Here is a random thought for you to toss around. Have you ever thought about the standards you use for judging people? Where did you learn what is “wrong” or “right”? How can you say that someone has been rude to you unless you hold them up on some standard of judgement? When you are trying to decide if you have been rude to someone, do you use the same standard? Let’s say you did something that was not rude by your standards, but was probably rude by somebody else’s standards… how should you feel in that case? Should you feel justified, or does that make you inconsiderate?

I haven’t posted in a while, so I’ll just post for the sake of it. I have realized that I barely play games any more. I played Go online yesterday for the first time in two months, and I play Doom 3 once every two or three weeks now. It’s pretty ridiculous compared to what I did when I was addicted to Civilization 3 about two years ago: I would come home from work, play Civ 3 for a couple of hours, grab a quick dinner, and then play Civ 3 until 1 or 2 in the morning. No joke.

What’s different now? I spend 1 and a half hours at the gym three days a week, I have freelance work that takes up some time, I read, I cook more frequently, and I am just not as drawn to gaming as before. There’s something compelling about playing a game because it is a challenge and it is demanding of you, and it feels great when you are successful, but on the other hand, it can be nice to spend time on something that is not so demanding. Doom 3 is practically torture at times, and I plan on writing about it when I beat it Go can easily be very stressful, as I tend to take it pretty seriously.

I am about to purchase some new RAM for my computer and I wanted to see what kind of RAM I currently had installed in my computer. My motherboard BIOS was able to tell me the speed, but I wanted to be absolutely sure whether or not I had ECC RAM. I googled for some related terms and came upon someone’s recommendation of Everest. This program is completely free of charge and it kicks ass (as much as a system information tool can)! In the RAM report, it was able to tell me the manufacturer, manufacturing date, serial number, voltage, module density, and even the presence of a heat sink! How ridiculous is that? Basically it can tell you more than you ever thought possible about the hardware inside your PC. Check it out if you’re curious.

I think I bought this book because I wanted to see what H.G. Wells was all about. He is the author of such sci-fi classics as “War of the Worlds”, “The Island of Dr Moreau”, and “The Time Machine”. I had always heard of The Invisible man, and been curious to read about the original. Like Dorian Gray, The Invisible Man was a character in the disappointing movie “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen“, so I was intrigued again as to the original character.

From start to finish this book was intriguing and compelling. I found myself always curious to see what would happen next and what information would be revealed. You learn more about the protagonist throughout the book, and he really is a great “mystery man”. There are several extremely articulated action scenes which really had me excited when reading them! I was impressed, as I don’t know if I’ve ever read such gripping action scenes in book form. Then again, I don’t read a lot of books with action in them. This book was written in 1897, and has an awkward mixture of extremely articulate narrative and extremely inarticulate dialogue from some of the characters who (I assume) are not well educated. The book is narrated in a third-person storytelling format, but the narrator’s personality is nearly nonexistant, as it is more of a fantastic story rather than a personal account.

I was very satisfied with this book. I only wish it were longer! I think I can give it 5/5 stars and not feel like I’m being too generous. Check it out!

I forgot to write a review of this! I finished reading it a few weeks ago, but I’ve been super busy. I decided to read this because everyone says it’s awesome, and I’ve heard that Vonnegut writes really cool books. I can’t say I loved this book, unfortunately. Right from the very start, I disliked it. In fact I really disliked it. I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. However, since I can’t only read books I enjoy, and hoping it would get better, I read the whole book. It’s only a bit over 200 pages.

I’m happy to say I did end up enjoying the rest of the book a little more than the beginning, but I still didn’t like it overall. Reading this book I felt like the author had dropped the manuscript and just randomly put the pages back in order. It’s that fragmented. The story centers around a WWII soldier who is not completely sane, and we get to observe pieces of his experience in the war as well as pieces of his fantasies about being abducted by aliens. I was going to write “we get to follow his experiences” but I realized that it is difficult to follow something if it keeps jumping around in time and space.

On that note, there were some interesting ideas about time and space. There were definitely some gems of moments in this book and I won’t ruin them for you, but overall I found this book to be a big drag. Yes I know it’s supposed to convey that “war is hell” but it was just way too difficult to follow. The narrative had no continuity… it was like looking at a scrapbook that was out of order. Yes the story was interesting, but even if it were continuous I don’t think I would have loved this book. Sorry Vonnegut fans! This one did not win me over. I would really enjoy hearing comments from some people who loved this book, though. I give this 2/5 stars.

Last week I was sick for the beginning of the week, so I didn’t go to the gym until Wednesday. That made it the first time I had been to the gym since the previous Thursday. It was rough getting back into it, having been sick, and I thought about how I working out has become part of my life. Since I’m not taking classes, I am spending a lot of time at the gym, and I think it really has become a significant part of my life. I realized that working out cannot be thought of as an investment, it needs to be thought of as a way of life. It’s sort of like how you eat breakfast in the morning… it’s healthy, good for you, and you can get enjoyment out of it, but for the most part, it is not memorable and does not leave any long-lasting effect. Going to the gym once a week seems to have almost no effect at all. I go three times a week now (unless something gets in the way), and I can definitely feel and see the difference, but if I were to stop going, I think I would degrade back to my previous out-of-shape state in not too much time.

Here is my workout routine: stretch, row for 30 minutes, run 1/2 mile, seated chest press 3 sets of 10 reps, stretch. Unfortunately, including the shower and changing, this takes more than a full hour, so it’s tough sometimes to fit it in. As you can tell, I’m stressing fitness over weight training because I think it’s more significant. Also, I don’t enjoy being sore, and weight training often leaves me sore. I’m not downing protein shakes or anything, but that’s mostly because of the cost. I don’t expect I’ll be able to continue this three times a week routine, but while it lasts I feel like I’m getting a lot out of it.

I have to admit I was losing confidence in John Kerry before tonight. It seemed like he was falling into the same traps that Gore did: being repetitive, talking down to people, and overusing buzzphrases. Tonight, he absolutely destroyed President Bush in the debate! I mean he completely crushed him. I don’t know how an honest person can come away from watching that and say they support Bush’s foreign policy. I could write about this for hours, but I’m going to just focus on one thing that I think Kerry should have focussed on more strongly: Do you want a president who will stay the course if the course has been exposed as being a terrible idea? Or would you rather have a president who acknowledges that things change and that given new knowledge, adapting to meet the new conditions is the smart thing to do?