Why I Approve of the Death Penalty

Case in Point:

Check out this shit - some f*cked up Frenchman named Nicolas Cocaign (read: Nick Cocaine), while waiting on trial for armed robbery, killed  his cellmate, and for whatever reason, decided that he "...wanted to take his soul." To this end, he cut him open to cut out his heart and eat it. However, maybe because he's a dumbass that failed at life, biology wasn't this cat's strong point, so he cut out dude's lung instead. It must not have tasted too good to this first time cannibal, because after he ate part of it raw, he fried "...the rest of it with some onions on a makeshift cooker in the cell." Lung and onions, anyone?

It doesn't matter that the other guy deserved his death, or that Mr. Cocaign had a bad childhood due to being orphaned. His foster parents weren't standing in that cell pointing a gun at him telling him to do it. His lawyer is trying to get him committed to a mental institution to try to rehabilitate the bastard. Here in America, we understand that there is a point where rehabilitation is no longer effective nor warranted. Maybe it would have helped him years ago when he was only trying to have his way with women, but at some point you have to draw a line in the sand. This far, no farther. Killing someone and eating their lung (seriously, did the moron utterly fail to pay attention in biology class as a kid?) crosses that line. Traditionally, execution used to be carried out by one of three methods: hanging, gun squad, and electric chair. Anymore, execution is done "humanely": lethal injection, which basically puts the criminal into a sleep they never wake from. If it was up to me (and it's a good thing it's not), this dumbass would face execution via monster truck.

That's my 2 cents.

This blog post was deleted by the author.

You, Sir and Madam, Are Idiots

Common Sense

Common sense is defined as "sound practical judgment". Here it's defined as "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." According to the Wiki, common sense "consists of what people in common would agree on: that which they 'sense' as their common natural understanding." According to Merriam Webster Online, the term is dated to 1726. That means, for at least 284 years, people have been encouraged to think and pay attention to what they are doing, and to not do stupid shit. This is what happens when you don't use common sense:


Examples of common sense, in modern usage, include:

• When the pump turns off when you are at the gas station, you stop filling your car with gas. You might squeeze a few more cents into the tank, but in general, you stop filling your tank with gas because common sense tells you that if you don't, it will overflow and you will be wearing gasoline.
  
  
• When confronted with an electrified fence, you do not piss on it because common sense tells you that you will either (a.) get a bad shock or (b.) get electrocuted if there's enough voltage:
  

Guy urinates on electric fence

Badrockradio | MySpace Video

There are millions of other examples of common sense, but one that stands out in my mind in particular is using a shower curtain when you are taking a shower:

When taking a shower, pull the damn shower curtain closed, especially if you live in the second floor of an apartment complex. where lake that forms in your floor can drip down through the ceiling of the apartment below. This is especially true if you live in the apartment above me.

The following is a public service announcement directed specifically to my neighbors who live above me, since you can't seem to grasp such a simple concept as common sense. I had to call the emergency maintenance number at midnight last night because of you:

You Fail. Quit Life.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

My Recommendations

I thought I would lay some more foundation by explaining the links I placed under Recommendations on the right. --------->

Disclaimer: These links are subject to change, so if they are not the same when you view this article, well I'm sorry about your damn luck.

These are things that matter to me for one reason or another, either due to my career in tech support or for other reasons. They are things I recommend to people in my life on a regular basis. I highly recommend you check them out / download them and try them out.

The first 2 are my Twitter and Facebook, these are obviously self-serving links for anyone that cares to check them out.

The next one takes you to a page where BP has video streaming of their efforts to cap the oil catastrophe that they caused in the Gulf of Mexico. Check it out and you will see the repair work underway as the ROV's attempt to cap the oil spill. I'm not some tree hugger or anything like that, but I think that this is one of the events that define current history, and that we need to stay conscious of this as time and events progess and the fallout from it occurs. I wonder what will change as a result of all this? Only time will tell.

Then there's my software recommendations:

Ubuntu - do you just use your computer for basic things such as email, streaming video (Youtube and other such sites), social networking (Facebook, Myspace, etc), instant messaging, things of that nature? Do you have problems with viruses? Then try Ubuntu! You'll never have another virus again! It's not just that it's better than Windows, but also most viruses do not target Linux users. You'll never be a victim of a drive-by download again. It comes with a free equivalent to Microsoft Office called Open Office, and has a lot of other software that integrates it with your various messaging/email/social network accounts for instant access to everything that matters to you online.

Mozilla Firefox - Are you still using Internet Explorer for personal web browsing? Then you fail at life. Everyone in the know uses Mozilla Firefox. It's a much safer browser than Internet Explorer, especially when paired with the No-Script plugin. Download it and check it out today!

Google Chrome - Sometimes you just want a fast browser to get on the internet quickly, do something, and get off again. Maybe you just want to post a Facebook update and have 12 other non-computer things to do, so you just want to fire it up, get it done, and move on with life. Google Chrome is the browser for you. Based on Webkit, it's the fastest browser ever, for when you just need to get it done now.

Other recommendations:

Sirius Satellite Radio - I have it, it's great, and well worth the cost. If you live in an area deprived of culture and/or music (like me), it's a great value. Uncensored radio at it's best, commercial free, and if you like talk radio, they have Howard Stern.

Zenni Optical - One of my friends found this site, and when he showed it to me I thought it was a fly-by-night pyramid scheme. Even when I was convinced that they were legit, I still had my doubts. $8 prescription glasses, for both the lens and frame? Yeah, right. They had to be either a scam or junk or both. I was proved wrong, however, when one of my friends ordered some prescription glasses from there and not only was he not robbed, but they arrived, were the right prescription and were actually pretty decent. The lenses were plastic instead of glass, and the frames were OK (not the best quality ever, yet better than reading and sun glass frames), and I was pleasantly surprised. I ordered some glasses from them after that, and will never get them from anywhere else as long as they stay awesome. Apparently, they are based out of California, and they get them from their warehouse in China. I don't care if my glasses are made by underpaid Chinese sweatshop workers, hell, getting that's the American way! Cheap glasses rock!

NewEgg - This is the most awesome site ever to get computer parts from. If you need more memory/RAM for your computer, or more hard drive space, you want to upgrade your video card or maybe you just want to build your own computer, NewEgg's the shiznit! Everyone talks up Tiger Direct, and I would suggest that you go to them to get your computer monitors and displays as they have a better return policy than NewEgg, but for everything else NewEgg beats them. Are you looking at a motherboard/CPU combo at Tiger Direct and thinking, "Man, that's an awesome deal!"? Look up the same exact hardware at NewEgg, and you can probably find it $20 cheaper there.

Also, there's one other site I currently recommend that's not on my list. I would put it there but this is a fairly transitory/temporary thing. They are down there right now on Nikumaroro Island (formerly Gardner Island; here it is on Google Earth) in a little Pacific island nation called Kiribati on an expedition looking for evidence to support their theory that Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan crashed there way back in 1937, and died as castaways (no volleyball named Wilson was there to help keep them sane LoLz). They are posting daily updates, and it's looking more and more like they did crash there. It's really awesome! I hope they find what they're looking for, but don't expect any physical remains more than DNA, as (supposedly) the British navy picked up her skeleton (if it was her) back in 1940, misidentified the remains, and they have since been lost since (I'm sure if there were records they were destroyed in WWII during the bombing of London by the Nazis). But hell, DNA and a relevant part of the plane wreck would be neat! This is cool stuff, and well worth keeping tabs on.

My list of recommended links will be updated from time to time, so check back to see more awesomeness as time progresses.

Waiting on Death

As this is my first blog post, I thought I would lay some foundation by explaining the title of my blog, and my reasoning behind it. First the name:

Waiting on Death

My colleagues at work usually assume I'm busy when they approach me (at their expense), so the first question out of their mouths when they talk to me is to say, "What are you doing?" I get asked this all the time. This is usually answered by me saying, "Waiting on death," which usually causes the other person to laugh (I guess they think I'm joking). Then they ask me whatever they had on their mind to begin with.

Why do I respond thus? Because, I think people are like Alzheimer's patients in a waiting room who have forgotten what they are waiting for and why they are waiting. All they know is the waiting room, though, so they look for things to do to fill time until whatever happens happens. These are the things we distract ourselves with daily - television, the internet, family, friends, church, school, religion, careers, your legacy, you name it: these things we fill our lives with to provide meaning are nothing but temporal distractions while we wait on death. One thing I've learned about life is that everything shall come to pass, meaning one day it will all be over. Nothing is permanent but the act of waiting on death, and even that too shall come to pass when all life ends.

Some people might disagree with this point of view, and say that there is more to life than waiting; I don't disagree with this argument, but underlying all else is the wait. Whether or not you are conscious of the fact that you are waiting does not change the reality of it. Born again Christians believe that once Jesus comes into your heart, you can never truly die, you will live forever in Heaven with Jesus. I am not debating this, or turning this into a religious argument advocating one point of view over another - the fact remains that, whether the soul dies upon physical death or not does not have a bearing on the fact that, physically, your body will die at some point and until then, one way or another, you are conscripted to wait just like everyone else. All life everywhere is conscripted to wait in this waiting room, whether it is advanced enough to realize it or not.

Therefore, when I say that I am waiting on death, it is neither a death wish nor a cop out, but simply the truth.

Thus is the nature of life.