Notes from the Surf

The Sun
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0211/sunspot_swedish_c1.jpg
This is what you'd see shortly before melting =)

Employees of Lehman Brothers stage protest
http://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/76fn9/outraged_lehman_brothers_employees_stage_a/
When life gives you lemons...

I like this one best... Option three.
http://www.marriedtothesea.com/100808/option-three.gif
Maybe not a literal interpretation, but perhaps an allegorical one.

Mossad chief's daughter imprisoned for refusing military
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45588,features,conscience-of-the-israeli-spymasters-daughter-
What would become of the peace process if more people were like Omer Goldman?

When banks take a dive
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/89618/3/3/When_banks_take_a_dive
Not quite like The Matrix but good enough.

The system works. Just ask the 64 billionaires in New York City.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/newy-o06.shtml
"There are 64 billionaires in New York City, who together boast a combined net worth of $344 billion... In the same city, 1.5 million people live below the federal poverty line... Nearly 70 percent of New York City public school children are classified as poor."

The Guardian ignores polite company, quotes Lenin
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/29/uselections2008.useconomy1
"Capitalists can buy themselves out of any crisis, so long as they make the workers pay."

How to get away with killing Iraqi civilians
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f66_1223515331
All you need is high level military officials encouraging the planting of weapons.

Views of bailout from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/53611.html
"They have abandoned every policy that they've advocated that other governments should follow over the past 20 years."
"He carries out nationalizations to save capitalism. We want to sink it."

Nepal encourages cooperative businesses and community-owned economies
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/769/39650
Let's just hope they can deliver before the CIA gets involved.

Day 6547 | Day 6554 | Day 6561

It's been a while since I've done a daylog. Or at least it feels like a long time to me. I like to try to reflect on my situation every once in a while; think about life rather than just living it. I seem to have pondered and pondered until my ponderer is sore so this is going to be a pretty dull and list-like node. I've got to do something to break my writers block though.

For those who don't know, October 11 was National Coming Out Day. One of my closest friends decided to take part and I was a bit surprised to find out that he is gay. I've known him since we were 10 and he's among one of the few people outside my family that I would trust with my life. I could take this as an opportunity to write about my opinions on issues surrounding homosexuality but I won't since I'm pretty unfazed by this new information. As far as I see it, his being gay is just another part of who he is: it's a non-issue.

My life seems to have taken on a Shakespearean quality of late. The spurned former-lover, the lady, the best friend, and the quiet Romantic; all are characters in my life. But is it a comedy or a tragedy?

A girl who is very important to me as a person just broke up with my brother's old roommate. Meanwhile, I'm off to the side feeling guilty that I didn't warn her about his womanizing as well as the pangs of unrequited love. Now she's begun to show interest in a good friend of mine, sticking me in quite the predicament. The guy code demands that I not intervene in anything that were to happen between the two yet I have my own desire for her. It's putting me in the position to choose whether the chance of having something with her is worth seriously damaging the good — and likely longer lasting — friendship I have with my friend.

My advances are, most likely, inept at best and counter-productive at worst. I have had no romantic experience up to this point and am having trouble dealing with the crash course. I consider myself a pretty mellow person; immune to all but the strongest emotions. Unfortunately, my mood seems to be independent of everything except my perceived chances of being able to one day hold her in my arms. I'm riding in the front row of the emotional roller coaster and only she seems to know how the track twists. Perhaps I'm too sentimental.

The 'm' key is starting to go on my keyboard. I keep on typing words only to find that my computer didn't register the 'm'. I hope I can get it fixed or replaced as getting an entirely new laptop just because one key is broken. Or maybe I'll just get really good at lipograms.

14 oktober 2008, a day that according to some was to be the day that a big lightship showed up in earth's sky, so that our friendly neighbor's from the sky could say hi and reveal the truth.

I've been keeping an eye on this event since I first heard of it some weeks ago, not because I was expecting any ET's to show up, but because the human reactions to it promised to be an interesting show.

For example, the first youtube message I saw had a clear element to it that stated that the human race had to send a 'we want you to come' vibe into space before the ship would appear. Forgetting for a moment that a large part of humanity barely wants people who are not like them around, there's still the problem of getting enough people to know they need to send a vibe, which is kind of hard if your advertising consists of youtube video's and a single blog site.

As the days progressed, the 'send a vibe' element also seemed to disappear out of the movies, like it wasn't important after all, a bad move I think, as it could have helped them in the cleanup after the 14th and the 15th passed without big glowing objects in the sky, well... except for that big one, but that's been there a while.

So in the end, a few thousand people are left wondering, not what's keeping the visitors, but if this was an intended hoax to get attention or just delusions of a few people that spun out of control.