I now have a new hole in my head. Specifically a new 8 gauge piercing in my left earlobe. I was expecting to have to start with a 16 or 14 gauge piercing, like when I got my right earlobe pierced back in 1997. But Ivy, at Ink Lab, said I could just go for a 8 gauge piercing now. So, that's what I did.

No I have the new ring in my ear and I can look forward to a few months of carefully taking care of it while it heals.

Darn... the captured bead in my earring just popped out. And from past experience, I know that it is a real bitch to get back in. Maybe I'll take this as a sign that its time to move down to the next gauge (a thicker ring).

I've also been thinking of getting my left ear pierced. Maybe I'll do both at the same time. I've actually been thinking about this for a while now, but with July being so busy I thought that I should wait. August looks a little less busy, but then I'm traveling at the end of the month. But if I do the piercing now, I should be over the worst part of the healing long before traveling. After the August trip, I'm going to be traveling for work for a week in mid-September, so I either definitely want to have this healed by then, or not have it at all then.

Hmm... now I want to go and do it! Wonder when I get schedule it. I'll probably go back to Saint Sabrina's again, where I've had two other piercings done.

Gizmodo has a link to the online Transportation Futuristics presentation site. Very interesting past future designs. Kinds of makes my geek nerves sing. Sadly, very little came from these concepts.

Very cool little music video, The Sad Song, by Fredo Viola.

On his site he writes:
This is a video I made for my song entitled "The Sad Song". The video was created entirely using 15 second jpg movies from my little Nikon Coolpix 775 still camera, reconstructed in AfterEffects.

The resulting video looks very cool! I love the idea of using low tech sources for video and then working with them with skill in a good program like AfterEffects.

Thanks to bookbear for linking to this.

After watching the Queer As Folk season finale this past Sunday, I was thinking about how short this season felt. I just checked the Showtime website for QaF to find out how many episodes were in season 4 versus pervious years.

Season 4: 14 episodes
Season 3: 14 episodes
Season 2: 20 episodes
Season 1: 22 episodes

So, season 4 wasn't shorter than season 3, but it was much shorter than seasons 2 and 1. That, on top of the less than exciting storylines this season left me feeling a bit unfulfilled this year. And now we have to wait until next spring for the next new episodes. Ugh!

Just watched the short film Grayson, a mock-preview of a movie about the return of Dick Grayson, the original Robin, after the death of Batman. VERY COOL!!! It has my comic book fan nerves all tingly! There are some extremely cool elements in short film, but I don't want to ruin the suprise. Go download the quicktime file and check it out!

Booxter looks like an interesting piece of software. It is book inventory software, but it is only available for the Mac.

A couple years ago Joe and I tried working with Readerware for a while. We got a whole bunch of books, plus his plate collection scanned in, but we never got everything. We haven't run that program for at least a year now. Maybe it is time to try it again.

Just finished posting my moblog pictures of our trip to Ikea

Well... the new Ikea store sure is BIG, though I've heard it isn't as big as some other Ikea stores.

After work, rvrjoe775, roommate Junior and I headed over to Ikea. The parking lot (the old Met Stadium site) was totally full. We ended parking way over on the west end of the lot. We thought it would be wise to eat before shopping so we walked over to the Mall of America (MOA) for a quick bite, and then caught the shuttle bus from the Mall's north entrance over to Ikea (what a nice service to provide!). I think it took longer for us to get up the escalator to the second floor that to ride the shuttle over from MOA.

The place was just stupid crowded. We flowed with the crowd for a couple hours, spotted lots of interesting stuff, bought a six pack of cinnamon buns and got out of there around 9:30pm. I'm very glad that the main floor food place is outside the main checkout stations, because the queue for checkout were horribly long.

While there we did spots a few interesting things. I ran into my old coworker, David (and his wife), who now works at my favorite local comic store. We also saw Dan and Wayne from the TC Couples Group. Of course I spotted lots of familier and unfamilier gay faces!

We did find a couple furniture items that we liked. Here's a chair we both liked, and here's a table.

This is a test of the Live Jornal e-mail posting feature. Lets see if this
works.

The person responded to my previous comment and tried to use some "outside the box" thinking. His new example use Necrophilia again and poses the situation of two living people, who both give consent to marry after one of the couple dies. He asks "could that person then claim that they're married to the corpse? Could they demand that they and their loved one be served at local restaurants?" He then goes on to express that "in the absence of any religious principles, how (sic) you draw the line." He then goes on to say that "consent" doesn't cover bestiality, necrophilia and pedophilia.

It is interesting that you obscure the issue by comparing apples to oranges. But I'll have some fun and examine your oranges.

We already have examples of relationships between living and dead people. Any marriage that doesn't end in divorce eventually ends with at least one member of the couple dyeing. The widow or widower is released from the marriage contract by death ('til death do us part), but may continue to have an emotional connection to the deceased. They do not continue to be legally married because the dead member can no longer given continued consent to being married.

As for being served together in local restaurants, I believe that local laws regarding the proper handling and disposal of the dead covers this, not to mention health laws.

Back to the issue of consent. In marriage both parties consent to being married. When they stop giving consent that may seek a divorce, or they may continue their legal contract but separate emotionally and or physically. Marriage between the living and dead, or human and animal (or vegetable or mineral), or someone below the age of consent is not acceptable because all parties involved can not give consent or continue to give consent.

As for the religious principles... whose religion? Yours? Mine? I'm afraid that the two might not agree.

The first result in a Google search on "religious principles on marriage" is a statement by Stephen M. Shick, Minister of the Universalist Unitarian Church of Haverhill. This statement details his support for the affirmation and support of all persons and his decision to refrain from signing civil marriage licenses for heterosexual couples until the state allows same sex couples to marry.

The third search result (skipping the deeper link to Haverhill's press release, and a Common Good Network link that doesn't work) is a link to a Traditional Values Coalition news article title "Homosexual Marriage Threatens Religious Freedom" and quotes TVC Chairman Rev. Louis P. Sheldon.

Obviously these two people and their organizations are on opposite sides of the Same Sex Marriage debate, but they are both religious leaders. How can we rely on anyone one religion's principles to build our laws. The laws of the United States of America must respect all of our religious belief, and can not rely solely on any one religion's rules. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Wow! Interesting turn in the Minnesota conceal and carry gun law issue. I wonder how this will play out in the end!

Correction... many people, both heterosexual and homosexual, are asking for the reality of the modern family to be recognized. We who support same sex marriage are simply wanting the government to provide same sex couples the same benefits and protections given to opposite sex couples.

There should be no judgment about life style choice involved in this issue. There is no judge stopping opposite sex couples from marrying because of their life style choices. ("You've had premarital sex, so you can't get married!" "You don't make enough money, so you can't get married!" "You've only known each other for an hour, so you can't get married!")

Same sex couples are already getting married, with or without the support of the law. Why should our government discriminate against these couples and withhold their support of these relationships? Some argue that they are defending the family. Whose family? Government support of all couples who marry would only help the concept of family by providing the benefits of a recognized legal family relationship to same sex couples and their children. By withholding these benefits these same sex couples and their children risk outside interference and discrimination.

It is time for our government to support all families, not just those that looked like George Bush's.

-Andrew Bertke
Married to my partner of 15.5 years, Joseph Agee, on August 28, 2003 in Toronto Canada

P.S. As for your second paragraph... Why is it that when those opposed to same sex marriage argue against it, they start comparing it to polygamy, bestiality, and necrophilia? What do any of these have to do with the union between two consenting adults?

This week is not going well so far. First I had a crappy night last night, and now I just read my Dad's Live Journal and see that some 15 year old kid tried to mug him. Luckily my Dad isn't a push over and the kid ran away.

I hope the rest of the week is better.

A while back I setup a moblog on Textamerica.com. This allows me to post pictures from my phone directly to a website. Here is the link to Drewan On The Go!

I just sent a bunch of pictures from my LRT trip on Friday to the site. I would have sent them on Friday, but I didn't remember the e-mail address. I had to look it up on my work computer this morning. All the pictures dated July 12, 2004 are actually from Friday's LRT ride.

Yes, I finally got around to riding on Minneapolis fun new Light Rail Train. After work on Friday, we met up with cpetego and his partner Bill at the Fort Snelling Park and Ride. After figuring out how to buy our train tickets, we boarded to LRT and headed down the Hiawatha Line. It was really cool! I really didn't feel like I was in Minneapolis!

We got off at the end of the line, which is at Hennepin and 5th. We walked over to Copelands for dinner and then down to Peavey Plaza for the Marshal Field's Day of Music festival. We hung out there for about an hour and then walked back to Borders where we browsed for a bit. I finally picked up a copy of the book Wicked!

Then we walked over to the Bolt so we could check out the new Bolt Underground bar. Good: Big, smoke free, lots of room around the pool table. Bad: Crowded around the dance area, stupid fog stuff, and loud. Though it isn't perfect, I liked it.

We didn't hang out there for long because we had a return train to catch. We walked from the Bolt over to the Metrodome to catch the train there. We had to wait about 20 minutes, and then the train that arrived was very full. I was glad to see so many people riding. Feels like Minneapolis is finally a real city!

Darn it! My nice Epson Color 1280 inkjet printer that I bought 3 years ago is ruined.

It hasn't printed right since the winter. I think it ran out of ink, and we waited a long time to buy new ink, and then it still wouldn't print. I finally took the time this weekend to call Epson Tech Support and he had me try a bunch of things... cleaning the print heads, doing an internal printer test print... nothing worked. He then referred me to a local repair center.

I just got a call back from the local repair place, and he told me that since the printer as been sitting so long the lines are probably all clogged. He said that it would cost more to repair it than a new printer would cost. So scratch one printer.

He also told me that ink jet printers can just sit unused for any real length of time. That have to be used at least a few times a week to keep then good. And it is especially worse with photo printers.

I think I will try and replace it soon with a new non-photo color printer, just an 8.5 x 11, instead of the 11x17 I had. I rairly need to print at home since I have access to nice laser printers at work, but occasionally I do need to print something in the evening or over the weekend, so it would be nice to be able to print at home.

Darn it! I forgot toe record the new Stargate SG1 Episode tonight!

Does anyone have it on tape that I can borrow? Or maybe come over and watch?

Thanks.

My boss (a fellow SF fan and armchair scientist) just sent me a link to the site for The Space Elevator, 3rd Annual International Conference. Looks like some interesting stuff.

PS238
Comic about a school for metaprodigy children.

Media Reader for iPod w/ Dock Connector

or

Digital Camera Link for iPod w/ Dock Connector

and

Altec Lansing inMotion Portable iPod Speakers

Happy belated birthday to laurel !!!

Sorry that I didn't post this yesterday.