Thursday, April 07, 2005

Texas Politics

Note: Blogger is being a punk in my apartment so I had this post ready hours before I put it up. Hopefully I can Friday's post up on Friday itself, but no guarantees since Blogspot doesn't like me anymore.
I like Texas because I love Austin, but it's really starting to piss me off. We're ranked 45th in the nation in the number of high school students who enroll in college, and yet our genius legislature wants to cut $30 million from the Texas Grant program. They've also got more tricks up their sleeves to merge the B-On-Time loan program with the Grant one so that the requirements would be stricter and even less students would get money for college. It's so aggravating that our economy has been floating in a recovery for a while now and no one cares about increasing educational opportunities so that we can get back to prosperity. What could possibly be more important than higher education? That's an investment in human capital that would bring so much into our local economy. To make Texans even less proud, Tom DeLay is being a jerk. This guy remind me of that that Senator in Sin City: he has no morals or ethics and only cares about money and power, neither of which he's deserving of. The only reason he's in the House is because of shady districting. It makes me angry because whereas my parents bust their butts for every penny we ever get he steals half a million bucks from the PAC for his family. But anyway, write to your representatives about the Texas Grant program!

It's ok that I went a little over in my opening paragraph because this post won't be too long anyway. If you use a laptop you may be interested in getting a mobile printer. They're actually not nearly as expensive as I thought they would be and for someone on-the-go I can see them becoming very useful (especially for printing notes and stuff). Soon on store shelves you may see something called an Oxyride battery. This is a new type of battery from Panasonic that delivers more power and supposedly for a longer time than even the Ultra batters but for the price of regular alkaline batteries. The claim about lasting longer is debatable, but it's definitely a step in the right direction for high-drain devices. A while ago I reported about IPTV, and now there's an update: it will be delayed. Apparently, they're having trouble drumming up content and Disney is being difficult. The extra features it could provide would be quite a revolution though. In a weak attempt to get popular again, Yahoo is donating some hosting capacity to Wikimedia. It sounds altruistic, but I doubt their motives are that noble. Sony recently got a patent for a device to transmit sensory information to your brain. I don't think I'd want to smell the blood in Metal Gear Solid though. Lastly, Apple may soon have to stop limiting its iTunes service to its own brand of products by Congressional order, but nothing has been decided yet.

I'm sorry to say that the movie news today is subpar, so I'll combine it with my randomness. My uneasiness about Kingdom of Heaven has been confirmed by one guy's opinion of an early screening. Things could change though and it's only one opinion so we'll see what happens. My opinion has changed, however, about Dukes of Hazard and this preview of the upcoming trailer made me realize that it may be a funny, quirky movie after all. And lastly, there's a review at JoBlo about Kung Fu Hustle that confirms my room mates' claims of its quality so think about seeing it if you get a chance to. Today was a proud day for Indians and Pakistanis alike because the governments have opened transit between Kashmir and India over the Line of Control (LOC), which splits the territorial claims of the disputed region. It's definitely a step on the right path because we don't need all this hate between people with the same heritage. I wanted to mention a new trailer for a PS2 game based on Time Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas because thought I thought it would be dumb I think it could be a fun platformer. Look:

Ouch


Now here's the 3x Thursday meme:

1. Do you think that pets lengthen life, reduce stress, etc for people? Why/why not?
I don't know about that, but I do think it increases their quality of life if they don't get too obsessive over them. If you're single, it's nice to have someone to come home to who is always eager to see you. If you have a family, it's fun for the kids.

2. Do you think there is someone out there for everybody? Or, are some people just destined to be alone? Why/why not?
Oh I definitely think there's someone out there for everyone. The reason is because people have such different opinions on beauty and personalities. There are girls who I've thought are hot and my friends thought I was crazy. It's great that we have different tastes like that though because it means that everyone is bound to have someone for them. Of course my greatest fear is dying alone, but I'll still keep hope alive!

3. Do you think society is collapsing? Why/why not? How/how not?
I think it's in trouble, but I don't think it's exactly collapsing. I don't like the way society is deemphasizing school work and legitimizing pre-marital sex. Why is it cool to have sex all of a sudden? It has already begun to become meaningless to people, and I don't ever want that to happen to me. It's not going to implode though as long as there are still sane people around.

Bonus Question: Do you think (even if you don't have anything of value) that people should have a will? Why/why not?
Yes, because otherwise what would you do with their stuff? Just give it all to charity? But then that should be in their will. I think it's definitely important.

Time to head out for Texas Revue. I hope some of you will at least go to the Saturday one if not tonight's, but I'll talk about how it was in tomorrow's post.

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