TheEducatedFool.com

Anybody who spent one day in high school should watch this.  As many of you know, Strong Bad is one of my heroes, and alter-egos.  I've even got a Teen Girl Squad, gift-from-da-wife, bumper sticker on the right rear bumper of our 1991 Volkswagen Jetta, and a Strong Bad one on the left (and a cool skull-n-bones one from Navy Pier, and an Iced Earth one if it's still there).

Teen Girl Squad Episode 14.

A bit too busy and way too stressed.  Sorry, all.

Instead I'm posting this little video ditty of the Galactic Cowboys, one of my favorite bands that Hetta has also caught onto, which is always gratifying.  One of those bands that I really wish would get back together.

Three words to describe this band -- weird, insightful, harmony.

...that you'll never hear prayed in a church.

"What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment?  Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant?  If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of men?  Why have you made me your target?  Have I become a burden to you?  Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins?  For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more.

"Why then did you bring me out of the womb?  I wish I had died before any eye saw me.  If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!  Are not my few days almost over?  Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness."

The Bible, Job 7:17-21, 10:18-22

Maybe I'm twisted, but stuff like this makes me smile in the morning.

There were a few of us involved in a discussion about Jimi Hendrix, so I thought I'd post a Hendrix cover.  It's performed by King's X, one of the more influential bands in my life, and at times, one of my favorites.  I did an entire series on this band some time ago.  Enjoy!

I've been tagged by The Doug to define my life in six words.  I'm then supposed to tag six more people, but I think I'll pass on that one, seeing that nobody responded last time I tagged some people.

My life in six words:           In dire need of a brain.

Eventually, I'm going to do a whole series on this guy.  His name is Tim "Ripper" Owens, and he was discovered by Judas Priest and eventually sang for them as well as Iced Earth, one of my very favorite bands of all time.  I've heard him interviewed, and he's an extremely down-to-earth fellow who speaks highly of being a father.

Anyway, the Ripper has got an unbelievable, colossal voice, and when I heard he had finally formed his own band, it was a must.  The entire album is a very good listen, and putting it on the player brings back memories of Wyoming.  We had it playing in the car nearly the entire trip.

I woke up this morning with "Scream Machine" in my head, and so I've decided to play it.  You should see Heather do her "troll dance" to it.  Wish I had a video camera.

Next week, I've decided to start a series on "Hetta Music".  Should be fun.

I just found this article, detailing how Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" was voted the greatest guitar riff of all time.  Considering what I said about this riff earlier, I guess maybe I don't know so much.

But then again, considering who they list as second, maybe I shouldn't feel so dumb.

I'm not an enormous "gamer" by any means, but there are a few games that I've found quite fun over the years.  Just about any sports game put out by Electronic Arts is pretty darn cool.  And there've been a few Star Trek games I've had fun with from time to time.

But the ultimate game series has got to be the Myst Worlds.  I played the first game of the series when it was released to the public.  A friend of mine told me about it, I bought it, and I was hooked.  A whole game on one CD?  And it's got QuickTime movies blended in?  And you can move yourself around with the mouse as though you're actually there?  And each frame was created by hand?  And it's got an original score of music?  That was 1996, and Myst literally blew the lid off of interactive gaming as it was so completely advanced for the time.  I mean, this was two whole years before Windows 98 (I remember attending a Microsoft "satellite release party" for Windows 98 in an old Chicago art theater, and Bill Gates said that the new Windows operating system would make the Internet a seamless part of the user interface, and I thought, "Why would you want to do that?  Don't you have to log in every time you access AOL anyway?")!

In addition to being near geniuses for creating Myst, the Miller brothers also wrote a series of books detailing the worlds they created in the game.  In the storyline of Myst and its sequels, a secret art form, involving writing books in such a methodical way that they become portals to new worlds spawned by each book, is passed down between the generations of a family.  Some family members have used the art for good, others have not.  Anyway, you can buy this series of books anywhere (I got one of them at a local library book sale for $1), and they are as important to the gaming community as Tolkien's work is to the rest of the world.

This post is actually to announce that two guys from Indiana have received permission from Rand Miller himself to make a movie for the silver screen of Myst.  They've already enlisted some big names in the industry.  This should be really cool.

Sorry, Ozzy, but you don't hold a candle to Dio.  He's better balding than you'll ever be with your full head of hair.

I was on the phone today with a company with whom we are forced to do business.  I won't name them, but they're the only company that provides business credit reports exclusively.  This company literally has a monopoly on the monitoring of credit ratings for businesses, and the account number they give their clients can even often be used instead of an FEIN when contacting many creditors.

Anyway, if I could avoid doing business with these people, I certainly would.  It's a nightmare.  And it is bad for many reasons.  The biggest reason is that they, as individuals, take no responsibility for what their fellow employees do and say.  I was literally told today by one person, "I don't care what the previous person told you.  I'm telling you...", and this was by no means the first time this sort of thing has happened.

I'd had it, and I went off on the dude to the tune of, "Don't you dare tell me you don't care what someone else from your company has told me.  YOU are the company, just like he is.  That's what it means to be a professional, to take ownership of the company you work for and even apologize for your coworkers if need be."

While in the shower this evening, I was thinking about how this principle applies to nation states and their citizens.  On an individual level, I am not responsible for what my predecessors have done before me and what's being done now on my behalf as a taxpayer.  But on the nation state level, I am a part of something much larger than myself, and as a part of that thing that's bigger than me, I AM responsible for these things.  Although I could never be held responsible for them in a court of law, I am, nevertheless, part of an entity that has a birth date, a lifespan, and an eventual death.  It is something that lives out its life on the global scale much like I do on the local level.  It takes actions for and against its neighbors much like I do, and it cares for those who depend upon it much like I do.  It's a unit, a whole, and as a part of that whole, I'm responsible for what's been done and what's being done as much as anyone else.

Although it seems that most of us are living in isolated bubbles of our own creation, there is simply no way to avoid this very real responsibility.  The sooner we accept this fact, the sooner we can begin to heal as a nation and maybe even discover what it means to live with one another in harmony.