There has been stuff going on in the world, it just seems like I haven't had the will to write anything about it. Regarding the topics of the day I have been too ambivalent to spend the time crafting commentary. For example:

Iran - What is happening to the people in the streets there is terrible, and I feel for them, but I can't get to excited about the revolutionary spirit when all of the candidates are hand-picked by the theocracy and represent slight variations in the same end of the political spectrum. When the choices are between the establishment candidate who was likely one of the embassy hostage takers, and the opposition candidate was one of the architects of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and a disciple of the Ayatollah Khomeni (though it's entertaining to hear conservatives supporting him without understanding that) , I have to throw up my hands in despair. Reza Aslan put it very well when he pointed out that the choice in Iran right now is do they become North Korea (isolated and oppressing it's citizens) or China (economically open and oppressing it's citizens). There is no American Revolution, or even Prague Spring option here, and that is tragic because the people of Iran deserve better. There is no chance they will get it though.

America - Our own country, and president, continue to disappoint, of course. Obama continues to talk about protecting the constitution while continuing or expanding Bush era presidential power-grab policies and ignoring basic legal principles like habeas corpus (we can still put people away forever with charges or trials because they are so dangerous we can't even talk about why they are so dangerous), and he continues to no follow though on the promises he made to roll back idiotic policies like Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage act. On the health care front most *Democrats* still seem unable to understand that 70% of Americans want a public healthcare option, never mind the Republicans who simultaneously argue that a public option would both result in rationing healthcare, be the worst thing that ever happened AND it would be so cost effective and provide such a great level of benefits that private companies would not be able to compete with it. Sometimes they say these things in the same sentence, and it amazes me when their heads do not explode. I was promised a socialist nightmare and I am still waiting.

My Personal Life - Is boring. I am happy, and that is never good for writing. The events that do occur in it are adequately documented on Facebook, and there is no need to repeat them here, though I should probably post some of the newer pictures of Holden, since Ashley assures me that hot chicks will flock to my website if I do so. Then again, I am adequately provisioned with hot chicks already.

So, instead of writing about important things here I am spending my time on trivial pursuits (literally, not the trivia game).

I have been writing movie reviews on Netflix (currently I have managed to moved my reviewer rank from 55,132 to 50,600 in a week. My goal is to get into the top 10,000. Yes, everything is a competition. I crave the approval of the mob, and will work for free for it. Interestingly, now that Salon has stopped marking letters to the editor as "Editor's Choice" I have stopped commenting there (with a 35% Editor's choice rate, which is *high*). I am sure there is no connection.

I have been fine tuning my Pandora radio stations - if you want an overview of my entire musical taste click here - it's still a little heavy on stuff with raw production (like the Strokes) and for some reason it occasionally spits out a song by the hated White Stripes other than "Fell in Love With a Girl", but overall it's pretty accurate. If you want to hear only the kind of jangly music that sets my nerve-endings a-tingle try this one.

Most importantly my Xbox Live Gamerscore is now over 9000. If only there were a game I wanted to play that could vault me over 10,000. Still, I am obviously better than those people with only 8,000.

So yeah, like I said...nothing worth writing about. I think the last 764 words prove that.

Basically, this is stupid because it allows investment holders to essentially "use their own judgement" in determining the value of those investments. If the market for those investments is not good (i.e. they are not worth very much) then the investment holder can pretend the investments are still worth what they would like them to be, rather than declaring them on their balance sheet at their actual value. This reduces transparency - financial reports will say everythign is just fine, until it's too late.

This is the kind of thinking that got s where we are today.

I assume that this means that homeowners will be able to borrow money against their homes at the value their "internal model" indicates the home is worth, rather than wha the appraiser tells the bank it's worth. Right? I mean, that's only logical.

Like some other's the thing I missed the most was the newstand vignettes, not just the vendor and the kid, but all of the characters that cross paths there - getting to know them and their day to day problems adds a great deal to the impact of the ending in the comic.

As for the end, it doesn't bother me too much. Basically any ending other than "talk Dr. Manhattan into periodically teleporting all the world's nuclear weapon program related materials into the sun" makes no logical sense anyway.

I hope this means that I will be un-excommunicated for my continued denial of The '80s

They follow this up by saying that World War II is what got the economy back on it's feet.

I can only assume this means that World War II was an act of the private sector, as opposed to government spending and job creating on a grand scale.

Idiots.

Our dialog is ruled by idiots. And Republicans. (Note that I was nice enough to make a distinction).

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

Is it a good game? I dunno...it's really easy to just sort of brute force your way through most levels, but even then it's completely charming. You owe it to yourself to at least grab the demo and play it through. If it makes you want to get a tablet computer with a digitizer though, don't blame me.

These people never fail to amuse. It's just too bad that they continue to be taken seriously in our political landscape. I hate to tell Pastor Rick this, but even if he manages to somehow stamp gays out of the public eye, he is still going to have those funny feelings when he watches a football game.

...makes me super, super happy. If you are totally cool and awesome, you will know why.

I don't know what to say other than thank you for being who you were. I can't even feel that sad because 85 is nothing to sneeze at.

Thanks, Bettie. You are amazing.

So far in the last two weeks I have received notice from three credit card companies informing that they are going to raise my rates by between 2% and 5%, even though I have not missed any payments or in any other way been a problem for them.

Now, of course, I can avoid these increases if I want to. I will have to do this by closing out the accounts, in writing, within about two weeks, which is a hassle in and of itself in - really? I can't call you, or take advantage of the online services that you otherwise love to push me off on to? Also, if I choose to avoid these extra charges by closing the accounts my credit rating actually takes a hit! All while the dick that runs Merrill Lynch insists he deserves a 10 million dollar bonus!

This is just as much fun as being told that after avoiding a crappy American car and spending my money on a well made foreign car I will still end up underwriting years of terrible decisions in Detroit, since they are just going to take the money anyway.

Bailouts are fun!

Really? Really?

Oh, yeah, I guess Jewel Staite may have been in it too.

This is the next big grab for Hollywood - these videos are DRMed, but that isn't enough for Sony. They now want to be able to dictate the specific hardware that you will be allowed to watch your movies on. I predict the next step will be an announcement that Columbia pictures Blu-Ray discs will only play in Sony-branded players. That is really no more ridiculous than this is.

UPDATE - Sony is now claiming that the restrictions have nothing to do with competition between Sony's PS3 and the Xbox 360. This doesn't chagne anything thoguh - they still should have absolutely no say what so ever in which platforms I choose to watch content on. A client is a client is a client.