The Definition of Definition

I have been told numourous times throughout my life, that the older you get, the faster time seems to pass. I have foudn that this seems especially true when you become a parent. My days go by very quickly and at the end of them I am often tired, but at least I am usually fairly happy.

Working has been enjoyable, as of late. I have transitioned from being a hardware/software type of guy to being a programmer/analyst type of guy.  I have had to learn Pick Basic, which is bizare and compelling and to me seems to be a more organic method of storing and retriving data, than what is considered to be the normal “relational/data typed” sort of enviornment. I feel that I still have a long journey and will continue to learn a lot over the next couple of years. My company has direction and velocity, and it feels fantastic to be working with a team of people who do what they do because they enjoy doing it.

My non work time (that not spent with the wife and the little lady) has been spent trying to get Etch to do exactly what I want it to do. The transition out of a Microsoft enviornment has been a little rocky, but it has been helped by my lack of time to game and the level of refinement of the the linux desktop. I think that with a little bit of direction, Microsoft could be in trouble. Especially with the anti-piracy measures that Microsoft has been taking. I believe that their dominace on the desktop can be partially attributed to the ease at which it could be installed without a valid lisence. I believe that their dominance will start to slide once the price of their product is high enough and the ability to run an unpirated edition is limited. I might be willing to place a side bet that within 10 years they will be down to 50% market share.

Now that I have talked totally out of my bottom, I will return you to the internets, already in progress.

I am old enough to remember voting in a primary election in my great state of Washington where I had the option to vote for a Democrate for State Representative and a Republican for for the Senate if I had such a desire. I was very fond of this notion because it allowed for a certain amount of “voting against” a specific candidate if the need should arise.

The Democratic and Rebuplican parties have objected to this because they feel that it interferes with their “Consitiutional Rights” allowing them to chose their own candidates and were successful in finding “activist judges” that agreed with them enough to dismantle our system of elections in this state.

Soon there after the people overwhelmingly voted for a “Top Two” style primary where that is simular to the orignal  but only allowed for the two candidates with the highest vote count in the primary to continue on to the big dance. While I didn’t like this because I felt if unfairly screws third party candidates out of their rightful position on the ballot on election day, Still, I like it better than having to chose a party because I feel that it is something has lead to some very negative things building up in our society.

When having to chose between two parties you are put in the position of either becomeing and Us or a Them. It’s kind of a “Cake or Death” type of thing (with nods to Mr.Izzard), where you are either good, sweet and wholesome or you are the devil. There is no middle ground left in this country. There is no room here for people who want to think for themselves. You can’t dispise excessive government spending and still want universal health care. You can’t be pro-gun and pro-choice. You have to choose. Do you agree with the president, or are you a terrorist?

We are in the middle of a tug of war, except the battle is taking place on a platuea in the mountains and if one side win they are going to pull the other side down into oblivion. We have two parties, one that wants carte blanche for corporations and the extremely rich, and the other that doesn’t seem to have a consistant message at all.  Where are my other options?

What started all this is the fact that I got my ballot today and I have to chose a party. I can’t go down and evalute individuals based upon their merit or inherent evilness and vote accordingly, except for the fact on MY ballot this year there is only one race that has more than one candidate allowing me to chose whichever party I want so I could theoretically just do things the old way anyway.

I shutter to think how much money was spent on this arrangement.

I ask you all to vote for “third party” candidates this year, if only just for spite.

How can you call an organization that fires 190 rockets into a country but only manages to kill one guy on a Bike a credible threat? Might as well just send one guy over with an ax and save some money.

I know that  firing rockets at you isn’t exactly a friendly move but don’t you feel a little bit like your being baited, Isreal?

I’m glad we had this talk.