Progress today:
- made it to the finishing line with my mild cold
- read a little LOTR and tried to visualize with high resolution the scenes
- did a little practicing my new voice
- did typing with the TouchStream incorporating homerow, d, i, g, and p
- Sat down my position on various priorities in anticipation of lifestyle choices I'll be making this year RE graduation and jobs

(I've been trying to educate myself to be a more rational thinker, here's a sample of some progress)

We went bowling this past night and I got a chance to see rational thinking in action.

Here is a simple "before" and "after" of my thought space to show what effect may have been gleaned from imprinting rational thinking into my mind.

I've mentioned earlier that I'm trying to find a voice that is most natural to me (this involves my pitch, accent, rhythm, cadence, and timbre when speaking).

Unfortunately I have a mild cold virus so I can't spend hours reading nice prose outloud to synchronize myself. However, I have had opportunities to test it out around people. I also spent some time weighing the costs and benefits to what I'm doing.

Interesting Discussion about the Left v. Right political spectrum on Plastic

Regarding the role of the state in public life, the two sides might be considered to differ to a greater or lesser extent on whether the state should prioritize equality (left) or liberty (right); whether the government's involvement with the economy should be interventionist (left) or laissez-faire (right); and whether the government should be secular and separate itself from religious beliefs (left) or should take a stance of religious morality (right).

From a more basic philosophical standpoint, divisions can be noted in areas such as whether one embraces change (left) or prefers rigorous justification for change (right); whether one favors fair outcomes (left) versus fair processes (right); and whether human nature and society are malleable (left) or fixed (right).

I think I'm going to marry rich...

... 1 ... I hate working
... 2 ... financial disparity between partners or any disparity in capabilities probably aids in marriage security
... 3 ... I'm a good teacher (teach kids) and have spent a lot of time already thinking about the topic of child rearing
... 4 ... By the time I reach marrying age, women in America would be much closer to men than they are now in financial earning power. More of them enter college and the workforce than Men anyways.
... 5 ... I want to spend my time pursuing my passions, not financial ambitions.
... 6 ... It fits with the pattern of somewhat eccentric decisions that I'm prone too.
... 7 ... Why does it have to be breadwinning dad anyways? Mainly tradition.

What truth is there to the statement that Al Gore "invented" the Internet? I found on slashdot a nice summary of positive support for this.

British writer Mark Simpson, credited by the New York Times for fathering the 'metrosexual' -- the moisturised, image-conscious male the global media has gone ga-ga for in recent months -- has apologised.

"I had no idea what I was starting," he said, speaking exclusively from his home in London, England. "If I'd known that metrosexuals would take over the world and make everyone wear fake tan and use glutinous hair care products I would have written about baseball instead."

Read Original News Article

Insert Fun Facts Here....

As you sit back in your chair this Christmas:

(the biggest holiday of the Ancient Roman World called Saturnalia and the birth of the Persian Sun God Mithras was named the birth festival of Jesus by Pope Leo the Great in 885 A.D. December 25th was also the Feast of Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun, a cult popular to Romans like Constantine, the first Christian emperor. Modern estimates based on the census records of Augustus calculate Jesus' actual birth in July although Christians had started to use the Saturnalia as the birthday feast as early as the 300's A.D.)

by your yule log:
(pagan German custom),

Why should we be averse to things anyways? I think to have an automatic avoidance of something. Otherwise, you're better served if you're not averse to things because you can have more freedom in selecting them in cases when you need to. You can be more rational, instead of emotional, when determining whether something is in your best interests or not, rather than relying on a knee-jerk bitterness you feel.

If people give me flak, should I let myself feel irritated or shattered? There are people who just don't get a rats ass when people criticize them or show their displeasure toward them. They have much more freedom. Now I'm not talking about being uncompassionate, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

So then I asked myself, when is it useful to be averse to flak? Probably if you don't have enough motivation to be sensitive and caring to others, or if you don't care enough about social graces or being nice. In that case, having an aversion to people hating on you motivates you to be a more positive person.

If you are aleady socially comfortable and motivated to be a gentleman, then you don't need to be averse.

I find that I already care more than enough about how I am in social settings, so there is no "need" for be upset when people get upset at me or ridicule me. Since I'm trying my best already, whatever gripes people have with me, are their own problems.