An English teacher named Desmond Warzel wrote the following short story and had it published in Abyss & Apex: Wikihistory. It's very good, I read it twice and laughed/chuckled both times. Go read it, quickly!

I'm not the first person to say this, or something like it, but the more political coverage and commentary I see and hear, the more I sense that the average American does not want to elect a president, he or she really wants to elect a god.

First off to North-folks: I was supposed to at least pop online to provide a status update, and didn't. Sorry! I will do it this week.

Second, the condition of my wrists has been up and down. From the standpoint of computer use, I need to continue to minimize it, but more importantly I need to drop more money on another AirMouse after all and when I do use the computer I cannot play any FPS or MMO ever again. I tried that sort of thing when my wrists were well, y'know, for science... and then they quickly became unwell again.

The keyboard I was using had a cord that was too short to span the distance between the new tray and the computer, so I switched back to the default keyboard. The problem with the default keyboard is that the spacebar doesn't register keystrokes from the left side. I may drop the spaces between words more often than usual now but I guess there's nothing to be done about that because I'm pretty peeved about spending so much money on all of this.

But, you know... it beats surgery!

It hurts, sarge! It hurts bad!

My wrists are a little better now. The steroids messed me up, and if the inflammation returns then I would rather suffer through a cortisone injection than go through that again. I don't take caffeine normally (except for the occasional chocolate or tea), but I am prone to insomnia and that was what I had for four of the five nights that I was on the stuff. I'll take intense but brief pain over a week of sleep deprived delirium, thanks.

The Air Mouse that I mentioned before is pretty sweet, but two weeks of testing have led me to the conclusion that it is more useful to me at work than at home so I will not be purchasing a second one. The director of the group (my boss's boss) has encouraged me to expense the thing, but I'm not so sure I want to do that. I didn't expense my desk fan because I want to be able to take it with me when I go, and I feel the same way about this mouse.

I've started working out again, both for my general health as well as the more specific strengthening of the muscles around my joints. That's been going passably so far, though I am frustrated by a lack of any sort of pull-up bar in the vicinity. A nice thing about working out (or performing repetitive manual labor, another activity I haven't "enjoyed" in a long time) is that that it allows my mind to wander. Generally my mind wanders to one of three places:

1. Calculating the details and goals of the job or workout.
2. A writing project that will remain undisclosed until I've actually produced something tangible.
3. The North game.

I'm going to attempt to return to North before the month is out but I can't make any promises about games in which I'm a player. I use these fancy computerboxes rather a lot as it is, and I don't want to rush anything.

In other news, somebody has stolen April and replaced it with a second March. Thunderstorms and high winds this weekend! At least we are not in a rainfall deficit this calendar year. We're still in drought, it's just not worsening.

Schneeble: Doc, it hurts when I do this.
Doc JT: Take some Ibuprofen, and some of these steroids, and of course... stop doing that.
Schneeble: I can't stop doing that, it's my job.
Doc JT: Then stop doing it at home.
Schneeble: Sonofabitch!

So, I'm buying one of these to take to work. I'm taking tomorrow off completely, and I'm also starting this drug he gave me (6 days of doses).

By then I should have the Air Mouse. I'll have to give it a trial period, probably somewhere between a week and a month. If it works (which I'm fairly confident it will) then I'll buy another one for home use. Only then will I return to the world of the computer-enabled.

Shorter version: Don't expect to see much of me for about a month. Apologies to my gaming pals, and also to anybody whose comments I haven't answered. This entry has been long and painful enough. Bye!

My wrist is a bit over-stressed at the moment.  I will be avoiding computer-related activities until the ache subsides, 

Thanks for chattin' with me the past couple of days, guys. I learned some things, which is always cool.

I'm taking today off of work to buy clothes... lots of clothes. I still have things in my biz-caz closet that I bought when I got out of college over 8 years ago. So I'm taking an inventory of work clothes, around-the-house clothes, going-out clothes, everything, and I'm hittin' the shops and replacing just about everything in the closet.

This day off couldn't have come at a better time. If I subtract the time I spent eating, commuting, and taking breaks, then my work day yesterday was 13 hours long. I didn't get to go to bed until after 1am this morning and consequently I am, how to say, tired.

Yeah, I know everybody has long days, or stretches of long days. For me, though, 13 hours is a personal best for a single day. I've got to go take inventory now. If you have any suggestions (i.e. "For the love of all that is good, no pleated pants") feel free to share!

So, the comments attached to my last post (thanks, grysar and lirazel!) ended up angling toward a discussion of hyphenated-Americans. This topic is one that I've discussed with Michelle, and will probably continue to discuss with people whenever it comes up. As I said in the aforementioned comments, I'm personally grappling with the whole idea of national/tribal pride.
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All of that being said, it should be worth noting that I think we'd all be better off if we just allowed culture to be fluid and to evolve. Clinging to divisions only causes culture to stagnate, and trying to come up with a label that appropriately identifies somebody as Irish-Japanese-Kenyan-American is a silly waste of time.

If I capitalize a word that describes my "tribe" that is not normally considered a proper noun, while at the same fail to capitalize similar descriptions attached to other tribes, what message do I send? For example, if I pointed out that most products and services are made for dexters but little attention is paid to the needs of Sinisters.

I know what I think about that sort of thing, but my thoughts on such expressions of group identity are often much less charitable than is the norm. Is that the case here? Am I just being prickly?

I don't really come around here any more, as you may have noticed. It's nothing against you, I'm just very busy these days. Work has gotten much more interesting (and lucrative), and Michelle and I are getting married this year, and we're looking for a house (even if it means that I have to lose thousands of dollars on the condo) although that process may go on for longer than a year, and I want to read and write and play games and keep doing things I've always done but now somehow don't seem to have enough time to do.

I'm thirty this year. Except for the whole "time management" thing and a persistent aching stiffness in the center of my back and the fact that I could probably use an extra hour of sleep every night (although that might be related to time management) I really don't feel any older than twenty-four. I guess I should make a point to exercise regularly and such, to make certain that I continue to feel twenty-four.

A college friend of mine changed his phone number and I didn't know about it until I got a text message from him yesterday to let me know that his child will be a girl. I didn't even know the message was from him until I had enough time to cross-reference the area code (North Carolina) with the short list of friends who I hadn't talked to in a while who would reasonably be expecting a child. Yay deduction.

Okay, that's pretty much all I've got at the moment. I hope you're all doing well.

Here's one of those crazy Microsoft videos, this time about the fact that Bill Gates is limiting his role in that company this year: link may be slow.

I mislike the winter. It is my fourth favorite season, coming in distantly behind summer, which itself is a very close third behind autumn and spring (or spring and autumn, those two are tied for favorite).

In the spirit of the season I will now provide my personal definition of a powerful word. Warning: those of you who loathe perpetual optimism/pleasantness might want to turn away.

Despair - tastes best in desmoothie

Is terribly fun to say.

Dave Barry is still fun to read: thus.

I heard an advertisement on the radio this morning that surprised me. I was listening to an AM station, still inside its "all things local" programming, when I heard the ad. It started out cutely enough, and I grinned along with these folks from whatever all-natural cheese-farm collective they have up in the northeast, until it because obvious that the collective made a regional ad for their home audience and then just shipped it down here.

Big clues: the collective has a "Yankee dedication to doing the right thing", and all the supplies (or whatever, I was already busy trying to sort out the previous remark) come from "right here in Vermont."

Yankee globally means Americans, and within America means northeasterners, so I'm really not sure why they thought it would be cool to imply to anybody but northeastern Americans that only northeastern Americans are dedicated to doing the right thing.

Caba (Cabba? Kabba?) may very well be great cheese, but I figure I'm not likely to find out because if that ad runs long enough the only place likely to carry the stuff down here will be Whole Foods, which is a place I do not willingly go.

The University of Delaware has a program for campus residents (primarily freshmen and sophomores) called "Diversity Facilitation Training". Apparently, RAs told residents that the program was mandatory. As far as I'm aware the program continues but residents are no longer told that participation is mandatory. As part of this program, students are told--repeatedly--that all whites in the U.S. are racists, except for those few who are activists against the white supremacist system here. There's lots more where that came from: the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education posted the source materials on their site.

One of my favorite bits are where students are encouraged to confess their white privilege, or if they aren't white, to share their harrowing experiences of oppression.

Another would be when students are asked to identify when they discovered their sexual identity, or when male students are encouraged to stop resisting educational efforts and discard their concepts of traditional male identity.

I'm not really sure what's worse: the fact that this sort of thing happens at all or the fact that nobody seems to be reporting on it except for a handful of tame or even misleading treatments.

I'm pretty sure that some folks would say that being upset about social programming initiatives only proves that I'm a racist. Nevermind that the term "racist" would have to be stretched to its breaking point to be applied in that way (just as it is stretched in the UD documents). I suppose such people can't be convinced otherwise, and if their so-called "diversity facilitation training" becomes successful in universities then I can look forward to being hauled off to a re-education camp when I'm in my fifties.

My excitement about the future knows no bounds.

An advertisement for the bleeding-edge new book: Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford (via Instapundit).

Gin & Ed on cellphone headsets. Not only do I approve of the message, just about any time I get to listen to Samuel Jackson rant is time well spent.

How do we know that the iPhone is a classy product worthy of our hard-earned Earth monies?

It blends.

Of course, it also provides us with a monthly subscription to pages of quality reading material.

Thanks for tuning in to Schnee News: I Retort, You Deride.

I like to read blogs, especially political ones, but it seems rather difficult to find bloggers/commenters who are willing and able to actually discuss issues. Instead, most folks seem to latch on to one sentence amid the assertions made by the other party and then assume the entire premise of that party is based on the sentence.

Example: Megan McArdle discusses the morality of single-payer health care. Specifically, she looks at the morality of taking money from the young/healthy to give to the old/sick. She makes some interesting points. Near the end of her essay she says that a health care equivalent of food stamps might be an effective tool in pursuit of a goal that states that nobody should have to suffer and/or die because he or she can't afford required medical bills, as opposed to the plan in which the government assumes the role of sole insurance provider.

The trouble, of course, is that none of the commenters who attacked her seemed to have actually read the essay, and those who did certainly didn't finish it. Some attacked her for not discussing the economic and efficiency issues associated with the topic (as if they would have read an even longer essay), some attacked her for seeking to deny care to people who need it (as if her proposal suggested that health insurance should simply cease to be), and some attacked her assumption that a single-payer system would penalize the young/healthy and benefit the old/sick (on the inappropriate grounds that groups don't get sick, but individuals do).

I suspect that the best way to write a political blog--if I were ever inclined to do so--is in very small pieces. It doesn't automatically make your commenters any better, but it is easier for them to read what you wrote. Maybe that would help.

Back from Chicago. It was fun and I am tired. I'll write more about it later, but since I left saying "I may or may not make it to the airport-bound train" I thought that I would just say that I did make it to the train, but only after walking through the rain to get to the Mart since the pedestrian overpass was closed. Oh, sweet rain. Will post more later. Goodnight!