lolcats

I love cats.

I also love pictures of cats.

I recently discovered something called lolcats. A good description can be found here and here.

Originally, most were created to use on forums, which is why many of them will talk about "threads" which is just another word for topic.

So, I'd like to share lolcats with you. The first entry on the top left of my blog is devoted to websites that have lolcats on them. Visit them. You will laugh. A lot.

You will need to understand "leetspeak," though. You can do a Google Search for other lists and explanations of leetspeak.

And below is one of my favorites:

Hi, I'm Matt. I used to play Video Games.

I've played video games for as long as I can remember. I played the Atari 2600, I owned an Atari 5200 and I also played the Atari 7800. Before any of that, I played the Commodore 64 and played something called The Magnavox Odyssey. I've owned every Nintendo console ever made.

I played Pong. I played Pac Man when it came out. Same for Space Invaders, Galaga, Centipede and Missile Command.

Video Games have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. And now they are not.

Basically, I think it was just time for me to grow up a little bit. I realized that my compulsion to play video games was causing me much trouble.

For instance, while I was deployed, I had a lot of time on my hands. What did I do? I played my favorite game of all time, Eve. It is, in my opinion, one of the best games of all time. I had a great group of folks I used to play with.

However, because I spent virtually every waking hour playing Eve, I did nothing else. No school work. No PT. No nothing. Instead of using the internet connection I had to get ahead on my degree, I used it to play video games. I deeply regret that.

My problem is, I get too involved. I've often thought that I might have an addictive personality, that I just get far too wrapped up in things, without considering other alternatives for my use of time.

When I got back from Kuwait, I made a decision that I would spend time with my wife first and then play video games. Or, I would only play video games a couple times a week.

Yeah.

That lasted about two weeks.

I quit playing Eve, but I started playing other games, like Dawn of War and Auto Assault. I thought I would be able to take it easy and play them just a little here and there. Within a month, I was doing the same thing.

So, after a few months, I, with a LOT of help from my wife, decided that I would simply stop playing video games. It's obvious I can't handle playing them.

See, video games of today, like Eve or World of Warcraft or Auto Assault, are designed to be addictive. Really, they activate the same area of the brain that drugs activate. Once you play, it's incredibly hard to stop. Plus, because we are social beings, the socialization that comes with online games keeps us coming back for more.

So, I made the decision that I would simply quit playing. It's been a couple months and I don't regret the decision.

Like a smoker, though, every once in a while I'll get a peculiar desire to play a game, specifically Eve. Most of the time, I'll just ignore it and it goes away. Sometimes, I'll visit the website and take a look at some of the game play pictures and I'll be fine. Those incidences are becoming fewer and fewer, though.

I've since replaced my addiction to game with several things, like working out and spending time with my wife. I've lost a bit of weight and I think my wife likes having me around now.

It's not a decision I regret.

Ode to our Doughboy

On Thursday, 17 May, we made the decision to put our cat, Vincenzo, to sleep. It was truly the only humane option.

He was throwing up a lot, urinating on the floor and acting very odd- laying around on the floor, not eating or drinking and not using the litter box. We took him to the Emergency Vet who thought it was just an infection. After force feeding him medicine, which did nothing, we took him to the Vet on Monday morning, who determined that he had a urinary tract blockage. The Vet put in a catheter for 48 hours and all seemed fine. On Wednesday, he took it out. By Thursday morning, he was blocked up again. The Vet gave us greater than 50% odds that he would experience more blockage if he put the catheter back in and surgery was too expensive- and also had high odds that the blockage would return. Since Vincenzo had been suffering for almost five days already, we decided that the most humane option would be to put him to sleep.

It was one of the hardest moments of my entire life. I don't think I've ever cried so much or so hard. My wife was surely more heartbroken. She's had Vincenzo longer than she's known me.

Vincenzo lived a good, long 10 years. He was an indoor cat, so he lived a life of luxury and never wanted for anything. We loved him and showed our love to him at every opportunity. He will be greatly missed.

Vincenzo, we love you and we miss you. We'll always remember how you loved to hang your front feet off the sofa, or sleep on our shoes, or the scale, or anything else that you could find on the floor. We'll miss how you waddled when you walked. We'll miss how you would remind us every night to brush you. We'll miss how you followed us to every room. We'll miss how you would let us know that your feeder was getting low several days in advance and how much you loved Clean Water Day. We'll miss how you came running for one thing: tuna juice.

But most of all, we'll miss your ever-present company and just knowing that you were always around.

I hope God has plenty of tuna juice and clean water for you in heaven.

We love you.

Random Political Thoughts

New Bumper Stickers

Hillary/Obama/Edwards:
Not George Bush since 1776

Guliani/McCain/Romney:
Not George Bush since 1776

Er... wait...

Those who don't trust anyone else cannot be trusted

I think I've figured out the Left/Progressives. I've been trying to figure out what exactly is the core of the Left's belief system and until now, it's mostly boggled me. But I think I've got it now.

Trust. The Left doesn't trust the Average American. Yes, that's scathing. Yes, it's a blanket statement, but walk with me for a minute as I explore this line of thinking.

Let's go with Gun Control first. The Right generally supports the Second Amendment. There are some that want everyone to have guns. They are idiots. Not everyone (criminals, mentally ill, underage, etc.) should have guns. But the more level-headed realize that it is our right to have guns and that "an armed society is a polite society." (Thank you, Robert Heinlein!) The Left, from what I can generally gather is the polar opposite. No one (except for the military and police) should have guns. Period. There is plenty of research out there that confirms that guns do not cause crime. In fact, that same research explicitly proves that if the citizenry is armed, crime is reduced, and if the citizenry is disarmed, crime increases. It's like magic! This is proven over and over again. So, what's the deal?

Well, I've already made my major point in that it's a matter of trust. The Left doesn't trust "other people" with guns. Right after the VA Tech massacre, there was a short debate about gun control and basically as soon as it was demonstrated that a single student with a gun would have stopped the whole thing, the conversation was pretty much dropped from the news. I was listening to someone talk about gun control and they stated, "I don't think I would feel safe if an entire major American city's population was armed." Er... why? Because they'd all be violent, crime-loving barbarians as soon as they bought the firearm? Hardly. It's because he didn't trust anyone but himself. Rest assured that more people carry concealed weapons than you probably realize.

This is kind of like how, for a long while, pretty much everyone believed that everyone else on the internet was some kind of homosexual, child-stalking, porn-watching pervert or something.

Let's move on to another topic: Poverty and the welfare state. What's the deal with the Left always wanting to raise the minimum wage and put more folks on welfare? Remember, welfare was supposed to eliminate poverty. I guess in one way, it did. Our poor have more stuff/money/resources than the rest of the world's poor. So, we have the richest poor in the world. But it's all relative. The poor (and the Left) measure their "poorness" against the "rich" and their "richness." The average family in poverty has a microwave, TV, cell phone and a car. The average rich family? Well, I don't know. But I can use my imagination and choose to believe that they have a better microwave, a larger TV, more minutes per month on their cell phone plan and better and more cars. Whether that's true... I don't know.

But, getting back to the point, the massive expansion of our welfare state was caused by the Left. Why? Because they didn't trust the Average American to take care of the Less Than Average American. Now, I don't know if that is really true. But what does it matter? The Left scored a huge voting block because of this. However, I am inclined to think that if The Church (yes, the Christian Church) spent more time taking care of the poor then, we wouldn't have so much of a poverty problem now. Basically, and I have no facts to back this up, I believe that The Church fell down on the job and that is why the Government decided to step up. Now, I concede that it is possible that The Church could possibly have been doing very well at caring for the poor and the government just wanted to score that big voting block, but I guess we'll never know.

Next topic: Affirmative Action. In short, the government doesn't trust the private sector to hire enough people of race (whether they are qualified or not) so the government stepped in and dictated how many of every race you must hire. Or else.

Abortion: Well, I haven't quite figured this one out. I do know, however, that calling it a "women's rights issue" is bogus. It's all about the money. Sure, it may have started as a women's rights issue, but that's not the case any more.

So, now that I've given you a prism through which to view politics of the Left, see if you can take an issue and break it down this way. See if you don't get as ticked off as I do about it.

My Dream Republican Ticket

Romney/Gingrich or Gingrich/Romney

Gingrich totally excites me. He's the most intellectual person I think I've ever seen on television. Check out the Contract with America to see some of his handiwork.

Romney is smart, looks good, has great Christian values and doesn't say "nuk-u-lar," at least I haven't heard him say it.

50% of something is better than 100% of nothing

I heard someone say that today on the radio. He was referring to Guliani, and how he is pro-choice, and how many conservatives won't vote for him because of that. Sad, really. Put it this way, you don't have to vote for Guliani in the Primaries, but you had better vote for him the general if he's the nominee. What would you want more:

Guliani, a pro-choice Republican who shares a few of our values, will be strong on terror and crime and will be a strong presence in the White House

Hillary/Obama/Edwards, pro-choice Democrats who share none of our values and will appease and attempt to negotiate with terrorists (including probably passing laws to make it illegal to detonate a nuk-u-lar weapon inside a U.S. city)

What do you get if you don't vote for Guliani because he's pro-choice? A Democrat who is pro-choice. You lose.

If you don't vote, we will lose.

The Tornado in Kansas

As you should be aware, there was a huge tornado in Kansas this weekend. I heard on the radio that at the strongest point, the tornado cut a swath 1.7 miles wide. The whole town is destroyed. Luckily, fewer people died than would be expected from such a disaster.

My thoughts and prayers are with the citizens and family members of Greensburg.

But it didn't take long for the media to politicize this and how the Iraq war has caused the state to not be prepared for a time such as this. Isn't there some kind of psychological term for when everything you see is somehow related to one thing? Isn't that a form of religious fanaticism?

Anyway, the MSM reported this: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius says a shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment - all sent to the war in Iraq - has hampered recovery in a US town obliterated by a tornado.

"There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Governor Sebelius, a Democrat, said in Kansas, where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12.

"Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap."

"Boo Hoo! That meanie President Bush sent all my trucks and planes away and now I have nothing to help my citizens with."

Nowhere does it say how many of the actual Soldiers are deployed. I know for a fact that a lot of Guard units leave their stuff over there when the Soldiers themselves return from deployment. So, we really don't have the full story about who and what is here. It's unlikely we'll get it, too, since 1. The MSM likely won't tell us. 2. They couldn't get that info anyway because it's sensitive information. Troop strength and stuff, you know.

I'm not doubting that a majority of the Kansas NG stuff is in Iraq. But I'm doubting and questioning the reason something else.

We've been deploying the National Guard to foreign soil since Clinton was president, so for at least 10 years. They went with their stuff then, too, and brought it back when the mission was done. At what point did someone ever think, "Hey, a lot of our stuff is gone. Since we're the National Guard, and our main job is to help in times of domestic crisis, and our stuff is not here, shouldn't we get new stuff? Especially since we live in FREAKIN' TORNADO ALLEY! Especially since the EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED TWO YEARS AGO WITH HURRICANE KATRINA?"

I mean, come on. Really. No one had the foresight to think about this? I would love to know whose job it is to think of stuff like this.

I suppose, though, that it would have been a catch-22. "What? You have BRAND NEW equipment here in the States that you aren't sending to Iraq? You sent them to war and now you won't send them new equipment? You Loser."

God vs. Science

There's been some talk about a couple Christian guys getting ready to debate a couple atheist guys and how the Christian guys are going to prove God exists through Science and without the Bible.

Ugh. I hate it when Christians (or atheists!) think they can do this. I have a bad feeling the atheists are going to take their lunch and walk all over the Christian guys, but not because God doesn't exist, but because the Christian guys are... well... dumb for trying this.

Let's get one thing straight. You can't prove or disprove God with science. Period. Anyone who thinks they can clearly has no idea what science actually is and risks basically making a fool of themselves. I say this for both sides. Atheists can't disprove God with science, either, because that's not the way this works.

I like to define stuff, so let me define science.

1 : the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
2 a : a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study science of theology> b : something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge science>
3 a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : NATURAL SCIENCE
4 : a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws science and an art
5 capitalized : CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

I added the bold in definition 3. Basically, science is the study of the observable, what is around us. Additionally, it uses the scientific method to describe and prove/disprove concepts, events and theories. This is not how to prove God exists.

Revelation 12:11 says, " They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony..." That is how to do it. You're not going to prove anything about God in 10 minutes. If it was possible to do so, it would be done over and over and over again. Plus, half of the Bible would be useless because we would no longer need faith. Also, if science could do it all, why would Evangelism even be a gift of the Spirit? People don't instantly get convinced that they need Christ. They get convinced that they need what Christians have. This takes time and some folks will never be convinced of that. That's just the way it is.

Anyway, science uses methods to prove concepts. There are many divisions of science, like physics, chemistry, meteorology, astronomy and the like. In every single one of those divisions, there are theories and concepts and principles that follow rules that don't change. F=MxA (Force equals mass times acceleration) is one. The Laws of Thermodynamics are others. Over and over and over again, these can be proven.

The problem is, many people think that a Theory is something that is not provable, that it is a "belief" that scientists have. (Actually, that's criminally oversimplified.) A Theory is a belief, but not because there's no evidence to prove the Theory and scientists need "faith" to understand said theory. A scientific theory is called a theory because there are parts of the theory that aren't quite understood or haven't been figured out quite yet or predict how something is supposed to act, but we haven't had the chance to prove it. A large (or small) part of a scientific theory follows the laws that should be followed, but there are some parts that are missing, and those parts are expected to follow whatever laws should apply. Okay, let's make this more complex.

Relativity. Wait! Stop! Keep reading! It's called a Theory because it best explains the behavior of an object inside a gravitational field. No one else has a better explanation, and the principles stated within General Relativity best explain what happens to objects that are affected by gravity. In fact, parts General Relativity can be proven over and over and over again and have been. However some parts, specifically relating to, say, black holes, are only predictions, since we can't actually visit or even really see black holes. However, we expect them to act a certain way, and no one has any reason to believe that they won't. That is how theories work. Okay, done with Relativity.

You can't prove/disprove God with science because that's not how He works. Besides, if God created science, why would he allow Himself to be disproved by it and if he wants us to use faith (as evidenced by the many times in the Bible it says so) why would He allow himself to boxed into being proven by a simple scientific experiment?

So, good luck guys. I hope you know your stuff because I think you are going to get trounced.

Oh, and to anyone who may think so: SCIENCE IS NOT EVIL. Period. And I'll debate anyone who thinks so... as if anyone actually reads this blog....

Some good links

Here are some great links I've picked up in the past few days:

Why a College Degree really isn't about the education. This is a really great article from a Left-of-Center website, that in and of itself is pretty good.

The Force is Strong with this one. Holy Cow, I haven't laughed this hard at a clip in a long time. Yes, it's picking on the President a bit, but who cares! It's very, very funny. "Get me a taco!"

... and the Empire will be defeated by Ewoks! Yes, I had to start surfing YouTube for a bit after I saw that first one. Robot Chicken is totally awesome

There are more. I'll post 'em when I remember 'em.

I'm not as broken as I thought I was...

I don't have a Stress Fracture in my right femur. I have "stress changes."

Basically, I have an area on both of my femurs (right is much more acute) that are evidence of stress to the bone: an inflammation in the periosteum of my femur, in other words. This is according to the PA that saw me yesterday.

Now, I could not find an actual medical reference to something called a "stress change." But, I was able to track down what I really have, or at least as close as my non-MD mind can figure out.

I have shin splints in my thighs. The medical term is periosteitis, but I don't know for sure if that term refers only to shin or to other bones as well.

Naturally, I am a bit skeptical. The femur is the largest bone in the body and the spot on my leg that has the injury is right in the middle inside, away from any joints. I may yet request a second opinion, but I want to see how my physical therapy goes; this starts Monday.

I did get a whopper of a profile, though. (In the Army, if you are injured and see a doctor, he should give you a sheet of paper stating what you can and can't do, in terms of activity. This is to relieve stress to the injured part and allow it to heal. It can range from "Run at own pace" to having nearly all activities curtailed or prohibited.) Basically, I can't run, jump, stand for more than 20 minutes, march, forced march or do any kind of heavy leg activity, like flutter kicks or "froggers." So, looks like swimming is going to be my exercise, along with biking.

And I still can't climb rocks. My profile ends on June 3rd. You can bet I'll be climbing that night.