My Slice of Reality,

The first anime I ever saw was Akira and, after my first viewing, I hated it and never wanted to see Japanese anime again. Looking back, its strange that I reacted that way. It had all the things that American animation lacked. The grittiness, the violence, the nudity, the willingness to actually put substance into the movie and challenge traditional themes that are overlooked in standard TV shows and movies made for American audiences.

The past year or two, however, has been a period of rediscovery for me. With some of my closest friends being Asian, I was heavily immersed within Japanese anime and I’ve discovered some amazing shows and movies. The best, by far, would have to be Cowboy Bebop.

The first episode I watched had me hooked, with its old school cowboy dreams yet modern, realistic problems all set in a sci-fi universe that was highly engaging. The characters are lively, most are quite realistic in their moods, drives and desires. I could actually feel sympathy with Spike. Yet what probably drew me in the most was the music. Its not the cheesy music you hear in alot of American TV shows and cartoons, the crappy synthetic notes grating on ones nerves. Instead, Cowboy Bebop mixes modern rock and roll techniques with old school Jazz and Blues styles and then throws in some of the best lyrics I’ve ever read. To take into account that these were all originally Japanese lyrics makes them even more amazing, here’s a sampling.

Been a fool, been a clown
Lost my way from up and down
And I know, yes I know
And I see in your eyes
That you really weren’t surprised at me at all
Not at all
And I know by your smile it’s you.

Honestly, I recommend this series for anyone who’s even slightly interested in Anime. Even if you aren’t, I still highly recommend it. You’ll be enthralled by the good writing, realistic themes and characters, and indeed, even the music. I personally prefer (I know I’ll get yelled at here) the American dubbed versions just because the voices seem to fit better with the characters but even watching it sub-titled is great.

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Can someone please explain to me what our President is blathering about here? I know where he’s trying to go with it (I think) but the way he’s doing it…is well, asinine? I mean, its probably the best example of his failure as a public speaker. From the Washington Post

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. Mr. President, many of your supporters believe that homosexuality is immoral. They believe that it’s been given too much acceptance in policy terms and culturally. As someone who’s spoken out in strongly moral terms, what’s your view on homosexuality?

BUSH: Yes, I am mindful that we’re all sinners. And I caution those who may try to take the speck out of the neighbor’s eye when they’ve got a log in their own.

I think it’s very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country.

On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage. And that’s really where the issue is headed here in Washington, and that is the definition of marriage. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we’ve got lawyers looking at the best way to do that.

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I’m beginning to contemplate the creation of my own Lyrics database. The primary reason is because sites like AZ Lyrics are inundated with pop ups, advertisements, and plugin installs. It becomes really frustrating when your just searching for the lyrics of that one song you’ve looked up five times before. Basically, I’ll still be making use of those sites like AZ Lyrics to get the new lyrics, but from then on I’ll be accessing my database whenever I need the lyrics.

The primary question becomes - what will I use to power it? I know Microsoft Access really well and could throw something together in that very quickly and very easily. The only problem is I’m hoping to begin moving away from Windows and Microsoft problems in general. That leaves me with the problem of how would I access it later? Not just that, but if I want to make it web enabled, Access databases can really only be opened through ASP or CF, at least in my experiences.

So that leaves me with an open source database, something like MySQL with PHP doing the queries. Problems here abound though. I don’t know MySQL (well I know some basics and I could just use an interface like PHPMyAdmin) or PHP. Also, how can I really make it based upon my system without running a web server like Apache or TUX? I have a Linux laptop which I could install it through, but I’m leery of that. I was burned once before by Apache (didn’t patch correctly and was hacked) so I’m not quite sure which I should do. Any suggestions?

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My knees pressed gently into the soft, fresh earth. Its pungent aroma filled my nostrils, that faint smell of death mixing with the tantalizing freshness of a spring
storm; I shivered. The rain hissed down around me, alternating streams and torrents, droplets caressed the hairs of my neck as they slid across the collar of the jacket. I placed one foot in front of the other, concentrating on my steps so I wouldn’t slip on the soggy soil. Step after step, the hill seemed to go on for near forever. Every other step I stumbled on some unseen rock yet I did not look up. The fear, the aurora of what I would see, kept my eyes painfully lowered.

Something crackled beneath my toes and my eyes painfully focused upon it, the almost pristine plastic wrapping around a boquete of flowers glittered dully, sickly in the light. My heart jumped, I was there. Panic arose within my breast and for many long moments I struggled with myself, struggled against the temptation to run. Finally, with a deep breath and a heart wrenched sigh I raised my eyes. Tears instantly flooded my eyes, and my breath choked within my throat. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, I wanted to turn and run but instead, I looked. I stared.
The chiseled lines of writing still flowed straight and true, pristine and unspoiled; the toils of age and decay had yet to affect them. Nature had yet to affect the stark beauty of our hands, the imposing strength of granite was made to withstand the ages. My eyes traced the words, time and time again. They didn’t change of course, yet each time my eyes read the names,I prayed that they would disappear, that it would be someone else’s names. “Edward and Lori Knittel – Daring to Dream and Try.” A sob tore from my mouth. Here, right before me, lay my parents. The beings who had raised me from a child to become a know-it-all adult. I never even had the chance to say goodbye.

My knees gave out and I fell to the grass, my pants instantly soaked by the dampness. Great heaves filled my chest and I cried and sobbed like I hadn’t in weeks. Since the night they died I had not cried, I had shed no tears. I’d been the strong and silent strength, bearing it all so no one else would have to.
For hours I sat there and cried, my body wracked by sobs and convulsions. The rain washed down my face, mixing with my tears to become a metaphorical river of my pain and grief. Every tear seemed to be a cry for forgiveness and with every tear my pain seemed to become worse. My heart felt like it would burst from the strain of all the emotion released. The storm intensified above me, lightning and thunder crashed in the heavens as if in a final farewell.

The graves were nothing but a blur before me, so intense was the rain. It smashed into my shoulders and bleed through my clothes. My body became numb from the cold and from so much emotion. Gradually, the rain slowed down. The thunder and the lightning faded into the background, side show performers to the main act. The hill became quiet but for a faint hiss of the falling rain. I raised my head and looked once more at the tombstones before me. I had come here to say something and within me I felt that the time had finally come to say it.

“Momma; Papa; please forgive me. This past month has been so hard; life has been so hard since you left us,” I spoke out loud so the trees and clouds would bear witness to my pain, a pain they had witnessed many times before. “The night you left, the night you died, a part of me died too. The police called me, at school, to tell me the news and I didn’t believe it I couldn’t believe it, you weren’t supposed to go like that. Some dumb ass who had too much to drink driving you off a cliff? That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.” My hands were clenched into fists and I was forced to take a few deep breaths before I could continue. “I knew, that night, how my life would change, or at least I thought I did. I thought I knew how all my dreams were gone, destroyed, wiped away by your carelessness.” I screamed the last, anger driving me to say things I would never have said to my parents in life. “For the first time I came home from school alone to an empty house. I wasn’t coming home for money, for gifts, for food, I was coming home to bury you! I came home to a scene from a nightmare, orchestrated by Satan himself to punish me for what I’ve done in life. I came home to silence, to Jess.” I stopped, my head cocked at an angle. The rain had stopped completely by now and a faint echo of a horse drawn carriage was heard from behind the hill. I shook myself, and continued.

In a softer voice my words purred out, a flow more deadly than that of the strongest of rains. “No one had told Jess that you two were gone. How do you tell an eight year old who’s already lost everything twice, that she just lost the best parents she’s ever had? Yea, thanks for the fuckin pointers. I learned real quick how to tell a child that they’re parents are dead. You want to talk about a hard thing, a hard life? There you go, its right before you!.” As the last words left my mouth I tossed a picture onto my parents graves. A picture of Jess and I, together, taken shortly after the funeral. You could see the pain in our eyes, the loss in our expressions. Two children without a home, alone against the world.

“She hates me because of it. She thinks it’s all my fault; she blames me for you guys leaving us. I made someone else take her to the funeral, I couldn’t go. For two days I drove, as far and as fast as I could go. Dodging police, dodging people, dodging life. For two days I ran, then reality returned and I could run no more. I returned to death, to pain, to loss. I returned to a house without god.”

The tears were returning now, a torrent as the final pain seeped from my body. “How sad is that mom, dad? Your own son didn’t even go to the funeral, he couldn’t bare the pain. Your son, nineteen, is left to care for your daughter, the sister he never wanted. Dreams slashed, burned, and gone. Left with an empty house, a blank check, and a sister who wants nothing to do with him.” A sigh slowly escaped from my lips as I wiped the tears from my face. “You’ve sure left us with an easy life,” I can’t help but say with a bitter laugh.

Slowly, I turn away from the graves. With my back towards them, I speak to the gradually thinning clouds. “I’m so angry now mom, dad, I’m so angry at everything. I’m angry at your friends, at mine. I’m angry at family for not being able to stop fate. I hate life and I sure as hell hate the stupid people that caused this. I’m so scared though, so completely scared. I’m being forced to grow up and I don’t think I can, I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I don’t know if I have the strength within me to make it through these days, these years before me.” As I stood standing in silence for a moment, the last of the daylight passed beyond the distant mountains. A distant bird filled the air with a mournful call, the true, final salute to my parents. I turned back to the graves, one final thing left to say.

“You taught me a lot, in these years past, I hope its enough. Jess starts third grade in a few days, and now I gotta be her parent. I’ve put my dreams on hold, I dropped out of Drexel to raise her. The odds aren’t with me, but they never were. I got a lot of friends rooting for me though, a lot of yours too. The house is so empty but I’m going to fill it with laughter, and love, and friendship like it used to be. I still hate you for this, both of you, but I’ll never stop loving you or living in your memory. Goodbye mom, goodbye dad. Jess and I will miss you, always.”

With those final words uttered, I stood in complete silence. The wind had died, having carried the last of the clouds to yet another town, yet another tomb. The stars shined brightly above my head, cold and forlorn, lonely and yet never alone. A streak passed before my eyes, quick than anything I would ever drive. A shooting star, a sign of many things, passed above my head. Taking comfort from it, I began to walk down the hill. The car stood before me, massive and cold in its mechanicalness. Jess sat within, sound asleep in the back. Her chest rose and fell with steady breaths as I approached the car, a comforting sign to a child alone now in the world. I opened my car door and she stirred, sighed, and fell back asleep. As I turned the car on and oriented it towards home I paused once more and whispered, “Goodbye, may your feet always find the trail.” Behind me, an owl hooted faintly in the darkness. A final goodbye.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensibleBertrand Russell

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If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb usHermann Hesse

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Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end thereClare Booth Luce

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I had a sudden realization today while unloading the groceries that my mother got from Weis. Actually, it was more like an epiphany. You see, I’m a Coke addict. I always have my parents pickup a case of coke, normally a twelve pack, whenever they go to the store. Well my mom decided to cut her trips in half by picking up a twenty four pack. This thing is huge, its a lethal weapon in its own rights. That, my friends, was my epiphany.

Why not equip our soldiers with a twenty four pack of Coke?!

Think about it! No more needs to rely upon crappily made weapons that jam and rely upon ammunition. Instead, we have Coke. It can be used as a bludgeon weapon (ever been hit by a twenty four pack? Yea, it hurts) or as a projectile! Throw a can of Coke and it makes a great area denial weapon too. The sticky effects of Coke after its solidified is astonishing. Why, once I adhered a remote permanently to a desk…until I realized that hot water dissolves the mixture. But! In Iraq, where’s the water!

Not only does it have damaging effects, but it could be used as a form of currency! Don’t people in almost all countries drink Coke, love its bitterly smooth taste? Want some information from the local informants, slip them a coke! Want to assassinate someone, give them a poison filled Coke! Finally, the best solution of all! When our soldiers get thirsty, they have a ready supply available to them!

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In the past few years I’ve gradually started to become interested in politics. I’m sure part of it stems from the fact that my father is involved in local politics and indeed, his degree involves that in the title. I’ve grown up with the phrase “keeping the world safe for democracy” echoing through my head every night my father was kept late at work. Politics has always been something I’ve been exposed to, something I’ve always found interesting. Its hard though, in these times and in America, to be politically motivated. Oh true, we have plenty of people who bitch and moan but few who actually do anything about it. Why? Well, one only has to look at the media.

They constantly spread stories of gloom and doom, how America is run by the corporations and big business and that the little mans vote doesn’t count. Well, looking at the last Election it kinda makes sense, America’s vote didn’t mean shit that time but some people are finally starting to get fed up - I’m one of them. I’ve noticed that sending letters, faxes, emails, and phone calls to my congressmen isn’t making a single impact. They’re still voting for the dumbest laws that destroy the peoples rights, and its starting to get frustrating. Thats why I’ve been starting to follow Howard Dean’s campaign rather closely. I like the man alot, he doesn’t have a problem saying what he means and he seems pretty down to earth. Yes, he can be arrogant but he’s used to power, I can stand that. He doesn’t have that much of a problem admitting when he’s wrong (Unlike Bush). He even follows pretty closely to my beliefs (though he’s a little pathetic when it comes to foreign policy but thats again understandable considering his past). Yet, its not really him that interests me so much as his campaign.

It, well, takes grassroots to a whole new level. For the first time the American public is making a difference. Howard Dean has exploded to the front of the Democrats list of candidates because of the support and fund raising (almost 7 million from the Internet alone). Its amazing how much people are actually doing, whether from doing free tech support in his name, sending 60,000 letters to voters in Iowa, or sending in $12 as a donation.

Do you hear the people sing,
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
who will not be slaves again.

The sad fact is that the people probably won’t win the next election. The powers have been set in motion but its still too early, too many people have been indoctrined with the idea that their vote doesn’t matter and Bush is doing everything in his power to make sure our vote doesn’t matter. Yet, people are starting to take notice and whether its with Howard Dean at the helm or someone else, we will win back our country. Take notice Bush, we will have our freedom. Didn’t our founding fathers say revolutions should happen every decade or so, to keep our country true?

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Just an update on the early story of the old man killing nine (make that 10) people. Well apparently a few years before he was involved in a similiar, although much less deadly, incident. Thanks go to the AZCentral News for this one.

When Russell Weller smashed his Buick into a retaining wall while arriving at a party 10 years ago, no one was hurt and the accident was incorporated into a humorous video of the event. It was the same car in which the 86-year-old Weller barreled through a busy farmers market Wednesday, killing 10 people and injuring dozens more.

Oh but wait, it gets even better.

Ken Kaiden, a friend of Morrell’s, said the car “took out the patio furniture and potted plants” before coming to a stop.

“At the time, they were making light of it,” Kaiden said, adding that the end of the videotape even includes a credit that reads: “stunt driver: Russ and Barbara Weller.”

Yes, he’s obviously a stunt driver. Unable to bring a car to a stop, avoid innocent bystanders, or even the deadly potted plants! I really hope law makers wake up after this one though I doubt it. They have more important and pressing things to deal with, like this.

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