wolfsongs.com

One of my favorite hobbies are LARP’s. For those who are wondering, LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing. Specifically, I enjoy physical LARP’s, which means that everything that goes on in the game has a physical representation. For example, if you are in a fantasy LARP and a magician cast a fireball at someone, there would be something to represent that which people could see, and perhaps even block or dodge. A packet of birdseed is commonly used to represent said fireball, but other similar items could be used, as long as safety restrictions are adhered to.

In any LARP, people will dress up to look the part. If necessary, they will also wear make-up and prosthetic parts to look like a different race in the game. A prime example of a prosthetic part would be plastic pointy elf ears, that would be affixed to your ear with spirit gum if you were to be playing an Elf. Becoming an NPC is pretty much out of the question, unless the staff were very flexible and had you playing Elf only parts. Also, I hope you are not an SCA member, they frown on fantasy displays. Overall, it’s pretty much a losing proposition.

Still, for that extreme Elf enthusiast, I suppose a lifetime of wage slavery would be a fair tradeoff for having permanet Elf ears!

You too can have Elf Ears!

So now what did a little birdy tell me about? A website that talks about Do It Yourself Body Modification, specifically to create Elf Ears! Yes, you too can cut a small triangle out of the top of your ear and sew the two bloody edges together to form an Elf Ear!

The odd thing is, that even though this screams ‘cool for LARPers’ the reality is that only the most extreme elf loving LARPers would even consider it. Anyone else would eventually want to play another race in another game at some point in time. If they had this surgery they would have to write a history where their head got stuck in a mechanical rice picker or something similar. You can forget becoming an NPC with this little trick, unless the staff works with you and lets you play an elf or some variant the whole time.

You can read more about it Here

Like most people, this has been a rather emotional campaign.

Personally, I had to contend with my in-laws. My family and my workplace all being McCain supporters, with one notable exception. They all seemed out to convince me to vote for McCain with rhetoric and faulty logic. I had to fend them all off to keep my integrity, but my sanity was up for grabs!

I had to deal with the one issue voters, the ‘Obama is an Arab and works with terrorists’ group, the people who still support trickle down economics despite it’s repeated failures since before the Great Depression, the ‘Obama is a Socialist’ group and the Gaffe mongers! I am sure I missed a few groups that reared it’s ugly head.

It seems that even though they all had different tactics, they all had a commonality. They all thought in selfish terms. It was all about their taxes, how his new idea of health care would effect them, or how we need to drill now so they wouldn’t have to pay so much at the pump.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Spock - Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan

This is why I feel they fail to understand what Obama was trying to do. Obama is trying to bring the nation together, trying to get people to be proud of themselves and their country. He is trying to get people to think of the greater good for all instead of the good for just one.

As shameful as it is to not understand what Obama is looking to do, I find more shame in the people that I encounter that understand exactly what Obama wants, and do not care. They are still just out for themselves.

I look forward to Obama proving that the whole of this nation is much greater than the sum of it’s parts. That when we think not about what is best for us, but what it best for the many or for all. If nothing else, that is the change I want to see him bring to America.

Forgive my geek side, but I feel I must end this with a Star Trek Quote:

‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.’
Spock - Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan

I think the title says it all!

How about that! McCain’s political machine is looking for a pass on YouTube’s policy on receiving DMCA takedown notices. It seems that the bill that McCain voted for 10 years ago is now hindering his campaign from keeping videos available on YouTube.

Wired has the full story here!

Go Check them out!

It has been quite a while since the Vice Presidential debate, and even so I was so angry at Sarah Palin for basically not debating at the debate. I was also angry at her new crappy ass cutesy labels for ‘you people’, specifically Joe Six-Pack.

I would love to say I wrote a scathing reply to said term, however my anger got in my way. Instead I will point you toward this Live Journal Entry by Copperwise. There is nothing more to be said except click on the link, read and understand. If you have the time read all the comments. I would also prepare some tissues, as some people have opened up quite a bit in the comments.

I have to admit I really expected the $700 B Bailout Bill to make it through congress. I really didn’t want it to, I don’t think it’s an appropriate way to contain the economic crisis…presuming it needs containing. However, my faith in the House of Representatives is slightly restored as they voted down the Bailout Bill.

“Well if that stopped people from voting, then shame on them. If people’s feelings were hurt because of a speech and that led them to vote differently than what they thought the national interest (requires), then they really don’t belong here. They’re not tough enough.” Barney Frank - D-Mass

Of course, I don’t want to see the U.S.A. spiral into a recession either, so I hope I don’t have to eat crow for this blog anytime soon, figuratively or literally…

Some Republicans are blaming Nancy Pelosi for causing the defeat of the Bailout Bill, as she ripped into Bush for helping to cause the economic meltdown in the first place. House Minority Leader John Boehner said that it ‘Poisoned the Conference’. Roy Blunt estimated that Pelosi’s speech changed the minds of a dozen Republicans who might otherwise have supported the plan.

I think that is utter crap. I would go on about this, but I think that Barney Frank, one of the Massachusetts representatives, said it best when he said

“Well if that stopped people from voting, then shame on them. If people’s feelings were hurt because of a speech and that led them to vote differently than what they thought the national interest (requires), then they really don’t belong here. They’re not tough enough.”

Which underlines the real truth in this matter. One single speech, no matter how scathing, would not tip people to one side or another on such an important vote. What really happened is Bush and Paulson have finally done something that they have not even tried to do for eight whole years! They raised a strong Bi-Partisan force within the House of Representatives. It just so happens that it was there to defeat a poorly written Bailout Bill.

I was thinking about the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac₁ and the rest of the recent financial crisis that we have been burdened with, and for some reason a seemingly unrelated article popped into my head…

In Michigan, the GOP are using foreclosure lists to prevent people from voting from those addresses₂.

So now the executive branch not only has a national foreclosure listing that is real-time updated, but can control mortgages and can actively foreclose on a number of existing mortgages!

Eureka
I have deduced the new Republican Campaign Strategy! They will just prevent a large number of people voting nationwide by massive foreclosures and using caging techniques.

Ok, so while I think it could happen I really don’t believe it will happen.

If it does, I call firsties for predicting it.

1 Michigan Messenger Reports about Foreclosure Lists
2 Washington Post on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

More Web browsing came up with this gem. While the idea of some crazy parent teaching their child hate-mongering and racism is patriotic makes me want to puke until my eyes fall out of my face, at least I found a really cool blog to read.

Oh, to paraphrase the post I read, which not only has the same cool link I have to the original article, but a nifty little picture as well. Ok the actual subject!

The Aurora Frontier K-8 school encouraged students to wear red, white and blue to show their patriotism. So little 11 year old Daxx Dalton wore a white tee with ‘Obama a terrorists best friend’ written on it with red and blue pens. He was asked to either remove the shirt, turn it inside out, or get suspended. Daxx chose get suspended, so he could escape those crazy books and the evil house of learning to absorb more of the vitriol his hate-twisted father oozes out of every pore. Of course, dear old daddy is now threatening to sue. Hmm, wouldn’t the actual statement on his shirt be Libel, and effectively open himself up to a countersuit? Or maybe he doesn’t think statements like that are against the law and we should encourage other Frontier K-8 students to wear shirts that say something in the realm of ‘Dalton likes to sniff dog butts’ or ‘Dalton, a misogynistic, racist, ignorant man’s son’

Please, keep your son out of the school while you sue the district. The theory of Intellectual Osmosis will be strengthened when those who stay in school actually get smarter as Daxx just gets dumber.

There is this wonderful New York Times OP-ED Article in which Aaron Sorkin describes a meeting between Barack Obama and Jed Bartlet. I invite you to click on the link above and read the article and comment on your favorite part of the article. I had a lot but I think this little section is really my favorite:

Bartlet: You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence.

this section is a very, very close second and sort of linked:

Obama: When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?
Bartlet: Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

You see, I am an avid internet browser and have read columns, comments, remarks, etc. and I have seen this theme. Every time I read it I always wonder what people are thinking. Like Aaron Sorkin I wonder why people are offended that a gentleman has a J.D. with a specialty in constitutional law, a man who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for 12 years! It blows my mind that somehow that has become a negative! How dare we have an intellectual running our country!

How much more of this do we have to endure before people realize that someone who graduated Magna Cum Laude might actually be someone who would do well as a president?