arrrrgh...

dag, yo. and yes, i know, i stole that line from strong bad. deal with it. anyways, i thought it had been too long since i complained about something. so now i'm going to complain about having to get up at 5 tomorrow morning for work. i'm really not a morning person either... i'll be 3 hours or so into work (start at 6:30, after a 35 minute commute) before i'm actually awake enough to function normally. if the union really wanted to be useful, they could keep people from having to work before 10 am. until that day, they can go do something unmentionable to themselves.

asia is a lot smaller in person

the world is complete, version 1

the RISK continues...

here's a few pics of the last stage of the drawing. tomorrow i get to start painting... this could be interesting.

finally, a post that actually has something to do with history

well, sort of. i'm not going to go very in depth, though. this all came about during another conversation with forrest, during the course of which he directed me to this site. it was actually very entertaining; i agree that our enemies' women aren't lamenting enough, and that something needs to be done about that. although we didn't recognize most of the "signatures" at the bottom, francis fukuyama's name appeared there. he sounded like someone that we had talked about in one of my history classes, and i was write. in 1992, he wrote the book The End of History and the Last Man. while he does have a fairly interesting thesis--that "history has ended in the sense that there is no more room for large ideological battles"--i disagree with him. after my ideas about history class with dale soden, i know that there are way too many ways of looking at history, and deciding what's really important in history, that it will continue to exist for quite some time. the annales school, which originated in france in the early 1900s (i think... i'll have to check my notes for a more specific date) would be more concerned with aspects of every day life--like what people eat, or what the weather was like--than with ideological battles. and that's just one of over a dozen major views of history; there are also many smaller schools of thought and even personal views of history out there.

based on that last paragraph, i have determined that i left any writing skill i have at school, so i'm going to stop there. if you have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment, or email me at menoichius@hotmail.com. i'll do my best to either answer your question, or point you in the direction of someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
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almost forgot... head over here for a review of a review of fukuyama's book.

more RISK progress

dang it. if this publishes twice, it's cause my internet is freaking out. anyways, i've finished africa and australia... just need to finish the mediterranean region and northern/northeastern asia, and then its on to the painting stage.

be sure to click on the picture for a higher resolution version.

Africa/Australia

more RISK progress

well, i've finished up africa, australia, and southern asia now... just have the top-right part of the board to finish. then it's time for a base coat of paint for each continent, and then drawing in the individual regions. depending on my work schedule, i think i should have plenty of time to finish it before school starts.

oh yeah... remember to click on the picture for a higher-resolution version, otherwise it doesn't show up very well.

what i meant to say was, "no, i will not make out with you"

i remembered what i actually wanted to write last night, and it's at least slightly more important than the "fan = fanatic?" question. john kerry apparently does have a plan for iraq, and one that he thinks is better than what bush is doing. but he says he doesn't want to share it until he's safely in the white house. sounds to me like kerry is more concerned with becoming the next president than with what's good for this country. if there actually is a plan, and if he actually cares about America, he needs to share it. kerry wants to emulate jfk, but he really got it backwards; instead of asking what he can do for his country, he's asking what his country can do for him. do you really want someone like that to be president?

eureka!

sort of. i remembered what i was going to post about earlier, and it wasn't as important as i thought. last night as i was going to sleep, i wondered how the word "fan" was first used to describe someone; for example, "he's a sports fan" or "i'm your biggest fan." is it just short for "fanatic", or is there something else to it?

i think... no, i guess i didn't have an idea

i had planned on writing something tonight. something fairly important. but getting up at 5:30 in the morning has a detrimental effect on my memory. so unless i remember what it is between now and when i finally crash, i'm just going to leave you--or maybe just myself--with a few funny quotes. WARNING: some of these are political in nature. if you are a john kerry supporter, you're probably in the wrong place.

John Kerry threw out the first ball before [a] Yankees-Red Sox game in Boston. In fact, Kerry asked "Where do you want me on the field? I can take any position." --Jay Leno

"It's extremely serious. He's over 300 pounds. He's like a giant beach ball." --Ralph Nader on Michael Moore

"Greece asked NATO...for a presence in Athens in case the Olympics are attacked by al-Qa'ida. Everyone's skills can be utilized. The U.S. will provide the armor, Britain the air cover, Germany the street patrol, and France the evacuation." --Argus Hamilton

"So far opinion is split on the president's plan [for Iraq]. Republicans say the outlook is Sunni, or as Democrats say, we're in deep Shiite." --Jay Leno

"Of course, I would support Bush over Kerry even if we weren't at war, because Bush is the more conservative candidate and I'm not on crack." --Jonah Goldberg

"It really gets me when the critics say I haven't done enough for the economy. I mean, look what I've done for the book publishing industry. You've heard some of the titles. 'Big Lies,' 'The Lies of George W. Bush,' 'The Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.' I'd like to tell you I've read each of these books, but that'd be a lie." --President Bush

"Oh and today John Kerry accused President Bush of catering to the rich. You know as opposed to John Kerry who just marries them". --Jay Leno

"Liberal (n.) a man with his mind open at both ends." --Colin Bowles

ok, so that was more than a few. oh well. suck it up and deal with it. hopefully you enjoyed a few of them.

building a better RISK board, part 1

hopefully the progress picture shows up below, so you'll have some idea what i'm talking about. it looks pretty light right now... maybe i'll go over the outlines in pen before i paint. or maybe not. anyways, i'm doing it on a sheet of canvas, about 5 or 6 feet tall and 8 or 9 feet wide; roughly three times the size of a normal board. i'm planning to attach a large PVC pipe to one end, so the board (sheet... whatever) can be rolled up around it, and the pieces (spray-painted plastic army men) can be stored inside. i'm hoping to have it done by the time skool starts on september 8th, so we can have a game to kick off the year. i'll add more pictures when i get some decent amounts done.

The beginnings of a better RISK board

random thought for the day

why can't we do something like this?

the old salt mine

i suppose fred meyer isn't quite that bad, but at least working in a salt mine would get me in shape. "work" yesterday was ridiculous. it was supposed to be our 'buddy training' day. we were given 2 hours to read the cashier guide book--only took 1 hour--then got to sit around and wait for our buddy to show up. after teaching us how to ask for time off, we were given a very brief tour of the deli, and then sent off to observe cashiers. that is, we got to stand around for the next two and a half hours. the cashiers there actually earn their keep by doing almost all of their own bagging, so we were fairly useless on that count. it was a very boring 4 hours. on the bright side, i got paid for it. and on wednesday, they're actually going to let me use a register... for about 8 hours. i really don't think they'll be that complicated... most of what i need to know could probably be learned on the fly in the deli.

i also managed to get into a political argument during my break. the tv in the back was set to cnn, and the anchors were wondering how john kerry would go about making healthcare cheaper. i commented (what, you don't talk back to the tv?) that he would do it by raising taxes. james, one of the poor confused people working for the union there at freddy's, heard what i said, and argued that bush was the one who raised taxes, and that kerry was going to lower them. i mentioned that bush had cut taxes 3 times already; he said "only if you're rich." it went downhill from there. unfortunately, time and my minimal knowledge of the tax system did not permit me to instruct him in some of it's finer points. i do know a few things, however. like, the people with incomes in the top 3% pay over 50% of the taxes in this country. if you pay more, you should get more back, right?

i'm going to stop there. if i go any farther, i'm going to start ranting, and nobody likes that. except james, of course.

FES #5

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sweet, another one of these!  looks like it's got a built-in address too.
oh.  turns out my name is actually "µØ¯Ç½u¤W­µ¼ÖÂø»x", and this is an email from warner music.  if anybody can figure out how to pronounce my new name, let me know.

funny email subject #4

scooby snack stalactites around 141

maybe i'll turn this into a contest or something.  if you find a funny email subject line, send it to menoichius@hotmail.com.  once a week, or when i actually get some responses from the two or three people who read this, i'll post the one that i arbitrarily decide is best.  or worst, depending on how you look at it.

finally, an interesting weekend

well, i finally had a fun weekend.  unfortunately, it's probably the last one i'll have for awhile, since my job starts (finally) on tuesday.  at least i'll finally have some money.  anyways, i made a trip over to spokane for the weekend to see some friends, and hopefully have a mini-LAN party.  i got half of that done.  jake, pat and i vegged around the house most of afternoon, got some safeway pizza for dinner, and then watched ken jennings continue to kick ass on jeopardy.  it wasn't even close... he set a new record with $75,000, and the next closest person had about $1600.  no, neither of those are typos.  he won by over $70,000.  ken jennings is my new hero.  after that we put in the blue collar comedy tour... hilarious stuff, definitely worth watching.  at 10, a whole slough of whitworth folk (me, pat, jake, nate, jeremiah, toree, greg, justin, peter, ian, and probably some others i didn't know about) ended up at the bourne supremacy.  it was a good movie, but i didn't think it was as good as the first one.  and on a side note, matt damon could never pass himself off as an actual runner... he has horrible form.

saturday we sat around the whole morning, watching at various times infomercials, cooking shows, and bob ross.  when we finally finished waking up, we went over to the soccer field and tossed the frisbee, until one of the security guards told us we weren't supposed to be there.  apparently 3 guys in bare feet with a plastic disk do more damage to the lawn than 22 people wearing cleats and chasing after a soccer ball.  who knew?  but the best part was that the security guy was too lazy to get out of his truck and come to us, so he actually drove out onto the field--the one that we weren't supposed to be walking on--to inform us of our error.  at that point, pat decided he wanted to learn gaelic, so we drove up to costco to look for some language cds.  didn't find what we were looking for there, so we stopped by best buy, found it, and then went to target and got an inflatable pool for the back yard.  it wasn't quite as cool as it could've been, though; we didn't get it set up till about 6, and by that point it wasn't very hot out any more.  the water, though, was incredibly cold... my feet went numb after about a minute.  when we got bored/frozen, we headed in to watch "can't hardly wait" (a very quotable movie) and "3 ninjas" (an entertaining film, to say the least).  after that it was saturday night live, hosted by the olson twins, and then off to bed.

the whole mini-lan thing never happened, unfortunately.  nate's sister flew up for the week, so he was busy.  and then when i started setting my computer up, i realized that i forgot the power cord for my monitor... makes it a little tricky to play.  i'm good, but not that good.  spent sunday morning alternatingly trying to sleep (with little success), and either watching pat get back into freelancer, or some random movie about drugs with mel gibson, kurt russel, and michelle pfiefer.  oddly enough, it never showed the name of the movie.

that's about it, really.  time to settle back into boredom.  later all.

funny email subject #3

midwife impresarios inside 648

where the heck do they come up with these things? 

funny email subject #2

bullfrog 37 waifs

and the contents of the email?  they are:

Still write a love letter to her from defined by grand piano, go deep sea fishing with her blithe spirit around with food stamp related to cashier.When from insurance agent ceases to exist, gypsy related to gets stinking drunk.Now and then, espadrille about toothache assimilate sandwich from insurance agent.A few gonads, and cargo bay defined by) to arrive at a state of cigarIf debutante about give lectures on morality to behind umbrella, then beyond fire hydrant dies.Sometimes football team over ruminates, but clock near always play pinochle with debutante living with!quasicontinuous trod california friction beaujolais.

the picture said it was about refinancing, but i'm not entirely sure.  maybe 37 waifs filed a suit against a bullfrog, and he needs money fast?