Things that Make You go "Hm"

I saw the following during my travels today.

1. An 86 year old WWII Vet (according to the sign) begging for money on a street corner while talking on his cell phone.

2. A police car with a boot on the tire.

Just Say No! (to Prop 8)

I realize that it has been a while, I've been busy! I'll post some new apartment updates in a bit but first, something serious and boring.

Since one of my friends decided to post her opinion on the subject it prompted me to write my own. There aren't a whole lot of things that go on politically that I have strong opinions about but my two real biggies are Gay Marriage and Abortion. One of those is a hot topic in the news right now (especially in CA), guess which one I'm writing about. Go on, guess. The following is totally un-researched, and is 100% my personal opinion on the subject. I have no real religious or legal education.

We are going to ignore my whiny, socially liberal tendencies and I'm not just going to sit here and talk about fairness and equality (thought it will come up a little bit), but instead I'd like to address one argument that I hear a lot. Gay Marriage should be outlawed because Marriage is a Religious Institution.

At one time marriage was a strictly religious institution but I would argue that it is no more. Marriages are licensed by the government, performed by government officials, and entered into by non-religious people. Married people are treated differently by the government; taxed differently and given different rights that include deciding the fate of their spouse. I would even argue that the fact that a law is needed to define Marriage makes marriage not a strictly religious institution. I don't see the government deciding who and when you can get baptized, confirmed, or bar & bat mitzvahed.

My second argument is that not all religions are opposed to gay marriage. I see a lot of rabbis performing same-sex marriages. Why does Christianity get to define marriage for all religions?

If religions would like to define what marriage is, then they should be petitioning the government to have marriage removed entirely from its vocabulary but as long as the Government is involved in Marriage, then everyone needs to be treated equally.

Ok, I'm done.

Everything except what I need? Really?

I am the first to admit that I am a teensy bit anal retentive about some things. One of those things is drawing graphs. I need my axes to be straight, perpendicular, and the increments must be of equal size on the x and y. If that doesn't happen I will just erase and continue to redraw the axes until those conditions are met. I know this about myself and so I choose to do math on graph paper because it is a lot easier to draw perpendicular, straight lines when there are perpendicular, straight lines printed on the page for you.

Why is buying graph paper so hard?

What I want:
- Ringed Notebook style, with perforated paper for easy tear-out. (there are MILLIONS of regular lined notebooks like this)
- 4 square per inch graph lines (the perfect size I have found)

That is not asking a lot, but after scouring three different aisles (on more than one occasion, in more than one store) and finding one tiny section of graph paper on each aisle this is what I have for choices:

- Ringed notebook style with perforated edges and 4sq/in on one side but 5 sq/in on the other side. (why would someone want two different sizes?)

- Pad of paper style with 4sq/in on one side and wide ruled lines on the other side. (who even uses wide ruled paper??? and what can you write on lines that you can't write on graph paper??)

- Ringed notebook style, no perforation, with 5sq/in on both sides and paper is 8x10.5in. (why are some notebooks slightly smaller than normal paper size? Who does that help?)

- Ringed notebook style, no perforation, with 10sq/in on both sides and paper is 8x10.5in. (seriously, 10?).

- Pad of paper style with 10sq/in on both sides. (we are just getting less and less helpful here).

- Ringed notebook style, with perforations, 4sq/in on both sides. Wait, ohmygod, this is it, they do have it!! Ummm, why isn't the paper white????? You have to be kidding me, tan? Why would I want a notebook filled with tan paper???

argh! If you are wondering I went with the tan paper even though it annoys me.

Almost a Good Day?

So today, if it happened last week, would be a good day but nothing about this week or any days in it are good so we're going with almost good.

Reasons:

1. I didn't have to use my AC in the car this morning driving to work, in fact I thought about turning on the heat. (For those of you in CA: Yes, for the last 5 months I've had to use AC while driving the one mile to work at 7:30 in the morning because it is that stupidly freaking hot here).

2. Just found out that ABC picked up a new show for midseason called Castle. Why do we care? Why because of the show's star, of course. My birthday sharing man, Nathan Fillion.

3. It is like 2:15pm and I haven't broke down crying yet today. Most of you know the reasons behind that, those of you who don't can ask someone who does because I don't want to talk about it.

Sometimes School Makes My Head Hurt

Though probably not for the reason you might think. Observe the following conversation that I overheard while packing up from class tonight:

Girl: Ohmygod I am going to be so drunk ALL weekend. I've been WAITING for oktoberfest.
Guy: I know what you mean, I love drunk holidays. Wait, isn't St. Patrick's Day coming up?
Girl: Ohmygod, you're so stupid. hahahaha.
Guy: When is it?
Girl: March 14th. DUH!