A photoblog and other things

This has been really, really bothering me lately. I am getting sooooo pissed off with the two completely and utterly different worlds that exist in America. I believe that the American media can be given a huge pat on the back for most of this. I thought Australia was getting a little bad, but over here it’s ridiculous.

I cannot believe how censored the media is over here. Every swear word, no matter how tame it is, is “beeped” out. I watch a few shows on the comedy channel where the sound channel is nearly a constant “beeeeeeep”. There is no blood shown of incidents for where there should be lots of blood. They’re very careful not to show that because that would indicate, heaven forbid, that someone could have died. Most importantly, no-one seems to be pointing out enough that Iraq never had any weapons of mass destruction… which is the whole reason why innocent civilians and Americans over in Iraq are getting killed right now, isn’t it? Where is the media asking the hard questions to get the people thinking? Why has president Bush got such a high approval rating at the moment (47%)? Are these people who make up the 47% doing their research? Are they really analysing why Iraq was invaded? They were lied to!!! The Bush administration itself says they were “misinformed” (or so they would like us to believe). That’s a big f%$ken cock-up. Now they’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up. But take a step back and look at the situation: they went and invaded another country WITHOUT APPROVAL FROM THE UN. These people in Iraq didn’t pose a threat to them. North Korea poses more of a threat by saying “look here – we have nuclear weapons!” but they’re silently ignored. American has killed thousands and thousands of innocent people in Iraq and they’ve gotten themselves killed in the process. Do the people back in America realise this? Do they really believe that by being in America they’re doing the right thing? Do they really believe the bullshit that Bush is saying? Sure, some would believe that ousting Saddam Hussein was a good thing. Was it America’s right to go and do that? They have replaced him with a US puppet. A lot of people are pissed off because these Americans have come and invaded Iraq, because they don’t believe America’s reasons either and they want the US to get the f*$# out of their country. Howard decided to support the US because they’re big and powerful and if in the future Indonesia or someone opposed to us decided to attack Australia then we could say “hey we helped you in Iraq, remember? … help us”. Oh, and then there is that free trade agreement thingo too. It’s just a big game of chess.

So where does this 47% approval rating come from? I think it’s partly because Kerry doesn’t seem like the best alternative either. I wish there was an Al Gore there or another Clinton. Kerry seems smart – but anyone would be against Bush. Kerry seems to lack a really big spine. I dunno – I get a feeling that if there was someone like Clinton going for President then the 47% would be a lot, lot lower. I think the general feeling over here is that most people are opposed to Bush, but they’re not too fanciful of Kerry either, so they say “well, maybe Bush will realise his mistakes and make some changes…” yeah, right. Don’t give a nitwit like that another chance to f$^k up the world for another four years. People don’t generally perceive you as being that great anymore, America.

Which gets me back to the point of media censorship. Continually there is news that people are getting killed by some terrorist. There is news that more Americans are getting killed over in Iraq. Well, all that translates to over here is a concerned looking news presenter with censored images playing in the background. SHOW THE REALITY! People die from this sort of stuff! If people see what is really happening – pictures of corpses, limbs, everything, they’re going to make more informed decisions because they’ve been given a dose of reality. They’re going to think “gee, war is a really bad thing. It should probably only be used as a very last resort” NO FRICKEN DA! The war in Iraq was not America’s business. It is the business of GREED. America made the middle east their business, so some extremists made America their business.

I dunno, I’m pretty fired up about a lot of stuff here. It’s my blog, my opinion, but I just had to get it out there. I’m getting so frustrated that not enough information is getting out to the general people, and it’s the media who should be doing that. Everything seems so corrupt. Everything IS so corrupt.

I HOPE people choose Kerry for president. He’s not the most enticing candidate but he’s the only one who isn’t Bush. Bush and his administration are very, very dangerous people. America should realise this.

Down here in south Florida there are a lot of rappers who are trying to get this exact point out. They are trying to get people to “slam bush” and are having anti-bush demonstrations and urging people to vote, and vote against Bush (as far as I’ve heard, it’s all anti-Bush). There is a debate coming to Miami University between Kerry and Bush at the end of this month. I’d love to try and get to see that… we’ll see.

signing off for now. I’m tired.

This is probably the one thing that makes being on the other side of the world really suck. My mum called up this morning to say that our family’s cat had died. His lungs had filled with fluid, the vet thinks this may have been due to cancer, so it was decided that he had to be put down to save him from any more pain. Up until the last couple of weeks he was still being the larrikin cat he’s always been, but his condition deteriorated rapidly.

He was a charger of a cat and had a real personality – much more than some people I’ve met in my lifetime. He outlived a lot of other cats by nearly making it to 15 years old. Some people may think “dude, it’s only a cat, get over it” but it’s the memories I associate with him that make it all the more painful. I’m very big on memories and I get extremely attached to things, so I spent the whole day reminiscing about the time from when we first got him (when I was in primary school for crying out loud) up to this point. I just wish I could’ve said a last goodbye to him before he went.

He was a cat model I reckon. If he hadn’t been neutered all the girl cats would have been forming lines blocks long for a chance to see him, and I would have had to tell them to just leave the poor guy alone for a few minutes.

RIP, and thanks for the memories…

Heck, what a weekend. I’ve got a bit of a headache today (very unusual for me to get one unless I’m listening to an annoying person) and I actually didn’t do much to cause it… honestly. The good thing is that I did receive most of my stuff on Friday. Yes, I finally have a digital camera! Problem is I didn’t receive a memory card in the time frame promised by Amazon so I couldn’t do anything with it anyway. The instruction manual looks nice though. I also received some Event TR5 monitor speakers for music production stuff. For the moment though they’re doing a fine job of being a part of my improvised stereo system until I actually have the equipment/skills to use them for their intended purpose.

I’m currently being hassled by Avis reminding me that I’ve been here for 50 days and they still haven’t received my driver’s license details. I only *just* received my social security number. Well, considering it took a while to have me entered into the system for some reason (approx. 3.5 weeks) and then processing delays (it took 3 weeks for me to get my SSN – we had something called hurricanes?) that brings me up to about this date. I’ve got a booking for a license test this Tuesday anyway. Cool, I’ll have a Florida driver’s license (assuming I pass the test 🙂

Now to the title of this post, I think I fried my network card in my computer on the weekend. Maybe I was downloading too much stuff? They probably don’t like the fact that I’d have around 5 Gigs of virtual instruments on the download queue. Whatever the case, I’m going to find it a bit harder to update this site until I figure out what the heck’s gone on. Actually, that’s a big fat lie. The more furiously I work the more often I update the blog because I actually *need* to take a break. So now you’ll know if I’m working hard or not…

I’m also thinking of getting some home contents insurance over here, I’ve got a lot of $$$ invested in the stuff I’ve bought over here already. I’d be a broken, dribbling mess if I lost that.

Oh, I won’t be answering any phone call or replying to any SMS to my Aussie number until I get back from the US. The reason? I went a bit crazy calling people when I first got over here, knowing that it would cost me a lot but making the calls anyway. Now I have a very expensive phone bill from the Telstra bloodsuckers. I should have grabbed one of the fairly cheap phone cards over here to make my calls… stupid me.

Nerdy site of the day: http://www.physorg.com/

I don’t know what the freaking hell is wrong with me (there are probably some people who could give some suggestions… wisearses) but lately I seem not to be able to get to sleep. I’ve been lying in bed for the last couple of hours trying to get to get some shut-eye but it seems impossible. My mind continues to race. I get up for a bit and play a few chords on guitar, and then I end up wishing I had my piano. Next I’m listening to some songs on my ipod, sampling anything from Rachmaninoff to Roxette to Rammstein. I’m freaking jumping around my apartment like the people in the iPod ads (except to Rach – can’t really jump around to classical… at least I haven’t yet figured out a way to yet). Why is this? Is it because the succulent, sumptuous, salivacious (???) pork ribs over here are just so good? Is it because the amount of fat in the food I’m eating is much more than it would be over in Oz? But hey – it’s all “low carbs”… yeah, whatever that actually means. Take the stairs every once in a while instead of the lift pilgrims. Maybe it’s not the food. Maybe it’s the humidity. Maybe it’s the fact that the air conditioning isn’t working properly at work and I’m so bloody cold I have to wear a jacket. Then I get outside and instantly I’m covered in water from condensation. Maybe the sudden changes in temperature are causing the meninge of my brain to expand and contract weirdly which could somehow adversely affect the sleeping centres of my brain, if they’re located on the periphery of the brain… which they probably aren’t… wtf am I talking about now???

Maybe I can’t get to sleep coz I’m looking forward to Christmas tomorrow (or rather, later on today). I ordered a bunch of stuff online on Monday, and I should be receiving it soon. Not getting the stuff instantly gives me time to get over the buyer’s remorse so when it finally does arrive I’m as happy as Larry.

I’ve taken on a promise to myself to not rely on other people as much as I used to. On several occasions now I’ve changed plans to wait for people who in the end never call to say they’ll be late or not even coming. Bastards. That really, really pi$$es me off. Screw ’em, I’ll make my plans without them.

And… how the heck do venus fly traps work? And why am I asking that question when I’m not even drunk? People answer that by saying ‘the doomed insect stimulates the cilia-like hairs which causes the trap to shut’. That ain’t enough I’m sorry. I think I concluded last time by saying that the stimulation of the hair may cause a cell laden with a saltier-than-normal substance to release said substance. It could also be less saltier than normal too I guess. Through osmosis and some sort of cascade effect enough water gets moved around which causes the trap to shut. That’s probably utter B.S. and I should really do some reading to find the true answer. Maybe then I could sleep…