Long Blog is Long:

An Apology to those with short attention spans.

Hello!

Well, I haven't been updating all that often, fear not, I am not dead. I did get sick though, and that kinda sucked. More than the coughing, the really bad part was that I didn't feel like doing anything, not cleaning, not bloggin, nothing. So now I will attempt to recap a few major events of recent.

Firstly, to pick up where the last post left off, the cave experience was awesome. We went out to the "long tunnel", aka Mines of Moria (we being Me, Rob, Alex, Kyla, and Jon). It was really fun, and there were no goblin attacks. We did end up making it through the entire tunnel, though there was an old cave-in half way through, and the second half was more flooded (only the old ww2 railroad rails were above water. they were also very close together, and I got along most of the second half by moving in a very tight fencing position ^_^ ). I did get a soaker, but it was okay, since the whole thing was fun. Jon tried to get pics, but they apparently didn't turn out, so we are already planning to go again, and bring a tripod, and boots/water shoes. We kept on going to rupert to get dry clothes and coffee and a few other random things, and then came home.

Then I got sick. Not related to the tunnels, as I was actually getting a little bit of a cough beforehand, but I really wanted to go. so I had a sore throat for the last week, with varying amounts of laziness/tiredness. I still went to work though, so that was good.

At work unfortunately, I encountered a Keno Zombie. these are people who are so concentrated on Keno that they do not react to the outside world anymore. One woman came in to play keno, and ended up standing right where I needed to put down a mat. so I asked her to move.... for 8 minutes straight. 8 minutes of "mam? mam, can you please move, excuse me, mam? excuse me, mam? hello? can you please move for a moment?", but she never acknowledged me. so eventually, i just put the mat down kinda draped around her legs, but she still didn't notice, she just stared at the keno board.

on to other stuff, namely that I am in the market for a new sidekick, as my former sidekick is going solo, off in a new city. It is kinda like with Batman & Robin, where robin eventually struck out on his own, becoming Night Wing. Jay is becoming Night Jay, as opposed to just "Jay" (which is a kind of bird). I send luck and best wishes to Jay in his crime fighting in his new city.

Other than all that I have been cleaning a bunch on my days off, to make up for the whole "not cleaning thing", and now my room is all sparkly again. :3

One thing that happened at work recently annoyed me. I'll keep it brief, but essentially a woman from the Friendship house wanted us to not sell energy drinks to native kids, because she was concerned about the health problems. Really concerned, she equated it to being worse than smoking and heroin, and fell just short of accusing me of being some sort of devil-worshipping drug pusher. Although she was nuttier than a granola bar, it did raise an ethical dilemma in me as far as the balance between "regulation for possible safety concerns" and "Personal freedom and personal responsibility" are concerned. I tend to think that we have gone far overboard on the "for your own good" thing. I worry that we have downplayed the idea of personal choices, freedoms, and responsibilities, maybe even to the point that people don't even understand it anymore.

Take smoking: everybody and their infant knows that smoking is bad for your health, but to some that means that it should be made illegal. The idea of someone having the opinion of "yes, i know it is bad for me, but I choose to do it anyways" is foreign and strange. Imagine if we continued down this slippery slope (admittedly, I think we are already half way down the slope already): you cannot be a police officer, its too dangerous. You cannot join the military, it may be bad for your health. Not allowed to go skiing, you may hurt yourself. Sugar causes diabetes and cavities, we should make it a controlled substance.

"You Betrayed the LAaauuueeeaaaaooaaw"
"The Laaaaeeeeuuuuuueeeaaaaww?"
(judge Dredd reference anyone? sugar is a controlled substance? because its bad for you? no personal freedoms, only the law and the unmerciful judiciary system? anyone?)


So right now, as a creative outlet, I'm trying to work on some stuff for Cold Metal, though I may rename it. Its the post-Apocalypse rpg world where humans actually were annihilated, and the only sentient life now is little religious 6cm tall robots. Mostly I have just been trying to come up with good names that have a Christian/Jewish/Muslim/computer-stuff sound to them.


Anyways, that's my journal/rant/bloggins for today, everyone should have a good day today.
- Andrew XLR