Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the people who helped Ron Paul raise over FOUR MILLION dollars on Guy Fawkes day.  That is an amazing feat for a grassroots campaign, and an incredible show of support for the Texas libertarian.

Now, let's keep it up!

“Failure of government programs prompts more determined efforts, while the loss of liberty is ignored or rationalized away. Whether it’s the war against poverty, drugs, terrorism, or the current Hitler of the day, an appeal to patriotism is used to convince the people that a little sacrifice of liberty, here and there, is a small price to pay. The results, though, are frightening and will soon become even more so.”  -Ron Paul, 2003

"Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy. A few have, and others will continue to do so, but too many—both in and out of government—close their eyes to the issue of personal liberty and ignore the fact that endless borrowing to finance endless demands cannot be sustained. True prosperity can only come from a healthy economy and sound money. That can only be achieved in a free society." -Ron Paul, 2003

Oh. My. God.

It owns my life right now.  GH3 is the first game in the series to come out for a Nintendo system, and thus, the first game in the series that I've played (apart from the one GH 2song I tried at GameStop a year ago... trippin' on a hole in a paper heart by STP in case you're curious).

I've been waiting to own Guitar Hero since the series launched a couple of years ago.  I like to mess around with a guitar once in a while, but I don't want to devote the time and energy to really learning how to master the instrument.  This is where Guitar Hero comes in.  I knew I would love it, and I was right.  

It might be the most challenging and tangibly rewarding game I've ever played.  You practice, you get better, in a very real way.  It's addictive and immensely satisfying.

For anyone out there familiar with the game, I tore through medium difficulty without much trouble, and have worked my way up to tier 8 on hard all in about 4 days.  I don't know if that's above or below the curve, but I feel like I've really made a lot of progress.

Now, back to rocking!

Insomnia.  Grar.

It occurs to me that I havn't really posted much about Team Sleep. For those not in the know, TS is the side project of deftones front man Chino Moreno. It's sort of a dreamy, low-tempo, quasi-electronic trip-hop/rock thingamabob. The songs are achingly beautiful. Below the cut, I'll be embedding whatever vids I can find of some Team Sleep songs on youtube (yeah... it'll be slim pickins).

Give 'em a shot.  You won't be disappointed.

Thank you, Sox.

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

My second real hailstorm since moving to Nebraska.  Bit in mid-October?  Really?  I leaned outside for a second and got pinged in the noggin.  Ow.  This pic was taken literally about 60 seconds after it started.  Please ignore the half-painted garage.


EDIT:  I love how the auto-flash made it look like the hail stones were flying up away from the ground.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Harvard's endowment rose to $34.9 billion this year.

That's BILLION, with a B. To put that dollar amount into perspective, $34.9 billion is more than the gross domestic product of some countries (Costa Rica, Iceland, and Sri Lanka to name a few).

That is a chunk of change. Invested conservatively, for a 5% annual return, that endowment would still earn $1.7 billion a year. Federal law also requires many types of philanthropies to disburse 5% per year in order to retain their tax-exempt status. If Harvard were to take that 5% and divide it out among all of their 16,000+ grad and undergrad students, it would come out to about $104,000 per person. And yet, the average Harvard undergrad living on campus is paying $37,900 a year AFTER financial aid is subtracted in order to attend there.

Would it kill you, Harvard, to throw a little bit of that $34,900,000,000 (it's scary when you put all the zeroes in, isn't it?) into helping low-income, academically-accomplished kids get a top-flight education? What is the more noble goal for your instution: educating people who will appreciate the opportunity or sitting on as ridiculously large a pile of assets as possible?

Listen and fall in love with those fabulous DuPrees.

...to recognize genius in all its forms.

Greatest fanvid of all time?

Conveniently timed to coincide with my day off, it's...

Another slipped disc in my lower back! Yay!

At least I think it's a slipped disc. The particular pain and stiffness feel awfully familiar, but it's not as bad as the last time. It may have even popped back in on it's own last night or this morning, because it's hurting less already and the swelling seems to be subsiding.

Still, not much fun, but if it did manage to straighten itself out (I know a bit about how to stretch and contort myself to try to fix it on my own nowadays *pats own back, har de har*) at least I won't have to go get cracked, which is not a very enjoyable experience when your back is out. I guess we'll see what it's like when I wake up tomorrow.

Also: feeling sort of vaguely irritated and bored at the moment. The irony here being that normally I would view parking my ass on the futon all day as an activity (or lack thereof) to be savored, but when forced into said position by lumbar-related developements, I find myself annoyed and chafing at the confinement.

Just another consequence of being such a contrary person, I suppose.