  All that money had been wasted.  The pictures were coming back blurry.  It turned out that the mirror reflected the light onto the CCD in an aberration, meaning, shit was fucked up.  The mirror was incorrectly molded and the sides were also misshapen by more than 2 microns.  It kind of makes a difference when you’re looking at stuff farther away than light has time to travel within your lifetime.  Since it was too expensive to bring it back to Earth to fix, NASA decided to half-ass it and make a correctional lens.  That’s right, the Hubble was getting contacts.

NASA went down to Lens Crafters and picked up a Hubble sized lens, only one though, because the Hubble is a cyclops.  It was the comfy kind made of gel that doesn’t itch.  They did this because Hubble is 350 miles above our heads and since it has no opposable thumbs, or even fingers for that matter, it would have a bitch of time taking it out.

Clear image after contact lens fitting.The lens and a barrel of Visine made it’s way back up to Hubble escorted by a couple astronauts for a fitting.  Once the lens was in, a picture was taken and voila!  The image was crystal clear.  The image that came out was just what they had originally expected and it meant good things for the future of the Hubble.

From that point on stars, galaxies, and nebulae alike were photographed and studied and everyone said hey, that’s nifty, good job NASA.  Then, someone had an idea.  What if we look at nothing?  NASA decided to find the deepest darkest patch of sky they could possibly find.  It had to be at a high galactic altitude, meaning, it needed to be somewhere away from the galactic plane where there was a thin concentration stars.  A spot less than 1/28,00,000th of the total sky was chosen.

Hubble Deep Space Field.For ten days they pointed Hubble at this spot, not sure what would happen.  Photon by photon, light slowly collected into the CCD and slowly, over the ten day period, pixels started to emerge and what they say was something amazing.  Light, billions of years old had made its way across the void and smacked into the Hubble’s CCD forming an image of thousands of galaxies.  It was a snapshot of the past, as these galaxies had looked billions of years ago a few hundred millions years after the universe had began.

In each galaxy is billions of stars and in the universe there are billions of galaxies.  The Earth is not even a spec in an ant’s shit.  So understand me when I say, in the scope of the universe, your problems are nothing. And it doesn’t matter if we let gays marry.

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I Think I May Have Taken The Template Design Too Literally

October 5th, 2009 by Eric LeVan

What do you think?  I mean, there’s a glob of cheese acting as my navigation bar, bacon as my border, and a picture of Buddy Christ kinda of chilling at the top showing you how it’s going to be.  I figured it was a good way to appeal to a mass audience.  I have the fat, morbidly obese, and religious communities under wraps.  I think that’s just about ninety percent of the American demographic and if you’re all three, then jackpot!

I recently set up a Word Press blog along with a custom theme for my good friend, Andrew, which you can view at www.andrewstories.com.  I had a lot of fun doing it and writing the theme was good web practice, so I decided to set up my own blog on a domain I’ve been sitting on for a couple of weeks.  As you can see, I created another unique theme for it.

I’ve always enjoyed writing for pure enjoyment and for keeping my vocabulary from devolving into half-ebonics, half-redneck.  It keeps my thinkin’ muscle working and since that’s the only one I ever let exercise it makes me feel a little less guilty about the rest of my muscles.

Some of you might remember log, the blog from my old website that was more of a personal journal of exploits and random thoughts.  I aim this reincarnation to be a little different than its predecessor.  No more personal exploits and follies, like accidentally posting my social security number on a scanned image.  I think I also met my bitching and moaning quota for the century.  So no more of that.  I intend to create sound thoughts and rational critiques of current events.  I promise to opine in a way that makes you think quietly, and if you’re bi-polar, loudly to yourself.

And I’ll throw in some fails and lol cats here and there.

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