Hmmm, I'm a Centrist

So, I read an article today in the local Fort Collins weekly newspaper, strangely enough, it's named the Fort Collins Weekly.
Basically, it's a community newspaper. Folks in the local community write their latest diatribes dissertations for publication, so they can pretend to be more intellectual than their neighbors for a week.

It's a really good paper actually, I just have to rip on some of the personalities that make their presence known via its pages. Not that I'm any better of course, I mean what I do here is exactly the same thing. I rant about stuff that's really important to no one except me, then try to convince everyone that I'm the only person with the right answer. Ain't it cool? ;)

Anyway, one article I read was comparing the current state of housing and the housing policies of major cities in the state to cities in other states. That's not important. What is important is the link the author, a political Libertarian, provided to an on-line political test. The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz. The link for the quiz is at the top of the page. 10 questions, and pretty damn accurate from what I can see by messing with it. It is sponsored by a Libertarian group, but they had no trouble calling me a tree huger when I tried to fool the test into thinking I am one.

Now, I've never really thought of there being a whole lot of choice out there politically. You have your silly Liberals, the nutty Conservatives, and the really nutty conservatives, like the constitutionalists and the Mormons.

Personally, I always tell people I'm a moderate.
As it turns out, there ain't no such thing. If you look at the image I uploaded, there's just 5 choices when it comes to political leaning. Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, Statist, and Centrist. So, it turns out, I am a moderate, it's just that moderate is the wrong term to use. Of course around here, if I tell someone I'm a centrist, they're not likely to know what that is. They'll probably associate me with one of the constitutionalist groups, or the posse comitatus or something.

Anyway, I'm a Centrist with Liberal/Libertarian leanings.
Some people might see me as a fence sitter. Personally, I think it's my duty as a citizen to try and see both sides of the issue when making a voting decision. Most people don't in my limited experience. They just accept the words and ideas of others as being 100% absolute. So I guess, in a way, I've learned something new today. I've always know what I was politically, I was just calling it by the wrong name.

It may be the worlds shortest political test, but I'd love to see a longer version. Say 100 questions or so. There's just no way this thing can be wholly accurate with only 10 questions. There's too many variables in life that you can't dig into in a 10 question test.
For example, "Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft"
I think we should have mandatory service actually. 2 year minimum. However, that doesn't mean I think those draftees should have to go die in some middle eastern shithole like Iraq. So, I have to mark that one as a "Maybe".
Another one would be "End government barriers to international free trade". It's not our government that puts up those barriers. The US imports more than it exports in terms of finished goods. That's called a trade deficit. The problem is "no one wants to buy our finished goods". Bullshit. It's that foreign governments tariff our exports higher than anyone else's so the locals can't afford our goods. So, we've stopped exporting. (there's more to it than that, this is just in a nutshell.)
So again, I have to mark that one as a "Maybe".

Having more questions would allow the test to really get in-depth on those issues.

In other news, I have 8 more days until I start my new job. w00t!

Whooo

Okay, those who know me well know that I'm a nut about things related to Japan.
For now, the closest I'm going to get to Japan, is living vicariously through someone elses Japan experiences, espcially those with blogs.

the problem with blogs, is they are mostly out of date. There's only two that I read regularly that are current. SushiCam and Danny Choo.com. Now I have a third to enjoy. The Japan Years. This one is pretty good and it's a fun read simply because Mike and his family have only been there since October, so everything is still new and confusing and strange and all the neat feelings that go with that. Anyway, check it out if you have a chance. It's lacking in pictures right now, but that should be changing shortly.


And speaking of changing shortly, I have 8 working days left at the furniture store, and 14 days total until I start my new job. ;)

18 more days

Until I start my new job.
Actually, it's only 14 days if I don't count my regular days off between now and then.

I think I'm going to take the 5th off, which would make the 4th my last day at the store. That will give me a 3 day weekend going into the new job, which is good, I need to go out and buy some new clothes so that will give me shopping time.

Anyway, I found a really cool blog site the other night, it's at DannyChoo.com go check it out. This guy has the coolest collection of toys I've ever seen. Mostly Gundam, but some other stuff as well.
And, of course, he lives in Japan. He doesn't seem to post much about living in japan though. If it were me, I'd be driving everyone nuts with it. Of course, I don't post much about living in Colorado either.
That will be changing once I've gotten settled into my new job though. (I'll actually have money to go out and do stuff for a change).

I was out having a smoke earlier, and I think there must be a large-ish pond somewhere in the neighborhood. I could hear a bunch of geese and they were going ape-shit about something. Seriously loud. Probably a coyote or a fox going after them or something. We have a few fox dens nearby. It's pretty neat to hear them yipping late in the evening. I really need to get out more.

Anyway, that's all for today, I need to go get ready for work.

Heh!

I was bored last night, so I took a trip to Berlin
where I found this section of the Berlin Wall. There was no one around, so I gave a shout out to some old skool geeks.

Well, not really. It's actually this neat little program I found at LetterJames.de. Still, pretty cool though.

In other news:
I'm going out of my freaking mind. I'm starting my new job on or about the 8th of December, and I'm going nuts waiting for the days to pass by.

Nothing else new here other than that.

Ooops...

I'm sitting here waiting to go to work, and I realized, I completely blew off everything I needed to do the last couple/three days...
Chad was nice enough to send me 768MB of RAM for my computer, so what did I do first? Yeap. Loaded up Star Wars Galaxies and played pretty much non-stop Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday, I spent reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, and about 3/4ths of Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.
Oh, and I got some laundry done. That's about it. Still need to go to the store, but that will have to wait until tomorrow after work.

So a couple of things I want to talk about;
SWG: Aside from a small PvP group outside of Theed starport, there's almost nobody in game anymore. I even went to Coronet starport, which used to be nothing but a lagfest a year ago, and the place was deserted. Seriously, I stod out front for 10 minutes and saw 3 PC's walk by. Either everyone is in Space, or they've all left for WoW.
I almost bought the space expansion Monday night, but I think I'm going to hold off until I can sort out where the hell everyone is at. If there's no one playing, why would I want it. It's seriously dead. No one to group with, and I'm rather bored with getting 1xp for taking out stuff by myself.
And of course, I really can't afford to be playing anyway. I figure 1 month at $14.95 isn't going to break me, but I'm going to have to put the account back on hold at the end of the month until I can get one of my SO jobs I think. Especially if it stays as dead as it is right now in the game. I mean, I'm used to operating by myself, I play a Ranger after all, but geeze -Everybody is just gone it seems like. Kind of hard to take on the big critters when I can't get a buff anywhere.

Harry Potter books:
I've never read them before. I've seen the movies of course, but I've never bothered with the books, which is unusual for me. SOP for me is to read the book first then see the movie. Anyway, the books are fantastic! Seriously. I really enjoyed comparing how things in the book shake out in the movies too. Hormione is really a know-it-all stick-in-the mud in the books. More so than the movies. I think I like the movie version of her character a bit better. Same with Ron. He's a bit of a jerk in the books. Much more down to earth in the movies.

I've added the series to my wishlist. Once I get a real job, I'll be buying them in hardbound.

Okay, I have to finish getting ready for work, here's a pretty cool link I wanted to share. The ultimate list of IT support links
Speaking of IT stuff, I read a article in the paper a few days ago about the SO's budget issues. They're going to try to bring in another IT-type person for the office. I need to call and see what the requirements will be for that. That would be a sweetheart of a job. Best of both worlds for me. IT and working at the SO.

Have fun everyone!