Anyway, I’ve got a blog post saved for Tuesday/Wednesday depending on the circumstances. Quite angry that it’s not going to be going up Monday - you’ll understand after you read the blog post. I’m sorry I can’t provide more details right now.

Anyone else catch the most recent episode of “The Office“? I hate (love?) how the last few episodes have left be longing for more at the end of each one. Spoilers ahead, beware…

With one more episode after tonight’s, I just need to know what happens. Will Toby really leave for Costa Rica? Will Jim really propose to Pam (and will she accept, especially after revealing that she might be interested in going to Philadelphia or New York to pursue graphic design)? Will Dwight and Angela get back together after Angela displays slightly less anger towards Dwight in the last episode? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions but I really wish that the last episode of this season would just come out already.

Any interested parties can view my Pandora profile here.

In other news, certain individuals have been contacting me in regards to both link exchanges and affiliation. When I had my massive revamp/reorganization in February I wanted to change a few things. I decided that I no longer wanted to do link exchanges (and this obviously means that if you’ve previously exchanged links with me and you are no longer linked you are under no obligation to link me back.) I also made the decision that I was going to be far more picky about who I affiliate with. This does not mean that if you were removed that I think you’re crap or anything of the sort - but it has to do with the fact that I had around 40 affiliates and I obviously needed to cut down. I also made the decision to try to distance myself from the “myspace scene” because quite frankly it’s all a load of crap how people are whoring themselves out for a piece of the myspace pie. So, as with the link exchanges, I do not in any way expect any former affiliate to continue to link to me if I removed them from my affiliates section. There are no hard feelings… so please don’t take it that way. I still need to go back through all of these links again and remove some…

In other news, one of the positive results from the aforementioned hacking was that I cleaned up my hosting account and anything that I wasn’t using was removed. It’s amazing how much garbage can build up on a domain over four years

I hope everyone is doing well and I’ll try to return any comments in the past few posts.

I’m going to use my handy ReminderFox Firefox addon to remind me to check things for updates once a month or so. I would advise everyone to do the same.

[Edit 1:52AM Sunday, April 20] I’ve managed to clean up everything, I think, from this site to all of my fanlistings, my Q*bee quilt, and my portfolio. If you see any weird things going on please let me know. [/Edit]

Let me give you some background information. I am an agnostic atheist (which in a nutshell means that I am an atheist who acknowledges the fact that as of this time it is impossible to know what created this weird thing known as the Universe, but believes that it’s probably not likely that a divine hand was involved.) I do not hate faith or religion — it’s just not for me. I also believe completely in this idea called “separation of church and state” and even though it is not actually in the Constitution, I do believe that is exactly what the founding fathers meant when they drafted the Constitution. I believe America’s basis lies in the idea that everyone is welcome, that everyone can believe what they want to believe, and that part of living in America is respecting that your neighbor might have ideas radically different than you own and, despite that, you can coexist in peace.

I am sick and tired of this election being tied to faith. I am sick and tired of hearing about how Candidate A is a Christian and so they are therefore better than Candidate B because they don’t make faith such a prominent part of their life. This election is about who can run this country in a way that is best for everyone, not about who is going to “get into heaven”.

I’ve come across all kinds of people who want to see this country put back on a “moral track” because apparently America is dive-bombing straight to some abysmal level of morality. I don’t think so. I think that there are aspects of society that are certainly wrong (murder/crime rates, violence in schools, for instance) but I find it almost hilarious that one point that is equally as frequently brought up is that marriage has been denigrated and divorce rates are just too high. Since when has it been the government’s job to try to “fix marriage”, especially when there are things like a war, terrorism, nuclear weapons in North Korea, and human rights violations in China? Divorce rates are bad, but if people want to get divorced, that’s an issue of their choice. People would probably be better off if they would make sure that marriage is for them before they go through with it. Sometimes during the course of marriage you realize that the person you’re with just isn’t who you thought they were, or maybe they’ve become abusive or unfaithful. I’m not saying any of these things aren’t a problem but they certainly aren’t the government’s problem.

I’m getting off track, however. This “moral track” is so often associated with Christianity and I’ve on more than one occasion read that maybe if those nasty atheists quit trying to take religion out of government (they always say religion, but really they mean Christianity - because I’m certain that a great number of people would be in an uproar if someone suggested that the US would be better with more Islam in government). Wait a minute, now… why is it that you can’t have morality without religion? I like to think that I’m a perfect example of “morals” without religion because I do none of the following that many of my so-called “religious” peers do:

• smoke (cigarettes or otherwise)
• drink (alcohol of any form)
• act slutty (I have been with the same guy for over three years)
• spend inordinate amounts of money on things that I don’t need (isn’t being thrifty in the bible? I don’t know)

Oh, but wait, you argue. Those people aren’t real Christians. I would like to say this: “Whatever.” If you took the percentage of people who aren’t “real” Christians out of the total number who claim they are, then I would really like to see those statistics. Really. Because I’m pretty certain there would be a very small number of them.

But, I think I’m getting off track again. I would like to point out that religion != (does not equal, for those non-programmers) morality. It doesn’t. I have reasons other than because some book said so for not doing the above but yet I’m still “moral” by most standards. I’m tired of this huge surge of people calling for more Christianity in government (let’s call it like it is) because it will cure society’s problems. No, it won’t. What it will do, though, is alienate those not “lucky enough” to be in the government’s faith of choice which goes against what I said above: “I believe America’s basis lies in the idea that everyone is welcome, that everyone can believe what they want to believe, and that part of living in America is respecting that your neighbor might have ideas radically different than you own and, despite that, you can coexist in peace.” When the government starts endorsing a particular set of “morals” that just happen to coincide with a particular faith is the day that America failed. There exists a basic moral code that should be in place in government but it certainly does not completely coincide with Christianity or any other faith. This moral code will simply keep the equilibrium: to make sure that everyone can coexist in peace, that everyone can believe what they want to believe, that everyone is welcome.

Let’s start talking about the real issues in politics instead of this religious circus masquerading as politics.

In other news, I didn’t do so hot on the test mentioned in my previous post. I didn’t get to study quite as much as I would have liked in part because I lost the flash cards I’d made and had to scramble to get all my notes together right before the exam. Oh well, it’s one exam, and I’ll just do better next time. I’ve got a lot of homework and such to finish up this weekend, including a term paper for psychology, so I’m going to be very busy. There are only 34 days left of semester and then my first year of college will be gone already. I know I said time flew in my last post, but it’s so hard to think that almost a year ago I was graduating… Oh well.

I’m sure that I will end up procrastinating all the aforementioned homework and have some “spare” time so I’m going to write a note to myself to finish up those brush sets that have been sitting around forever now. I’ve been slowly but surely working on updating my portfolio with a new layout and all the projects that I’ve completed in the past year (because I haven’t updated it in a year — how horrible…).

I’m really thinking about trying to put some of my new PHP skills in action and write some sort of a script - but there are already so many scripts out there for so many different things that I’m not sure what I could do that wouldn’t be repeating what someone else has already done. Any ideas? I’ve been having to work with PHP and MySQL with my work at the K-State yearbook and I wrote a script to handle a March Madness bracket contest for our university (for those outside the US: it’s a national college basketball tournament). It was quite fun even if it was a bit frustrating some times. Oh well, such is life.

I’m trying to get organized so that I can participate in the Blogathon this year, but we’ll see. I’ve wanted to participate for something like two years but it never works out. I figure if I get organized now then I should be able to get off work and such so that I can participate. And stay awake. lol

Edit: There are four new brush sets up! Enjoy!

Anyway, I’ve got a geology exam tomorrow. I’ve made up a bunch of flashcards with material that is likely to be on the exam so I’m hoping for a good, solid A. (Did I mention that I got an 96% on my last psychology exam? Hooray!)

On a side note, I’d like to mention that I have several brush sets that are almost ready to be put up. I just have to make the image packs for those without Photoshop, and they shall be ready for the taking. I know, I know, I also need to convert them over for PhotoFiltre but those take a bit longer to make, not to mention the fact that I don’t even have PhotoFilter any more so I just have to make them from memory. What fun… argh.

I think that I’m sort-of, maybe, possibly starting to get object-oriented programming more. My last exam results wouldn’t reflect that but I felt much more comfortable with the last programming project we did (we had to make a program that generated Magic square solutions). I’m not quite as frightened by having to write my code in different files and classes now which is fantastic. I was vehemently against it at first but I sort of see the good side of it now, although I still strongly prefer coding like I would write a paper - from beginning to end, top to bottom, each part in sequence of it’s use. I realize though that for some problems it is indeed easier to code with classes and such now, but don’t tell my boyfriend that. I lost count of the number of times I would argue and whine about object-oriented programming to him…

I still would really like to have a photo-blog day but I haven’t figured out a good day to do it. I’d like to do it on a sunny, warm day but the weather here has decided that it’s simply not ready for spring yet and we actually had a possibility of snow today. Talk about a load of utter crap - I hate winter.

I’ve been screwing with a possible new layout for this blog. I know that I’ve really not had this one up long, but it’s a bit too bland for my taste. Not to mention that I don’t think I’ll ever get around to fixing the navigation issues in IE6 (which I wish to stab and throw down a flight of stairs) so it’s almost better for me to just make a new layout that just works and fixes both issues at once. It’s grungy but I like that type of design. We’ll see how it plays out.

As an attempt to help me blog more often, I’ve got a short list of blog ideas that I hope to write about very soon. So hopefully I’ll be writing again in less than a month… har har.

By the way, thanks for all the comments on my last post - it was very nice of you all

I suppose there were other things about today that were more than just extraordinary. For instance, the fact that I spent about an hour in a cemetery after sunset to take a staff photo with the rest of my coworkers. It sounds morbid, really, until you understand that the theme of this year’s yearbook was “the dash” and so it was rather fitting to take our staff photo in a cemetery among the graves. Or at least that was what it was supposed to be about, but really it was just damn cold and we were standing on dead people. Or something. Anyway, it was creepy to be in a cemetery in the dark among all the graves. I’m an easily startled person and so I was wary that someone would decide it would be hilarious to come up behind me quickly and make me scream in terror but luckily nobody knew about this particular impairment of mine. I’m even startled when I open a door and someone happens to be standing in the hallway behind it, even when I know that they’re there. I’m sure the photo will turn out great and it is really rather unique but it will take some explaining and I’m not sure that everyone will get it. I’m not even sure I do, yet.

I’ve made up a list of what I want to accomplish here and I hope it will help me stay on track and get motivated to do something as far as new stuff goes. I won’t tell you what’s on the list, but I think it will be useful stuff. We’ll just have to see how things go because I have three exams next week and I plan on studying a whole lot. I also have a C# program due on Friday that I really need to get moving on but I just haven’t had that much time. I really can’t wait until spring break.

… or at least that’s my little “deep insight” of the day. College classes beat the crap out of you. Well, maybe just me. What’s so ironic is that the class that I give the least of a damn about is the one that I have a 99.29% in (I leave class early all the time, I hardly study). I’m really struggling to find that mixture of what I need to do to do well - because what I did in high school isn’t working any more. I’ve made up a study schedule that according to some online study sites is the first step. I’m planning on covering all new material this weekend, and then spending these “study hours” just reviewing material. Hopefully this new strategy will help drive home all the new information so that I’m not scrambling for answers on the exams. We’ll see, though, I’ve already tried a few tactics that haven’t helped whatsoever - but here’s hoping.

Does anyone else enjoy House M.D? I’m rather addicted - I’ve been watching all the episodes online. I only started watching at the beginning of season 4 and so it’s rather interesting to start back at season 1 and see how the characters progress and change. I really want House to hook up with Cameron…

In other news, 2 new brush sets are up entitled “Fireworks” and “Tiny Stars”. I dug out some photographs that I’d taken at a local lake of an Independence Day fireworks display for the fireworks set and I’d just doodled around for the tiny stars set. Have fun.