Hypergooglioma

Hypergooglioma (noun - medical)
hy·per·goo·glee·oh·ma [hahy-per-goo-glee-oh-muh]

Hypergooglioma is the technical term for a type of Hypochondria that is inflated by using Google to find your ailment. Often times, Googling symptoms will lead a person to believe that they are much sicker than they really are.

What Causes Hypergooglioma?

A number of things can cause Hypergooglioma :

• Using vague and common search terms for symptoms.
• Over analyzing results found on Google and believing that you also have symptoms that you do not have.
• Repeated queries using terms found in previous Google searches. 
• Only reading parts of articles related to your symptoms.

What are the Symptoms of Hypergooglioma?

The signs and symptoms include the following:

• Irrational belief that you have a serious disease.
• Constant worrying that you will die from a disease you found online.
• Confusion.
• Nervousness.

Part of managing your Hypergooglioma is to read each online article objectively and be sure to understand that what you are reading is based on generalized information. While you may have a dull pain in your head, it does not mean you have a brain tumor. Regular visits to real doctors can easy your worry, so be sure to make appointments if you are seriously concerned about symptoms you may have. Also, talk to your doctor about scheduling regular wellness checkups.

How Do I Treat Hypergooglioma?

The best treatment for Hypergooglioma is to eliminate Google searches from your self evaluation. While the alternative medicine is viewed as the best treatment in certain parts of the world, realize that you may only be doing more harm by using them (e.g., Bing). 

What if it Goes Untreated?

Hypergooglioma can be a serious problem if you don't treat it, so it's important to treat as soon as you detect it. If you fail to treat your condition you may only worsen the actual disease that you may have.

Talk to your doctor about how to handle this condition.

This Article Is Completely Unrelated To The Facebook Post Above

One thing about the human mind is that reality is often perceived differently by each individual. With social media being considered a news source, our thoughts are being manipulated by what our friends and colleagues pass around as fact without any research.

The truth of the matter is much more disturbing. Forget about the gun debate and whether the president is one religion or another. The fact is that we are all being duped from within the deepest recesses of the internet itself from a shadow organization that releases disinformation and propaganda to create panic and chaos. The internet itself was championed by Al Gore to help further the spread of such false information so that the organization's New World Order could proliferate.

While at Harvard University, Gore became a member of the secret Freemasons; created by Roscoe Pound who was also a member of the Society of Innocents. These organizations, while not exactly a secret to the general population, are indeed sub-organizations of a much larger, more sinister organization: the Illuminati.

The fact that the Illuminati control the internet can be proven by the Wikipedia page. For an organization that has such a long, fabled history, you'd expect they'd have much more about them. The Illuminati not only control the content on Wikipedia, they created the site.

Wikipedia Logo

They've even hidden the symbolism within the logo itself. You can see that the logo is a globe of multicultural symbolism that represents their New World Order philosophy. The missing pieces clearly represent what they choose to remove from our world. Part of solving the mystery of the Illuminati's plan is determining the missing pieces of the puzzle that is Wikipedia's Logo. While they will lead you to believe the logo was created by Paul Stansifer as part of a contest, they clearly used this as a ruse to mislead their users.

Another fact about globes is that our Earth is a globe. Wikipedia clearly uses this symbolism to almost dangle the answer in our faces like a carrot in front of a donkey. Only the smartest of us can be lead to the answers, however, we tow a heavy burden behind us. This burden is the knowledge of our true rulers: the Alien Overlords.

The Alien Overlords have been controlling the Earth and it's population for thousands of years. As part of their interplanetary travels, Earth was a stopping point between destinations where they found early species of humans that they were able to easily control due to their small, undeveloped brains. As the Overlords used the humans merely as slaves, many began to realize the potential of the species and worked to develop their brains. They used their own DNA to speed up this progress and began to help lead the early humans into free thinking.

One of the first things that they needed to keep the humans from rebelling against their masters was the idea of religion. The Overlords created myths based on simple explanations for such things as where they came from and how they were able to travel through space. Early humans asked many questions as they learned, and the complexity of the alien society only confused them. By making themselves gods and creating fantastic stories, the humans were able to understand by not questioning more difficult things.

Over time, the Overlords slowly left on their journey but many stayed behind. The ones that stayed behind vowed to watch and care for the humans while remaining hidden from them. A secret society was formed and maintained by them to help control the quickly growing population. During the course of time, the society allowed the different societies to form and create new governments and religions while still maintaining their New World Order.

There is an agenda and Al Gore is helping it along. However, there has been an uprising between the original Alien Overlords and their originating species that is playing out on our soil. I'll continue that conversation on my entry.

It's been a while

I've been very lazy writing lately, and I guess it's not so bad since there are no followers of my blog anyway. Whatever. Maybe one day someone will stumble upon it and make it viral because I'm a master signature writer.

You see, if you are new here, which you are, I write the "motivational" signature lines you see at the bottom of emails. Not all of them, but some. I take my inspiration from the Tao Te Ching, the ancient  words of wisdom that pretty much founded Buddhism. I like to use these fundamental ideas to form 21st century messages to get your mind moving. One translation of a section that I've always loved said "You shape clay into a bowl but it's the emptiness inside that you use." That got me thinking about doing nothing may lead to something, when in fact it means that doing something that leads to nothing makes room for cereal.

I hope you come back often. I'll try to start putting more of my signatures up for you to use in your emails. Stop using the ones that say "Jesus loves you" because that's just stupid and people get mad.  Sometimes, I also write very short stories or short ideas about long stories that I'll never write.

Repair Buttons, Retain Your Masculinity

I’ve noticed that my pant buttons fall off a lot. They never used to. Either my pants are shrinking or the quality of button thread is not what it used to be. I guess I’ll go with the latter. Whatever the cause, it became apparent that sewing the buttons back on was the only way to salvage an otherwise perfect pair of pants. Now that I don’t live in my mom’s basement and my wife doesn’t do such things, I would sit on the couch with needle and thread and fix the button. On one such occasion, a guy friend called and asked what I was up to. Fearing ridicule, I thought of other things I could say that sounded a bit more “manly”. Cleaning my gun? Watching lesbian porn? Drinking shots of whiskey? I don’t own a gun and haven’t had whiskey in years and he knew it.

Somehow, it slipped out, “I’m sewing a button onto my pants.”
“Ah, hahahaha. What’s your wife doing? Changing your oil?”
I was silent. He continued, “You going to hem her skirts while your at it?”

After a couple of minutes of his laughing at me, I decided to go on a quest to find the perfect way to fix buttons without sewing them on. It’s not that I didn’t want to be made fun of, because being the short guy in elementary school had made me impervious to ridicule. I just wanted to have the same feeling fixing buttons that I did when I was, for instance, changing hardware inside of my computer, fixing a broken door, rotating my tires...

That’s when it hit me. I went to the fabric store and bought dungaree (jean) buttons. They were 6 for $2, so I bought $20 worth to avoid having to go back to the fabric store. Dungaree buttons are 2 pieces; a male and a female part. To “install” them on your pants, all you do is place either piece on opposite sides of your pants and tap them together.

I grabbed an old brick from the backyard and wrapped it in gray duct tape. This serves as the base of your button making machine. Using a claw hammer, you just pound them together. If the pants are thicker and difficult to punch through, placing a piece of wood on top of the brick using a very small drill-bit to cut through the pants will help. Or, you can use a thin nail to make a pilot hole. Once you’ve got your buttons installed, have a beer. Perferrbly something hoppy.

Overgeneralizations

I like to over think things about society based on what I see and what I believe they think, based solely on what popular culture transforms into. I think that this blog should move more into my sociological, theological, and philosophical beliefs. Not because I want you to believe them (because you already do), but because I think that deep down we are unwilling to accept our true nature and believe in things that have slowly become either too hard to discuss or too hard to believe.

A few months ago I was watching a marathon of "Ancient Aliens" on the History Channel and it made me really start thinking. The show was a series of ideas about how aliens have been visiting the Earth for centuries and there is evidence that ancient cultures interacted with them. I got to thinking that if all of these separate cultures can all develop a ideal of "gods" that there must be something to what they might have believed. All of them believed that these gods were from somewhere beyond where we exist and helped them develop their society. They praised these gods and feared them. The show speculated that the gods were aliens.

Now, with the intelligent design theory and the evolution theory, you have two thoughts on the creation of man that to both sides sounds absurd. What if both are true?

The universe is 20 billion years old and the earth is only young in comparison. If the earth is 4 billion years old and life has only existed here for a small fraction of the time, then if the planets that formed before us and had more time to develop, and perhaps create life, then that life would be much older than ours. Obviously. Could they be more developed?

Human life has been around on earth for a long time. A humanish skeleton was found that was about 3 million years old. Over the course of 3 million years, it evolved into man. That is if you believe evolution theory. But it is a fact that the skeleton existed at that time. In between that time and the time when humanity started living in cities and electing officials and building pyramids, it seems that there was not a lot of progress. But, let's look at the time between when the United States declared it's independence and today. Only 200 plus years and humanity has developed electricity, the automobile, air travel, and then space travel. We have been proving Moore's Law and improving our technology at a rapid pace.

If you look at the reverse of Moore's Law, which I'll call Bundle's Law, then you see that doubling up the advancement started a long time ago when the first society realized they needed to eat. The first creature to walk earth slowly developed a way to make getting food easier. They learned to hunt. They invented the club, then the spear. They needed to cook the food, so they developed ways to use fire. They needed to move the food so they developed the wheel... The slow course of their development seems small compared to our accomplishments, but to them it was huge.

I think that it is almost impossible to believe that there is no chance that life had developed before we started. If there was a chance that life began somewhere else long before us, then they are much more advanced than we are. Let's just suppose that they are only 2000 years older. That would be huge if you look at where we will be in 2000 years. But if you look back 8000 years and say alien life started elsewhere 8000 years before that, they'd be where we are today. It is likely that they are a good million years older than we are, in which case they would be far more advanced. Advanced enough to be able to travel into space.

So let's say that they decide to leave their planet for what ever reason and come across a planet with primitive life. My theory is that they aided in the development of our species and got us started on becoming civilized. The people looked to these aliens as gods and loved them, did everything they asked. Then, when we were able to progress without their help, they left for bigger and better things. Or they stayed and the governments of the world have always been working with them.

I think that is just as reasonable a belief as is the stories of the bible. And that could just be a tale of alien creation in itself.

Your mind is being read

For many years the government has been monitoring radio waves of their adversaries. Recently, they have figured out how to monitor your mind.

Using your brainwaves as if they were low frequency radio waves, they can read your mind. The biggest challenge was decrypting the waves. Using a base key, they can. This is accomplished by sending a control pattern to your mind then registering it. Using television, what you hear is used as the decryption key.

Once they have they key, they use cell phone like handhelds to record and process the info.

Script for the upcoming season of The Hills

I wrote a script for the upcoming season of The Hills and thought I would share with you the riveting first few moments:
-----------------------------------------

Setting: Like an outdoor coffee shop or whatever

Guy and girl are like drinking coffee and , like, talking

Guy: Like, did you call her?
Girl: Whatever.
Guy: Whatever. You hollered back. Ummm, she’s like, “whatever”, and you were like, “whatever”. Whatever. Like why’d you do that?
Girl: Whatever.
Guy: Ummm. You totally got my ass called out. Like, we were okay, and you, like, whatever.
Girl (long pause, looking into the street or whatever): Like, we were, like, “hey” and then we talked about whatever. It never came up that you were seeing that girl.
Guy: Whatever.
Girl: She’s, like, so busy with work. Definitely. She’s got this, like, job or whatever, that like she’s like all up in the party scene for like fashion or whatever. And I was, like, “Whatever, I’d sell my car for a job like that” And she’s like, “I know, right” and I’m like “Right!”
Guy: I’d buy you a new one.
Girl: I know. Like, how to you get a job like that?
Guy: Like, you gotta go to school and stuff to learn that. Beverly Hills, I think.
Girl: Whatever, like I have time to, like, study and stuff.
Guy: Whatever.
Girl (suddenly on cell phone): Hey…. What? ....Nuh uh…. Whatever….. Whatever… Definitely…. I’m here now, call me back.
Guy: Who was that?
Girl: Whatever.

Camera pans overhead, playing an acoustic song or whatever, go to, like, a commercial or something.

ls *

>ls *

>mkdir earth
>cd earth
>mkdir life
>cd life
>pwd
/earth/life
>mkdir male
>mkdir female
>chmod -R 777 female
>chmod -R 000 male
>cd ../
>pwd
/earth
>

Blue Eyed White People are to blame?

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvamade commented that "the global financial crisis was caused by "white people with blue eyes" after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to try to forge a global consensus on how to save the worldwide economy.

As a proud member of the National Association of Blue Eyed White People, I would like to go on notice stating that I had nothing to do with the finacial crisis. This type of racial sterotyping is why my people are having an uphill climb through a bigoted world that can only see us for the colors of our eyes and skin. During WWII, Hitler began the quest to develop a "master race" of blue eyed white people. This began the first labeling of us as "arian" and associating us to the nazi party. After many years of not having anything to do with this, we are now faced with a new form of racism against us.

The #1 reason to be a dude

I have been thinking that it is good to be a guy, and I have come up with the number one reason why.

In the event of an invasion by aliens or zombies, we will be better equipped to run away because we won't be wearing high heels. We will have a better chance of survival, making it good to be a dude.

Sex lies and video-encoded flash files on the campain trail

In all my life I have never voted until yesterday. And I voted for Obama.

One of the main reasons I voted is because of all the over-zealous people who think they know Obama. I felt like I had to call them out as being wrong. I am convinced that certain groups of people make up stories and pass them along as fact, which in turn are passed on as fact to someone else within that group.

Take, for instance, a coworker who is extremely religious. He believes that Obama's stance on abortion "will lead the country to another Holocaust like Nazi Germany." Then, there are the people who are saying that Obama is Muslim. I am not arguing that he is or is not. I am arguing that not every Muslim is a terrorist. As not every African-American is a street thug. As not every National Rifle Association member is a redn... well, that one is probably true....

All the media networks have been following the candidates in their own way, as have the American people. I spoke to someone who was going to vote for McCain because they "felt" it was right. When I pressed for what it was that made them feel that way, there was no answer. But when I asked, "what is it you have against Obama to make you vote McCain?"
I was answered with, "you know he's Muslim and a Marxist?"
"Do you know what a Marxist is?"
"A communist?"

I voted for Obama, and I am confident that we will not have a Holocaust, nor will terrorist take over the White House. I voted because narrow minded people could have voted based misconceptions, racism, and religious brainwashing. I voted for Obama because all the people who read about Marxism on Wikipedia. I voted once so the vote of hillbilly America would be offset.

And, I thought Obama's campain slogan "Change we need" that hung on his podium read like Yoda was saying it. Try it. Yoda is wise.

Fully Ubiquitous Coding Kernel v.08

I haven't been able to write as much as I would like because I have been very busy lately. For the past several years, a colleague and I have been toying around with a new programming language, and recently a major software development company has shown interest. A lot of intere$$T. So let me tell you, my loyal friends what I have been working on.

What lead to us starting this project was the overwhelming number of programming languages and variations of similar languages- UNIX being the main culprit. While my friend was looking for tech work, it seemed that every job had different requirements and he joked that there should "be only one" (--Highlander). After talking it over with a lot of smooth 12 year old scotch, we came to realize that we should compile such a language. After a few hobby attempts, what started forming was a unified UNIX language, or kernel. We began working to make the kernel Windows compliant while, at the same time, keeping it simple. Once that was working fairly well, we began working on languages like the C's, ASP, PHP, and Java. We found that a lot of the code was similar, and sometimes used a lot of extranious code.

Last year, while testing the basic application for another friend, he joined the project. He insisted we name it and market it around. Since the project was so open to languages, we decided to call it the Fully Ubiquitous Coding Kernel and show it to another friend who worked for a major computing company. This friend was amazed at its "almost artifical intelligence" and portability, and began making phone calls. Soon after, we signed a contract for a grant to continue our research, and they even put us on the payroll with the title "Engineering Researchers" under the Fully Ubiquitous Coding Kernels newly created logo.

As you may know, a title like Fully Ubiquitous Coding Kernel Engineering Researchers comes with a great responsibility. Like Peter Parkers spidey powers. I am pleased to announce that we will soon be releasing our product to the public and you, my private audience, will be updated on its powers before the release (2010) and get the chance to be beta testers, if you like, as soon as December of this year. You can be the Beta Users Testing Team for the Fully Ubiquitous Coding Kernel Engineering Research. Maybe we will have them make you business cards!

We will also be looking for experienced programmers to be part of the Testing and Integration Team for the Fully Ubiquitous Coding Kernel Engineering Research for the launch of the beta, so if you have experience, please contact me immediatly.

Also, if you have a lot experience with Boolean Language Oriented Windows Jargon and Object Balancing Spools, I could use you right away for integration onto the team. We also need a pair of Complex Object-oriented Computing and Korn Shell Universal Control Keygen Echo Redundancy Specialists.

Hopefully I will get a chance to write more once the team is staffed up, but until next time:

Moments shared with Jesus may be more fun with tequila. --hb

Behavioral Science

Scientists with the Swedish Neurological and Behavioral Analysis Research Center (NABARC) in Oslo have finished 25 years of studies and are publishin their results in next month's World Science Monitor. Their years of research have concluded, scientifically, that "life is not fair."

The scientists, headed by Dr. Erik Fredicksten, studied thousands of people throughout the world from different races, cultures, sexes, and ages. During the 25 year study, Fredicksten used multiple methods research: interviewing, neurological scaning, and observation. Of the 4,200 cases, the scientist were able to prove their theory after determining that 97% have had lives that were not fair.

One such case, 14 year old Bianca Johnson from Brooklyn, New York was interviewed and stated that her older sister, Stacia (16) had more freedom and less punishment. Bianca believed that her mother was more apt to be agreeable with Stacia and says, "It's so unfair."

Another case involved 38 year old investment banker from New Delhi, India, Raj Bradeep who, after the tech boom in the 1990's was one of a few people who lost money as tech start-ups were going into the million dollar market. His wife and children were so ashamed of Bradeep that they left him for his wealthy younger brother, Hamsi, and later bore more children. Bradeep eventually lost everything he owned and now sells trinkets in the New Delhi market.

"I had everything that I had ever wanted." Raj explained. "I felt that nothing could go wrong. Then it did and it just got worse. It's not fair." He said that he could not blame his Hindi gods, but gave up his dharma because it had let him down. When asked if he felt it was his fault, he said no, explaining that "life itself is to blame. I got all my fortune from karma, then I lost it all."

Dr. Fredicksten also used advanced Electroencephalography (EEG) tests to determine the brain waves of individuals as they describe there gains and losses. Tests showed that when describing pleasurable experiences or fortunate circumstances, subjects brain waves showed increased activity. While describing the unfortunate events in their life, brain waves were shown to move in a different pattern. However, the EEG showed a baseline reading when subjects were asked to explain the reasoning or explaination behind the unfortunate events.

"The 97% of test subjects not only believed that they were not to blame for these circumstances, but they showed no increased heart beat or elevated blood pressure when describing it. The EEG showed no change in normal thought patterns. If this were a lie detector test, we would conclude that they were telling the truth."

Dr. Fredicksten concludes that study was one of the most conclusive research program ever. "With such a large percentage of subjects showing one way over another, we can only infer that our research is complete, and life is, in fact, not fair."

Quick note....

If the Mars Phoenix Rover can send radio signals 36 million miles to NASA and they can communicate back, why the HELL does my cell phone not get reception in so many areas?

Cogito ergo sum

An article at the NY Times online:

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a
mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and
even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists
reported on Wednesday.

Over the years I have thought a lot about this kind of sci-fi medical engineering. After shows and movies like the Six Million Dollar Man, Robocop, The Terminator, and Star Wars; I have always believed that, in my lifetime, I would see bionics and cloning to help further life expectancy and/or help people with disabilities. Scientists are constantly making improvements in our everyday lives, from prosthetics to medicine, and people are living longer, more productive lives.

Then you have your religious zealots out there ruining all the fun. Let's not take into account that I am a non-religious man, that is another post all together (collect some plutonium to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to power a flux capacitor in a Delorean traveling 88 mph and set the date to next year to read it). These people worship a God that they believe wants us all to do well, however, most religions frown upon things like cloning, contraception, or death penalties. For thousands of years, mankind has been making strides to lengthen life (burying people 6 feet under to prevent plague, using plants and stuff to make medicines to cure disease, banishing evil-doers in jail cells) and the life expectancy of man has increased dramatically. People 2000 years ago lived to about 25, now they live to between 80 and 110 because of all the collective knowledge of scientists and shaman that developed ways of living better.

As a man with management experience, I was very open to new ideas and suggestions to help make work a better place, be it a time saving method or a safer way to do something. I was open to try anything as long as it was not counter-productive, so when the idea passed muster and worked, we went with it. Why not make work better? Everyone looks for ways to make life better. Otherwise, there would not be coffee or Red Bull. Or Chocolate. Or cars. Or the Internet. So what I worry about is the ethical line that people will not cross because of what the Pope or Jerry Fallwell say. Life will be better if we only have sex for pro-creation? That homicidal maniac in prison that killed his wife and 5 children then ate them deserves to live? Seedless watermelons are the devils fruit?

If you told me that you could clone me, creating a new little Harry that would be kept under tight observation and preserved to be completely healthy, I would say "do it". You could take little Harry and store him on a research farm in Idaho where his life would be that of purity and perfection, then, when my liver rots from the tequila and whiskey, we harvest it and give it to me. It would be a perfect match. Or, when I am 80 and my bones hurt and my eyes don't work, transplant my brain into little Harry's young body. Then clone him again. Every 20 years I could reclone and live forever so I could see space travel.

Unethical? Maybe. It is hard for me to grasp the idea that there is the technology to create tissues and organs from pig fetuses or placentas or unused cellular organism to help save lives, cure disease, undo retardation, make people walk, and reverse aging, but we don't do it because of religion. Cloning me for organ farming might not be right because an actual person is made, but if you can clone my organs, do it.

Does your God hate you? Does your God not care about what you life becomes? Does your God want you to suffer? If your God created cows and brussel sprouts for food, water to drink, and man to better his life, then what man discovers should not be in question. If it is then God hates you.

Me gots to right

When I was in school, we took classes called English. It was a class full of exercises that involved reading books, writing essays, and learning vocabulary. I guess that they no longer offer this class.


Speaking with people is even worse. I spend most of my day obsessing about what people say and how they are saying it. Then, unfortunately, I begin hearing myself saying these things as if I am slowly slipping into this world of idiocy.

Have you seen the movie Idiocracy? It's very funny. That is how the world is going. Haven't seen the movie? Too bad. You should.

There was a scientific study done that concluded that humanity is slowly dividing into two separate classes. One is the beautiful "normal" people, and the other is a "elfish hillpeople". If you have ever spent time in Glen Burnie, you will see that Maryland is quickly headed for the hills. Listening to these people talk, they consitantly mispronounce words and make horrible grammatical errors and its driving me nuts:

• Pacific: meaning "Specific". Favorite use: "They are not specifically asking for a pacific one..."
• Clamamari: meaning "Calamari".
• Question: what you say before asking a question.
• Lieberry: meaning "Library", not a new type of fruit.
• In other words: A gentleman I speak with on a regular basis ends almost every sentence with this phrase. "I went to the bank, in other words. Got some cash out of the ATM, in other words".
• You know, You know what I'm sayin', Know what I mean: I watched a show about prisons on MSNBC and where there was a pause in a sentence, there was one of these phrases. I think I heard one of them 200 times in 3 minutes. It seems the more educated one is the less they care if the person they speak with understands what is being said. One guy I work with ends every sentence with "You know, you know".

You know, I know I am not perfect, you know what I'm saying. I may have made spelling mistake or grammatical errors in this post. I sometimes catching myself blending in and speaking a little hillbilly myself. What concerns me is that young children are learning to speak this way, compounded with text messaging and internet forums, they are becoming stupid. There, I said it. You know what I'm saying?

Karma H. Christ

So I was trying not to watch Idol Gives Back last night and I was sucked in as they donations came in upon images of the desperate and poor. I am, by no means, uncaring. I give money to charities regularly and almost gave last night as part of my duties as a human.

Then my mind spiraled out of control. I started thinking about all the benefits from years past. Band-Aid, Farm-Aid, Comic Relief, Christian Miracle Network, and countless of others since the '80's that flaunt actors and musicians as salesman to karma. These events each earn close to $20 million a piece that I hear of. Over the course of the past 20 years, that's at least $400 million from one charity. Then you have the smaller charities, individuals and fundraisers that may pull in, say $2 million. You are looking at, over the course of the year, charities making $40 million a year (this is my uneducated guess). Lets say that number carries over for the course of 20 years. That is a total of $800 million. So then you figure that there are 900 million people in Africa. You count out the "rich" nations like South Africa and Egypt and the nations that are doing well on there own, and you probably can say that 50% of that population is poor and in need of aid. With $800 million you are telling me that the proper hospitals, farm tools, farm supplies, medical supplies, or educational material can not be provided? I find it hard to believe that this money is not enough, along with all the volunteering people from almost every country, to help make this country a better place.

What am I saying? I think that the charity organizations are not fully using or giving the money to those who need it. Those who run the organizations should be investigated for where this money actually goes. Don't tell me that there are administrative fees or wages of any sort. There are volunteers willing to work and I know that a lot are, so anyone being paid should not be considered as "doing charity work."

I hope that the day comes when all this money finally makes it to whatever country and whatever child needs it, and those who are holding this money or redirecting it into non-charitable dollars wind up catching the malaria that they say they wish to eliminate.

"Karma is God's evil twin sister. She hates you more than he does." --hb

Ctrl+Alt+GoF*yourself

I have been designing some corporate logos lately and when in a train station I began sketching an idea that I had for one of them. I had a No. 2 Skillcraft pencil I stole from the dentist and a yellow legal pad from who-knows-where. But I digress...

For the last 10 years, I may doodle while talking on the phone or sitting in a meeting, but rarely do I put ideas onto paper. I get the juices flowing by "sketching" right into Illustrator or Photoshop. I can change colors, fonts and such with a quick keystroke. Over time, I have gotten use to the tools and options to the point that I rarely think about keyboard shortcut or mouse clicks or combinations of the sort. In minutes I can have a mock-up of what I want to do and work from there.

So, while waiting for the train, I sketched a stylized letter 'A' as it appeared in my head. As it progressed, I was becoming pleased with the design and thinking of all the aspects that would go along with this 'A' to complete the logo. One line suddenly went askew and, in an instant, my brain said "CTRL-Z" as I flipped the pencil over to erase.

UNDO! UNDO! Stupid eraser just smears the lead. Ruining the line. Ruining the design completely! Thoughts being mumbled, CTRL-Z! CTRL-ALT-Z! CTRL-A...DELETE! F12!

I eventually threw the design away.

"Power tastes great unless you choke on it." --hb

Curse of the Big Bang Theory

Conspiracy Theorist unite!

I have been watching the TV show "Big Bang Theory" on Monday nights. A couple of weeks ago they began the show with the song from "2001: A Space Odessy" and that week the author, Arthur C. Clark died.

Last week, they showed 3 of the charachters going to a "Planet Of The Apes" marathon and that week Charelston Heston died.

I am eagerly awaiting the new episodes because the show is very funny.

"When you look for a conspiracy you shall find it. Then the CIA will find you and kill you."--hb

Mondays are like Tuesdays. 'Cept differnet.

When the weekend has passed and Monday morning starts with a cup of coffee and the dread of a long workweek, I find myself looking back on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning I was thinking about Monday, not thinking that I would be thinking about Saturday on Monday. I thought that Monday would be different. Not like last Monday, but more like last Tuesday. Last Tuesday I was thinking it was Wednesday most of the day, and when I finally came to the realization that it was Tuesday, and not Wednesday, I was disappointed that I was further from the weekend than I had thought. Then I was struck by the notion that next Tuesday (tomorrow) I might have the same problem.

Does every day circle around and around and around? Yes.

Today is a rainy Monday, and Tuesday will probably also be rainy. I keep thinking about Saturday already, and it will probably rain then, too.

"The sound of birds in the morning will wake you so you don't forget to sleep the day away." --hb