Guard Dog

MIA @ CAR Panthers PIT @ KC Steelers NO @ TB Saints ATL @ NYG Giants BUF @ JAC Jags IND @ BAL Ravens SEA @ MIN Vikings CLE @ DET Lions WAS @ DAL Cowboys SF @ GB Packers ARI @ STL Cardinals NYJ @ NE Patriots CIN @ OAK Bengals SD @ DEN Bolts PHI @ CHI Eagles TEN @ HOU Texans

Here is another nugget of news from the Peoples Socialist Republic of California (/sarcasm) Since the State is unable to meet it's obligations to the state university system the in state tuition will be increasing by 32% next year. All of the sudden Stanford doesn't seem all that expensive! But take heart Califonrnia students... State employees will still get their sex change and plastic surgery paid for, the medical programs for illegal immigrants is still funded, and the state assembly will still get their raise next year! http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

Enoch, I have a lot of respect for you but the premise behind that statement is not only wrong, but beneath you. Would you agree we are fast approaching a breaking point when the Federal Government assumes so much power that American federalisim ceases to exist? Do you forsee a time when state and local government will see all of their authority usurped by Washington? I believe we are fast approaching that stage. It is not for nothing that State reps in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana are throwing around the "S" word again. I said it before and I'll say it again, a permanent schsim between the states is invitable and necassary, but not a good thing. I seriously doubt it is imminent but I honestly believe we are seeing the groundwork laid right now in the news everyday.

Last Weeks Results: GD: 10-4 Kelverin: 9-5 Enoch: 8-6 Volo: 8-6 Season Standings GD: 95-48 Volo: 94-49 Kelverin: 93-50 Enoch: 87-56 We have a new leader! The mighty Volo has fallen! One bad week will just kill you.

The enviroment MUST come first. There is nothing wrong with that aspect. Business won't regulate themselves and will clear cut forests and dump in waterways if they could get away with it. All th the sake of making a $. If your company can't run without wrecking the enviroment maybe you deserve to go out of business. Thats fine. If a particular state decides to deindustrialize and return to feudal/agrarian economics it should not complain where there is insufficient tax revenue to fund its government. Thats why I said it is a self inflicted wound Here is a bit of news, Californias budget short fall is now at $21,000,000,000,000. Thats just the deficet! Just the difference between spending obligations and available capital. That is more the the GDP of eleven European countries! http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews...177233220091118 Here is another bit of funny enviormental politics in California, they want to ban big screen TVs. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091118/D9C1S1080.html Once again, if the folks in Sacremento want to ban big screen TVs, that is their business. But don't be suprised when someone says "To hell with this, I'm moving to Nevada" and they take their income and tax dollars with them.

I usually read 10-12 books a month. All different genres fiction and non. A book like that you read it because everyone is talking about it. Most of the time they are fomulaic and drier than a popcorn fart. But sometimes one will come out that gives you a little insight into how someone thinks and why they believe the things they do. They might even get you to reexamine your own conclusions on an issue. I'm on page 110 of Going Rogue and so far it is looking very much like the former and nothing like the latter. I read both of Obamas books last year before the election. They were self-aggrandizing to the point you wanted to puke and only reinforced my dislike for the man. I respect him for how far he's come in life but his ideology is so repllent to me I could never vote for him. He either drew all of the wrong conclusions from his life lessons or willfully ignored them to practice his own particular ideology. But, I did read his books though because I did want to learn more about him.

A long time in coming it seems.

I stopped at Books A Million on the way home today and bought Going Rogue by Sarah Palin and Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. The latter is about a man trying to save his home and neighbors in New Orleans following Katrina. The former you all know what it is about. I'm starting that one right after V tonight.

The newset NWN1 stuff is looking great. Most of the new tilesets are 100x better than the ones that shipped with the game.

I really do believe that an eventual and possibly permanent schisim between the states is not only possible but necessary and inevitable. But I don't think it is going to happen relatively soon. Maybe not in my lifetime, but certainly not in the next few years which is all this (or any) economic downturn will last. Why do you think the break up of the US is a good thing? How will it improve your life?

I want to be Shryke, he gets more girls in a weekend than I do in a year...

I worked on my book most of the day. Watching the Florida-South Carolina game now. Thinking about dinner. Maybe just microwave a pizza tonight. The Coyotes have been snooping around at night. They are not making any noise but I'm finding their scat and tracks in the driveway.

I don't have links to back this up because the site I read it on is not around anymore, but as of early this year (shortly after the SoZ release) NWN had outsold NWN2 (including sales of Gold, Platinum, Diamond,and expansion packs alone) by less than 10K units, and remember it had been on the market for six years longer I believe. That indicates NWN2 had pretty robust sales. For all of it flaws, NWN2 was a great game and what you got out of the box (as far as the quality of the game, story, tools, etc) it was superior to NWN1 by any measure. NWN has had a much more active modding community and I think that is mainly because when NWN1 came out everyone who wanted to mod "got it out of their system" with that game. Even now the community made tools for NWN1 make it much easier to do modding then NWN2 and some of the mods submitted to the vault of late have been very high quality. I have noticed, unscientificly, that the rate that NWN2 mods are added to the vault have really fallen off of late. That is to be expected. The rate NWN1 mods are added has been steady for years now asnd I imagine it will be for years to come because there is a small group of dedicated gamers who keep playing and refreshing it. I don't know if NWN2 will have the same thing two or three years from now. I sort of doubt it but I hope it does. If the interest stays up maybe we'll get another one somewhere in the future.

It was psuedo-sarcasm. Since we are talking about economics and tax policy it is relevant to point out that the same political school of... ahem... thought is responsible for the policy decisions in two of the states that are drowning. Actually, Michigan is pretty close to failure too. It would also be relevant to point out what political party makes State policy there. Texas and Oklahoma are cash positive and are experiencing growth, and it would be relevant to point out that the Republicans dominate the State government in those two states. Granted, all states are experiencing economic stresses that are beyond their ability to control but how each state reacts to the same enviorment that all 50 must deal with go a long way to deciding that states financial health as a whole. And the people who make the policy are the ones who get the blame or credit so examining their political phliosophy (their party affiliation is a good indication of this) makes a lot of sense. So I'd say my conclusions are not pointless at all but actually pretty accurate in the case of California, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas. The Democrats that run NY and CA continue increasing taxes and spending, utterly ignoring the fact that people who actually PAY those taxes are leaving those States in droves BECAUSE they are doing that.

It is now a two horse race to see which state is the first to fail. New York State will run totally out of capital before years end. What do New York and California have in common? Foolish spending, uber-high taxes, and a rapidly declining population of upper middle class and affluent citizens (the only ones who actually PAY those ridiculously high taxes) and the business they work for. Think about t, Chase, Citibank, MBNA, EIB, Tyco, Lynxis, JC Penny, and Verizon have all left New York for other states with more business frendly tax policy and everyone employed there either left with them or lost their job. Taxing major companies and affluent citizens out of your state is stupid in the extreme. It's like cutting your own throat. http://wcbstv.com/cbs2crew/david.paterson.....2.1300362.html Oh, yeah, what else do New York and California have in common? They are both utterly dominated by the Democrats. Go figure....

I don't know Lare, I drink almost every day, although very seldom to any kind of excess and I do enjoy it. Here is a fast fact for you though. No one has ever smoked weed and killed their wife/husband. Alcohol can not not say the same. In fact they might have gotten stoned and decided NOT to kill their wife/husband.

Now reading As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me by Josef Bauer, about a German POW who escapes from a Soviet Labor Camp (yes LoF they really did have them) and sneaks all the way from the Urals to return to Germany. Great story. Just finished No Less Than Victory by Jeff Sharra. Like most of his books it was good but not great.

True story, A man I know who was an RF Design Engineer at AT&T, brilliant guy too he's forgotten more about radio theory than I'll ever know, was under so much pressue leading up to the launch of the UMTS network that he did not eat or sleep for days at a time. Finally when the launch was a resounding success he simply packed up his office and quit without a word to anyone. He moved to Indiantown Florida and opened a little Ace Hardware store there. He has no stress, sleeps fine and enjoys his meals now. No medication required. Sometimes instead of medicating it's better to remove the stress, or remove you from the stress. There are times I think about doing the same thing, only I'd open a bait and tackle shop somewhere. Doggone mortgage is too high for that nonsense right now though. But my job isn't really all that stressful these days.

The ironic thing is if Obama comes out and flat out states that there is no alien ship in area 51 or anywhere else, no one will believe him who is already convinced there is. And Obama is probably the one they voted for... I'd believe him and I despise him. Go figure.

NO at STL: Saints DET at MIN: Vikings JX at NYJ: Jests BUF at TEN: Oilers CIN at PIT: Steelers DEN at WSh: Broncos AT at CAR: Carolina KC at OAK: Chiefs SEA at ARI: Cardinals DAL at GB: Packers PHI at SD: Chargers NE at INDY: Patriots BAL at CLE: Ravens Ravens and Browns for a Monday night game... what were they thinking?

I do have a sure fire cure for depression. Drink copiuos amounts of alcohol and keep a loaded handun on the kitchen counter. Sooner or later those nasty depression problems just sort of solve themselves.... OK, that is probably the most tasteless joke ever but you might as well laugh about things rather than cry about them....

Yep, it is the second most common motive in murders and suicides all around the world. But I'd tell her not to worry about the "suicide" ultimatum. They guys who talk about it won't really do it, and the one who would, would never tell you.

That was... just the worst football game I've watched since... I don't even know. Maybe since that 3-0 Monday night Replacement Rams win over the Replacement Bears in the strike year. Seven turn overs, nineteen penalites, The absolute inability of the 49ers to do ANYTHING in the Red Zone (including getting there despite 350 yds of offense). Every man on both those teams should hang their heads in shame. But especially Cutler because five picks in one game... man thats really something. Especially that comeback killing one in the endzone at the end. But come on Coach Singletary, if your team gets five picks in a game shouldn't you have a little more to show for it than ONE MEASLY FIELD GOAL? If you get five picks you should at least win by double digits not four points! You know who walks away from this looking like a freaking genius in Enoch, who had the good sense or possibly premonition to change his vote. Thats like deciding to take a cab on the day the train wreck happened. (Not the same scale of course)

I like the 49'ers at home tonight. Everything points to bears win, they match up well against SF, they have won the last four games against the niners, but this years the Bears are 1-3 on the road and the Niners are a team on the rise, not decline. I'm taking the Niners for the win.

It's not usually accurate to assume that layoffs always happen because the company wants to boost profits. Wells Fargo got rid of all their stagecoach drivers a long time ago because no one was taking the stagecoach anymore. Some times the service a particular group of employees provide is simply no longer needed. Thats what happened at my last job. I was a Microwave Network Design Engineer at AT&T for many years. AT&T divested their microwave networks. After that there was just nowhere for me to go but out. I wasn't laid off to boost profits, my job simply did not exist anymore. It happens all the time, a company stops making product X, everyone who works on product X serves no purpose now. If they can be moved or retrained the usually are but sometimes there is nowhere to go but out the exit. It sucks to be the one with no chair when the music stops but thats just how it is sometimes.