How to Say You're Sorry: A Primer

I found this on salon.com a month or so ago... it's an amusing essay that will help you understand how to say you're sorry.

The opening goes like this....

"Just say you're sorry. Never say you're sorry "if." Say you're sorry.

"I'm sorry I was rude" is good.

"I'm sorry if I was rude" is not. It weasels. It implies that maybe you weren't rude. It implies that the person being apologized to has a twisted little worldview if they think "Oh, shut up, frog-lips" is rude."

.... and it goes on from there. But it's some good stuff. So enjoy!

Goods 4 Girls

I want to share a charity with you that my friend Sue is a big fan of. Goods 4 Girls is an organization that distributes cloth menstrual pads to girls in Africa. Now, I'm no menstruation expert (clearly, on so many levels)... and this may seem like a silly or obscure cause to champion... but once girls start menstruating it can be very difficult for them to continue going to school, as many of them have no access to pads of their own.

So anyways... check out the link and read up about what they do... and see what you can do to help. This is a really simple effort that can make a monumental difference in a young girl's life...!

Meta Postage

I've got a slew of posts I've been meaning to make.

Some are cross-posts of Youtube videos... Youtube supposedly allows you to easily post to your blog from their site, but I've tried several times now and it's completely failed... so maybe at some point I'll figure out why and do something about it.

Some are political commentary on the whole primary season. I've been remarkably silent about all of that here on my blog, which is incredibly unlike me. I suppose in general I feel as if the primary season has more than enough coverage and commentary as it is... but I would like to go on record with some of my opinions, esp related to McCain (who my roommate [insanely] is thinking of voting for) and the whole Clinton-Obama in-fighting (which is just stupid and counter-productive).

Some are about my love life... about The Fucker and about Daywalker and about the various other nutjobs I've been subjected to as of late. Those I'll definitely get to soon to spare my sanity and get that shit off my chest.

The rest are random... my druid hit 70 (Elianthor on Thrall), it's Kelly's 30th this wknd, my family's got both awesome and super-shitty news, school's been going well/weird... etc.

So... there may be a blitzkrieg of posts coming... or there may not. I'm going to try to start slamming these things in to get them out of my head, but my schedule's so packed for the next week that by the time I have time to write I may have lost the bug to do so. =P

Au revoir, Jean-Pierre.

I shaved off my facial hair last night. It was a really weird experience, and surprised me at how long it took, given how little I had to shave. And now my face looks all naked and exposed, and I look like I'm 19. [Well ok, I probably don't look that young, but I definitely look younger than I did with the hair.] I also seem to have lost the pseudo-jawline my facial hair gave me... I guess that means I have to actually start working out to get a real one. Boooo.

In the last few hrs I've realized how many tics I'd developed around the hair... I'd taken to tugging on the soul patch or the beard while thinking, for example. And thoughtfully stroking the beard to look like I was paying attention during conversation. And twirling the ends of the stache while laughing maniacally after tying a helpless maiden to train tracks.

Anyways, it's all gone now. I'm gonna ride out the summer and see how I feel, and probably bring it back randomly at some point. Good times.

Hastert's seat goes to Dems!

Woohoo! Go Batavia!!!! Dennis Hastert's seat has just been lost in a special election to a Democrat.

Why is this significant? First, the district in question is just west of my native Wheaton, IL. Second, it has been a historically Republican district, typically skewing 60-70% GOP during elections. But most interestingly is the history of Hastert himself. Hastert was Speaker of the House just before Pelosi, and was a major Bush yes-man. He ended up losing his seat of 20+ years because of the scandal surrounding Florida Rep Mark Foley and the House Pages Foley was trying to seduce. Foley was basically a big ol' pedophile, and Hastert protected him from investigation for years.

So now Hastert's GOP seat has been lost to the Dems. Everyone was saying that this election would be a harbinger for November... if that's true, then we may be in for a landslide of Dems, and a GOP in total disarray. Yay!!! [And Big A, that's a good thing... the GOP needs to reboot and drop all the Bush shit, and get back to its core values, dammit! And those values aren't the crazy right wing shit we've seen since Reagan! But that's not news... most true Repubs feel that way, from the conversations I've had.]

Housing Bubble Persists!

"Given the outsize imbalance between supply and demand for new homes, housing prices may need to fall an additional 20 percent to clear the market. "
-- Steve S. Roach for the NY Times, Head of Morgan Stanley Asia

My friend Matt just sent that to me. I'm not sure to which market specifically Mr. Roach is referring, but I know that SF prices have historically been inflated, and they've barely declined in recent years. So I'm almost 100% positive that his statements apply to SF. So.... no house for me... not yet, anyways. Not even the new LEED certified condos at Arterra here in soma. :(

RIP Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, died on Tuesday, March 4. He, along with Dave Arneson, is considered one of the fathers of role playing. And between tabletop RPGs, video games, card games, MMORPGs, etc etc etc... that's one hell of a legacy. Slashdot has a post about him, as does Wired, and a quick google search will pull up hundreds more.

I like Wired's post: "Gary Gygax, co-creator of the incredibly influential Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games, died yesterday at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at age 69.

Almost everyone who's ever played an RPG, be it with dice, a mouse, or a controller, owes a debt of gratitude to Gygax, who helped create many of the conventions we now take for granted, such as leveling up, stat-boosting gear, and, of course, the Dungeon Master.

Gygax created the original D&D in 1974 with Dave Arneson as a product of Tactical Studies Rules, which later became TSR. The popularity of the pen-and-paper version of D&D has waxed and waned over the years, but its status as a pillar of the gaming community has never wavered.

Honor Gygax's memory however you feel is appropriate. Roll for initiative. Attack the darkness. As for me, I'll be watching some episodes of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series. Yes, of course it's crap, but I love it, just the same. I never could decide which I wanted more, though, Sheila's cloak or Hank's bow."

I'm also a big fan of the cartoon at the top, which was posted on Penny Arcade. I can't find a permalink to it, but for now it can be found on Penny Arcade's front page.