It was merely last week that Amazon emailed me with information about the English translation of Okami Official Complete Works... They claimed it was going to be released on May 29. That was yesterday. Today I get an email from Amazon asking for my permission to keep the order intact because the book has been, once again, delayed indefinitely. It's completely unavailable until further notice... Are we surprised? Stupid Udon. Surely it doesn't take this long to translate a book of PICTURES.

Here's a story of pain and sadness from my own capital city Indianapolis. Basically, someone, generally referred to as "elect officials" (I will get to this later), got the idea to install locked donation boxes downtown in an effort to discourage what they're calling "panhandling". In other words, they're trying to stop homeless people from mooching off too many people who are passing by and get them to go to all those special agencies instead. Personally, I'm not sure what to think, but apparently, the Indianapolis Star decided to pseudo-interview a homeless guy who was "adversely" affected by these donation boxes.

According to this guy, the boxes have hit him in his "already empty pockets", and then goes on to say that he used to make 50 dollars a DAY just by begging. 50... Dollars... A day. As one bright commenter already pointed out, that's 1500 a month, more or less, if you only count the work days, and an apartment is at tops 400 a month. These are NOT "empty pockets", and I think Indy Star picked the wrong homeless man to interview. I make 60 dollars a day when I work... Sounds like this "homeless" guy has it better than I do! Remember, folks, there's also a surplus of empty houses right now, so cost of living isn't exactly high at the moment, especially in Indiana. I have an incredibly hard time feeling sorry for this man, who, I might add, Indy Star randomly decided to coin as a "vietnam veteran" in an effort to lay down the guilt trip on everyone for not helping who they clearly think fought in the war. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you could be a considered a vietnam veteran if you were a supply officer on a base in that country, could you not? I'm not at all crashing on the armed forces, but we know NOTHING about this man. He could have been dishonorably discharged for all we know. (And that would certainly leave a huge negative image on his resume and naturally affect his ability to get a job...)

The whole article reeks of typical donation-driven places: "We aren't getting enough money from you people. Come on, it's good cause! Sure, you gave some, but give MORE!" Correct me if I'm wrong, but the very fact that it's a donation-driven organization means that giving is entirely optional. We might not be donating, not because we don't want to help the homeless, but because we don't want to help YOU help the homeless. Even the homeless guy they interviewed was obviously perturbed at the fact that people haven't given him so much since the boxes were installed. Indeed... If I were homeless, asking for MORE money would be the last thing on my mind. I think my conscience would be too concerned with thanking people for giving what they did. The same goes for that organization. Of course, I think the newspaper is responsible for the feel of the article, as well, and go to say that donations for Wednesday were "only" $290, which is a "fraction of what shelters need". But don't forget to read the line where they say a mission raises 5.6 million dollars from 40,000 donors already. Sure, every bit helps, but you make it sounds like you're running on fumes. 5.6 millions dollars expected from 40,000 donors is NOT running on fumes. In closing, Indy Star mentioned that this guy didn't trust the city officials to use the money like they said they would, but he changed his mind when he was promised to get his "federal benefits". The guy clearly wasn't using an agency, and was railing against the city for stealing the donation money, but changed his tune when he actually experienced what the city was offering? Right... I guess there's no problem now, after all that he said about not getting any money anymore? He went to the agency and everything's just fine now.

Now, to expand upon the "elect officials" remark, let's take a quick look at the very first comment left on the article, and I shall kill two birds with one stone. One by someone who goes by the nickname "teachyourchildren". What does this person think about the whole thing? I think it's quite obvious when they start out with this line:

These boxes are just another Republican bandage over a hole growing wider and wider.

With this, they both clearly show where their allegiances lie and the extent of their ignorance. It's a prime example of how everyone wants to blame conservatives, Republicans and President Bush for all the bad that is happening in the country. I'm not even going to bother answering his ranting of how Republicans do this and do that and how Republicans aren't doing their job for the poor. WOAH, woah, woah... I just have one small thing to say, as have others who want to get directly involved with this numbskull:

Indiana is Democrat controlled. The "elect officials" are Democrats. (Why the article didn't spell this out could be attributed to the fact that they're trying to show the donation boxes in a sour light and they don't want Democrats to get the bad rap, but we all know how unbiased and objective the mainstream media is and we all know how this simply can't be the case.) After the disaster of the last Republican majority term, people realized that Republicans weren't going to do what they felt had to be done, so they voted for Democrats, since they were the only other option. Indiana is predominantly Democrat at the moment, and, as a result, anything like this that gets done has to have a Democrat majority vote. Get it? The Democrats are doing this... Not the Republicans. All you have to do is look at the courthouse and how many names with Ds are sitting in office. It really doesn't take a lot of work to check before you make claims like this. It's just another perfect example of liberal hate and the fact that a lot of people simply aren't involved in politics enough to notice what really is going on. If you really feel this way about what's going on with the donation boxes, then please put blame where the blame is due. Republicans are stifled right now. Don't you remember the gloating when the Democrats "wrested" control from the corrupt Republicans? I certainly do...

I guess this is what comes of applying my mind to something as simple as TV shows:

Star Trek: Voyager, Season 7, Episode 15: The Void... Janeway is reading the Starfleet charter for ideas on how to act in a situation where their only survival seems to be guaranteed only by raiding weaker ships. I thought it was very interesting to have the charter that close, and yet sooo far. Would be so interesting to read what it says, but, alas... The words are too small to read:

I continue on my way, having been sorely disappointed at the quality of the video, and I began to watch the next episode: a two-parter called Workforce. In the second part, The Doctor is discussing with Ensign Kim about avoiding detection by enemy scanners. For a brief instant, you get to see what's on the monitor of those awesome little desk systems they have:

Now why on Earth would the Emergency Command Hologram need to be brushing up on the Starfleet charter while coming up with a way to avoid detection? It is a conundrum...

So, Reuters is trying to say that Californians support gay-marriage now with a poll conducted after the court decided to take matters into their own hands and tell everyone how it's going to be done, but let's take a slightly closer look at the article, since the majority of people don't read more than the headlines:

The Field Poll survey found 51 percent against approving a possible November ballot measure to prohibit gay marriage, with 43 percent in favor. A slightly differently worded question on the same issue found 54 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor.

The ultimate in obscurity. Even though they claim the majority of voters are against banning same-sex marriage, 51 and 43 percent is still incredibly close. (Wouldn't you say even enough for several recounts? I think that happened once before... I think it was in Florida? I think the Democrats wanted it? Oh yes, that's because they couldn't accept Al Gore lost. Point is, when things are the majority in their favor, even by such a close margin, they like to act like it's a clean-cut majority when it's not.) But let's see what they wrote at the very end of the article:

The poll of 1,052 registered Californian voters was taken from May 17-26, in the days after California Supreme Court decision, and had a sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points to 5 percentage points, depending on the question.

Read that slowly. Slightly over 1000 voters took the poll and there is a 3 to 5 percent variation. That could make the first question more apart at 56 against to 37 for, or closer at 45 against to 49 for. The second question could be 60 against to 34 for, or 48 against and 46 for. Now, they also polled merely 1000 voters. Do you know how many people live in California? According to Wikipedia, it is the single most populated state in the country, with a year 2007 estimate of 36.5 MILLION. I realize that, obviously, not every one of those 36 million people is a registered voter, but I'm willing to bet that it's far, far, far above 1000. I also think it's odd how, once again, they didn't bother reporting the "wording" of the questions after they made such big deal about it, wouldn't you agree? Don't you think that if it helped support their claim that they would let you know exactly what it said?

Once again, they also mention how the longer they wait, the more people are apt to vote against a same-sex marriage ban. If the media has these numbers, you can bet that the politicians do, too. I think it's obvious that the reason the liberals don't let this come up for a vote is because they think if they wait, eventually, a clear majority will be against the ban, and everything will be happy. But, until then, they're quite content with going against the wishes of the voters who put them in office by not allowing their Constitutional amendment to go up for a public vote when the VOTERS want it to. Instead, they release useless little polls to show that voters do actually want to allow same-sex marriage in an effort to somehow justify what they're doing.

Hey, if they think it's worthy enough to declare the state wants to allow same-sex marriage by using an irrelevant poll, I think they should put their money where their mouth is and let it go to a vote! Surely if the unbiased and objective mainstream media sees fit to report that the majority of Californians oppose banning same-sex marriage, then it MUST be true! I say let it go to a vote if you think it's so obvious that people are going to vote it down... Just think, if people get to vote on it and it doesn't get passed, you'll have far more proof that people want it than by just showing off a random poll.

But we all know they're afraid the voters will actually get what THEY want.

Here are a few sure-fire ways to draw out all the anonymous weirdos, and increase your comment count:

1. Talk about Christianity.
2. Talk about conservative politics.
3. Talk about Christianity in conjunction with conservative politics.

That's it! Three simple ways to make your blog a popular place!

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, parts of California got some surprise snow global warming residue. They say Tioga Pass was closed, which gave me a something to go on to discover where, exactly, they got this snow global warming residue. For those of you who don't want to look for yourself, Tioga Pass is part of the Sierra Nevada mountains through which State Route 180 goes through. In other words, Mariposa Country, which is where the article was written from, but I've seen articles written in New York about happenings in Georgia, so I thought I'd double-check myself.

Good ol' Yosemite got a bunch of snow global warming residue when nobody expected it. Seems to me that this is perfect timing! It was only last week that those 31,000 scientists put their collective names on a paper that took issue with the "consensus" of man-made global warming. Now, seriously, I think there's some climate changes going on, but as to the interference of man's devices making the entire planet's surface hotter in general? Absolutely not. For every record heat wave last summer, there was a record ice blast last winter, as well. Of course, with all the hurricanes we've been having, people have been using that as an indicator for global warming...

Except the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration released a paper a while ago with research and numbers proving that landfall hurricane count has NOT gone up since the whole "global warming awareness" (read: scare-mongering) has begun and has, in fact, been generally lower. Oops.

I mentioned this a while ago, but I'm going to say again that I've noticed a trend that songs sung in church these days are incredibly vague and could be used to sing about ANY deity, or sometimes just anyone, period. They don't describe God specifically like the old hymns do, so there's always room for interpretation. Sometimes they'll use names, but, honestly, with the nondescript words, you could change the names to anything from your current romantic interest to "Great Grey Roswell Being". The songs are written to be "all-purpose", relying on context and intention to present the focus of the song. No specifics, no descriptions, no names... The only way you know it's to God is because you're singing it in your church, and that's incredibly terrible.

For example, look at this song:

Mountain maker
Ocean tamer
Glimpses of You
Burn in my eyes
The worship of heaven
Fills up the skies

You made it all
Said, "let there be"
And there was
All that we see
The sound of Your voice
The works of Your hands
You do all things well
You do all things well
You do all things well

Star creator
Wind breather
The strokes of Your beauty
Brushed through the clouds
Light from the heavens
Touching the ground

Imagination runs wild
And breathes the breath of life
Across the fields
Across the miles

This is a prime example of ambiguity. All references to God are simply "You". Yes, I know the argument that you're singing it TO God, so it's only natural to say "You". No, I disagree. If you can sing this song in a mosque and it'd fit there, it's not appropriate to sing to God. If you sang it in a mosque, the context and intention would have you singing to the "Great Allah", not the Great I Am. In fact, when we got to the second verse about brushing? You know what I was thinking about? Okami... Granted, I'm clearly obsessed with it, but to be perfectly honest, this could easily be a song to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. There is absolutely nothing in the song itself to root it to Christianity. It's just a random, all-purpose song of worship, and it's ridiculous. In fact, with that verse about brushing, there's more to anchor this song to Amaterasu than it is to God and Jesus.

Yet, our church, along with countless others, insists on singing these vague songs that here one day and gone the next. I've heard people call them 7-11 Songs... 7 words sung 11 times. I've also heard people call them Tissue Box Songs... Disposable songs that you sing once and then discard. They all say the same thing, they all sound the same way, they're hard to sing and don't mean anything specific. In our church, even when you're sitting in the back, you can hear the throng of people chime in for the rare hymn book song that the "worship team" decides to play (and consequently butcher with their minor keys). People LIKE hymns. They're strong songs and they've lasted for how many years upon years? Everyone knows "Our God Reigns" and "Amazing Grace", and they are so specific and rooted in Christianity that you can't possibly mistake them for speaking to another god. Yet somehow, people consider them to be "old" and "overused", so they try to push off these new songs with no meaning and, in our church at least, nobody sings them. I would think that when over half the people singing the hymns stops singing for the new trash you're trying to push off on us, that would be a sign that we think there's something a little unnatural about what's on the screen. But they keep pushing it off on us, giving us lame, "encouraging" remarks such as "sing it out!" or "let this be on your heart!" and I'm sitting there going "No! This song is NOT glorifying God. You're singing it because YOU like it and YOU want to feel good!"

By the way, people claim hymns are old and overused. Let me take this opportunity to point out that most hymnals have 700 songs in them. Now, let's use some simple math here. Most worship services sing maybe 8 to 10 songs, depending on how the worship leader feels and how often he or she decides to loop a song. My gosh, sometimes it's so long that EVERYONE in the congregation stops singing... But anyway, back on track: 700 songs. 10 songs every Sunday. 52 Sundays in a year, give or take. That's 520 songs a year. If you sing 10 different songs each Sunday, you have 180 songs that you haven't used yet. In fact, you have 18 more weeks of new songs you haven't sung yet. Now, 10 songs each Sunday would be if you sang only 1 or 2 verses out of the 4 to 6 that are per song. Same tune, different words. You know what you'd do then? Multiply 700 by 4. 2800 different variations to sing. 2800 minus 520 is 2280 variations left to sing after going through an entire year, singing different songs and different verses. That's 5 YEARS of not singing the same words twice. 5... YEARS... And you tell me hymns are old and overused? You're sadly mistaken.