The opposite of right is...

I'm now in the quaint little city of Cork. Things that struck me on the bus ride here, in no particular order:

Ireland really is still fairly rural. Very green, very dotted with fields full of cows and sheep. Baby sheep, too, and they do look like cute fuzzy little things. I'm surprised, actually, by how rural-small-town-like everything got as soon as we got out of Dublin.

Still uncomfortable with driving on the left side of the road.

The thing I liked most about Dublin, I believe, was St. Stephen's Green, because it was just so pretty. Peaceful, green, quiet, beautiful - everything a park should be. A true refuge from the city, and I can see why the rich dudes of the past wanted to keep it for themselves.

Traffic in Ireland is odd. There don't seem to be any real highways per se, and the highest speed limit I briefly saw was 100km/hr, which is about 60mph. Additionally, seemingly randomly there'd be quasi-traffic circles. Yes, it was a circle and yes, cars do go around in, but it wasn't a multi-street intersection or anything. Often there were two in a row. I'm guessing that they were to slow down traffic, but I'm uncertain as to why we want slower traffic.

I need to learn my own phone number here.

My history feels inadequate

Dublin in a few words: Old. Meandering. Fairly pedestrian-friendly. Full of pubs. Chilly. Beautiful. Old.

Did I mention old? Certainly not all the buildings were built many moons ago, but of the historic buildings, there are the old buildings (18th, 19th century), and then there are the Old buildings (12th century). For example: St. Patricks Cathedral, the one of that St. Patrick, was "raised to the status of a cathedral" in 1191. Meaning: there was already a very well-established Catholic church there by 1191. By contrast, Europeans did not even get to the continent that I'm from until the 15th century, let alone build cathedrals. The city of Dublin has had it's own millenium and while they apparently may have been off by a few years, who cares? The city had a thousandth anniversary!

In all honesty I feel sort of like I'm in an alternate-universe version of New York. It's older, probably a bit cleaner, smaller, and colder this time of year, but a big city with a huge foreign population. (Note: being considered a foreigner myself? Odd.) It's busy (not as busy as NY), and a bit impersonal. The history is captivating and I half want to stay in Dublin for my entire time in Ireland. But on the other hand, my bank account says bad idea. Ireland in my mind is a bit more small-towny, and if I don't like what I find outside of Dublin, I can always come back.

A brief packing update

I can so fit all the clothes I want to take with me into my 4300 cubic inch pack. Easily.

I'm not sure if I should be as proud of that as I am, but, hey. Being a tiny person has perks.

From "Oh, come ON" to "...huh?"

Ann Coulter's latest is...interesting. This is a column that you should really read for yourself, if for no reason other than it's sort of like how I imagine a bad trip on cheap acid must feel: things start out okay if not a bit off-putting but then quickly devolve into horror. I think it's about the evils of prostitution and sex, or Clinton, or why girls shouldn't ever drink. Possibly it's just about Jesus. Choice passages:

And if you are a girl in Aruba or New York City, among the best ways to avoid being the victim of a horrible crime is to not get drunk in public or go off in a car with men you just met. While we're on the subject of things every 5-year-old should know, I also recommend against dousing yourself in gasoline and striking a match.

Everyone makes mistakes, especially young people, but the outpouring of support for the victims and their families is obscuring what ought to be a flashing neon warning for potential future victims.

Okay, young women drinking alone may not be the best idea. It is a risk and there's no denying that. Most of us do know that, but guess what? People take risks. I drive down one of the most dangerous roads in America every single day going to work: I do that because what I get from it outweighs, in my mind, the risks. Contrary to popular belief, women are not idiots who need constant reminders of "OMG teh fear!1", and if we do take risks like that, it's certainly not out of ignorance.

It shouldn't be necessary to point out that girls shouldn't be bar-hopping alone or taking their clothes off in front of strangers, and that young men shouldn't be hiring strippers. But we live in a world of Bill Clinton, Paris Hilton, Howard Stern, Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman," Democratic fund-raisers at the Playboy Mansion and tax deductions for entertaining clients at strip clubs.

Wait, what? Why the hell shouldn't girls be bar-hopping alone? I don't think it's particularly smart, but then again, I don't think getting insanely drunk in your own home or at a party at a friends house is smart either. It's one thing to say "that's probably not such a good idea and it's risky", but it's entirely different to say "you shouldn't do that."

But we're all rotten sinners, incapable of redemption on our own. The liberal answer to sin is to say: I can never pay this back, so my argument will be I didn't do anything wrong.

The religion of peace's answer is: I've just beheaded an innocent man -- I'm off to meet Allah!

I don't know what the Jewish answer is, but I'm sure it's something other than, "therefore, what I did is no longer bad behavior" -- or the Talmud could be a lot shorter.

The Christian answer is: I can never pay this back, but luckily that Christ fellow has already paid my debt.

What? Again: what? On the one hand, that's an interesting way to get in her requisite dose of bashing non-Christians. And it's some impressive research there on the Jewish and Muslim views of sin. Especially because everyone knows that A) all Muslims are terrorists and extremists and B) the "sin" of a girl getting drunk is just as bad as murder.

But, lucky for us, Christians are all good, kind people, and Jesus has their back.

Busy busy busy!

Getting this off my back: From now until...sometime, I can in no way promise anything resembling regular posts here. From now until Tuesday I'm going to be somewhat franticly packing. Tuesday evening I get on a plane and go to Ireland, and I have no idea the degree to which I'll have internet access there. Never fear, though: I will be blogging it as much as possible.

Today I had to get up early (by my standards) for an appointment at 10:20. I normally roll out of bed sometime around then, which isn't as depressing as it seems, since I work nights. And I'm thinking: Ireland is five hours ahead of us. That means that when I normally go to bed here, at around 4 AM, it's 9 AM there. That means that when my flight gets into Dublin Wednesday morning at 6:55, it's really about 1:55, which means I'm going to be having the complete opposite problem of most people. I'll still feel like I got no sleep (because I never have slept well on planes), but while most people will feel as if they've been woken in the middle of the night to start their day, I'll feel like bedtime is in a short few hours. I'm hoping that the excitement of finally being there will be enough to carry me through most of the day, but still, I predict that I will crash very early that night.

Coming tonight: more musings on working the night shift.

It's late

If an infinite number of government data-monkeys transcribed an infinite number of completed tax forms, would they eventually produce the complete works of every great mathematician?

Vote ahoy!

This coming Tuesday is the local school district elections - the budget is up for approval and of course, school board elections. I'm very excited, because I get to actually go to a polling place and cast a vote in person, which is something I've never gotten to do before.

I'm also fairly apathetic about it. I'll vote to give them the money they're asking for. It doesn't really effect me because I don't pay property tax here, but even if I did, I'd still vote yes. I'm a product of these public schools, I think they're doing a decent job with what they have, and I'm going to go ahead and say that no public school has ever been harmed by having too much money to spend.

When it comes to the school board, I really just can't motivate myself to care. This town that I'm from has a long and wonderful history of being as bitchy and 'partisan' as congress. I'm pretty firmly of the belief that education should not make people angry, so chill.

So: I'm going to be an irresponsible voter, pick a name or two, and vote for them.

Hahahahaha!

All I can say to this, really, is: *gales of laughter*.

And also that I'm now really glad I didn't get the job I applied for at that exact Office Depot.

Wild goose attack. Hee.

Now with 100% more posting from the library

Preface: still haven't gotten my new HD, and even if I did I couldn't post from home, owing to the newfangled distinct lack of a functioning modem at home. However, public libraries are wonderful, wonderful things.

Also wonderful: This woman. She's a doctor. She sees that she can make a difference between "women having a safe medical procedure performed by a qualified doctor" and "women having an unsafe medical procedure performed in secret by unqualified whoevers." I'm hoping she keeps doing what she's doing, and I'm almost hoping that she gets penalized for it. Because the government of South Dakota will look really, really great when they try to put a 70-year-old doctor in jail for being a doctor.

Coming up tomorrow: a full writeup of my Employment Antics, and a description of how the IRS really is a soul-sucking place.

Ideas want to be free, man!

The MPAA has said that stronger DRM stuff is good for the movie industry, and therefore is good for consumers (link, .pdf). I'm not entirely clear on how it's better for us consumers, but that very much reminds me of the training videos at the Major Movie Theater Chain where I once worked: We want the customers to be happy, because if they customers are happy, the stockholders are happy. It all comes down to money, only, so often, the customers being happy doesn't actually make the stockholders happy. Customers want a good product (insert cheap shot about the quality of movies here) for a cheap pricewhile the major investors and corporate executives want more money. (Which, let me just say, did not give this freshly-hired wage-slave warm fuzzies, because, seriously: when you're in the final hour of a 9-hour shift at $6.25/hr, the last thing you're worrying about is how happy a guy who spends more in a day then you make in a year is.)

In related news, TorrentSpy is telling the courts that they're like Google for Torrents. If TorrentSpy is criminal in allowing people to search for torrents, so is Google, and Yahoo!, and every other search engine out there. It's a very good point: the good folks at TorrentSpy aren't hosting the Torrents, they're not ripping DVDs themselves, and they're not stripping DRM stuff off anything. They're just a portal.

The day we criminalize making information accessible is the day that I give up entirely on the United States.

Excitements Galore!

The thrill of knowing that you're getting some sort of new computery toy is drastically reduced by the fact that it's a replacement for a faulty toy. Granted, an appreciated replacement, as the object in question is, well, faulty, and it's covered by warranty. But when I got an external hard drive (thanks, pops!) back in January, it was far more exciting than knowing Dell will be shipping me a new 40GB internal HD come Monday morning, because my existing one decided that it didn't want to work anymore. So, since my own computer is ill right now, I'm stuck to my parents computer, so probably some minimal updates until Wednesday at the earliest.