Random Notes

I just spent 90 minutes on the telephone with my sister, each of us watching the first presidential debate between Bush and Kerry. I think Kerry knocked it out of the park in terms of looking strong, resolute, thoughtful, intelligent and presidential. Bush, on the other hand, looked like a fidgety, irritated child who wanted to go to the bathroom.



Our personal favorite moment came when Kerry outlined Bush's "broad coalition" of America, England and Australia. Bush piped up and said "He forgot about Poland!" April and I were giggling throughout the rest of the debate. It was difficult to hear Bush explain anything without tacking "Don't forget about Poland" at the end of it.



Two more debates to go, friends. And then it'll be time to turn the keys over to Kerry, because he just kicked President Bush's ass.

The Republican effort to keep gay families out of the protections of civil marriage by amending the Constitution has struck out in the House of Representatives Ha! Ha-ha-ha! Nice try. Iraq is in turmoil and we don't know if Iraqi elections will even be possible in January, the president is a fiscally irresponsible whackjob, and Osama bin Laden is still dragging his dialysis machine through the desert, but I'm glad our legislature could grind to a halt to shine a spotlight on me and say "You're a threat to our civilization, faggot."



I watched Democrat Jerrold Nadler's speech, and it was a good one: "Years from now people will look back on this debate with the same incredulity as we do today for the ban on interracial marriage. If any member of this House feels that by letting gay and lesbian couples who love each other marry it would somehow endanger or threaten their own marriage would they please explain how that could be. Any takers?"



Nobody took the bait. They knew they didn't have the votes, and they did it anyway. Ha-ha-ha all over you! Go thy way and sin no more. Let Rick Santorum clean your wounds.

Gardening is a great way to grow your own ingredients.

I've discovered the joys of gardening in Final Fantasy XI. You can buy seeds and plant them in your home after you buy for find flowerpots. All you have to do is check on them once a day -- which I usually do in the morning before I leave for work or in the afternoon when I come home -- and feed them a crystal for fertilizer. After a few days, they bloom into items you can harvest.



I tried it on a whim and received 16 Khazam Peppers for my minimal effort. The peppers sold quickly at the Auction House to those scamps at the Culinarian Guild as an ingredient for one of their recipes.



It's just another aspect of the game I can enjoy. It's not too hard to imagine my tending a dozen plants, trying to coax out vegetables and crystals for resale. I'll be the Martha Stewart of Vana'diel.

I'm looking forward to the debates. I can't help it. I want to watch the newly-invigorated Kerry knock down the Cowboy-in-Chief by making him look like what he is: a stubborn, reckless "leader" who betrayed the country's trust.



Speaking of, Joel Connelly's column presents a wonderful example of a Cheney "flip-flop."

The words of our future vice president -- defending the decision to end Gulf War I without occupying Iraq -- eerily foretell today's morass. Here is what Cheney said in '92:



"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.



"And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.



"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

Personally, I can't wait until the election is over so I can stop hearing the term "flip-flop." I want it to go back to being sandals.

I've been running around in the Maze of Shakrami for the past few days, trying to find someone to help me complete one of the WIndurst Missions. All I have to do is get into the cave, search a specific chamber for a piece of lapis coral, and take it back. Unfortunately, there are hordes of goblins, ghouls and scorpions barring the way.

More time in the Maze of Shakhrami.

Finding a good party is proving difficult.



Sunday afternoon's excursion was ridiculous because our party's "leader" seemed unconcerned that the entire party was comprised of mages. Fragile, armor-made-of-tissue-paper mages. It freakin' sucked because we didn't have a warrior to tank and keep the monsters from kiling us... which they did. Regularly. I should've left, but I haven't reached the point where I'm unwilling to at least try to make any party combination work. I told the leader a few times to find a warrior to tank, but I may as well have been talking to myself.



On the positive side, I met two other mages: Gavroche and Archaedran, who turned out to be pretty nice. The three of us ended up in a maze party again Monday evening. I'm on both of their Friend lists and they're on mine. Gav had found a Lv. 56 warrior to escort him to the coral, and I was hoping our party would make the effort. Instead, we ran around killing things randomly without racking up much experience points.



The idea of finding an escort is starting to have appeal, although I've been exploring the game's Search function and think I can put together a team of my own. The idea of tackling party leadership spooks me a little, but if that's the only way I'm going to get the coral, I'll learn. I can't do as poorly as some of the schmucks out there.

Since lots of other people seem to be doing it (and because the holiday season is right around the corner), I've decided to share my Amazon wish list. Enjoy... and yes, the Jem and the Holograms DVDs are in there. Shut up.

One of the little things Kristofer and I notice and comment on at least once a week is that the people who hate George W. Bush really hate George W. Bush. It's interesting to see the different rock and punk groups who've put together discs protesting our beloved president and his war efforts.



And now we have Green Day's American Idiot. I love Green Day (Dookie is in my list of top ten discs I'd take to a desert island), and their latest effort -- a punk rock opera -- is amazing. Even Kristofer was starting to gush a little. My iPod is going to be repeating this disc for awhile, I think.



And it's only $9.99 through the iTunes store. Heh.



The guys at VH-1's Best Week Ever were making jokes about the idea of a nine-minute punk song. "Sid Vicious would would be moshing in his grave," one of them said. Maybe, but at least he'll have good music for it.



Speaking of idiots, Lou Sheldon and the gay-hating religious zealots at the Traditional Values Coalition are mad at Arnold Schwarzenegger for signing laws designed to give California gays more legal protections.

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must not be too troubled by what he's called 'girlie men' because he's just signed a bill into law that maintains 'sex' in California to include drag queens, cross-dressers and transsexuals," Sheldon announced in a written statement. "Schwarzenegger has sided with the homosexual and drag queen lobby in muddying the biological realities of male and female."

Too bad, Lou. Too freakin' bad.

An advantage of working for a newspaper is being able to read features days (sometimes weeks) before they'll appear in the paper. I saw one advanced for Sunday release called "The Blogs of War" and gave it a read, since I read every article about blogging I see on the Associated Press feed.



The article mentions an interesting blog called "My War," written by a U.S. soldier stationed in Iraq. I've been tempted to check out warblogs before, but didn't bother because the idea of getting attached to one of them and then later finding out the guy got killed or something would be depressing as hell. I have enough reasons to dislike George W. Bush's policy decisions without that extra load.



But I'm liking "My War" so far. So far it reminds me of Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine's Memoir, which I recently started reading again.

This week's column covers scare tactics used by the Republicans to make Christians think John Kerry is after their Bibles. The sad part is knowing there are lots of fundamentalist Christians in this state who'll fall for it. Asking a fundamentalist to apply critical thinking skills is too much like trying to coax a vegan into taking a bite of your hamburger. You can try, but you'll just get slapped. If the Bibile says it, it must be true. Centuries of social and scientific progress are irrelevant if you have "faith," the card they think trumps any need to seriously consider why they do what they do.



Fundamentalist Christians wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't have this crazy idea that everyone should live the way they do. There's a range of social issues -- stem cell research, feminism, alcohol, gay rights -- where they should simply exercise their beliefs without making the rest of us conform to them. If it's a sin, avoid it. Just don't expect me to because your deity commands it. Justifying legislation with faith is no justification at all. You'd better have a good secular reason.



That's the other thing that drives me up the wall: their honest belief that without God there can be no morality. Cultures evolve social mores in order to keep the civilization machine chugging along, and it's all based around "Treat others the way you'd like to be treated." You don't need engraved tablets to work that out. "But if there's no God," they say, "then what's the point? Who's going to make you behave?"



There's God for you. He's a big Daddy with a sharp switch to make sure you stay in line.

Republicans preying on Christians' fears



By TERRY L. ESTEP



Watch out for those evil liberals! They're trying to ban the Bible!



That's the message to residents of West Virginian and Arkansas from the Republican National Committee, in a mailing distributed this week. "Our traditional values are under assault by liberal politicians and their hand-picked activist judges," the mailing declares. "They are using the courts to get around the Constitution to impose their radical agenda."



The "radical agenda" listed in the mailing includes removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, allowing teens to get an abortion without parental notification, dropping the ban on partial-birth abortion and providing civil marriages for gay couples. The mailing is decorated with a picture of a gay male couple under the words "Allowed" next to a Bible with the word "Banned" stamped on it.



[ Continue to column... ]

I'd heard Alias scribe J.J. Abrams was involved in ABC's new series Lost, and was immediately interested. One of the things I like about Alias is the light dusting of science fiction in an otherwise "standard" spy thriller.

"Okay, I want everybody to remember where we parked the plane."

I gave up a very naked Tom Welling in tonight's Smallville premiere to watch Lost, and I don't regret my decision at all.



Sweet tapdancing Christ, I am hooked on this show! An airplane crash dumps 48 survivors on an island thousands of miles off their original course, and there is something crashing through the jungle. It's got to be a dinosaur or Kong or something, but it's huge. I don't know what kind of mysteries are going to be involved here, and the show clearly has "cult favorite" engraved on it, but I am hooked through the bag. ABC owns my soul every Wednesday night until this show ends its run.



It's even loaded with actors I recognize. You've got Matthew Fox from Party of Five, Dominic Monaghan from Lord of the Rings, the ever-scrumptious Ian Somerhalder, the ever-creepy Terry O'Quinn, the delightfully inscrutable Daniel Dae Kim, and that wheelchair-bound dude from Oz.



Daddy's found a new favorite show.



[ Calgary Sun Review of Lost ]



Speaking of idiot dinosaurs crashing their way through the jungle, Jimmy Swaggart apologized for threatening to kill any gay man who looked at him "that way." He said he meant it entirely tongue-in-cheek. Yeah, I believe you. Prick.

I traveled back to Windurst Friday to complete some missions and raise my adventurer's rank. I spent the next few days farming for the silk thread dropped by the crawlers in East Sarutabaruta and practicing my fishing.



I was tired of having my White Mage skills stuck at Level 10, so today I decided to check out the Maze of Shakhrami. Located in the northeast corner of Tahrongi Canyon,

A ghoul makes his skeletal home in the Maze of Shakhrami. It's very Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

the Maze is a network of large caves dotted with enormous dinosaur skeletons which can be excavated for materials. Worms called Maze Makers are the main draw, as they're relatively weak but provide up to 250xp for each kill. There were also ghouls and an enormous scorpion running around.



I found a party and spent the next few hours as a healer, quickly moving from Level 10 to Level 14. The group was "spirited," to say the least. The general theme of the evening was "Let's kill something and then run off to find the next kill before our white mage can rest." A black mage joined us later and was not thrilled by the arrangement. The layout of the place was confusing enough without having to track down eager party members.



At one point the Black Mage, a mithran named Archaedran, was hit with a bind spell and rendered immobile. I could see her life draining away and couldn't do anything about it because I had no idea where she was in the maze. When our party leader finally decided to track her down, I made it just in time to heal her. It was very close, because she was down to three hit points.



I eventually had to leave, and not having a healer meant the party disbanded. Archaedran and I spent thirty minutes or so chatting in the canyon before I finally had to log out.



The experience points were nice, but I didn't like the maze that much. Everything is too confined and it's hard to rest because you're constantly moving. I'll be spending the next few days raising money to buy the new spells I can learn.

Jimmy "I Have Sinned Against You!" Swaggart, God's representative on Earth who loves preaching to prostitutes in motel rooms, is continuing Christ's message of love and understanding for the outsider.

I'm trying to find the correct name for it ... this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. ... I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain: if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died.

I'd love to know what sort of psyche-scarring childhood trauma would cause a gay man to think Swaggart is a good catch.



I love how Christians throw out the "Judge not, lest ye be judged" verse and ignore the second half which turns it into "Don't judge others unless you can meet the same standard." I think we should follow Christ's example on this one. Ladies, since Swaggart thinks an unwanted sexual advance should be greeted by murder, you basically have his permission to stop his clock if he gropes your ass. Hey, Jesus knows best.

This week's column is as close as I get to phoning one in. I was having a bad day and seriously considered not writing one at all, and even then I couldn't think of a decent topic. I banged this one out, turned it in, and tried to avoid thinking about it. Reading it over this morning with fresh eyes, I'm not feeling so bad about it.



"You always have to put down that nice Mr. Bush," Kristofer teased while I was writing it.



I'm sure it has something to do with holding him responsible for the mess he's created.

Rather's credibility problem not as great as Bush's



By TERRY L. ESTEP



Poor Dan Rather. Sorta.



In a "60 Minutes" profile of President Bush's service (or lack thereof) in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, Rather produced documents allegedly from Bush's former squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, that stated Bush had not fulfilled his obligations and was receiving special treatment from higher-ups. Questions about possible forgeries immediately surfaced, and the criticism has gained strength.



CBS News will have egg on its face if the documents are fakes, but Rather believes the story is accurate. Killian's secretary has come forth and stated she believed the documents were fakes.



[ Continue to column... ]

I'm watching the new season of Survivor, and I have to wonder how many lewd thoughts I'm going to have about the mechanical bull operator. For that matter, I wonder how many jokes I'll be making about the mechanical bull operator.



I love this show. I'm such a whore for it every time.

I love the Warp spell in Final Fantasy XI.

I pulled a few moat carp from the waters in Port San D'oria.

I played a little yesterday, mostly fishing for moat carp in Port San D'oria. I bought a few new spells and just enjoyed the relaxed pace. Rimare asked via the linkshell if I was coming to the dunes and could buy a spell he needed and bring it along. I had nothing better to do, so I said I'd be there in an hour. I healed people along the way, taking my time. When I finally got to the dunes, I delivered the scroll and hit Warp. I vanished in a flash of light and appeared back at my starting point. Ya gotta love it.



I fished a little more this afternoon and then went back to the dunes to strive for Lv. 20. It felt good to be in a party as a nuker again, and better yet that I was in a good group. We were camped at Siren Sands, fighting pugil after pugil and raking in 180-240xp for every kill, which is just amazing. A mithra black mage named Jadrianna joined us, and the two of us were nuking fish like crazy. I hated to leave that group, believe me. The tank, Ordon, was great at keeping the monsters away from us. That boy is going places.



When it was over, I used Warp and vanished. I can't wait to hit Level 40 so I can get Warp II and use it on other people.

Check this out.



The crazy right-wing Jesus People are calling for a boycott of Proctor & Gamble for urging employees to help repeal an anti-gay charter amendment in Cincinnati. I guess it's been awhile since they've had a chance to properly complain about P&G. Remember that ancient urban legend where Christians freaked over "satanic" symbolism and thought profits were being donated to the Church of Satan? I bet it gets dusted off again as proof P&G is supporting "the homosexual agenda."



They'll need something to complain about now that GOP boy-toy Schwarzenegger has signed some domestic partnership legislation into law.



Ha!

On a whim, I taped the first episode of The WB's new series Jack & Bobby last night. I'd practically forgotten about it by the time I got home from work this afternoon, but I ended up watching it while I ate dinner.



It's a great show. The narrative structure is certainly novel: it's told as a series of retrospective flashbacks from 2049 when the Bobby of the title has finished two terms as president of the United States and shows the struggles that made him the future leader he would be.



I mostly wanted to give the show a try because I love Christine Lahti, and I'm glad I did. I liked the characters immediately (especially Lahti's) and hearing one of the 2049 people mention Jack's death (in whatever future history year that's supposed to happen) hit me like a punch. The show has heart, and I think it's going to be appointment viewing. It's a show that makes you feel good about television.

I spent a large chunk of my Sunday playing Final Fantasy XI. After days of fishing and farming and trying to raise money, I'd managed to get my White Mage to Level 9 and started looking around for a group so I could gain experience as a party's healer. I figured someone would want to run around La Theine Plateau or something.

I can't wait until I can ride one of these chocobos and save my tired taru feet.

I found a group, and the party lasted maybe twenty minutes before they decided to camp in an area crowded with monsters too tough for us. I died, and the group broke up.



The next group was better (how could it not?), and it's the one I stayed with for the next few hours. Our "leader" wasn't much of one, to be honest. The first hour or so was an enormous clusterfuck of mixed signals and everyone doing their own thing because our leader wouldn't call the shots. One of the party members, SlayerOfGod, knew what he was doing and I pumped his brain for information about how to be a good healer. I figured I may as well get some good advice, even if we all died and I ended up without experience points.



Let me tell you, being a healer is a very different experience from being a nuker. I'm used to firing off spell after damaging spell on one monster. As the white mage, it was suddenly my job to make sure the tank (and anyone else who got hurt) stayed at full health. There were five other members of the party, which is five more targets than I'm used to dealing with. Oy! It's a challenge. We ended up in Valkurm Dunes, attacking lizards. There were numerous close calls, but very few deaths.



Another taru mage named Shippoe started hanging around our camp and doing a taru dance while my other party members threatened to pick her up and punt her across the sand. One nice thing about Final Fantasy XI is the ability to create pretend actions, so I could type "Halifirien steals Shippoe's boogie shoes" and get a laugh out of everyone. I think the class clown mentality naturally gravitates towards tarus. We're like little cuddly-wuddly balls of comic relief... who are also quite capable of frying you and everything you hold dear. Shippoe and I are on each other's buddy lists now.



Once I left the group, I made my nerve-wracking way back to San D'oria. As soon as I got there I switched back to Black Mage. Now that I'm not a tissue-paper runt anymore, there's going to be a day of reckoning. I feel the urge to start cutting a swathe through the orcs running around the Ronfaure region. It's good to have my nukes back.

I don't believe in gods and think religion is a terrible tradition kept alive by the superstitious, but never mind that. For the moment I'm highly amused by Cal Thomas' latest column about how all the world's terrorists are Muslims.

The U.S. government is promoting "tolerance" and "diversity" sessions led by Muslim organizations, some of which have questionable ties to groups that have either supported or condemned with disingenuous statements killings by Muslim extremists, or sought to justify them because of policies promoted by Israel or the United States.



Repeatedly, these mandatory sessions tell government employees that Islam is a peaceful religion from which they have nothing to fear. If that is so, why aren't the "moderates" leading an army of their own and crushing the "infidels" who have supposedly "hijacked" this "peaceful religion"?



(snip)



It's long past time to ditch political correctness and identify the enemy, which is not disembodied 'terrorism' but radical Islamists who commit terror in the perverted name of their god.

So what, Cal?



I bet if you did a survey you'd find most of the criminals in the United States profess to be Christians. Correlation is not causation, as much as you might like it to be. Christians have commited atrocities in the name of their god. Both sides have their violence-prone lunatic fringe. I'm more afraid of the Christians because they're all around me. Big freakin' deal.

This week's column is another change of tone. I could've started swinging at Bush and Cheney (the man is still trying to use 9/11 to justify invading Iraq) or Parkersburg's decision to have Halloween trick-or-treating on November 1, but instead decided to write the bus column which has been bouncing around in my skull.



For the record, I think trick-or-treating should be on Halloween and Halloween only. This is one holiday tradition where I refuse to budge. If you don't want choose between going to church or taking your kids door to door so they can beg for candy, why should the rest of us suffer? I completely ignore the fact that I have no children of my own and therefore no real stake in the argument.



"It sounds like a conspiracy to put kids into sugar comas so their parents can't vote the next day," my sister told me. Always thinking, that one.

There are plenty of stories to be found riding the bus



By TERRY L. ESTEP



"What's gas going for up there?"



It's one of Dad's standard opening lines when he calls. His internal comparison shopper is always curious to see how Boone County's gasoline prices rate against Wood County. The answer is gas tends to be cheaper in Parkersburg, but I'm rarely the one who tells him.



It's amazing what you don't have to think about when you don't drive.



[ Continue to column... ]

I swore I wouldn't let it happen, but I picked up Pokemon Leaf Green and started playing. This is a remake of the original Pokemon Blue on the old black-and-white brick of a Gameboy. I doubt I'll catch all 150 of them this time (there are too many other games to play right now), but the addiction is settling in again. It's like the first shot of heroin after being clean for a year. Self-disgust mingled with sweaty calm. Pass me that needle, Nintendo. I'm ready for another spike.

I found this column through AmericaBlog, and it's worth a read. If you've ever been sick to your stomach at the knee-jerk way the "patriots" among us blindly started supporting Bush's invasion of Iraq because it was "payback" for 9-11 despite all the people desperately trying to tell them they weren't connected, you should read this.



Saddam was a bad guy, sure. But that was never the point for this president.

War is an abstraction in the American imagination. It lives there, cloaked in glory, as an emblem of patriotism. We show our love for our country by sending our troops abroad and then "supporting" them, no matter what. When images appear that contradict the high-flown rhetoric of war -- whether of young GIs disgracefully humiliating Iraqi prisoners or of a devastated holy city where vast fields of American-created rubble surround a shrine -- we simply do not take them in as real. Thinking of ourselves as only motivated by good intentions, we cannot fathom the possibility that we have demonized an innocent people, that what we are doing is murder on a vast scale.



There is the single most troubling aspect of the war in Iraq. We launched it against the wicked Saddam Hussein, yet the majority of so-called "insurgents" against whom our forces are arrayed hated Hussein more than we did. We are killing people by the thousands who threaten absolutely nothing of ours.



...



The war, meanwhile, answers the Bush administration's need to justify an unprecedented repressiveness in the "homeland," and simultaneously prompts widespread docile submission to the new martial law. But more deeply still, by understanding ourselves as a people at war, we Americans find exemption from the duty to face the grotesque shame of what we are doing in the world.

I was watching an episode of Babylon 5 the other day called "Voices of Authority." A "political officer" from the impending dictatorship on Earth is assigned to the station. She starts offering her spin on the situation: "There's no need to embarrass our leaders by pointing out the flaws in our society that they're aware of and dealing with in their own way. Some people just enjoy finding fault with our leaders. They're anarchists. They're troublemakers. Or they're simply just unpatriotic."



Sounds like something I could hear on the street around here if you dare question the invasion of Iraq.

Oh... my... GOD.



The Charter guy came over to fix the weak signal problem I was having. The Showtime channels weren't coming in at all. It turns out my splitter was falling apart (had I known that, I could've replaced it and saved him a trip).



Before he left, he asked "Do you know about Showtime on Demand?"



It's like a free Tivo of Showtime programming built into my cable box. I can use the remote to pick movies, programs and specials. Rewind, fast-forward, etc. They have the Dave Chapelle stand-up special and the first half of "Jeremiah: Season Two" available, as well as "The L Word," "Penn and Teller's Bullshit" and "Dead Like Me." Sadly, no "Family Business" at the moment, although I'm sure they'll be available at some point.



I'm drooling over this feature (and taping "Jeremiah" episodes). It'll give me something to play with while Final Fantasy XI is down for server maintenance.



Oooooooh.

Trying to bring my White Mage from Level 6 to 7 was painful. I died repeatedly while wandering through the Ronfaure region outside San D'oria. My playing was all over the map, frankly.

Fishing for crayfish in East Ronfaure.

I started out farming (killing weaker creatures and selling the items they drop), moved to fishing (until my rod broke), and then decided to kill things for experience. Hence my constant deaths.



Rimare, a member of the RainbowCarnage linkshell, decided to help me out Monday evening. It's a process called "power leveling," where a healer doesn't officially team up with you but stands back and repeatedly heals you while you tackle monsters outside your safe range. It's an activity frown-upon by the high-level players because it's an easy road. It's also boring as hell for the healer, which is why lots of them charge for the service.



With Rimare's aid, I reached Level 7. Now that I'm over that initial hump, getting the rest of the way isn't nearly as hard.



Square-Enix was performing server maintenance today until 9 p.m., at which point I started selling items in the Auction House and fished even more. There's a river outside the keep where I can snag crayfish with few problems. Between casts I could run around and kill any monsters who wandered close.



Spells are expensive, let me tell you. My efforts were worth it, though. I finally had enough to purchase "Warp," which is going to significantly decrease my travel time. No more dodging monsters and hoping like hell I'll get back to town without dying. Just "Zap" and I'm there.



Current goal is to fish and farm to buy all the spells I'm able to learn, then upgrade my equipment so I'm not such a gimp. I'm going to get my White Mage powers to Level 10, switch back to Black Mage until Level 20, and get my Chocobo license. Then it's back to Windurst to start doing missions.

Even when I'm not playing... I'm dreaming of playing.

I'm at my parents' house for the three-day weekend. I woke up early and started exploring the Final Fantasy XI forums at Allakhazam. Wow. They have race- and job-based sections, so I'm learning a lot of new things about playing a taru mage. It's an amazing wealth of information I wish I'd known about from the beginning.



I had to share this link, though. Someone with waaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands took character animations from the game and edited together an awesome rock video featuring tarus. It reinforces how cute we are and how much we rock. It was cracking me up and I almost spit out my water.



"Four times the metal at 1/4 the size," indeed.



[ Check out this video and soak up the taru goodness. ]

It's always interesting and instructive to see the final version of my columns, after my editor has had a chance to soften some of my more excessive flourishes. Something like "had a love affair with booze" becomes "used alcohol in the past." I've never seen a change I thought was unfair, so I guess I'm ahead of the game in that regard. I thought this week's column would get hit hard, but it came out okay. Considering Bush is coming to town Sunday (I plan to be far, far away), it'll probably annoy some of the patriots who would've defended Bush if he'd eaten a baby onstage.

Playing 20 Questions with President Bush



President George W. Bush is scheduled to return to Parkersburg Sunday to drum up a little more support in this battleground state. To prepare for his visit, I've written a list of questions I'd like him to answer.



1) In an interview with Matt Lauer, you stated you didn't think the United States could win the war on terrorism, but that it could make it a less acceptable tactic for future use before changing your mind the next day and saying you could win it. Are you flip-flopping on your chances of ending terrorism?



2) To follow up, how can you claim we are winning the war against terrorism when attacks on our troops have increased since your premature decision to declare "mission accomplished" in Iraq?



[ Continue to column... ]

"Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our

society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And

I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between

personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law."

George, you're the president of the United States of America. You're likely the most powerful man on the planet when Karl Rove is asleep. You launched a war to take out Saddam Hussein and overthrow the Taliban. Why not use that big set of balls and say who you're really "protecting" marriage from.

I love it. Alan Keyes, the man Kathleen Parker described as being so far to the right he can't be seen with peripheral vision, is in hot water for attacking gays in general and Dick Cheney's daughter Mary in particular as being "selfish hedonists."



I knew the moment they started scraping the bottom of the barrel and brought him in to run against Obama he'd provide hours of good theater, and I was right. It's a fitting counter to the snooze-fest that's been the GOP convention, considering they won't put anyone who shares the party's values on stage. Wouldn't want to offend the highly-idolized "swing voters," would they? They should've given Keyes a nice podium spot with Rick Santorum.



This is what happens when you use the Bible as a sociology and biology textbook. But remember: It's not about attacking gay people. It's about protecting "traditional marriage" from gay people.