My So-Called Proxy Life

"To have a task force make the recommendation that has been made, and to have in this bill the authority that's given to various unelected bureaucrats to make health care decisions, including coverage frequency, in my opinion, is wrong," [Joe] Barton told a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on health. MSNBC.com - Breast-screening debate splits along party lines This sort of quote is something I expect from politicians -- "unelected bureaucrats" should not be making health care decisions. Uh, yes, that is a very agreeable statement, if any sort of rational logic were underlying it. But since most health care decisions today are made by unelected insurance companies, that sort of statement is a bit contradictory.

Sometimes, when love won't answer back, you need to throw in the towel... Courtesy of Dido -------------------------------------------------- I know you think that I shouldn't still love you, Or tell you that. But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it where's the sense in that? I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder Or return to where we were I will go down with this ship And I won't put my hands up and surrender There will be no white flag above my door I'm in love and always will be I know I left too much mess and destruction to come back again And I caused nothing but trouble I understand if you can't talk to me again And if you live by the rules of "it's over" then I'm sure that that makes sense I will go down with this ship And I won't put my hands up and surrender There will be no white flag above my door I'm in love and always will be And when we meet Which I'm sure we will All that was there ...

Saw Zack Snyder's new film Watchmen tonight with a bunch of friends. I should mention first that I have not read the graphic novel which this was based on. With that being said… Watchmen was damn good! It doesn't approach the greatness of V for Vendetta , but it is nowhere near League of Extraordinary Gentlemen bad. The biggest problems with the movie are hard to pinpoint, since it is difficult to say why it doesn't feel as great as it should have been. The use of music was often very over-the-top, and the plot seemed to meander quite a bit. Also, it runs nearly 3 hours long – this didn't bother me much aside from the three or four different endings (the last of which is almost completely pointless). And if you are easily distracted by male nudity (and I am – hey, I enjoy looking, so sue me!), Dr. Manhattan doesn't have any shyness about walking around completely nude most of the time. Talk about blue balls! But damn if it isn't a pretty spectacular movie. A h...

There is a person I know who has the rather obnoxious habit of saying variations of, "Know what I mean?" Sometimes it comes out, "See what I'm saying?" This is related to the unfortunate speaking style many of us Americans have adopted lately – and I fall victim to this frequently myself – where our punctuation becomes verbally expressed with various "ums" and "uhs", "you knows" and "likes". Hell, even our new President, when not reading from Teleprompters, starts sounding like a verbal machine gun. As for my new job, I am still trying to get a feel for this place. It's far different from the corporate world of JCPenney, which was very much of the nameless/faceless megacorps where you can essentially disappear and work on your own without being noticed for the most part. This is good and bad, since it's good to hide the things you don't want noticed, but bad when you want recognition for the good things you do....

30 years old. A major turning point, or at least I think so. Age is probably just a meaningless number, but whatever. I don't have plans to celebrate my birthday because planning for such an event requires time and effort. Plus, I'd rather not have to make my friends come up with excuses for why they won't be able to attend. Maybe I'll go to Brewvies if they are showing anything I want to see. When your birthday is in the middle of a work week, it makes it difficult to do anything. My family won't be celebrating until this weekend, so I could draw this out for at least three or four days. My 30 th birthday will forever be marked by the theft of my catalytic converter and O2 sensor from my Jeep. Apparently theft of these, particularly on high-profile vehicles such as mine, are a quick sell to parts facilities. I've always wondered what type of business accepts an auto part with no proof of ownership. I mean, this obviously isn't a one-time occurrence for the...

About two weeks ago, I was pulled over while driving home from school. It was the first time I'd ever been pulled over by a cop, which made me a bit nervous. I wasn't speeding, didn't run a red light, and wasn't quite sure what I was being pulled over for. The cop walks up to my window and asks for my license and my insurance card. Shit . I handed him my license and told him that I did not have insurance, not yet anyway. I had been planning to get insurance with my tax return, which I had yet received. The cop was polite enough to give me a ticket and allowed me to go on home. Apparently the Department of Motor Vehicles had revoked my car's registration a day earlier. There was no way for me to know this, which is why the officer let me go without impounding my vehicle. In fact, I did not receive notification from the DMV until a couple days later, as they held onto the letter informing me of the revoked registration before finally mailing it (the date on the letter...

This is going to be a rather long-winded rant, but I need to get it out. Salt Lake Community College is fucking with me. Last semester (Fall 2008), I took 6 credit hours, the bare minimum to be considered part-time and subsequently eligible for financial aid. It was easy enough, and I expected two 'A's for the classes I had taken. But instead, I received one 'A' and one 'E', which is the collegiate equivalent of a "fail". Naturally I was annoyed by this, but little did I know what sort of shit I would have to wallow through to get it fixed. I e-mailed my professor right away to find out what happened. He explained that he had not seen any of my programs run in class. I couldn't understand this, as I had shown all but one of my programs run in class. I did not show him my final project because it was not completed. I talked to him about this, and he said to just upload the file to the website within a day and he would accept it. So I did just that. ...

I am still jobless, still looking for something. In the meantime, I've been focusing on school, and geeking out with Windows 7. So as the computer geek that I am, I downloaded and installed Windows 7 Beta onto my desktop and laptop. I created separate partitions for both, as I didn't want to lose my installations (however, I did attempt an unwise "upgrade" to my laptop's installation of Vista, which corrupted both 7 and Vista). After getting my laptop fixed, I have been using Windows 7 as my OS of choice. Windows Vista has gotten a mostly bad rap, but it is a step backwards from XP. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. While there is no software readily available for Windows 7 usage, I haven't had any problems yet. Installing the software for Vista has worked just fine with Windows 7 (probably because the base code is the same). Anyway, if you want to truly get your geek on, I would recommend checking this out. You have until February 10 th to download a...

As of yesterday, January 7 th , 2009, I no longer work for JCPenney. Though mostly of my own choosing thanks to general laziness, depression and job dissatisfaction, I will definitely miss my fellow employees. They made the job bearable when the work itself sucked the soul piece-by-piece from my body. And speaking of soulless bodies … I finally watched "Zombie Strippers", and it was totally awesome. One of those odd horror comedies which come out of nowhere for no particular reason, like "Black Sheep" or "Dead Alive!". Jenna Jameson, one of the most famous porn stars around, is surprisingly not terrible, and pulls out all the punches by going over-the-top zany zombie. Imagine the sight of Jameson's rotting flesh as she spins around on a stripper pole, and you sort of get the idea what this movie is trying to go for. Her first strip as a zombie is classic. If you are into horror comedies, check this one out.