Come on, I dare anyone to give me a good explanation. While you are at it, maybe you can explain to me why it wasn't covered in school; I would have thought it would have been in there with nouns - of course the education system is pathetic.
Oh, for those of you who don't know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intransitive_verb
I was hoping to post this from Google Docs, but I was not able to get it to work, kept getting errors - I will have to do some investigating on that. Now onto the post at hand.
Okay, I want to rant - I do that an awful lot, don't I? :-) Well this one is about holidays. Yes, it is time for that subject again - it only seems like it was a year ago that this was brought up (not really by me, but by many many others). So why do I bring it up - because I want to put my 1¢ in, that's why. Will I have anything new and original to say - most likely not, but humor me. What got me thinking on this was this post: http://www.scott-o-rama.com/2006/12/07/how-dare-i/ , go ahead, read it, I'll wait. ... ... ... ... Done yet? Okay, good. Now that post got me thinking about all the times in the previous years that I heard people say that the winter holidays should always be referred to as "Christmas", and if you don't then you are trying to kill Christmas, or you are a Satanist.
Two things: 1) I don't celebrate Xmas, I'm not a Xian after all. 2) Many other religions have celebrations around this time of year, not just Xians. I don't see why so many Xians have trouble understanding #2* (at least here in the US). I don't care what holiday you celebrate, or don't celebrate, but I don't like people thinking that their holiday (religion) is the only one that matters, it's purely egocentric. As far as I'm concerned you can celebrate Xmas, it's your right, but I should be free to celebrate my holiday of choice. Everyone deserves respect, and demanding that people say "Marry Xmas" rather then "Happy Holidays" shows a complete lack of respect for others. I wonder how many Xians would feel if everyone started wishing people a happy solstice rather then a marry xmas - I'm willing to bet they would have a similar feeling to mine (but then again how would I act...).
Let me know your comments, that what the comment section is for after all.
* Please note, I know that not all Xians are that way, but from my perspective those good souls are few and far between.
Okay, here is the deal, I prefer to type in the Dvorak keyboard layout - it's just easier and quicker (once you get used to it). A couple problems with this though:
1) Work computers are not normally setup to use this layout - though you can normally change that if you are the only one using the computer.
2) In Linux (the version that I use), it is difficult to tell what layout you are using - if you are also using the US QWERTY layout - the few times I do. I'm hoping the ever helpful Linux community can help with this one.
3) In Windows if you start out with the US QWERTY layout then you have to change each separate program use dvorak (it doesn't change on the whole system).
Despite these few problems, I still prefer to use Dvorak, it even came in handy when I hurt one of my arms and had to type with one hand (it has layouts for people who have the use of one hand versus two. Plus it's fun to say.
Well, It's a bit late, but happy one month of blogging to this blog.
Not much going on in life right now. I finally got into the Yahoo Mail Beta (only been trying since I first heard about it) - of course anyone can get into now that it's a public beta. It's a good interface, runs well. I like it much better then the new Live Mail (Hotmail). The Yahoo interface is cleaner, easier to read, and much easier to use - plus half the screen isn't taken up with an ad (though I fixed that with the use of Adblock). As for which webmail I prefer to use, despite all the nice enhancements that have been made to Yahoo and Hotmail, I'm still sticking with my Gmail account. Gmail doesn't have as fancy of an interface (which is important to some people), but it is faster then either of the other two, I can use POP and SMTP access with it, plus I prefer the way it organizes the emails.
Now onto the question of the day, this one is borough to you by all the restaurants that Jana and I go to after normal dinning hours. Really this is a simple question, but one that I just can't answer. First a little background on this. Whenever Jana and I go to get something to eat after normal business hours (from about 10pm to 4:30am), if we go to a restaurant that has both smoking and nonsmoking sections, then Jana and I are usally the only ones in the nonsmoking section, while there can be two or three tables of people in the smoking. Why is that? If I recall correctly, about 75% of the US population does not smoke, but I seem to run into more smokers then nonsmokers, especially at night. Anyone have any ideas why?
Okay, todays post is a two parter (maybe three, I haven't decided yet) .
Part 1 - Sports
Okay, I know this is going to be sensitive one - so I'm going to do it first. Now please keep in mind I don't follow pro sports, I actually rather hate them, so this post is going to be a rant from that perspective. You have been warned, if you don't like that point of view, then I would not suggest reading on.
Now today was a big day in Iowa - a football (American) game; today was the day that the two major Iowa colleges played a game against each other. Not a big deal, and not something that I would normally rant about - but there is more. Since Wednesday, that has been all the talk, and starting Thursday I saw people in businesses wearing shirts to reflect which college they supported (I mean the employees). Friday that is almost all I saw, that and cars with an ever increasing number of stickers and flags on them. Today that is all anyone wanted to watch on the TV.
I don't understand this obsession with football, pregame shows, postgame shows, clothing, complete car makeovers, multiple TV stations only about that, and the such. People seem to spend way too much time worshiping a *game*. At least here in Iowa, that's how it is.
Today the satalite at work was having some problems due to some bad weather. Apparently peoples only complaint about it was - they could not watch their football game. Now I want everyone to take a step back, look how people treat this game, and
TE###33333333333333####################FW@gvbbbbbbbbbbbb (that's from the cat) tell me that it is not an obsession, and that people don't spend wholly too much time and energy on it.
Part 2 - Homework
I came across an interesting article today, it reflected a thought that I had when I was in school and even after I left school. The article was about the amount of homework that schools give to children. It's just way too much. In high school I was normally up till about 2:30am doing homework, only to get up at 5am, so that I had enough time to finish my homework before school started; granted I was taking more classes then most, but if you cut it down to a normal class load, it was still too much homework. I want everyone to look back on when they were in school, did homework want to make you go back to school, or to live a life of learning? If your answer was "yes", then I bet you are in the minority. Homework is tedious and normally rather pointless (at least to the extreams that it is given). Take the many many hours I spent on spelling words for class - I still can't do it, I use spell check or a dictionary to make sure words are correct.
How about, instead of giving children hours of pointless, frustrating work, why let them have more choices in how they learn? If you give them the option to learn what they want to learn - and relate the other subjects to that - then you will have sparked their interest and the desire to learn, wouldn't that be worth the extra costs? Maybe someone needs to start a school that does just that...
Here is the link to the article:
The Myth about Homework I also saw a book by the same title in Barnes and Nobel tonight.
Part 3 - I guess it was going to be three subjects after all
Never mind, it's hard to type with a cat in your lap.
Well yesterday was fun. I got off work the day before yesterday at 11pm, Jana and I decided to head to IHOP for a quick bite to eat so that I could head to bed after that, since I had to be back to work at 7am. Well sometimes things don't work out as they are suppose to. We got to the IHOP, and after a 20 minute wait we finialy left. The waitress sat us, got us some water, and never came back, she was at a table on the other side of the restaurant smoking and talking to someone. I guess we were not as important as that. Oh well, we decided on McD's drive though instead.
Well, I got up about 6, with a good 3 and a half hours of sleep under my belt. Jana said that when I kissed her goodbye that I felt a bit warm. I get to work, it turns out that the breakfast person called in (again) so guess what, I'm doing breakfast, housekeeping, sales, and GM... what a day. By the time I got home my feet were killing me, and I was starting to feel crappy.
After some food, and a good 7 1/2 hours of sleep, I'm feeling better, my feet still hurt and I feel tired - but better then I did yesterday.
Okay, so I have some weird thoughts sometimes, I admit it. Here is the weird thought (question) of the day for you. Really it's a two parter.
While at the Ren Faire, many men were wearing kilt (as they should). I heard a few women ask what the men were wearing under them (in different ways). In case anyone is wondering, the only proper answer to that questions, is to point out that you are wearing shoes, boots, etc. Now, this whole what are you wearing under that questions, just makes me wonder - why is it okay to ask a man what he is wearing under his kilt, but it would not be okay to ask a woman what she is wearing under her skirt? Isn't their a slight gender gap there?
Now that question, led me to another one - hold on to your under clothes for this one.
Why the hell do we wear underclothes anyway?! What is the point? Now I have heard women give many reason for needing to wear underclothes, but none of them have struck me as being a really good reason. Maybe it's because I'm not a woman, and I really would not understand - but to me is just seems like the whole underclothes was a tradition passed down from more stringent times (you know, when they used to wear 10,000 layers of skirts for no reason). I just can't see the reason for it, especially when many studies have shown that a person is healthier who doesn't wear them. Now I'm a male, and I know all the excuses for wearing underclothes, and big surprise, I don't buy any of them (this time that it's not just because I'm not the proper sex).
I don't understand the excuse that it makes someone feel naked not to wear the underclothing, of you course you are going to feel naked for a bit - you would feel naked if you wore a veil your whole life then suddenly went without one.
The only valid excuse that I have ever heard is this very simple one - it's used to absorb sweet that comes off the body, otherwise it gets trapped and makes me rash. Even that one is flimsy to me, you would not be sweeting so much if you were not wearing the bloody things in the first place.
Well, I'm going to rant here for a minute - so if you don't want to read that, then please don't read on. You have been warned.
Okay, today I have one simple thing that I want to do - I haven't wanted to do this in a while - since before I changed to an all Linux system. I wanted to download one song - I even wanted to pay for it. Simple, right? Nope, not when you use Linux apparently. I don't blame Linux on any of this, I blame the places that sell the music.
Previously I used iTunes on Windows, they don't make a Linux version (I searched high and low for a version that would work with Linux). Then I thought, well Wal-Mart sells music, and it doesn't require any large program to sell it, they don't support Linux either, basically only WinXP (not even Mac).
Okay, so I don't find any programs that will download music nativity on a Linux machine - so I do what any simisane computer geek would do - I hop onto the forums. Oddly enough, I came up blank, I saw where someone asked about this same thing - about a year ago, but there was no solution posted. I did find ways of getting iTunes for Windows to work under Linux - but it doesn't work that well apparently - not worth my time to try that...
I really don't want to spend $14.00+ on a CD, just for one song - even if I would like the other 10 songs - it's still cheaper to download them all.
What BS.
20 guesses what this post is about...If any of your 20 guesses involved sleep, then you would be right - more on that later.
Today went pretty well, didn't do much - it's nice for a change. Jana made sloppy Joes for us, they were good. Other then that, I played on the computer, and worked on another one.
Well, Jana and I are planning on our diet to start Friday - after I get paid so that we can afford real food. This is going to be a joy. As I think I said before, I will need to make a checklist - information sheet - I need that kind structure to make sure it works for me - I think Jana might too.
This week has been kind of rough on me, the previous week I worked the overnight shift, then this week I went back to working the morning shift - well, it's not an easy change. So the first part of this week (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday), I didn't sleep well - you know, can't fall asleep due to being used to the overnight shift, keep getting interrupted with the bloody phone when you do fall asleep, etc. Well I had yesterday off, and I literally slept 14 hours - so naturally I could not fall asleep all night. I slept about 30 minutes so far - and I have to be to work in 1.5 hours. Ugh.
On the positive side, it gave me the time to finish fixing the computer that I was working on. I must say one very simple thing - I have Windows, what kind of OS gives people access to a root account first thing, and doesn't ask them to make another more limited account? I also must talk about Windows Defender talk about a useless program. I installed Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware, both of which were detecting problems long after Windows Defender said everything was perfectly fine.
