Umbral Echoes Blog

I got some new chairs for myself and my minions, and they came in yesterday. They’re so much more comfortable than our old ones (let’s hear it for high-backed chairs!)… but some people in the office have joked that we have Star Trek chairs. Being made fun of by people who work for an RPG development company; such sweet irony. I have no idea what they’re talking about, though. These are the most normal chairs ever. Seriously.

I took a quiz today at OnTheIssues.org, to see which candidate’s views most closely match mine. The result? I apparently shouldn’t vote for anyone, because no candidate really stands for my views. Well, at least no Republican nor Democratic candidate, which were the only ones it listed in the quiz results.

I’ll probably end up voting Libertarian, but I feel bad doing that because it’s a wasted vote, and also, most Libertarian candidates seem to be nutjobs in their own right. I’m all for smaller government, but I don’t realistically think that we’re ever going to get rid of the IRS. I guess I’ll have to keep a closer watch on the candidates.

When thinking about politics, I often find myself in a philosophical quandary involving the most basic issue. On the one hand, I think that in general people should be free to run their lives as they see fit, with as little intervention from the government as possible (the Libertarian mindset). But on the other hand… a lot of people are really, really stupid, and I’m not sure they could handle that much freedom in a way that would benefit civilization as a whole.

For instance, I tend to think that reproducing should be a privilege, not a right. Honestly, some people just shouldn’t be allowed to breed. But isn’t this an inherent part of being a human? Isn’t it your god-given right to produce offspring and raise them, even if you’re not really equipped to handle it, and will only end up screwing that child up?

I never come up with a way out of that conundrum — freedom, versus protecting people from themselves. Obviously the “best way” (if such a thing exists) is somewhere between the two, but where? The cynical among you might say, “Well if people want to screw up their own lives, give them the freedom to do it.” But it’s short-sighted to believe that they would only screw up their own lives — inevitably, they would end up negatively affecting yours, too.

I could ramble forever, and end up going in circles. So to the two or three of you out there reading this: what are some of your thoughts on these sorts of things?

This post is in honor of my dog, Kayla. She has a natural sad-face, even when she isn’t trying. My ex-girlfriends tend to be more interested in how she’s doing than in how I’m doing, and she has endeared people to her who hate dogs, being their one exception to the rule. So, here’s a picture I took of her the other day, with my new camera. Click on the image for the full version.

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The White Wolf crew apparently had some event planned for today, and after gathering at the office they all went out to do… whatever.  Well, in the afternoon I go to the bathroom, only to see this:

Apparently someone had decided to pack up Justin Achilli’s office (the linked picture is of him doing the ass-chicken dance at Origins.  Yes, this is the man that was the developer of Vampire for several years).  Fortunately, I had my trusty newly-acquired camera handy with me to record the event.  So after doing a double-take, I snapped this shot for posterity, and then continued along to relieve my aching bladder.  I opened the door to the restroom, to find:

What strange and wonderful times we live in.

As a preliminary note, I’ve found a way to make posts on my personal journal and have them automatically post to my LiveJournal. This is the first such post, so here’s hoping that it works.

Last weekend was action-packed. First was a day of floor-slamming, joint locks, arm bars, and choke holds. That’s right, it was a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seminar. Probably uninteresting to the majority of you, so I only leave you with a picture of the gi burn that it left me with (click on it for a larger version). For those interested in such things, the school I go to is the Francis Fong Martial Arts Academy.

Sunday, it was time for the Renaissance Festival. Unfortunately, in this nice southern state of Georgia… it was in the low 50s on Sunday, and windy enough to make it feel upper 30s. On the plus side, parking was easy, and the shows were small enough that it was easier to banter with the performers. Oh, and I almost got my penis removed by a bullwhip.

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Every year when April 1st comes around, I wonder why I even bother to browse the Web. Most years, I just don’t — or I stick to sites that I know won’t jerk me around. For example, there’s a story at Engadget about someone successfully hacking the Apple TV to run the full version of Mac OSX. But it was posted today around 3am. So I might as well not even bother following their linked information to see if it’s real or not, because it’s a coin-toss as to whether I’ll be wasting my time or not. And if it is a “joke”… am I supposed to be somehow amused by the fact that I just wasted precious minutes that I could otherwise be using to do something constructive (like download porn)?

I’m really not a big fan of pranks and practical jokes in general. I don’t think they’re funny, either when being the target or the prankster. Every time I see some dumb practical joke, I have the urge to prank the joker… to death with a tire iron. To steal a line from Christopher Walken.