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06/10/2008

The Betterment Project

Things have changed. I am at that point in my life where things are constantly changing; some for the better, some for the worse. I have a job now, which takes up 44 hours a week of my time. That means 44 less hours to spend wasting away in front of a computer; 44 less hours to sit around, watching television, eating when I’m bored, gaining weight, etc etc.

I’ve lost some friends. Selfish, immature friends. It’s heartbreaking, honestly, and I’m not afraid to admit that. However, because of this loss I was forced to reconcile with old friends, and therefore I have gained a few new friends. But again, change. I am done with school. I am living at home (for the moment), while these new friends are away at college. So that means communicating via AIM, facebook, etc, and the occasional weekend visit, depending on the work schedule.

Probably for the last 9 months or so I haven’t been completely happy. But now it’s time to change that. At school I was living with a kid who seemed to get off on insulting others, and then throwing tantrums when the insults were directed at him. He made living there miserable, which was obviously his intention from the beginning (long story).

So I need to change things. He’s out of the picture. It’s all on me now. It’s my choice to be happy or not. So here’s the question: what do I do?

First, I am starting my own “Belly Off 2008”. I have already started eating healthier and working out/running. I purchased these, JC SuperBands. They’re basically intended to simulate weight training without actual weights. It works, for the most part. At least, it feels like it. I’ve only been at it for a week now, so there isn’t much visible proof, but I feel it when I workout. I also started running. I’m out of shape, so I can really only run a mile, maybe a little over, before I stop and go home. But I think doing the workout, followed by the mile run, is a good amount to start with.

Couple that with my eating habits now and I am on my way to reaching my goal. What is that? Toned by Christmas. That means visible 6 pack abs, shaped arms. You know, the works. I want to look good both in and out of clothes.

I am debating whether or not I should join a gym. Sure, the bands are good for working out right now, but I know I’m going to have to step it up to reach my goal. So that’s a possibility.

Joining a gym will also help me complete the other goals in the Betterment Project. Less time in front of a computer doing nothing. Right now I spend most of my online time on Reddit, Digg, and reading some blogs. If I work 44 hours a week, plus spend another what, 7 hours a week at the gym, that means less time being lazy. I can have the energy to give my room a really good clean, throwing away the crap I don’t use. It may help me write the script I’ve been thinking about for a while now, maybe feeling motivated after a nice workout.

And spending less money. Look, I am not working my dream job right now. I still don’t know what my dream job is. Would I like to write, direct, produce, act, something? for TV or movies? Yes. Is that realistic? Not really, no. But I still have to give it a shot. But right now, I don’t have the resources to do that. So for the next few years, I need to build those resources. So as I was saying, this isn’t my dream job. But considering the amount of work I do, I feel like I’m making good money. So I want to save. I’m going to have to spend some money, but I really feel like I could save a good amount.

So what do I plan on doing? I don’t really know. I know I want to go to California. But I also know that I want to do a lot before I have kids. So I might move to North Carolina first (good thing about my job is that I can transfer, so I can have a guaranteed job while I look for my “dream job”).

So far, the list of goals in the Betterment Project:

Shape up (6 pack abs by Xmas)
Eat healthier
Less TV/computer
Read more
Save money
Clean/organize
Maintain friendships

It’s sad that I don’t have more friends, really. I would like some. It’s just I’m at that point in my life where maybe I’ve matured more than I thought I would and I just don’t want to surround myself with selfish, immature beings.

Or maybe I’m a dick.

Probably a little of both.

Text posted at 12:34

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27/08/2008

Welcome to Minneapolis RNC! This will greet everyone as they drive through Minneapolis. Great job to the guys at Operation St. Paul, and thank you to the countless donors that made this possible. (More pictures to come…)

Welcome to Minneapolis RNC!

This will greet everyone as they drive through Minneapolis. Great job to the guys at Operation St. Paul, and thank you to the countless donors that made this possible. (More pictures to come…)

Photo posted at 15:30

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20/08/2008

“ 

Does Bush Believe McCain Was Tortured?

19 Aug 2008 10:54 am

Agabuse

In all the discussion of John McCain’s recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration’s definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of “long-time standing” that victims of Bush’s torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely “enhanced interrogation.”

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the “intelligence” we have procured from “interrogating” terror suspects. Feel safer?

The cross-in-the-dirt story - although deeply fishy to any fair observer - is in the realm of the unprovable. But the actual techniques used on McCain, and the lies they were designed to legitimize, are a matter of historical record. And the government of the United States now practices the very same techniques that the Communist government of North Vietnam once proudly used against American soldiers. When they are used against future John McCains, the victims will know, in a way McCain didn’t, that their own government has no moral standing to complain.

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.

These are the prices people pay for power.

 „

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Quote posted at 16:29

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19/08/2008

Awesome speech by Patton Oswalt

Patton Oswalt

Text posted at 19:00

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