Happy New Year!

Usually my favorite time of year. I had a great Indian dinner, and now I'm tired. I might miss midnight... although, midnight already passed on the east coast and in other parts of the world, so I guess I didn't really miss it in a way.

The Law and Order: SVU marathon is weird. It's supposed to be a time of celebration, and they play one of the most depressing shows on TV all day. I still like the good ole Twilight Zone marathons. Although, this time around it's not so happy with all the death and destruction only a few days ago.

Peterson

Most people just know that he did it. I don't believe in the death penalty because I think that there's always the slimmest doubt. I mean, someone could lie and say they committed murder because they're mentally disturbed, or they could be framed for it. Sure, life in prison is probably even worse than death, but I just don't believe that the government should take it upon itself to put someone to death.

I'd prefer if we gave someone the tools they needed to kill themselves if that's what they want. Then it's over with, and the government doesn't even have to deal with their sorry ass anymore.

Even though I don't think the government should kill people, I think that, since death was the ultimate punishment, the Scott Peterson jury made the right decision. That's because he did it. He's sick. Laci's mom said that she could imagine her poor daughter begging for her life. I think she probably doesn't have to worry about that, because I think Scott is such a coward, that he probably not only planned it ahead of time, but figured out a sneaky way to do it while she was sleeping, napping, or just not looking, and least expected it. Some people really suck.

New Puppy

We got the cutest new puppy, who's about 10 1/2 weeks old now. She's about the cutest thing I've ever seen. We've been documenting her growth on video, and I've included the link in the title. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to put all the video up, so only the first one is on there right now. There's plenty more to go up soon. I'm hoping to get them all up over the next week.

I got a new T1 line at my house this week, so I should be able to start doing live broadcasts, and make little shows with Emily (her big "sister") and her very soon. She's such an awesome dog! :)

Drinking Sewer Water

My bathroom smells like sewer. It always has, since I moved in. I used to think that it was the people that lived there before us. I thought perhaps they had horrible toilet habits. I could never get the smell out, no matter what I did. Then I was brushing my teeth, and smelled that sewer smell again. I thought maybe it was something in the drain causing it to smell when the water hit it.

The water itself is crystal clear, cold and refreshing. It didn't take long before I realized that it's the water itself that smells like sewer. I wanted to puke. I brush my teeth in the kitchen sink now. For some reason, the smell has not reached the kitchen (it still smells sort of bad though). We filter all of our water too.

Elections

So, I'm finally going to take some time to talk about the elections. It's strange that so many people thought Kerry would win. The media is way more liberal than the rest of the country, it seems. The middle of the US is one big "red" blotch. People in the media try to make them sound stupid or simple, but I think that's a big mistake. Don't they know that it will just piss them off and make them want to vote Republican more than ever? Sometimes I think it's the media that are the idiots for not thinking before speaking. Insulting the very people you want to persuade is just stupid.

I actually don't think that either candidate would have made much of a difference. Kerry is so maleable, that he may have turned out to be even worse. I think perhaps that was one of the reasons that Bush won. People were afraid of what Kerry might do. In interview after interview, he had trouble really defining himself or giving a straight forward answer about anything. Nobody knew where he *really* stood on the issues. At least with Bush, there was the comfort of knowing where he stands and what to expect.

Fortunately, I live in a state where there was no question who was going to win: Kerry. For some reason, coastal states like California always vote for the Democrat. I guess it's because we are more of a melting pot than the middle states. Anyway, it gave me the chance to vote for the candidate I really wanted: Michael Badnarik. It's unfortunate when people live in a "close" state and are forced to vote for the "lesser of two evils." I don't think there were many people who really really wanted either Bush or Kerry. Most people want more choices. I hope we can fix this situation someday. There is an excellent article about The Commission on Presidential Debates, and how they have taken over the one main deciding factor for presidential elections by allowing only the two major parties to be involved.

I feel that the only way to stop the insanity is to stop the CPD from making our choices for us.

On to some more recent news...

Now some of the cabinet members are resigning. This is to be expected, as most of these people can only take one term anyway. These jobs can be very tough. Most noteable of course, is Powell's resignation. That one is really too bad, since he was really the only one that disagreed with most of what we have done overseas. Of course, he lost all of the major battles, so it's not like his disagreements really got anywhere.

Who knows? I think things happen for a reason, and I suppose it could be that things would have been much worse by now with Saddam in power. He's not even a real Muslim anyway. He did everything he could to benefit himself, even if it meant killing his own people if they didn't agree with him. The truth is, nobody really knows whether he had weapons of mass destruction or not, or if he was planning major attacks against whoever. We don't really know, and we can't change what's already happened over there, so there's no use in saying that we shouldn't have done it in the first place. It's already done. So, maybe it was for the best in the long run. Maybe not, but I prefer to be an optimist. :)

I just hope we can get out of there as soon as possible. Wishful thinking. Ah, can't we all just get along? It seems to me like many organized religions are the evil. When people do things on their own, they would never dream of doing some of the things they do in groups. Just look at fraternities, cults and gangs. People egg each other on to do things they would never do by themseleves. Sometimes this can be very positive, but when leaders (not just religious leaders) tell lies on top of lies on top of lies to benefit their own cause, you can wind up with some ridiculous ideas that sound like some sort of joke.

Every bible is open to interpretation, because it's just written text. Nobody knows the intent. Anyone can come up with their own ideas for what the intent of a particular passage was, and form a whole religion based on that. I doubt that suicide bombings, mass suicide, fighting over holy land, or world wars were ever the intent of any bible. It would be nice if people would throw a little logic into the mass insanity and ignorance.

Of course, some religions do a lot of good. However, some of them think that everyone should think like they do, or they'll go to hell. That's when you start to have problems. That's the kind of thinking that starts a war, and causes death and destruction. The weird thing is that some religions are so similar, and sometimes major wars can be caused by a minor disagreement. It would be silly if it wasn't so sad.

Sick (in more ways than one)

I was sick today and couldn't get myself out of the house. I hate being sick. It's so boring. I ended up watching TV all day. I watched the Discovery channel the whole time. At least I learned something. Here are the shows I watched:

1. Dirty Jobs: This guy finds the grossest jobs possible and joins in on the fun:


• First, he retrieved golf balls out of disgusting, smelly lakes with alligators lurking.
• Then he retrieved road kill. That was really gross. They showed all these mangled deer that got hit by cars, and they had to lift them onto a truck. Then they take them to this "dump" where they cover them with sawdust, and they decompose and turn into compost.
• Then he went to a place where they breed prize horses, and he got to clean off a horse penis and put a fake horse vagina on it while it humped a big pommel-horse type thing while looking at a mare standing behind a fence. Its sperm was worth $25,000. Then he got to clean off the backside of a mare with his bare knuckles, and put on a plastic sleeve so he could stick his entire arm up the horse's vagina to deposit the sperm. Then they showed the chick who was teaching him this stuff stick her whole arm up one of the horse's rectums to pull crap out of it and dump it in a bucket. This was so they could get her all cleaned out and ready to have her embryo taken out and put in another horse that would become the new mother. That was pretty gross, I must say.
  
2. A special on the Bermuda Triangle. They figured out that all the airplanes and ships may have gone down because of gas bubbles. Some areas of the Bermuda Triangle have a steady stream of methane gas bubbles pouring out. Every now and then a huge bubble bursts out, caused by a slide or a build up of bubbles that are blocked. Some of these huge bubble explosions can cause a huge ship to go down very quickly. They also showed how some of the old-style airplanes could go down with a surprising 1% methane in the air, which happens quite easily in the Triangle.
3. Mythbusters. They proved that:
   
   • You can die if you drop an old-style appliance in the bathtub while you're taking a bath. I thought that was a given, but I guess there were some doubts. Although, they did show how the likelyhood of death is less if the appliance falls close to the drain, because the current doesn't have to travel as far. So that "myth" was supported.
   • They busted the myth that a tattoo can explode when you get an MRI. I thought that one was sort of silly, but it can actually cause a burning sensation or some redness on some people. It's caused by the iron oxide in the tattoo ink. An MRI uses really strong magnets, and the iron oxide is very strongly attracted to it.
   • They busted the myth of killer quicksand, like the kind in movies. Quicksand actually makes you more buoyant, so you float higher on top of it. The best thing to do in quicksand is to lie on your back, and your extra buoyancy will keep you afloat. People have actually died in quicksand, but because of the elements. If the water dries up while you're stuck in the quicksand, it's extremely difficult to get out, and you can basically die of thirst or of the elements. If you float on your back, it's much easier to get out.
4. American Chopper: always an entertaining show.

Another great show is Pimp My Ride on MTV. I usually hate the fact that MTV doesn't play music videos anymore, but I must say that I love Pimp My Ride. It's awesome, and I would love to take my car there.