Diabetes could be called the ignored killer

Through literature from the Canadian Diabetes Association and becoming involved with fundraising for them, I have become aware of just how big a problem diabetes is currently and how much worse it could become in this country. While I do not have stats for the United States, I am told that diabetes is considered to be just as critical a health issue there as well.
More than 2 million Canadians have diabetes. Of the people with diabetes, 10% have type 1 diabetes which is usually diagnosed in children and adolescents. Type 1 occurs when the pancreas is unable to produce insulin, which the body uses to covert sugar into energy. Type 1 sufferers require daily shots of insulin.
Type 2 diabetes, often referred to as adult onset diabetes, affects 90% of all diabetes sufferers. In this type either the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin or the body cannot effectively use the insulin that is produced. Type 2 is also sometimes called ‘lifestyle diabetes’ as sedentary lifestyles and being overweight are factors in who it affects. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyles have led to a sad development with children as young as nine are now being diagnosed with type 2. Type 2, for some inexplicable reason, is also very prevalent in the Aboriginal, African, Hispanic, Asian and South Asian ethnic groups.
Persons with diabetes can face costs of up to $1,000 to $15,000 a year for their medication and supplies. A U.S. study estimates the cost of diabetes and its related complications to the Canadian health care system as $13.2 billion annually. By 2010 those costs may rise to an estimated 15.6 billion and by 2020 - $19.2 billion a year. If not properly managed or treated diabetes can result in kidney, heart and eye diseases, impotence and extensive nerve and vascular damage.
Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in Canada. Approximately 80% of people with diabetes will die as a result of heart disease or stroke and is the contributing factor in the deaths of approximately 41,500 Canadians annually. Type 1 sufferers can have can have their life expectancies shortened by as much as 15 years, and type 2 sufferers somewhere between 5 and 10 years.
Educate yourself, your family and friends about the risks of this disease. Keep an eye on the risk factors in your own life, get active and get healthy. (or stay healthy if the case may be) For more information visit:

www.diabetes.ca (English, French and Chinese)
www.diabetes.org (for the USA in English and Spanish)
www.diabetes.org.uk (English, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and Welsh)
www.diabetesaustralia.com.au (Above languages plus Arabic, Croatian, Greek, Italian, Malaysian, Serbian, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese)
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/ (In the USA)

The Hydrogen Era

I feel like posting something on this subject, but I am not in the mood to write on and on. So I will post a few links and letyou do the work if you so choose. Pretty interesting stuff though. I have great hopes for hydrogen as an alternative energy and fuel source. There obstacles to overcome, both the practical and the infuriating. Most promising to me is the hydrogen combustion engine that BMW is working on.

Here is a link to how the BMW hydrogen combustion engine works:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/bmw-h2r.htm
and one on the hydrogen economy:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hydrogen-economy.htm
and this is a link sent to me by a friend, T.E:
http://www.off-grid.net/index.php Not hydrogen related but interesting.

Discovered this interesting little link while surfing other people's blogs. You will need Flash Player 7:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/
Cut and paste this one. For some reason clicking on the link does not work, although there are no errors in it.

Sleaze-Bag Sensationalists Strike Again

I was reading the Globe and Mail online and came across the above story, about an upcoming film on the Bernardo/Holmolka murders of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. The film is called Deadly and stars Laura Prepon (Donna from That 70’s Show) as Karla Homolka. Now, I usually just ignore these sorts of films because sensationalised trash does not appeal to me. However, this time it really bothers me. Perhaps it is because it happened in my own country and I can still vividly remember when the story broke. It was horrific, anyone from Canada can tell you just how sickening it was – and we had a publication ban so the particulars of the case could not be disclosed to the public.
I was working with guy who had a lap top and remote access to the internet, he was reading the full details in the American press. He asked if I wanted to read the details for myself. I should have said no, but my curiosity got the better of me (yes, I have a problem with that) and I read the details. I will not mention them, but they are truly horrific. Homolka and Bernardo are sadistic, sick individuals who should both rot behind bars for the rest of their lives. Sadly, reports on the film indicate that it takes the position that Homolka was a victim too, enthralled by the sinister charisma of Paul Bernardo. In fact, we know that Homolka was an equal participant in these crimes. After she cut a deal with the Crown to hand over the video tapes of the crime, it became apparent from said tapes that she was just as intent on their purpose as Bernardo was.
I am not sure why I am so particularly moved by the murders of French and Mahaffy. (not mention the forgotten victim, Homolka’s own little sister, Tammy) Other people have met with grizzly ends and while it saddens me, even angers me – it doesn’t stick with me in the same way. Perhaps it has something to with being 10 years old and growing up in the areas where and at the time when Clifford Robert Olson was abducting kids. (I know someone who worked on the case and learned far too much about it as well) It was a bad time, most other kids I knew went out to play feeling at least a bit uneasy. At one point, after a recent abduction, I was even too scared to play in the park across the street.
To know that someone is making a dramatic film about this case just sickens me. The argument has been made that the Canadian public has a right to now the facts of the case, all the facts not just what was allowed to be published. Fair enough, for those who have to know a documentary about the case could have been made and not a dramatic recreation. (something that television shows like Law & Order and Da Vinci’s Inquest have done already) The problem with dramatic recreations is that they take dramatic license, even in “factual” stories. Given that the tagline for this film is “Until death do us partake” I suspect that the dramatic license will have been rather severe.
I feel badly for the families of the victims, a thing like this must open up old wounds. I would be surprised to find any sensitivity in this film having read about writer/director Joel Bender’s first film (again as writer and director) was a cheap exploitation flick called Gas Pump Girls. His resume as listed on imdb.com is even less impressive with junk TV shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Sweet Valley High and Survivor making up his biggest accomplishments. I don’t agree with censorship however, and would not say Deadly shouldn’t be shown in Canada by law, that is a decision that should be left up to the owners of the nation's theatre chains. I think the Canadian public should show its disgust and boycott the film entirely. Myself, I would definitely make a point of defacing the posters.

An Abomination of Earthsea

I just wasted $5.90 on a DVD rental of Legends of Earthsea, an alleged adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s books A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan. Unlike many readers, these books were not a part of my childhood. I read A Wizard of Earthsea while taking a Children’s Literature class at Douglas College. Nonetheless, I did form a connection to the books and I still read them from time to time.
While I realised that what would be made for the small screen could not follow the books exactly, I did hope it would follow the books at least so that they were telling the same approximate story. On my first attempt I got ten minutes in and shut it off. I then skipped the preliminary stuff and used that greatest of DVD functions, the fast scan. What a horrible piece of crap. It feels like they took a terrible stock-in-trade fantasy, sword and sorcerer script and used elements from Le Guin’s work in order to attract her readership.
I should have known better. I knew it was going to be bad, but my curiosity just got the better of me. Bad curiosity! What would it have cost to do the series properly? I can only imagine how horrified the people who grew up with the Earthsea books as a part of their childhood would have felt. I can imagine come to think of it – the same way I felt walking out of The Two Towers, another terrible adaptation. Then there was Disney’s take on Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron. My friend P.T.C has the DVD so I watched as much as I could stomach – which wasn’t a hell of a lot. They botched that up badly, and Alexander’s work is much more straightforward than the Earthsea series.
One to grow on I guess.

If so inclined, visit Ursula K. Le Guin’s Official website:
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/
http://locusmag.com/2005/Issues/01LeGuin.html

Canadian Politics: Best Alternatives?

CDs in Play – selected tracks from Blur’s best of – selected tracks from Charles Mingus’ Anthology – Beastie Boys, Hello Nasty – Pelican, Australasia – back to Sly and the Family Stone, There’s a Riot Goin’ On, sheer genius.

For those foreign nationals not in the know when it comes to Canadian politics, the Canadian parliament is in a minority situation. The Liberal Party, who had a decade’s worth of majority governments, still hold the reigns albeit somewhat tenuously. In many ways this is an ideal situation for Canadians, and like many Canadians I had hoped for the very best of the situation (which is to say unrealistic) - that this would be a time of inter-party cooperation, a chance for all sides to truly have a say in government. But of course, overarching ambitions, tender egos, and the petty nature inherent to many politicians are threatening us with another election.
Not that any party wants to seem too anxious and actually topple the government themselves, that would result in loosing the ensuing election. The Liberals are tired and need to sit it out for a while. They have been able to hold power, though, because they are the consummate politicians. The Liberals are very good at reading the pulse of the Canadian public and shifting their policies accordingly. With the rise of the CCF (later the NDP) the Liberals took the elements from that party’s platform (like a national healthcare plan) and incorporated it into their own.
The old Conservatives, while supremely unpopular by the time of the 1993 election, had failed to take the fledgling Reform Party seriously and it cost them. The Liberals, while scoffing at the Reformers in public, looked over their policies and put the things they assumed would fly with the general Canadians populace into their infamous “Red Book”. (a popular complaint amongst the Reformers, I must add) The Liberals chart the middle course, steering to the left and the right when the current calls for it. It keeps the electorate at large in check and it has worked well for them. The question on my mind is that if/when the government falls, who is the best alternative?
The Bloc Quebecois is obviously a non-option, unless you live in Quebec and are a separatist. (there are better protest vote options in Quebec for non-separatists) So, realistically, that leaves the Conservatives, the fledgling Green Party and the NDP.
Aside from their calls for greater government accountability, the Conservatives have not endeared themselves to me. Brian Mulroney did much to try and drag this country into the same orbit as the American government, compromising our sovereignty in a number of areas though the FTA and NAFTA – and that element still exists as a minority within the new Conservative Party. (Belinda Stomach and Peter MacKay) Then you have the Reform/Alliance faction of the new Conservatives.
Frankly, the issues that concern these people just don’t concern me in the same way. I do not think their ideas on tax reform are going to make life better for the average Canadian. I know their argument “I think I can spend my money better than the government” and it looks good in theory, but it only makes a real difference if the individual in question is well into the upper tax bracket. For the majority, the government really can make our collective cash work for us when said cash and the government are actually dedicated to doing so. Sadly, many Canadians are living an illusion that they are much better off than they actually are.
While I do believe that we should increase military spending, (another reason for needing a solid tax base) I am not down with missile defence. This was an idea that G.W. Bush tried to push before the 11th of September and then again the evening of and it was shot down (no pun intended) as a bad idea - even within his own party as I recall. It now seems in vogue in the States and Stephen Harper's Conservatives want this country on board, despite the fact that the majority of Canadians do not want anything to do with it.

The new Conservatives seem to me to be as blindly pro-USA as the average Canadian can be ‘knee-jerkingly’ anti-USA. It isn’t enough that they are our allies, there have to be good reasons, solid reasons, truthful reasons to act in concert with our allies. Stephen Harper, would have had our exceedingly well-trained but thinly stretched and ill-equipped military in Iraq just because that is where the US wanted us to be. It is has been shown that the Bush Administration lied about its reasons for the war in Iraq, which has been a quagmire and death-trap for them ever since the “war” was officially pronounced to be over. I have never once heard Harper address these issues.
Another strike against the new Conservatives are the biases of the majority Alliance faction within the party. While it is true that the old Conservatives and the Liberals had (and still do) looked out for Central Canada first to the detriment of the rest of the country, the Alliance faction don’t seem all that eager to redress the situation as much as reverse it. Even then, while they have claimed in the past to be looking out for Western Canadian issues, values and concerns – we are talking about the issues, values and concerns of their grassroots supporters and not the Western region as a whole.
While the Conservatives have held the majority seats in the West for a while now, the margins of those wins have not always been spectacular. My Dad’s MP, Conservative Paul Forseth, almost lost his seat to the NDP. In fact, I seem to recall reading that his margins for victory have been slipping with each election. In Alberta there were some surprisingly close races, with the Liberals and NDP showing strongly in ridings I would never have expected.
I could go on but feel that I should move on at this point to the Green Party. The Green Party have come a long way in a short time. Don’t let their showing at the polls last time around fool you – people laughed at the Reform when Deb Grey won their first and only seat in a bi-election and looked what happened at the next actual election. Whether you could support them or not the Greens are a party to stand up and notice of.
At this point I will admit to the casual reader that I share much in common with the Greens in their concerns for the environment and the health and welfare of Canadians. We are past the certain points of preventative action and need to start looking to damage reduction and control. The environment needs to taken seriously by our government. The Liberals pay lip service to the environment but have not taken any serious and meaningful steps to doing anything about it. The Conservatives will quickly mention it like an afterthought and the NDP’s platform for the environment is hardly what I would call comprehensive.
The Greens do have some interesting ideas that merit closer attention, but then take a look at the total amount of issues the Greens want to tackle. They have a lot of issues that they want to tackle. In fact, when I read through the candidate literature from various ridings across the Vancouver region it struck me that they don’t seem to be various focused as a party. All the candidates had their own agendas in their literature.
Now other candidates will always make reference to their particular interests and areas of concern, but each Green candidate made their issues sound like an issue of paramount importance to their party. In the corporate world you’ll hear about ‘action item lists’ and if you apply that idea to the Green Party – that’s one hell of a list. Then there was the tone of some of the candidates’ literature. Certain candidates came across as enviro-fascists and food-Nazis. The way to win the populace over is not to enforce your ideas on them, and frankly that is how the Greens came across to me.
So what about the NDP? I would probably end up voting for the NDP, though I am still not happy with the party. The NDP started of as a working class party, a party concerned with blue collar issues. Over time the party lost focus and started to try and appeal to the white collar, urban liberal. (a.k.a. the yuppie) They became a milquetoast party, especially after the departure of Ed Broadbent as leader. Political correctness and sensitivity ruled the day. The NDP stopped being concerned with the working class because it, like much of the rest of our society, had wrongly believed that we no longer lived within a class structure.
They tried to chart the middle course in order to run in the same waters as the Liberal Party. They lost big time. As I remember it, political rivalry between Bob White and Dave Barrett kept Barrett from taking the leadership position. White, unable to best his rival, withdrew from the race and threw his support (which included the weight of the Canadian Auto Workers Union) behind McLaughlin. I believe Barrett would have kept the NDP from becoming so irrelevant.
The NDP suffered from lack of focus, poor leadership and repeated embarrassment from the loose cannon that was Svend Robinson. Svend kept them in the headlines, but often in the worst possible ways. As I had stated before, they had tried to go after the urban liberal vote. That works when times are good, but the late eighties and early nineties were unsure times with events like the recession, Glasnost, Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a friend, E.B., once said “When times get tough, liberals do the Reich thing”, which is another way of saying they vote with a clenched pocketbook. The drift away from the party’s grassroots probably also helped in the shift to the political Right, as disenfranchised members of the forgotten working class started to look for other alternatives. But I digress.
I did not expect much from Jack Layton and was disappointed that someone like Roy Romanow did not run for leadership of the party. Layton has surprised me though and he has brought the party back to some of its old core values, namely looking out for the working class and lower income families. It is a good start though I would like to see them doing more to distance themselves from the party of the nineties, namely to leave social issues like gay marriage, abortion, etc to the courts where they belong and concentrate only on the core issues that had made them a party worth taking notice of once upon a time.
Bloody hell, three pages, I am tired. Maybe I will pick this up another time. Maybe.
Zzzzzz....

To decide for yourself go visit:
http://www.liberal.ca/
http://www.conservative.ca/
http://www.ndp.ca/
http://www.greenparty.ca/
http://www.blocquebecois.org/ (for those who are so inclined and can read French)

Here is a link to the Gable ed. cartoon in the Globe and Mail for the 22 March. Just close the pop-up ad if it pops up.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/series/cartoon/22tueedcar.html

God's Will or the Gift of Choice?

CD’s in play: Assorted ska, rocksteady, dub and reggae sampler – The Pixies, Debaser single – King Crimson, Red.

***This post won’t mean much to a person who has never been involved in a formal or institutionalised religion. This post is more for those monotheists who still are or, like me, no longer active in a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, etc. More to the point, I am not entering into a dialogue with anyone on the existence of God. I can’t prove He exists, you can’t prove he doesn’t.***

Last week I needed caffeine. I was getting the headache and feeling twitchy. My immediate, local area is suburban hell, totally lacking in colour and personality. It is a jumble of single family dwellings, high density housing, busy streets and two ugly strip malls. My only nearby choice is Starbucks. I like the staff, however, and they treat me well. I was sitting at the table trying to delve into a book about tank warfare during the Battle of Kursk in WWII. The women at the table next to me kept distracting me. They were the typical suburban, semi-professional moms in their late thirties and early forties dressed in business casual, sipping on lattes. They weren’t loud, but they were intensely involved in their discussion. All throughout they kept repeating “if it is God’s will”, “God willing”, you just have to follow God’s will”, “it mustn’t have been God’s will” and so on. I don’t know about you, but that has always driven me up the wall, back down and back up the wall again.
I have always held that humans were created with the capacity to choose their own way, for better or for worse. But there is a real strong determinist current that runs through Evangelical Christianity, where every single thing that occurs in one’s life is a direct result of God’s direct intervention. I just can’t buy into that, especially how trivial God’s will seems to become. A sample of what can remember from the Starbuck’s conversation:
“I was really hoping Anthony would be able get into that programme this summer, but I guess it wasn’t in God’s will.”
“Yes, if God had really wanted it happen it would have.”
“It is so true, we can only do what God will allow.”
Hey ladies, what if Anthony didn’t get in because he was just not good enough to get in? What if Anthony had worked his ass off a little bit harder? Maybe Anthony should have registered earlier? Maybe, and this is just a thought, maybe shit just bloody well happens and Anthony didn’t get into the programme because… shit happens. What is this all about really? I was talking with a friend last year about someone we both knew from school. Said someone was struggling to get through his Masters programme and was contemplating quitting because “maybe it wasn’t God’s will” for him to be pursuing the path he was pursuing. Translation? Things were getting tough and he was looking for an excuse. Things get difficult and it is God’s will trying to deflect them elsewhere. (or it is the devil trying to interfere when it something they really want) It isn’t always an excuse for quitting and said someone did stick with it from what I hear. However, God’s will is just used to often as an excuse or a comforting device in tough times and in times of Failure. Hell, failure and I are on a first name basis but I accept that most of the time when things do not go my way – I am the cause. Sometimes shit does happen and nothing can be done about that, but I can’t attribute my failures to God, the devil, my parents, luck, etc.
I am a theist, and I believe that God cares and is involved in the lives of His creations on many levels. There have been a few of moments in my life where I believe God did intervene, and I am grateful because things ended up better for me and/or others in the long run. I do not believe that God is a micromanager, charting out every last moment of our lives in detail. Our life is a gift to live as we see fit, for good or ill. We are allowed to make our own decisions and we have to accept responsibility for the consequences: something I think the myths of Adam and Eve and the Israelites in exile make abundantly clear.
It just comes down to two things, in my not-so-humble-yet-not-entirely-arrogant opinion, either fear or laziness. Fear to take responsibility for oneself, in both success and in failure. The lack of will to take upon oneself the responsibility to make things work or to deal with the discomforting feeling that failure always leaves us with. Freedom is a frightening thing when you come right down to it. There is quote from the new Battlestar Galactica (edited) that really fits here, "We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything we've done... Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore. " We make the choices and we have to accept the consequences. Pushing off what happens in our lives and in the world on God's will is as unacceptable as blaming God for what has happened in our lives and in the world at large.
In the myth of Adam and Eve, (read Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories" to get an idea of how I regard myth) God does not force Eve to eat the fruit nor does he force Adam's hand. In fact, Adam proves himself to spineless and tries to evade responsibility for his actions. It has been put that God willed the Fall to happen, but that is incongruous with what most Christians hold to be true, that God cannot abide sin. If God wanted them to fall He betrays Himself, His very essence. But if we accept that God allowed Adam and Eve to make the decisions for themselves, that he allows them the freedom to choose it makes much more sense. The angels and animals are not afforded the freedom of choice, only human beings. And maybe God's Will is sovereign in the overall workings of the universe and not so much in the specifics of the day to day aspects. Perhaps it is best to view the freedom to choose as a gift in as much as our very lives are a gift?

***I deleted about a page and half worth of material, because I was just rambling and making the same points over and over. Agree or disagree my theologically inclined friends? Is the will of God just a security blanket or am I way off base here?***

So what did I really want to be?

Unemployment gives a person a lot of time to think. An obvious statement to be sure, but one worth stating all the same. My last job, without going into too much specific detail, was a deadening, soul-sucking office job. I sat in a cubical, talked on the phone, filled out forms, got yelled at, lectured, dissected, scrutinized, condescended to and had to kowtow to morons. (some of whom make homo habilis look like the man of tomorrow) I tried to do enough just to squeak by so I could avoid having to discuss my efforts, or lack there of. The typical office space is a horrible place to work. It is like being in high school without the excuse of being a kid.
The question asked of me these days, aside from where did I go wrong, is what do I want to do. I have decided to return to school and upgrade my minor in Art to a BA. From there it is Masters studies and then, hopefully, teach. I would be good at it. I was a TA in university and was considered to be quite promising. I had other plans, though. Whatever, nothing to do about that now. However, I have been thinking a lot about my childhood and the question I find myself asking is: what did I want to be?
The easy answer is an archaeologist. From the age of four to about the age of twelve, I had decided that I was going to be an archaeologist – I liked history and I wanted to travel. But that is really what I wanted to do; the question really is, what did I want to be? That requires looking at want I was really into back in the day.
1. Swashbuckling. I loved the story of Robin Hood and I played it out every chance I got. Be it Disney’s terrible animated version (it was fun as a kid and Roger Miller’s songs are great) or the ever classic Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, Richard Lester’s film Robin and Marian, or Ivanhoe I was smitten with the story. I wanted to be a expert archer and master swordsman. Richard Lester also fuelled those fantasies with his Three and Four Musketeers – versions of the story that have no peers. Swordplay, intrigue… it held and still holds my imagination to this day.
2. Norse History. As my pseudonym (yes, it is a pseudonym) should indicate, I have a bit of a Viking fetish. My Father was very interested in Norse history, particularly their ships and shipbuilding methods. One of the books I remember reading was Sea Wolves by Frank Birkenbaek and Charles Barren. That book and others made me dream about being on a longship or in a knar sailing off across the North Sea to go raiding, trading or to take my imaginary family to Iceland, Greenland or North America. Many of my papers for my history classes had something to do with the Norsemen or Icelandic settlements.
3. Black. I really wanted to be black too. My neighbours were black, great athletes, really friendly and the kids always seemed one step ahead of the rest of us in the neighbourhood. I was slower, more awkward physically and socially. There was Muhammad Ali, the coolest man on Earth as far as I was concerned. My Dad let me watch a bit of the “Rumble in the Jungle” and I was in awe. I was so into Ali my Dad even bought me gloves and a double end, reflex bag. There was Morgan Freeman as “Easy Reader”, Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, Isaac Hayes, etc. Being black seemed a whole lot better than being boring, bland and white.
So back to the question of what did I want to be? I think that what I really wanted to be was a Swashbuckling, Viking Soul Brother.
Yes, I really do have too much time on my hands.

Blogging For Fun or Profit?

Being new to the blogosphere I wasn'tt certain what to expect. Looking over my own blog, I clicked to see the next blog. It was all in Portuguese, Rick on the Road. Next one was Menachem Plaurt's Pravda Ne'eman. After that was A caffeinated Place, followed by fluyen los pensamientos, followed by Casual Socialist, etc. Then there was a whole host of for-profit blogs advertising for insurance, mortgages, pursuing litigation and pool cleaning. I am all for freedom of speech, but does this sort of thing really belong here?
As a guy who believes in stiff penalties for spamming, I have to say it is a bit of a piss-off. The last thing we need anywhere in this world is more bloody advertising. It gets stuffed in my mailboxes, both real world and online. It is posted on buses, bus stops, in front of urinals, on clothing, billboards, radio, before movies, in movies and on television. (again both as separate ads and hidden adverts within the programming itself) Now some people decide that the blog is a perfect way to make profit. Piss off.
Yeah, I know… I can just click by. But you know, this crap just clogs up the internet like bad cholesterol clogs up a good artery. This not to say I hold anything against the independent artist, writer, musician, etc trying set up a place where they can field their work to the public - that is a totally different thing to my mind. A lawyer and an insurance agent on the other hand should have to shell out the dough for a commercial website and not be able to take advantage of services like this one. Thus endeth the rant. Maybe you feel different?

In Addendum

What does it take to correct a spelling mistake in my profile? I wrote "aithers" instead of "authors". I Caught the mistake upon veiwing my blog and have tried correcting it at least six times. My problem with comma splicing I can live with, but this is driving me insane. Perhaps I will just delete the profile and start again. If it no longer says "aithers" then I have succeded.

All Blogged Up

Why did I start a blog? One friend told me it was great place to meet chicks. Another friend told me that the bogosphere was a real sausagefest so I decided to start my own and contribute to the problem. All my friends have told me that if I am going to be a loud-mouthed jerk I may as well do it online.
Seriously though, why did I start a blog? My friend Trent Ernst and my Father are both big technology junkies and "internerds" who figured that someone with as many opinions (and as many strong opinions) as I have should have a place to present them. Apparently, many people consider this more constructive than hassling people on street corners, in coffee shops and in movie theatres. My father also said that dropping my pants in public wasn't going to get people to take me seriously, just arrested. Also as my friends get older, married, get careers, become parents and so on, it is getting harder to get together with them to have the serious and not-so-serious discussions we once thrived on. Maybe the online world is the answer? I am also unemployed at the moment and bored hopelessly out of my mind.
So here is my narcissistic temple to ME! The place where my thoughts and opinions rule supreme!! THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE MAGNUS IS KING!!! PUT AWAY YOUR OLD GODS AND WOR... hey, wait! I'm sorry, I 'll be nice... don't go! No, don't go to that blog stay here! I have chocolate...