For the record, I hate gift cards. I would rather you buy me something that I don’t like and have to return than you give me a gift card. I can’t handle it. I can’t handle the pressure of the gift card. I was given a gift card to Barnes and Noble and I can’t spend it. First of all, I have a hard time buying anything at B&N, even with someone else’s money, because it’s generally more expensive there than anywhere else. Regardless, I can’t even decide what to get. I look at my wishlist and say, “I’ll buy something off of there.” What do I get? Which of the hundreds of items on my wishlist do I decide that I want more than the other items? I can’t do it. This is the purpose of a gift. You are supposed to decide for me. THAT’S the gift, you see? Making me choose is not a gift. I know you think you’re doing me a favor, but believe me, you’re making it impossible for me to spend this money.
I’ve got a challenge for those of you who are so good at internet research. I’m looking for two things.
The first one, and this will probably be hard unless you happen to already know what I’m talking about, is a science fiction short story that I remember reading when I was in middle school. The story is about a class of children, and one of the children is tormented by the other children and eventually locked in a closet. After that happens, the teacher gathers the children together to go outside because they live in a world where it either rains constantly or (I can’t remember) it is somehow deadly to go outside, but something like once a year the sun comes out for a hour or so and the children get to go out and play, but the kid who was tormented misses it because the other children had locked him in a closet. Sadly, I don’t remember the author or the title, which will make this one rather difficult to find.
The second thing I’m looking for is a one-act play that I had seen in high school. Again, I don’t know the author or title, but there is a character in it who has a line to the effect of “Winter after Christmas is just Winter.” Now, I don’t know if that’s the exact line or not, but I THINK it is. I already did a Google search for that phrase and came up with nothing.
So there it is. Maybe you guys can find that stuff for me.
Everyone ready for a bit of a political/philosophical discussion? Okay, here we go…
I was just watching The Daily Show, and author Howard Zinn, a historian, said that if people in this country were taught the truth about our history, no one would ever again go to a recruiting center and volunteer to fight for this country. His point was that the true history of this country is one founded on bloodshed, torture, subjugation of other cultures, etc., and that what we are taught in school is a glorification of these things and that we are lied to in order to make our past look good.
I put forth that Howard Zinn is a moron.
Why would we want to build our country upon self-loathing? If you look at this country in what many people would call the “golden era”, the period where there were high family values and people can look back and say, “It was so good back then”, you’ll see that patriotism was probably very high. People loved this country. If you lived here, you loved it. I think that’s a good thing. I think that for any country to be strong…no, let’s break it down to a smaller level. For any organization to be strong, it’s members must believe in it. Howard Zinn, it seems, is suggesting that we should be taught to hate our country, hate who we are and where we came from.
In addition, to suggest that if we taught the true history of our country, no one would sign up to defend it is also a stupid statement. Why would you want that? We need people to defend our country! We need people who want to defend it! I’m sorry, but I’m much happier knowing that there are men and women who are willing to put their lives at risk to defend me. Now, obviously I don’t approve of a misuse of those men and women, but for god’s sake, let’s no discourage them from signing up! We need them!
It is okay to acknowledge the truth of our past. It is okay to acknowledge that the people who founded our country may not have been the idyllic heroes that we would like for them to be. But we shouldn’t villanize our past. We shouldn’t be ashamed of who we are. We NEED a national identity, and we NEED national pride.
There you are. One man’s opinion. Discuss.
Today is Cindi’s first birthday. I still find it hard to believe that I have a daughter. First of all, I still feel like a kid, and not like someone who should be responsible for the life of another human being. It’s really odd, though. Sometimes, it’s like I forget that she’s really real. But as she’s getting older, she moves around more and develops more of her own personality and I’m reminded every day that she is, in fact, this unique, tiny little person. It’s hard to fathom. I mean, really, what am *I* doing with a KID??? Seems wrong somehow.
Still, I’m probably the luckiest guy I know. 
Jeff pointed me in the direction of Giant in the Playground a while ago and the very funny Order of the Stick.
Here is a rather clever recreation of Monty Python’s sketch, The Cheese Shop.
From Sound & Vision magazine:
“As if college students don’t have enough problems with threats of lawsuits over music downloading, a 20-year-old University of Oregon student in Corvallis received a visit from a contengent of police, civil-air-patrol, and search-and-rescue personnel. They were led there by an international distress signal that was picked up by a satellite, where it was routed to the Air Force Rescue Center at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.
The authorities had expected to find a small plane or boat with a malfunctioning distress transponder. The real culprit? The sutdent’s year-old Toshiba LCD TV. He was ordered to keep the set off or face a $10,000 fine for ‘willingly broadcasting a false distress signal.’ Toshiba replaced the TV with this year’s model while it investigates what went wrong.”
Huh. And they’re even pretty normal looking. I guess you can meet people in the strangest places…