I haven't been paying attention to this thread but I'll chime in here with some friendly advice that's far easier to give than it is to take.
I smoked cigarettes for close to twenty five years before having a heart attack about six years ago. As far as heart attacks go it really wasn't all that bad, I got by with an angioplasty instead of major bypass surgery. Even so, once I had my heart attack, I found it very easy to give up cigarettes. Those three foot rods that they stick up holes you didn't know you even had can be quite compelling. I suspect that the breaking of your sternum like a chicken breast and the use of the rib spreaders involved in major bypass surgery would be even more compelling.

Although my angioplasty was deemed a success the result is that one third of my heart muscle is dead. It’s actually surprising how fit you can actually be with only two thirds of a heart and a bit of consistent exercise. Even with all of this I still enjoy the smell of cigarette smoke although I’m long past any temptation to imbibe. It also pisses me off how smokers are treated as criminals on one hand and an infinite source of tax revenue for the state on the other hand.

Anyway, the only thing I can say is that any fool can learn from his own mistakes, a wise person learns from the mistakes of others.

I may be younger then you Evil. But, as a college student at a private university, whose parents are not paying for my education, while also not taking any Federal loans (yet), and with Law School still ahead, I think I understand about not having a lot of money laying about.



That would be a horrible way to live, I agree. But making "personal" purchases to validate things is no way to live either. If one's life is so awful that by the end of the week they need to buy something to feel better about themselves, then they need to discover teh bigger world out there.

If people want more to thier life then paying bills, there are hundreds of ways that don't involve spending money.

Ideas would be: volunteer at your local homeless shelter, become a "big brother/big sister", join a community sports team, become invovled in your religous organization, read a book, write a book, become a community activist, join a political campaign, etc.

All of these would cost less money then buying to placate one's self esteem, and would have a much longer lasting effect. You can either blame others, or take responsability for your own happiness.

Well since you had to go ahead and get all 'ZEN' on my butt...
I know where you're coming from and your points are well made. I just wanted you to know that it isn't always cut and dry as some people like to think. My situation is no where near the things of which you speak, nor has it ever been. This will never change the view I have of this society which is the rich are basically greedy swine who at some point are only going to learn when you hand them their heads in baskets! Cheers!

Plus, judging by your medals, you seem to have an awful lot of free time on your hands for someone who is going to school and I would assume, working to pay for your tuition? Just an off hand observation... kind of like the one you make towards materialism... hmmm, any similarities come to mind?

Just one more thing. So it can be assumed that you wish to become a lawyer, correct? Why? Will you take nothing but 'pro bono' cases? Are you seeking a position as a public defender so that you can help those 'less fortunate' than you? Have you always had a fascination with the inner workings of our legal system? Or is it that you wish to earn a tremendous amount of money with as little actual physical effort as possible so that you can afford a trophy wife and all the trappings that come with her? Will you buy a modest and reasonably priced home or will you have some mega-mansion built since by then you just might make the kind of money necessary to do so?
See, it's been a VERY LONG TIME since I've met a doctor, dentist, or lawyer who isn't in it for the money. Anymore it seems that if you ask a child WHY they want to be one of these things when they grow up, the inevitable answer is because they MAKE MONEY.
Sorry if you take all of this the wrong way Feud, as I don't mean to pick on you or single you out. It's just that I find your 'argument' compelling since you seem to want to tout these grand 'ideals' of people helping one another and finding fulfillment in something other than the material world, yet it is almost as if you are headed down the same road as those you speak down to.

One of my most important college mentors had gotten the x-tupple bypass thing a few years before I met him. Our college was blessed by being in a generally warm climate and he did not hesitate to stay comfortable by shunning long pants and sleeves. This made it easy for him to point out how amazingly long the scar can be when you have good health care money and the docs want to rebuild the infrastructure immediately around your heart.

This was my "friendly reminder" to Evil about something of which I'm sure he's fully aware. It's truly a tough addiction to break, one that took actual life threatening before I could do it. I hate smug ex-smokers with a "holier than thou" attitude, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least try to warn folks I care about.   

I try so hard to be optimistic, and to ignore the inequities of life, its so hard sometimes. "Life is not fair, but just" is cold comfort, particulary when I've got a good tirade going

Concerning lawsuits, the Japanese have an interesting law. If you sue someone, and lose, the judge awards them what you sued for. Tends to keep the frivolous lawsuits down and reduce the outrageous amounts rewarded.

Concerning welfare: In the US, under the reign of "King George", poverty is at all times highs and the gap between the incredibly wealthy and the middle class has grown wider and wider. So I wouldn't begrudge giving checks to those being beaten into the dirt by the Republicans.

My rant: I'm astounded by Newt Gingrich, who hounded and actually tried to impeach Clinton for an extramartial affair (who wouldn't cheat when married to Hillary?) while he was having an extramartial affair himself with his 20-years-younger-soon-to-be third wife. These politicians are amazing - not only are they out of touch with the American public (and reality), but many simply don't care and lie right to your face.

You know thats kind of how the French Revolution came into being? THe poor got pissed about not having food or money or anything. They probably begged beegars. Now THEY had something to whine about. Unlike those unhappy bastards in the galciv2 games, they should be happy they have food instead of rebelling against my reign!




Good show! Nice way to bring Hillary down a peg!   

For my homies in the US, are any of you feel for any of the next Presidential election? I mean you got Hillary which I don't really find appealing...then you got some black guy named "Obama" cmon man!!! You switch out the B, put in an S and you get Achmed!   But seriously, do any of you US people feel like any of these people will lead to a "Better" nation?

The mods don't really like us talking politics here. Officially, we're supposed to take that over to JoeUser or another general-purpose board.

That said, I'm a former civics instructor and I must say that I almost wish we had the free speech limitations that enable places like Great Britain to keep campaigns boxed into very short seasons.

Perpetual campaigning has been at the root of most of our problems with the House of Representatives. If things keep up as they are with presidential politics, we'll have the same problem there, which is likely to have even worse unintended outcomes. How can we expect folks to govern reasonably when so much of their time is devoted to raising and spending campaign money?

Well, if you look at my games list, you will notice a large gap from April '06 until Jan '07. During this time I was either working, or so loaded with classes that I had other things to worry about then playing GalCiv (although I did play from time to time). This semester is lighter so I have more time on my hands. As for working, I am currently not. I start a new job in a few weeks, but as for now I'm living off of my savings (which dwindle day by day).



Actually, while I plan on going to Law School, I do not plan on being a trial lawyer. I want to work as a political staffer, doing legislation drafting, speech writeing, etc. There are just two reasons why I want to do this. First, I want to love my work, and it would be a job that I can love (since I have loved politics since I was 10). Second, it will provide enough money that I can worry about raising my (future) family, and spend time with my (future) wife, rather then worry about how to put food on the table.

As for money, I really don't want to make a whole lot. If I make a lot, then fine. But, my only monetary goal is to make enough that I can live comfortably. I want to know that I can provide food and medicine for my family, and be able to spend my free time enjoying my family. So long as I make enoguh for that, then my Church can have the rest. They will put it to better use then I would.



I admit to having my flaws, I am by no means perfect. I said what I did based upon my own experiances, in hopes that others don't make similar mistakes to what I did. Experiancing something, learning from it, and encouraging others to not make the same mistakes is the societal duty of every person who honestly wants to create a better world.



Better is a realitive term. During the Clinton administration, many felt that the country was doing "better", and many others felt it was doing worse. No matter what candidate one choses (and I would hope that they chose that candidate becuase tehy felt he/she would help create a better world), someone will feel that person will make things "worse".

That being said there is a candiate that, of the ones curently running, I feel would do the most to move the country towards what I want it to be. Since we are mortal men who make mistakes we cannot expect perfection from our leaders, either in word or deed. So, we must make the best of our situation, and try to get as close as we can.

But society cannot hope to controll what parents are doing, even under more ideal economic circumstances. Society can only controll what is happening at school, and that is where the damage of bad parenting or whatever could be repaired but the opportunity is mostly ignored by the department of education.

Yeah, I read the sticky but forgot about it, easy to do in a rant. My apologies.

So I'll change my rant:

Anyone familar with the guys that do the incredibly inane Sonic commercials? The tater tot rejector guy? Someone needs to hunt him and Will Ferrel down and shoot them, before they have the chance to further contaminate the gene pool . . . .

Thankfully, I've not noticed this series.

IMO, advertising is an evil industry based on fables (at best) and/or lies (more likely) whose only purpose is to drive you to make rash, often needless spending decisions. Folks should never forget the roots of the word "branding." It's about burning marks of ownership onto livestock, and in the case of Madison Avenue & their West Coast colleagues, the livestock is *us*.

Doh! There I went and got political without naming a single official, party, or unit of gov't. That no-politics thing is a slippery guideline, especially for folks with an academic and/or activist past...

A good show to watch is called "Mental Engineering". Its on the public channel here in the midwest, on Friday nights. Its a panel of folks from various walks of life, professors, comedians, etc, that have fun dissecting commercials. Not so much about whether a commercial is effective versus its sociological roots and impact.

Naturally, since they don't accept advertisers they run on a shoestring budget. It's an enlightening show.

The show you describe sounds like somthing that would be intensly booring.

Although i am seeing it from the perspective of somone who has no time for adds or the crap on TV inbetween the adds!!

Here in Australia we only get 5 channels anyway, 3 being commercial with five minutes of show and 3 minutes of adds consecutively - it is simply unwatchable! and mostly my TV dousn't even get turned on! If there is a series i like, i just buy it off ebay or borrow it from freinds.

I have a new rant, stemming form a receant trip I made to Utah.

Why do some drivers not understand that when merging onto the freeway, that you should do so while traveling at or near freeway speeds?!? That is why they made the acceleration ramps! When you merge going 20-30 miles an hour below the flow of traffic, you are inviting an accident to happen!

Being from CA, I'll tag onto the opposite end of that stick. You shouldn't really drive 80 on the freeway when you are in the same lane that traffic is trying to merge into....Around here you sometimes only get one or two dashed lines. You simply can't get up to 80 in that kind of window.

never being treated as a full human being, not being able to move 5 inches without being flooded by advertising, everything in this coutry boiling down to the dollar, our/their peers (at 25, i guess i'm a boarder case), the constant atrocity of our government, the misuse of my tax money towards ends that only benefit the wealthy and power-laden, McDonalds and MicroSoft... why wouldn't you be angry at this world and this country?

don't get me wrong, i agree with you. i am/was/have been an unusual 'youth'. but it's not youth specifically: the vast majority of every population are shits. but if you're concerned about a youth openly ignoring benefits, well, i'll quote Marcuse:

I agree, that is what the inside lanes are for. What I am talking about are those who try to merge going around 40 miles an hour (I was doing the posted 65).

I guess I just have a completly differant outlook on the world, becuase I completly disagree with your conclusions. It's funny how vastley differant perceptions of the world can come from people withen the same society. I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.

I know what you mean, i am lucky to be alive today - some stupid woman paniked at a merging lane and stopped completely! Now the amazing part was that there weren't even any cars comming!! So the big truck behind me had to run up on the shoulder of the road. Had there been no shoulder the truck would have killed me for sure, all because of the stupidity of that woman.

Now i don't know why everyone makes a fus about speeding drivers, i mean from what i have seen it is the speeding drivers that you can most easily anticipate, they want to get from A to B, simple.

Slow drivers however are a totally different story, you don't know what they wan't and you cannot anticipate their actions, and that is why they are the ones that are dangerous.

I'm sorry but a volkswagon beetle built in the 60s was not intended to do 90 miles an hour down Interstate 95.

I tend to drive 65 miles an hour, the posted speed limit, on 95 southbound in the morning on my way home from work in Northern Virginia. In the slow lane. You would be amazed how many times I get lights flashed at me, fingers flashed at me, horns blown, screaming animated drivers. I have even had clowns get in front of me and jam on their brakes. I have had several tractor trailers ride with me in the back seat. Now I can understand if I was doing 40mph. I'm not. I hate the fact that I have to drive 180 miles round trip... a day. You know what? I make the best of it. If I do not take my time and rush rush rush like all these other idiots, I will end up being road kill like so many others who had done something insanely stupid, like riding on one of those stupid spare donuts at 85 miles an hour. Seen it.

To the lil ole granny doing 100 miles an hour in a beat up 80s Cadillac, to the rice rocket jockey hopped up on adrenaline, standing on the side of his bike doing 70 miles an hour. The 16 something school girl doing her hair, nails and talking on the cell phone, to the son of a bit** truck drivers that think they own the world because they deliver Huggies to Walmart.

I'M DRIVING HERE! (Said in best New York accent!)

: End Rant

The worst I remember on this driving kick was driving along 495 outside Boston about 15 years ago. At that time 495 was a very uncrowded road that regularly ran about 90~95 in the fast lane during rush hour. Also enforcement during rush hour is pretty lax. You really have to be doing something obnoxious to get pulled over then, but the same speed an hour later is guaranteed to get you a ticket.

Anyway I was going 95 in the fast lane being tailgated to within a few feet by a young woman who was using one of those funny eyelash curler things. My usual response to obnoxious tailgaters is to just take my foot off the accelerator, but I was afraid that even that might put that stupid thing through her eye so I just pulled over and watched her take off down the road curling her eyelashes at 100 miles an hour.

My rant: Why hasen't we unite as one human race. Stupid, Stupid beauacrats  .