Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Towards a Simpler Life

Lately I've been working towards changing areas of my life, towards a healthier & happier lifestyle. yes, i know - it's cheesy. I started about two weeks ago. Today, I was going to make another step - vegetarianism.

Yes, that's right. This former mountain dew beef jerky and anything fattening junky is going for a serious fling with vegetarianism - I need to cut down on how many meat, bread, and dairy products. I eat way too much pizza for my own good. Today was supposed to be the first day. Instead I've ended up getting a McDonalds meal with extra bacon for breakfast, and cheese crackers for lunch (I didn't have time to put one together).

When I ate dinner, what was it? Spaghetti with LOTS of meat. *sigh*

Now that's what I call progress!

Seriously though, I'm going to try this out. Maybe permanently, I'm sure Emily would love that. For now I'm going to try being vegetarian except for breakfast, as I really don't have time to put together breakfasts at 4:30 a.m. in the morning (when I leave for work). On the other hand, I suppose I could grab some yogurts and stuff from Evil*Mart. (No, I don't really hate them, I just think it's funny how everyone in this sorry excuse for a dot in the map hates them, but don't shop anywhere else)


OK, so starting tommorrow, I will be a vegetarian (except for breakfast)

Maybe next week I'll try changing my breakfast habits.

Quitting Smoking

So, after some thought and discussion with a friend, I'm going to take a break from smoking for a while. She's going to be quitting for a while because she wants to prove to herself that she is not addicted. That's not an issue with me, as I know I'm not addicted.

The issue for me is money. Since living in this area, I've been smoking a lot more than I usually would. It's much more accessabile in this area, and cheaper, and i've been spending about 400$/month on it. That's money that could be better spent on better things - specifically, I could take that money and visit her more often. I guess it's true what they say - if you're gonna smoke it, grow it yourself. Street prices ain't worth it.

I feel really stupid looking back at how much money I've been spending lately. 400$ would have covered the cost of visiting her for a few days, plus the cost of a hotel and car rental. I need to see her more often.

It's been almost a year since we've seen each other, though we talk to each other at least once a day on the phone. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but the strains of time & distance have been wearing down on our relationship. I need to know if we're going to take our relationship serious or not.

If not, it was time well spent - and time to get ready for NH.

If so, well, I'm sorry guys - but she's more important.
What's liberty if you can't enjoy what you love?

Friday, February 16, 2007

Hammer of Truth

There used to be (sorta still is) a libertarian-community blog owned by Stephen VanDyke called called the Hammer of Truth. I enjoyed reading it, it was (at the time) the only libertarian blog I would reguarly check out (as in daily).

Stephen was working on a project called LibertyMix which was supposed to be basically a much, much better version of the Hammer of Truth site from what I understand. Even got something like 10,000$ in donations for it's development, from what I've heard.

Then people started getting cranky (understandably) because there had been no signs of progress for months. Accusations of fraud, etc. Then finally, Stephen said it was almost ready and it was supposed to have been launched in early December. Since 12/14, a message saying that "you will hear from me in the coming days will be the directions to the signup page " has been on the HoT and LM pages. Nothing's changed since then.

Are the critics right, Stephen? Did you simply take off with the hard-earned money of your (former) readers? If not, please give us an update!

Thursday, February 15, 2007

FSP Men, and FSP Women

A few days ago, Yellow Rag pointed out some disturbing, yet mostly true about male Free Staters. In her own words...
To me the FSP is something that has absolutely overwhelmed and pervaded the Condon household since my sophomore year of high school. There were dinners with scuzzy libertarian men who owned mail order bride services, were convicted tax evaders, or were just plain fucking crazy

We're friggin crazy. Not as in haha funny funny type of crazy. Crazy as in putting Ann Coulter and Nancy Pelosi into a single room type of crazy. With the exception of a few, for example Stephen Gordon, we have absolutely no tact - myself included.

I've been trying to be extremely careful when I start talking politics, and generally avoid most libertarian forums. Not because I don't enjoy the forums, but because we libertarians tend to be rabid assholes at times, and it can rub off on me. As the saying goes, "Better to keep quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

As I look down from my very very tall horse, I see libertarian males in earth toned corduroy, shirts from Spencer's Gifts (Spongebob, perhaps), the occasional cannabis leaf tattoo, and the tendency to bark instead of speak. Really, they bark, even more than the ladies.They..they like punk pop. And Southpark. Did I mention I despise cartoons?

Kyle's Mom: What?! What what what what?!

And while I'm at it: Why are the girls so pretty?

They've got to make up for us libertarian men.