Here We Go Again, Redux

So, here comes Ike, coming to wtfpwn Tina, err Texas.

I was watching on one of the Houston TV stations website the storm surge, from the hurricane that is still 150 or so miles away, hop Galveston's sea walls like they weren't even there.

Check out what the NWS has to say about Ike.

LIFE THREATENING FLOOD INUNDATION IS LIKELY! ALL NEIGHBORHOODS...AND POSSIBLY ENTIRE COASTAL COMMUNITIES...WILL BE INUNDATED DURING THE PERIOD OF PEAK STORM TIDE. PERSONS NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY HOMES MAY FACE CERTAIN DEATH. MANY RESIDENCES OF AVERAGE CONSTRUCTION DIRECTLY ON THE COAST WILL BE DESTROYED. WIDESPREAD AND DEVASTATING PERSONAL PROPERTY DAMAGE IS LIKELY ELSEWHERE. VEHICLES LEFT BEHIND WILL LIKELY BE SWEPT AWAY. NUMEROUS ROADS WILL BE SWAMPED...SOME MAY BE WASHED AWAY BY THE WATER. ENTIRE FLOOD PRONE COASTAL COMMUNITIES WILL BE CUTOFF. WATER LEVELS MAY EXCEED 9 FEET FOR MORE THAN A MILE INLAND.

The last NWS warning I have seen with the term 'certain death' in it was for Katrina. So I guess the point is that we have about 12 hours left for Galveston, before it becomes an island of corpses.

Of course I hope I and the NWS is wrong, but when you have police asking people to write their SSNs on their arms so it would be easy to identify the body... Well, let's just say that isn't a confidence builder.

I would like to wish my buddy, Keith, the best. He assures me that he is far enough inland in Houston that he will be fine. Good luck!

I failed... Sorta...

I have still not had a cigarette. Will be a week when I wake up later today. However I totally broke my carbohydrate rule today and ate some crackers with my ham and swiss snackable (which I was forced to buy from the Wheel of Death since I forgot to make my own lunch).

I also had some soup Saturday night, which pushed me over my 20 carbs a day.

I have determined that it's very hard to not eat a lot when I am not smoking. But, short of violating my carb limit, I still have kept my caloric intake below 1,000. So that should be something!

But another negative is that I seem to be substituting Sprite Zero for cigarettes. Instead of having a smoke every 20 or so minutes when I am on the computer, I am having a can of Sprite. Or chugging from a two liter.

The Sprite habit might end up costing me more than smoking. Lord, why did you give me such an addictive personality?!

John McCain

I know you all have been waiting on pins and needles for my take on John McCain's acceptance speech. So I will keep you waiting no longer.

Senator John McCain is certainly no Barack Obama when it comes to speaking. In fact if you were to try to compare the two speeches, I would throw a yellow flag at you and declare a fifteen yard penalty. It seriously would be like trying to compare a blog written by Shakespeare and a blog written by me.

None the less, I believe that Sen. McCain delivered a great speech. He didn't receive as long of a round of applause at the beginning that Sen. Obama did, but that's just because Republicans are more orderly then Democrats. Plus most of them wanted to get out of there before Minnesota winter started.

McCain received several rounds of applause during the speech, especially when a code pink protester, who some how made it through GOP security, tried to protest. McCain made an off the cuff remark about static and once the protester was taken out, he continued on.

One of the most interesting parts of the speech was when he talked about his POW experience. I was a little weary as I don't have much love for the 'Vote for me, I'm a war hero!' shtick, but it was good. McCain explained how the experience caused him to go from him being McCain for McCain to McCain for America. How when he returned he wanted to serve his country and his people.

I've seen people criticize it, but I don't see the difference in that story and Obama's story about growing up with his grandmother and seeing her plight and feeling the need to serve the community. Different circumstances, same story.

McCain didn't spend much time talking about the issues, as I wouldn't expect him to in his acceptance speech. One thing he said confused me...

Government assistance for the unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That's going to change on my watch.

I am unsure if that means he's going to eliminate unemployment or increase it. I do support safety nets to keep people afloat during circumstances that are out of their control, assuming these nets are not abused. So I would not support an elimination or reduction in unemployment.

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parent -- when it fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them.

Oh that part made all gooey. I am a HUGE supporter of vouchers or tax credits that allow parents to send their children to private or charter schools. One of the things that has always bugged me about the democrats is their desire to throw more money at a failed system, rather than allow parents a choice in which school to send their kids to. Of course with a democratic controlled congress, legislation for vouchers and tax credits will never pass, but we'll see.

McCain's statement on energy is more in line with my beliefs and I would love to see a system of power plants and cars that relied less and less on foreign oil. (Of course we get MOST of our oil from Canada and Mexico, a pair of countries that would never backstab us, but still, with it produced domestically, maybe it wouldn't be on the open market and the price wouldn't be controlled by speculation.)

McCain, in his typical maverick style, said he would take ideas from both sides and implement them, if they were good. I do like the idea of a president that will not tow the party lines.

One thing that does concern me about a McCain presidency is the stacking of the Supreme Court with judges that will decide based on their own political beliefs (i.e. Roe v. Wade), rather than the constitution and the rule of law. That bothers me with both sides, but with the republicans, it's far more worrisome.

As well, McCain mentioned 'global economy' more than once, which leads me to believe that he will not necessarily choose policies that will discourage American companies from moving operations overseas. While he did mention lowering the business tax rates (calling ours the second highest in the world), that is also legislation that will never pass a democratic controlled congress.

All in all, I thought the speech was good. Not as good as Obama's, but then again, you cannot compare the public speaking ability of the two. Am I going to vote for McCain? I don't know yet. I am PROBABLY going to vote for Bob Barr, since my vote will help get the Libertarian party to 5% so they can get matching funds in the next election (even though I do not think they will get 5% nationally). But I am still up in the air.

While I have decided that I will not vote for Sen. Obama, I have not yet decided that that I will or will not vote for Barr or McCain. We still have a couple of months to decide, which may end up being moot if I continue to put off registering.

Vivid Dreams?

So I am awake, against my own will. I ended up napping most of Labor Day away with CNN in the background going nuts over Gustav. And when that failed to slaughter millions, Palin's daughter. I slept for a couple of hours tonight, but I at this point I don't think I can get back to sleep. Even if I could, I need to be up in three hours anyway, so what's the point, eh?

Anyway, I had the strangest dream and I wonder if the nicotine patches have something to do with it.

On the box, it lists one of the possible side effects of the patch as 'vivid dreams.' I am unsure exactly what that means, but it says if you have them you should remove the patch before bedtime and apply a new one in the morning.

I tend to have weird and obscure dreams, but nothing to this level of WTF. So, would this qualify?

I dreamed that I was Ranma Saotome, from the anime Ranma 1/2. It's one of my favorite anime, so I occasionally see it pop up in my dreams. The first part of the dream was rather uneventful, albeit strange. I was interacting with some of the other characters, but none seemed to behave the way the characters should. There also seemed to be some homoerotic overtones being pushed upon me that I had no interest in and had no place in the actual anime.

So, I got frustrated and went upstairs to my room. However there I found monsters out of either World of Warcraft (WoW) or Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO). I promptly slayed them, looted the corpses and laid down on the bed to take a nap. However it wasn't to be and I ended up engaging more of the beasts.

Determined to take my nap - why I would dream about sleeping is beyond me - I headed out to defeat all of the beasts and their leader. Please note that as I went out to do this, the WoW user interface appeared. So my dream was like I was playing a game, but unlike WoW, I was seeing things first person.

I was also lacking 'cards' I needed in order to use any magic skills. Now I have only played WoW and DDO once via a free trial period, so I have no clue how the magic and stuff works. So this was kind of out of left field. None the less, I was forced to only use my fists (which is cool because Ranma does have some pretty good hand to hand combat skills) and a sword I found.

I went from room to room saying different beasts, some of which looked a lot like some bugs I was dealing with when I lived in Vegas, only bigger. I also squished some ants (the ants were normal size). Making thing stranger, ant 'paramedics' came out to retrieve their injured comrades, but I squished them too, in violation of the laws of war.

The final room I went into was a very large, seemingly public library. There I confronted the man in charge. Or in this case, the woman in charge. The head monster (so far) was a very sexy, purple, librarian demon. She had the black rim glasses and everything. To make a long story short(er), we battled. She managed to disarm me and do damage, but I was able to eventually disarm her.

Did I mention that there were patrons in the library and security guards who seemed oblivious to our battle? Well, there were.

About five minutes into the battle, I managed to convince her that instead of fighting, we should team up and have sexual relations. She agreed and we started to make out on the couch. I straddled her and as she was stripping, I delivered a devastating series of blows (i.e. punches, not 'blows') that killed her.

The look on her face was similar to the look on mine when I woke up. The 'dude, not cool' look.

After I had achieved victory through deception, I quickly celebrated, then confronted the real leader. The man in charge of the library. Satan.

Not just any Satan though. Satan from South Park.

Satan, who was either moving into or out of his office congratulated me and suggested that we could be friends. I thanked him and asked him for a favor. But, as I explained, not the kind of favor that would condemn me to hell for eternity, but a library related favor. He asked what it is and I asked him if he could stock more books on alchemy, since until I located my cards I could not use my magic.

Satan, being the professional he is, said that he would immediately order the books. He then renewed my library card for me.

I then woke up. After lying in bed thinking about the dream for a while, I removed the patch and decided that I would no longer wear it to bed. I think by the very detail that I remembered the dream, it would count as vivid.

Actually, I might wear it to bed tomorrow. Just to see what comes next. Maybe it could be the next new sitcom!