Craig's Blog

Palin's Travels

I've been watching Michael Palin's BBC travel shows for awhile now. His latest adventure is travelling the Himalayas. Awesome stuff. It's 5 one hour shows, I'm on the last 2. Anyway I discovered he has a web site set up to go along with his travels -- http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/. I also found out the books that go with the series are free to read on the web site -- http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/static-187 Wow! How cool is that. I noticed you can get them from amazon in paper format. I've been watching his shows for so long I'm no longer associating him with Monty Python but instead the British dude who travels the world. Every once in awhile though he'll pull out a Python character to get a quick laugh from somebody he meets who knows him as a Monty Python guy. Anyway I do like his motto, don't be a tourist, be a traveller.

The final beam up

James Doohan died today after many health problems. He played Scotty, the chief of engineering, on Star Trek. I remember watching the movie Trekkies when he was interviewed. He said he was astonished at how many people he inspired to choose engineering as a career. St. Patrick is considered the patron saint of engineering. I never understood the connection other than St. Patricks day was an excuse to get drunk if you were an engineer. I say we change the patron saint to James Doohan, someone who is well deserved of that honor.

Paintball

Last weekend I played in my first paintball game with a friend from work and a bunch of his friends. We played in the morning to avoid the heat of the day. Another guy there was a newbie so I wasn't alone. We paid for 4 hours which got us a referee and access to the 6 fields there. The fields vary from a wooded acre to short ones with only barriers to hide behind. I rented a gun and ammo, costs about $35. There were 10 of us and we split up into 2 teams. The object is whatever team has the last man standing wins the game. Simple but with only 10 guys you can't get too complicated. If maybe you had 50-60 people you could play capture the flag or something like that. So I got shot up good and I actually shot somebody a couple of times. But I have no killer instinct or much aggression so I usually hid behind a barrier and took pot shots at people when they exposed themselves. Usually I'd last towards the end of the game since I didn't move much and then get ambushed by the other team. I didn't make risky moves like moving to another barrier to get a better shot at somebody and thereby exposing myself to gunfire so I think I missed out on the fun of the game. Part of any game is to take chances. Playing it cool will usually defeat you in the end. I think there's some mathematics that can prove that point, game theory? Will I go again? Probably. Annette really wants to try it out so I'll take her next time and try to get more aggressive in play. In conclusion I think I've proven to myself again that I wouldn't last long in the wild..haha.

The Aruban mini-series continues...

This blog is turning into rant central I know. But I gotta unload here. About this girl, Natalee, who got abducted in Aruba. Exactly why does this story deserve so much attention? Please remind me. I'm sorry that this happened to her and I can't imagine the hell her family is going through. But you know what, this kind of shit goes on every day in every country. Not just to pretty white girls from Texas on vacation. Does this really count as news or as another attempt by the media to turn a story into the latest crapola mini-series that we are subjected to hour after hour, day after day, week after week? I'm afraid the sheep in this country can no longer figure out what is real anymore. I noticed that amazon has a trust fund bracelet for Natalee. What!?! How about a trust fund for every kid that's missing? or every person? in any country? This country is losing it. Either that or this whole story is a big ruse so that the media people and csi types can meet up for some prime vacation.  Have you ever wondered if the news is manipulated to accomplish something sinister? I heard a comparison between Richard Nixon and George Bush. Nixon attempted to seal all news leaks within his administration. He was overzealous (or paranoid) about this and paid a big price. Bush is the opposite, let the leaks happen. In the meantime he encourages the media to trump up the non-stories then with his left hand he makes sure the people with any sense consider the media as nonsense and having no credibility. He's free then to do whatever he likes, who's gonna listen to the court jesters?

For more ranting see this kuroshin article.

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