I'm moving!

Nope, not physically moving but I am moving my blog to a new location. I am moving to  https://sagaofthejasonite.wordpress.com/  as of today. Those who are following me or viewing my page, please come with me to my new location. There are a few reasons for the move, but it boils down to Wordpress having more options, better service and still at the low price of free! I'm re-posting what I have here, there as well, as I've already grown fond of a few of them. I'd love to keep anyone who ends up reading my crap with me, so I look forward to seeing you there. :)

Something that irritates me, and some advice

Okay, so, here's a thing that bugs me. I should say beforehand that I don't really know how this whole blog thing works. I mean I could be doing it all wrong, look at what I've written just recently for Pete's sake, I don't know what I'm doing here. Is it just to rant about stuff, is it to talk about stuff I think is cute, am I supposed to talk about my philosophy of a happy life? I have no idea. I'm just gonna go ahead, nobody's reading this crap anyway.

So here's a thing that bugs me. I am not a sheep, and so many others are. I could be referring to a lot of things with a statement like that, but in this case I'm talking about daring to not like something the majority does. Whether this is a series of books, or a television show, or a famous person, you name it. I usually get the same response, which is indicative of an unwillingness to accept that I have a different opinion. Here is an example of the response I've received multiple times from multiple people over the years on this one issue. I'll say to my friends that no, I haven't seen the new Harry Potter movie because I don't like Harry Potter (yeah it's true, deal with it). What's the response? "Oh, which movies have you seen? Have you read the books?" These are trick questions, it doesn't matter what I've seen or what I've read. Invariably, unless I say I have seen them ALL or read them ALL it's not good enough. I need to see one more movie, read one more book. This pisses me off.

One reason I say I'm not a sheep is not just because I give myself permission to like or dislike things that are not in accord with the majority, but that I can accept when others do the same. BTW I usually handle this personal assault with more restraint than what I want to say. I will tell folks that I root for Harry's death in every movie just to jab em, but I don't tell them what I really feel, which is that I wish Voldemort would take his wand, shove it so far up Harry's ass that he's screaming in pain and then hit the nuke button. See how nice I am? :) I did like the character of Snape though, he had the most depth.

I absolutely love Dante's Divine Comedy trilogy. Didn't know they were making trilogies in the early 1300's did ya? They were making trilogies way before that, but that's a different blog entry. Anyway I have scarcely had a better reading experience in my life, and that's a significant statement for someone who's as big a reader as I am. But when I tell others about it excitedly and they say they tried but didn't like it, do I encourage them to read even more? No. Why? Because I'm an adult! I have the ability to distinguish between wanting to give someone the opportunity to enjoy something I have enjoyed, and browbeating someone into doing something they are definitely not interested in. Other people don't seem to have this ability. One more example. I have a good friend who absolutely hates Liam Neeson. Hates him. He doesn't want him to die in a plane crash or anything, but I don't think he'd shed a lot of tears if Mr. Neeson did. Anway, when I see an enjoyable movie with him it, I don't go and encourage my friend to watch it. See how easy that is?

Why am I writing about this? It happened today. There's a very well-known anime series that I don't care for, Rurouni Kenshin. I don't care specifically for the main character. It's a pretty long series that went on for 95 episodes and spawned an animated movie or two. I watched every single episode of the series anyway, and the movies. Why? Because I knew someday I would run into folks who love it, and when I said I didn't they would encourage me to "watch more, just watch more, you'll get into it!" With great satisfaction I informed him that I had seen every single episode of the show, and the movies, and I didn't like it. This might sound a bit strange to you, that I would go to that much trouble, but--yeah ok, it is a bit strange. To his credit he handled it well (of course did he have much choice?), and said something like we all have our tastes.

So here's the essence of this post. Folks, if you are telling someone about something you do like and you hear that they don't, drop it. You don't need to reassert that you like that thing and the reasons why. They already know that, and as likely as not they'll just reassert that they don't. Especially don't try to convince them they will enjoy something just because you do. It's insulting to the person, and it makes you sound self-centered and frankly immature. It's okay for you to have different tastes than even your closest friends and family, in fact it's healthy. Take it from a licensed therapist. Or not. :)

I love the Kindle, but...

So, what the heck is up with e-books costing different amounts of money? I can understand printed books costing more. I mean paper costs money so I can understand trade paperbacks costing more than mass markets, hardcover books costing even more, etc. E-books don't work like that, it's all digital. No matter how big the book is or how new it is, it shouldn't cost more than about $7.99. That's right, I said it and I'm even setting the price!

Just finished ME3

So I just finished playing Mass Effect 3 recently. Loved it and the whole series so much that now I have to write about my experience playing the games. The Mass Effect universe over the three games was so rich I wanted to live there--it was that good. Up there with Star Wars. I didn't play the first game as it was never on the PS3, but I have played the other two. I love this series so much that I'm inflicting the following massive post on both of the folks that will end up reading it, lol.

Great gameplay: this was a pleasure because I love RPG's and don't often like action games; this played like an RPG and like an action game, but I didn't even mind the latter aspect of it which is saying quite a lot. Terrific storyline: it's a plot-driven story and this series had story to spare. It was so rich it kept me hooked from beginning to end. There were also lots of side-missions that you could do, but they almost never felt repetitive or boring. On the contrary they were mostly original and creative, which is really tough to do. Heck there were places you could go if you wanted to go exploring for no reason other than to do it! Fleshing out the universe was done so fully you could go on and write a series of sci-fi novels based on it. I loved the aliens, loved the tech, loved the locations. The characters were so three-dimensional and realistic that whether you liked each of them or not you understood where they were coming from and cared about them (except James Vega, he seemed like something of an afterthought). The series had just about everything.

Now to compare ME2 and ME3. So in any trilogy there will be strong entries and weaker ones. For example, Empire Strikes Back was clearly the strongest of the original Star Wars trilogy even though all three were good. Having never played the first game I can't comment, but let's just say it's the weakest of the three based on what I've read about it. On to the comparison! First, ME2 was a longer experience. That's not always a good thing, but in the case of these games it definitely is, because I really didn't want the games to end I was having such a great time. ME2 took between 50-60 hours, whereas three took between 30-40 hours. The depth and quality of the characters were pretty close for both games, but to me the fact that 2 didn't have any weak characters and 3 did have one tips the scales there. Even the downloadable characters for 2 are both fun and enjoyable. In terms of pure gaming immersion both games are pretty close, but I have to say at the end of 2 you literally felt like you weren't sure you were going to survive, and the first time you set foot in a Collector ship it was downright nerve-wracking. There wasn't quite something like that in 3, though you feel more of a sense all of your choices mattering: the war has begun and you're trying to gather forces that will directly affect the outcome of the war. Both games had equally creative and interesting missions and side missions, I really enjoyed them. ME3 had the edge when it came to picking your team--this might seem strange given that you had more choices in 2, but really all that made me feel was like they were wasted because I kept picking the same team members again and again. I remember actually feeling guilty occasionally and picking someone else so they wouldn't always be hanging out back in the ship. I know, I'm weird! Graphically 3 also has a slight edge, though they both look gorgeous. In terms of DLC (downloadable content for you savages reading this) ME2 wins this by a mile, but it's a somewhat unfair comparison as 3 hasn't been out that long. Still, 3 is going to have to work hard to equal content like Lair of the Shadow Broker. ME3 has a slight edge in gameplay, due to the interface being refined over the course of the first two games. The intro to both games were equally excellent. You think it'd be tough to beat your character actually dying in the beginning of 2, but then when you start playing 3 you witness Earth itself being the first to fall to the Reapers. Just fantastic. Both rewarded having played the previous game first, by being able to import your character and making references to events in prior games.

The ending. Yes, this needs a new paragraph because ultimately it was the most discriminating factor. The ending is where ME3 should have blown 2 completely out of the water, bringing everything together and seeing the results of the choices you've made throughout the trilogy. Given the uniformly high level of writing throughout both games I frankly expected excellence. The fact that I have to say ME2's ending is better is only because the ending of 3 is so utterly bad and disappointing. How bad was it? It's as if you have Arthur C Clarke or JRR Tolkien writing a series and then he dies before finishing, so you get someone like me in at the last minute to try and tie everything together. Imagine that trainwreck, and then imagine what I decided to do was make the ending about 60 seconds long and make it so vague nobody could understand it. That's how bad it was. How bad was it?? There are already two articles in Forbes Magazine talking about Bioware's business practices regarding ME3. How bad was it??? There is an online petition and donation (which at this writing, a week after the game came out, has already raised over $35,000) in order to help convince them to release an alternate ending. It's a shame. Those of you who know how I am with video games at ALL know that when I play a game I usually play until I beat it. This is one of the few games I would not encourage someone to play until they win. I think that says it all. Again, it's unfortunate because the desire for those who have played any of the previous games to beat ME3 is going to be overwhelming, and we all deserved better. *sigh* Okay, off the soapbox.

To end on a happy note, overall they are both utterly excellent games. ME2 is one of the finest games I've ever played. Ever. ME3 is right up there with it, but overall I'd have to say ME2 takes it. I hate to get down on Bioware, particularly since they are now owned by EA and I'm not sure how much they had their fingers in the pot. They've made some great games, like Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur's Gate. Still, I seriously doubt EA was dictating how Bioware should end the game, so I've got have Bioware shoulders the blame for doing such a terrific job overall, only to stumble at the finish line. Don't let this get you down about playing them if you are thinking about it. Play them! They're amazing games. Just don't play them for the 'big ending.'

My opinion on the Iraq War

So over the past 10 years way too many hours of television and way too many books have been written on the reasons for and meaning of the Iraq War. At the risk of contributing to all that jazz by adding my own perspective, I can't seem to let go of the fact that I've never really been able to communicate how I felt about the origins of this war, how this war was conducted, and how I feel now that the war has ended. I can't promise that this article will be brief--though it doesn't matter, hardly anyone will read it anyway--but it will at least serve to purge my mind of my feelings regarding it.

I need to make a brief statement on the first Iraq War, Desert Storm. Regardless of the actual US reasons for entering the war (oil), I did fully support it because Iraq had actually annexed another country. We saw it, the rest of the world saw it, and we all went in and stopped it. Then we got out, which was smart. Desert Storm lasted from Jan 17 - Feb 28th of 1991. I agreed with President Bush Sr's decision and in the words of Dick Cheney in 1994, "If we'd gone to Baghdad...it would've been a US occupation of Iraq...once you took down Saddam Hussein's government what are you going to put in its place? It's a quagmire...how many dead Americans is Saddam Hussein worth? In our judgment it was not very many." Agreed, sir. A total of 294 US troops died in the Gulf War.

For me the second Iraq War was misguided from the start. It was driven by our executive branch of government preying upon our fears to put forth an agenda of their own, which had its genesis even before 9/11. Not a lot of folks seem to remember that going into Iraq was first sold to us not long after 9/11, with our administration telling us that an invasion of Iraq was necessary because they were behind, or at least linked to, the terrorists that attacked us. In fact, President Bush received on September 21 2001 a classified President's Daily Brief indicating the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that "there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda." Dick Cheney famously said on Meet the Press that "We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s...that al-Qaida sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaida organization." Then in '04 he said there was "overwhelming evidence" of a relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda. This was all lies. We know clearly that Iraq had no link whatsoever to 9/11. The 9/11 Commission has said this, Richard Clarke has said it, Colin Powell has said it also. Here's the Commission's quote: "to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States." Richard Clarke--the chief counter-terrorism advisor on the National Security Council at the time--has said that on Sept 12th, the day after the attack, the President wanted Clarke and his team to find "an Iraqi hand behind 9/11 because they had been planning to do something about Iraq before he came into office. Donald Rumsfeld said there were no good targets in Afghanistan. They said let's bomb Iraq. We said but Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and that didn't seem to make much difference." Clarke resigned his position in 2003, the same year we invaded. Al Qaeda was much more closely linked with Saudi Arabia then it ever was with Iraq (at least before the war), but they had too many close ties with the White House and the Bush family to ever be seriously looked at. So the first reason given to us for invading Iraq after a half-hearted attack on Afghanistan was that Iraq was actually the menacing figure behind 9/11. The lying seemed to work. A Time/CNN survey from 9/03 famously stated that 70% of Americans actually believed "it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks." Well not me.

The second reason given was, as we all remember, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. WMD's = nuclear weaponry. This was also fiction, and the US government knew it. First, Iraq was a country that had never attacked America and had never threatened to attack America. Second, there was never strong evidence implicating the development of nuclear weapons, and what evidence there was has been generally acknowledged as being terrible. In 2002 Resolution 1441 was passed which called for Iraq to completely cooperate with UN weapon inspectors to verify that it was not in possession of weapons of mass destruction and cruise missiles. The UNMOVIC was given access by Iraq but found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Following the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical, and biological programs in 1991 and had noactive programs at the time of the invasion. Before the Gulf War, in 1990, Iraq had stockpiled 550 short tons of yellowcake uranium. In Feb '02, the CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate reports that Iraq was attempting to purchase additional yellowcake from Niger. Wilson returned and informed the CIA that reports of yellowcake sales to Iraq were "unequivocally wrong." The administration ignored this and Bush said in his State of the Union in Jan of '03 that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. This led to Wilson's wife Valerie Plame being publicly identified as an undercover CIA agent, remember that? In September '02, the Bush administration, the CIA and the DIA said there were attempts by Iraq to acquire aluminum tubes which they said pointed to an effort to make centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. The DOE (Yup, our own Dept of Energy) and INR argued that the Iraqi tubes were poorly suited for centrifuges, though it was technically possible with additional modification. A report released by the ISIS (also in '02, before the war started) reported that it was highly unlikely that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium. So with all of this evidence to the contrary, why was a nuclear/biological arsenal being sold to us as a reason to go to war?

It was being sold to us because the administration was going into Iraq because they wanted to, probably for oil drilling rights and to establish a power base in the Middle East. Not because they felt Iraq was a threat on any level. This would help explain how in '02 Halliburton (Dick Cheney's company and the second-largest oilfield company in the world, which he had just retired from two years previous) in the run-up to the Iraq war, was awarded a $7 billion contract in Iraq for which only Halliburton was allowed to bid. It was also reported that Donald Rumsfeld's office took control of every aspect of Halliburton's Iraqi oil/infrastructure contract.

I never bought the official line and neither did virtually any other first-world country, which is why the UN did not sanction the invasion and the "Coalition of the Willing" that our President put together to go into Iraq included countries like East Timor, Romania, El Savador, Estonia, Mongolia, and Iceland. The only countries that actually supplied troops during the initial invasion were England and Poland. How a man as intelligent as Tony Blair could be fooled into this I don't know. I do, however, remember him being invited to the US to talk with President Bush, and that not long after he returned he said that Britain supported us and would be sending troops. My own personal opinion is that Bush and his cronies worked hard to persuade Blair, and there was probably at least some element of bullying involved. Most of America was already terrified because of a terrorist attack on American soil, and now because they were being convinced another attack would come, this time from Iraq. "Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here." Right. This ought to go along with the other famous statement "We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." Thanks Mr. Cheney, what a prophetic observation.

Just a few months into '03, President Bush gave that "Mission Accomplished" speech in which he declared victory over Iraq. This was true only in the sense of overwhelming Iraq's standing military and taking Baghdad. Of course Saddam Hussein was still at large and we had 8 more years of war ahead of us. Kinda like a quagmire. It was particularly funny how the Navy and the White House blamed each other for putting up that banner on the ship. The White House later conceded that they actually hung the banner.

When we "discovered" that there were no WMD's in Iraq in '06, a third reason was sold to us. The Iraqis need freedom! They needed democracy, those noble savages, and we were just the ones to give it to them. By this time of course, it was too late. We'd been involved in this war for years, destabilized the government of Iraq and much of the Middle East, provided a gathering ground for terrorists where it hadn't existed before and managed to tick off the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds in the process. Actually the Shiites are probably thanking us because we allowed them to sieze control of the government; most of their leaders studied in Iran theological institutions so they see Iran as a friend. Our own troops had committed atrocities against the very people we were trying to free, we'd set up a prison of our own in Guantanamo Bay which now seemed to condone torture, and the prisons that we ran over in Iraq such as Abu Ghraib had us acting like the very terrorists we were trying to fight. Meanwhile many of the citizens and newly-strengthened terrorist elements in Iraq were killing off our soldiers month by month. In another atrocity, five US Army soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and then murdered her, her father, her mother and her six-year-old sister. The soldiers then set fire to the girls body to conceal evidence of the crime.

The war dragged on and the administration put together the Iraq Study Group, remember that? The report was released at the end of '06, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. What did it find? "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and "U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end." What, you mean like a quagmire? In '07 we sent the Surge. That year Iraq's own Parliamentary lawmakers sent us a petition to set a timetable for our withdrawal. None was set. What little coalition troops were with us were pulling out and turning over authority to the Iraqis. There's debate on whether the Surge worked or not--a Pentagon report said it did, but independent reports raised a lot of questions about the Pentagon's. There was a reported trend of decreasing U.S. troop deaths after May '07 and into '08, and violence against coalition troops had fallen to the "lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion." Later data from the Pentagon and the GAO claimed daily attacks against civilians in Iraq remained "about the same" since February. The GAO also stated that there was no discernible trend in sectarian violence. What I do know is that entire neighborhoods in Baghdad were ethnically cleansed by Shia and Sunni militias and sectarian violence broke out in every Iraqi city where there was a mixed population. The rate of US soldier deaths in Baghdad nearly doubled during the first 7 weeks of the Surge, and in August of '07 the single deadliest attack of the whole war occurred in northern Iraq, killing almost 800 civilians. You figure out the Surge, because I can't.

Anyway, the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement was approved by the Iraqi government in December of '08. It established that U.S. combat forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and that all U.S. forces will be completely out of Iraq by December 31, 2011. I'm totally convinced that the only reason we are out of there by that deadline is because a Republican is not in office, and it's an election year for our current President.

So here we are, the war is over. Was it worth it? That's the biggest question of all. Let's look at the costs and benefits. First, the fiscal cost. On average we spent $16 billion a month during the war. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz coauthored a book on the cost of the war, estimating an "ultra-conservative" cost to the US economy of $3 trillion and how the war has contributed to the US economic slowdown. The cost of oil has quadrupled since 2002. The war in Iraq cost a lot, but that's not to say we didn't make money from it. From 2005 to 2008, the United States had completed approximately $20 billion in arms sales agreements with Iraq, primarily from M-16 and M-4 rifles, but also including our tanks and armored vehicles. In 2011 we agreed to sell Iraq 18 F-16 fighter jets. F-16's? Some of the most advanced flight technology on the planet, and we're selling it to the Iraqis. We shouldn't be selling them to anyone.

Next, the cost of respect. The name of our great nation has been dragged through the mud as a result. Yes it's true, and yes it does matter. Just a brief look on the net found a poll from back in '07 from 25 different countries which estimated 73% of the world disapproves of our handling of the war. This is because we DID mishandle it!

The cost in terms of human rights abuses. The Iraqi security forces we trained have used torture; Iraqi death squads since the new gov't is in place have committed numerous massacres and tortures of Sunnis. I've already talked about abuses our own soldiers committed. I won't mention in detail our use of white phosphorous, the disproportionate force used in Fallujah in '04 or the planting of weapons on noncombatant, unarmed Iraqis by U.S. Marines after killing them.

The cost in terms of lives. This we will never know for certain. The most reliable numbers I can find come from the Iraq Body Count project. How's that for a grisly name? They estimate between 104,000 - 113,000 civilian deaths alone. Folks like you and me. They add "it should be noted that many deaths will probably go unreported or unrecorded by officials and media." The World Health Organization partnered with Iraq in January of '08 and estimated between 104,000 - 223,000. How many US troops were killed? Well that's even tougher to find out. By May of 2010 there were 4,404 dead, 31,827 wounded in action. This number does not document the suicides by US troops, or the estimated 1/3 with PTSD or other mental health problems. That tends to happen when you serve a tour in Iraq and then the government decides you will serve another one, and another one, and another one. How many broken homes are the result of multiple forced tours in the worst warzone in the world at the time? "Bring it on" doesn't seem like the best mantra here.

The cost to Iraq: Iraq today is simply a shattered society, shaped by two major international wars, bombings, debilitating sanctions, civil war, emigration of millions of its people, deadly insurgency and counterinsurgency and foreign occupation over 20 years. About 1.8 million Iraqis had fled their country by November of '06, many of whom were their best-educated, most of whom will likely not return. To my thinking it's probably double that number by now.

The cost to the US: The cost in money, in lives, in our faith in our government, in our reputation as a nation, in human rights abuses and the general compromising of our moral values.

The benefits of the war: Saddam Hussein is dead. Whatever abuses, tortures, and killings that were in place under his personal regime will no longer happen. The government in Iraq is now "an Islamic, democratic, federal parliamentary republic." There have been improvements made in public security, at least ostensibly.

So again, was it worth it? The question I've most often seen asked to challenge those who opposed the war in Iraq is "So are you saying you'd rather have Saddam Hussein in power? You want the rape rooms back?" As if opposing a war is the same thing as supporting rape or supporting a dictator. Was Saddam Hussein an evil man? Yes. Was he a dictator who was vile and oppressive to his people? Unquestionably. Is this enough of a justification instigate a war against his country? This is the key question that needs to be answered, as all of the other reasons we were given have proven to be false. Again, had Iraq's government ever threatened to attack the US? No. Did Iraq have anything to do with 9/11? No. Did they have any WMD's? No, and our government knew it. While some good did come out of the war, in my opinion the reason for waging it was to get access to oil and establish a power base in the middle east, and this was a goal even before 9/11. If a country is led by an evil government that piles up human abuses on its citizens and they possess a credible threat to our national security, why aren't we at war with China or North Korea? First answer: there is little oil in these places. Second answer: they could actually fight back, and fight back hard. If going to war with any country is justified solely (or mostly) on the basis that we don't agree with their government we will eternally be at war. To answer my own earlier question, no, I don't think Saddam Hussein's existence alone is a good enough reason to wage war.

If you've read this far, kudos to you because I don't think I would have! In the end, I don't think the Iraq war was justified. I don't think it should have happened. Iraq became a quagmire and ended in hundreds of thousands of deaths, most of whom were innocent civilians. I would have been happier if we went into Afghanistan, went in hard in the beginning, got bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and went on to break the back of al-Qaeda. Would it have been that simple? Nah, but it would've been the right thing to do. Instead we gave up looking for these guys and focused almost entirely on Iraq, our own President at the time stating he doesn't think of or worry about bin Laden. I've thought about the possibility that one of the results of Iraq is the recent revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and the surrounding nations. If it is a result, awesome. No one is happier than I that dictators are being overthrown and greater freedom is being established. I love it. However if this is an aftereffect of the Iraq War, it's not because we thought about it or intended it to happen, and we cannot take any credit for it. The war should not have happened.

But that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong. :)

So I finally own a cell phone

You win. I've held out for a long, long time but you win. As the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I'm one of those of a very small minority who actually thought having cell phones was a bad idea. For the record I still think it's not a great one, but even I must bow in the face of a world where literally everyone you meet expects you to have a cell phone and be available to them every minute of every day.

According to the excellent book "The Tipping Point", the year in which everyone and their brother started buying cell phones was 1998, which means that by 1999 people were on my back to get one. "Why should I?" was my response. Why would I want to give up what little free time I have and be chained down by a cell phone? Why should I give up the freedom of being unreachable? I just read an editorial on cnn's website about how we've gone from a 5-day work week to essentially a 24-hour-a-day work week because of phone calls, texts, etc from our boss and co-workers asking us to do things...and we actually do them! "Just turn off your phone" is the response I get, but that actually is not good enough. The understanding is that if you call or text someone, they will check their phone soon enough and get back to you. If they don't, well, that's frankly an insult. They'd better account for why they didn't get back to you, and they certainly better not say they didn't get it in the first place! After all, don't most of us keep our cell phones on, most of the time? Ever wonder why some jobs even give you a cell phone--they're not doing you a favor. And it's not just work, it's your friends too, not to mention a girlfriend. Anyone had a fight with their significant other and gotten a text? You'd better read it or its beaucoups trouble for you. So even with your cell phone off, you are still tethered, chained down by social expectations that you have to be on guard against for about 16 hours a day if you expect to get any sleep. You had better be immediately available or shortly available for feedback on any number of topics every single day of the week for the rest of your life. Then there's the cost. I can have a landline in my home for not more than $30 a month, the connection is always perfect, I have an answering machine for messages, unlimited minutes, NO contracts, and distance from the social web if I want it.

So why, if I feel this way did I get a cell phone? There are some good arguments for owning one. A friend of mine was driving home from Spokane a few weeks ago, at night with his family, and his car broke down in the middle of nowhere. If he hadn't had a cell phone to call a tow truck, it wouldn't have been an easy night. Sometimes there are emergencies that you do need to be notified of. If you're meeting friends at a new place, it's nice to be able to coordinate where you are with where you need to be. If you have several friends internationally it's probably cheaper to keep in touch with them via cell phone. These reasons I've known about for the past ten years. When I finally bought a cell, I found out how roped in you are with contracts, and the raquet you get sucked in to if you want to get ringtones. But overall I don't mind owning one, and it is actually pretty cool to text people, to keep in touch with ppl in other states without a calling card or long distance charges. But basically, I gave up.

My Birfday!

May 9th...perhaps the greatest day of all! It was--and is--the day of my birth! I had an awesome pre-birthday birthday thing last night, in the which I acquired four (4!) new books, and watched the new Star Trek movie.

Capsule review: surprisingly entertaining movie. As a Star Trek-o-phile I'm a self-appointed judge to most things Star Trek, and most of the Star Trek stuff sucks. Okay, the original series was good, but I think I was just born too late to enjoy it...like I watch the show, some of the themes are good, ya know, but that corny music comes on that's likes twice as loud as the dialogue on the show, then a girl comes on and the camera has vaseline all over it to try and make her look good, and then I just tune out. Next Generation, still my favorite television show of all time--awesomeness. DS9, didn't suck as much as I thought it would, but still it's lost some of the ideals of the entire show, mostly due do Roddenberry dying. Voyager, well, I did like the Doctor and Neelix, other than that still a step down. Enterprise, now we're getting to the point where I'd rather be stabbed in both eyes. So when they advertised the movie I'm thinkin to myself "I bet it's just an action movie, everyone's fighting all the time, no social or moral dimension which is what made Star Trek great in the first place." I have to admit, there was a buttload of action, and there was no social or moral dimension to the movie--and yet I liked it! Very entertaining, the director found just a bunch of excellent actors to fill the shoes of the characters, and the characterizations were just about spot on. Plot...well, the plot was pretty standard fare, but the dialogue was so good that it actually made me interested in it, which is nice. The camera work overall was very good, quick but not so quick that you can't even follow what is happening (i.e. Quantum of Solace), and the special effects are of course first rate. It's not much deeper than a typical well-done summer popcorn movie, but to the Star Trek franchise it is certainly what was promised: a breath of fresh air.