So, those four events combined led me to this blog. I feel its time that I’m no longer silent and I step up and express my opinions and thoughts here. And what I’m going to say is going to be very slanted towards my candidate, but I feel say it with what I believe is full justification and my personal right to my opinions and free speech thereof:

Senator Clinton: You have done your country a great service and have run a phenomenal campaign against Senator Obama, but maybe it should be time to end this campaign. All of the math doesn’t add up in your favor, and this includes the “fuzzy math” that our current president has spoken about in the past too.

For one of your supporters to say that it would be unfair to a democratic process for you to drop out when all of the numbers crunched to even the most unfair bias to you show that you stand no chance? Senator that leads me to believe that instead of running a Presidential Campaign Bid in these primaries and caucuses, you’re now running a War of Attrition for a Vice Presidential Campaign Slot. While you keep running this way, you are just keeping your name and your status elevated high, doing continual and permanent damage to the front running candidate just for personal positional gain. The longer you keep this on, you will only be forcing him to choose you as a running mate, which would not be a beneficial move to force upon someone.

For the good of the Democratic party and for our possible chances of having a good run for office in 2008, I beseech you as an informed citizen to please step down and discontinue your bid. It would not be against the democratic process for all of the states that didn’t have a chance to vote yet. Look at all of the states before now that had candidates drop out before their primaries: while Richardson and Edwards and Kucinich and Biden might have been on ballots, votes for them would not have done any good to yourself or Senator Obama. They understood that for the democratic process to continue, it was time to bow out to the greater force.

Senator, I beseech you. Please do the same.

———-

Now, I know that might be a little harsh to say and to attack like that, but its the honest truth when you look at all of the facts presented. Its about time to step up and unify behind one candidate and as long as there will be in-party fighting and then the other party’s candidate there to fire opinions down against the front-runner as well? We do nothing but damage the party’s unity.

Unity, hope, change. That’s what we all want this year and every year. And sadly even though Former-President Clinton was referring to Senator John Kerry in his bid in 2004 for the presidency with the October quote I priorly posted, he was right. His wife is fear-mongering, Obama is calling for hope and change. Maybe he was on to something.

Obama doesn’t want red states, he doesn’t want blue states, he wants a single solitary United States. And as long as the Democratic party is divided and lets this drag on? Red and blue will remain easily discernable, and partisanship won’t loosen its hold.

Thanks for bearing with me through this one… I know its long. I’ll go more into this topic at another time…

Black pups face doggie discrimination - Source: MSNBC.com

No joke, folks, I ran across that article this morning when I refreshed my feeds in Newzie. Here we are, on the morning after a heck of a political night where race has been a backburner issue, and we’re discussing doggie race now too.

Oh. boy.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand this “black dog syndrome” (not to be confused with the “Black Dog syndrome” that makes panties fly) that has people against colored animals. But the thing is, with any animal, there are color prejudices. Take me, for example. I have a prejudice towards white cats, and because of the other animals I’ve grown up around, I like smaller dogs. Sarah’s a fan of bigger dogs and black cats.

I could see how big black dogs are scary, but I think that the people who are bypassing animals like this aren’t seeing the animal’s heart. I know that sounds cheesy, but that’s the honest truth about owning any pet. When you have a pet, you don’t see their color of their fur, you look at them and see them as yours. Its why you can look at your own cat or dog and see them completely different than any other cat or dog. Its why we can babble on-and-on about the cuteness of our pets, but when someone else starts talking about theirs? We can zone out.

I can’t describe it. It just is.

Don’t go to Jared. Goob, this is my response to you.

About two years ago around this time, my father-in-law was helping me shop for his daughter’s engagement ring. Well, it was actually in June of 2005, give or take, but even still, that’s beside the point. At this point, Sarah and I had looked around at numerous shops in the mall, which is the worst idea that I could tell you.

So, let’s start at the basics when it comes to buying a diamond. Men, this is a key thing. Do NOT go out on your own and say “That looks pretty, I’m going to get it.” No. No sirree bob. What you need to do, is you need to find out what your woman wants. While you might have that friend who’s ever so right and tells you “Well man, you’re broke. You can’t afford to get her the best thing out there.” Yeah, that’s true, but gentlemen, this is the woman we love. We can afford to do anything we possibly can for her, so why not try to push ourselves that extra limit? When you find out what she wants, don’t take your eyes off of it. And with this, I mean the 4 C’s.

I’m no gemologist, so I won’t go into them, but you can find good articles online. Noteably, I’d recommend this one for information on the cut and this one for the color, carat, and clarity. There used to be a really good one that I was reading a while back that had all of them and was nicely presented, but I removed all of my linkage.

So, when you’re at the mall and you’re looking at all of these shops, they’ll push you these diamonds that are lower down. You’ll be getting somethign that’s an H or I, SI1, .6 carat, excellent cut, for about 2 grand. If you’re the uninformed consumer, a lot of that might sound pretty good. I mean, you only hear about the carats of the diamond when you hear about the celebrity rings, and to have over half a carat, you think that’s great! Fact of the matter is, its far from it.

See, the trick to buying a diamond ring is to get the diamond and the ring parts separately. Find a jeweler friend of your family that you trust, or you can shop around for the separate diamond, and there are actually plenty of internet websites that you can find your diamond on.

This is what leads me to Jared.

One of the many places that my father-in-law and I stopped at in looking for individual diamonds and settings was Jared’s. And the salesman was just that.

When we were looking for a diamond for my wife’s engagement ring, I was glad I had my father-in-law along for the help. He had done this before–obviously, if he’s my wife’s dad, you know?–and also he had done a bit of work with jewelers and custom jewelry in the past. So he knew what to look for. And me? I kept quiet and listened a lot. And at Jared’s, that was useful.

We were looking for a princess cut diamond, perfectly square table (top of the diamond), and at a high quality and colorless, roughly around half a carat. This is the woman I chose to marry, so I didn’t mess around with what I got her. I got her what she wanted. And when we were looking at Jared’s, the employee who was helping us out, he was helping us find these perfect square ones. And he turned to me and he said “In the twenty some-odd years that I’ve been working in the jewelry business, I’ve seen maybe seven perfect square ones. The one you have is beautiful.” Of course, this is a diamond that alone costs about $4,000 that we’re looking at, which was one of the more expensive ones in the case we were in front of. Makes sense that he’d try to make it “special” for us. Then, I looked down in the case, and I started counting. You see, there were some perfect square ones in the case. Five of them, to be exact. I guess he’s only seen two others over the past twenty years? When we were looking online to find diamonds as well, we probably found a good twenty or thirty in various ranges of color and such.

Hmmmm…. Yeah, I don’t think so.

Needless to say, whenever I see any Jared’s commercial or I hear someone talking about them? I immediately end up talking about the one and only time I went there. If the guy went to Jared’s? He wasn’t smart. He wasted his money.

I know that I just barely posted, but I felt that this was worthwhile in adding…

The past few weeks on and off, shortly after I’ve posted, I’ve gotten an IM. And the screen name has changed each time. Its been interesting to say the least…

2/21/2008 - (9:10:08 AM) EssentialSalmon: Hello my friend.
2/23/2008 - (10:11:57 AM) DogEaredSalmon: hi. do I know you ? I don’t recognize the IM name.
2/26/2008 - (8:09:49 AM) ObsoleteSalmon: hello
2/28/2008 - (8:45:51 AM) NumerousSalmon: I do believe that you are a fucking slut bag whore.
3/3/2008 - (9:45:42 AM) FreedSalmon: Barack Hussein Obama is a documented Christian. He goes to church, and he prays to the Christian god. Do you really want that kind of person in the white house? Vote for Hillary Clinton, the one with experience. Pass this message on.

Needless to say, after getting the last one (and laughing my ass off), I felt the need to finally say something about this. The first time or two that this happened, I got a bit frustrated because I thought someone I knew was harassing me. But, as I came to realize and did a bit of Googling, well, it’s apparently something that’s been going around. All I’ve been able to find is that in some error messages related to it, its given the information “Project Upstream AI v.4.0.0a1″. Googling that brings up nothing. Still, interesting.

And just because I’m using the LiveJournal Crossposter plug-in on WordPress, and it crossposts public to my LJ, well, I’m victim.

Ah well, amusing, to say the least… I might have to update and link back to this post as time passes if they get any funnier… But some folks just have a bit too much time on their hands… Me too, because I’m sitting here writing about it…

There’s some things that I can’t really talk about just yet here on my blog, but I’ve been biting my tongue until they’re done so I can talk about them. I’ve been working on drafts of a few things that have been irritating me, and believe me, when I post, I’ll be posting.

But just common human idiocity will never cease to amaze me.

Completely different sidenote, but does anyone have any good suggestions for programs that are RSS feed readers? I’m looking for something to have sitting on my desktop that will minimize to my taskbar just so I can keep track of all of the feeds I like to read. I downloaded and am running Newzie now, but I’m not sure really if I like it…

Nowadays, we seem to have to have a flavor for everything: Coke, coffee, tea, and even water. Just drinking something plain doesn’t work–you have to flavor your coffee with syrup, drink your tea with honey or other additives, or have a Cherry Coke Zero. And add water to the equation, and you could have even more flavors and additives.

This brings me to what I’ve been thinking about recently. When I’m on campus, I’ve been drinking a lot of the Vitamin Waters. Why? Because they’re in the vending machines. And if I don’t have those, I’ve been drinking energy drinks.

But why the Vitamin Waters? Seriously. I could very easily just have regular water. Matter of fact, I carry a 1L bottle on me at all times when I’m on campus. I could very easily just drink and replenish at a water fountain. Why I don’t? Its beyond me.

Water is great, I like drinking a lot of it. I usually do drink a lot of it. But sometimes, I sit here thinking “Why am I drinking more water? I could be eating ice cream or having a pizza now.” Well, not the ice cream or the pizza part, but you get the drift.

Water is water is water. And its just another flavor. Its like the lemonade stand growing up. You’re just selling sugar, lemons, and water. You pay maybe $2 for a bag of sugar and maybe $2 for the lemon juice, and all in all, charging $.50 a glass, you can break even fairly fast. 8 glasses. Or, if you’re an entrepreneur, charge more a glass. Inflation does that.

Speaking of inflation, I shouldn’t be getting any more Vitamin Waters: they’re $1.75 each. But… flavor is so good…

On Wednesday, I had stepped to campus to sit down and grab a coffee and just try to find some inspiration for writing amidst other things. And when I went to the Java City and walked to the counter and ordered my usual large soy chai latte, I waited a little longer than normal.

I’ve taken to watching the “barista” and counting their pumps, and then making sure they actually give me soy milk. I’m paying for soy, I want soy. And believe me, I’ve been given milk before. Or I’ve been given soy, but its been steamed in the same carafe as the regular milk.

And then, they always ask me: “Would you like whipped cream on top?”

I find myself quietly replying no, and refraining from the yelling:
“Why the fuck would I want whipped cream? I just ordered a drink with soy milk and I wanted it hot. If I wanted it with regular milk or even slightly cold, I’d have ordered a javalanche or something. Besides, soy milk? And you’re offering me whipped cream? You ever consider that maybe I’d ask you for whipped if I wanted it? Or that maybe there’s a reason that I avoided having milk or dairly products in my drink in the first place?”

The fact of the matter is? I’m lactose intolerant. If I can, I avoid dairy products. The biggest problem with my lactose intolerance, though? Is that it ebbs and flows. Somedays I’m royally screwed with just a cup of milk, and other days I’ll have root beer floats with an extra cheese pizza and mozzarella sticks and feel just fine. So I never really know how I’m going to feel and I try to eat accordingly to that.

And besides, asking someone who’s ordered soy milk if they want to add milk to that? To me, its like a Chassidic Jew asking for a burger and the joint he’s at asking him if he’d like to make that a bacon cheeseburger. As if the yarmulke and sideburns aren’t giveaway enough…

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