As I was driving into work today, I listened to NPR to get my daily dose of whatever horrors mankind can come up with, in sprightly tones and sound bites. Given that I live in America and it’s an election year, the horrors of war and death were largely set aside to make room for the horrors of politics.

This is where the rant kicks off. I am rapidly losing all respect for professional American news media outlets. Yups, the journalist is biting the hand that feeds!

See, throughout the various chats with pundits, commentators, pollsters and the like, no one mentioned any names but those of the candidates for the big parties. Yes, there are others, for those that wondered why I made that distinction. But there have been other candidates this whole time. Yet the only ones getting press have been Republicans and Obama.

Many boast of American exceptionalism, but give little regard towards thoughts of what it should be that makes a country exceptional. I often wonder if we’re really that exceptional at all.

I mean, what’s so exceptional about about a nation with a collapsing infrastructure or that most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the top one to two percent of its population while many are homeless, starving, illiterate or living without basic health care?

Maybe we should focus on promoting education, freedom of speech and religion, equal protection under law, care for the less fortunate and the basic concept that we are all Americans and Americans thrive when we look out for one another.

Diablog time!

It’s not about Diablo 3 though, but I find the name catchy.

I’ve been playing Borderlands 2 over the last few days with my friend Chris, who convinced me to get the game in the first place.

I wasn’t really planning on getting the game, but seeing as I’ve got a nasty case of depression, I need things to do to keep me occupied. I only had to pay 50 dollars on that day, but at a lossof several games in the trade.

Once upon a time, in the land of Naïvète, I believed trolls existed only in their purest form on the Interwebz. Never, ever have I been so wrong. Nor have I ever been so frustrated at being wrong.

Lets get some background, shall we?

There is this group in Oklahoma (and a few other places, though I don’t know if the various groups are affiliated) called the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ. Every so often, you’ll be out driving in OKC and run across this fairly large group of African American guys in black fatigues and combat boots. Over this, they wear white surplices (clerical garb, ok?) and stoles of various colors. Also, funny hats. But hats are awesome, and should never be mocked, even if they make me go “huh?”

There has only been one time in my life that I thought I was going to die. Actually, two times. One was in Dallas during one of my brother’s soccer tournaments. We were playing basketball with a soccer ball (because that was all we had) with some people in the parking lot of the hotel. All of a sudden, a car screeched to a halt and a man stepped out the car wearing a trench coat. I assumed he was there to kill us all.

He began some small talk and then reached into his trench coat. I was sure he had a gun. I guess he was just going for an itch or something, because then he picked up the soccer ball and tried to do some soccer juggling and then got in his car and left.

The other time I thought I was going to die was when my family lived in Trinidad and Tobago, an island off the coast of South America. We lived there for a couple years when I was in elementary school because my dad works in the oil business and got a job over there.

As my daughter gets older, it seems harder and harder to find clothing that I want her to be wearing. She will be 7 years old this October, and I notice most of the clothing made to fit her is a little more mature than I would like.

I’m sure some people think it’s cute when little girls can dress just like mommy, but judging by the outfits I’ve seen in the children’s section, mommy could use a little more modesty too.

For example, over the summer it was all but impossible to find a suitable swimsuit for my daughter. There was a whole plethora of child-sized bikinis. I mean, really? These things are meant for 6 or 7 year olds? I remember thinking that I would never dress my little princess in something so small and revealing.

I don’t like my medicine much. Sure it seems to work as intended, but it drains me completely, and makes my relationship with Leigh that much harder.

I don’t feel like doing much so I’m not all that romantic.

My home life is suffering a bit too. My mother needed me to help out with some wood hauling work because we hired some tree cutters and I wasn’t able to because my medicine made me too tired.

It sucks, but I need to take the meds.

On Sept. 11, a day that should be observed with solemnity and seriousness. NBC’s “Today” show made a disgusting lapse in judgment that could spell trouble for a network long known for its struggles.

At 8:48 a.m. ET — the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center 11 years ago — President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama led the nation in a customary moment of silence for the victims, the affected families and friends, and the country as a whole.

If you know me, you know I’m difficult to offend. Sure I rant and the stupidity of humans angers me, but I don’t often take offense. My buttons are about a millimeter wide and protected behind a 5 inch shield of lead-like apathy. Just about nothing gets to me on a personal level.

Anyone that called this as a lead up to “but this one thing…” may now have a lollipop. (Disclaimer: Lollipops not included. Readers must provide their own.)

Of all the things I thought might ever offend me, however, a math textbook would never have made the list. And yet, it happened just yesterday.

So I’m working along on statistics problems, when I come to a problem that asks me to match a set of histograms with a set of questions that were used to generate the data the histograms are based on. No numbers, just the shape of the ‘grams and guesswork to go on. It’s not a hard question, since two of the inquiries are binary. Two responses only, which are entered into the data set as 0 or 1.

The second person in the span of one week has died from a pedestrian vs. train accident in Norman. It is also the seventh pedestrian vs. train accident in the last three years.

How does this even happen?!

There are tons of trains that go through Norman every day. You can time them. They always come at the same time and last just as long as the others. So how is it possible that someone could get injured or killed by one of these?

Saturday around midnight we were going to the Mont when we noticed the train stopped at the intersection of Boyd and Classen. We spoke to the manager who said another person was hit at about 10:30 p.m. They had the train stopped, blocking traffic, on a game night, for the investigation for four hours.