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Greek State of Mind

Another Year Older

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Hard to believe that I’m another year older today. Twenty-Four – weird.

I’m not depressed like some of the drama-queens out there get on their birthdays. However, I’m also not jumping up and down for job. I guess I’m just hanging out.

Thank to everyone who has sent me birthday greetings – I appreciate it!

This weekend was a debacle, but actually ended on an excellent note. Sigma Pi Fraternity recolonized our chapter at Fairleigh Dickinson University. They’ve got some great guys up there and last night’s ceremony was a big success. Best of luck to them.

I’m going to celebrate my birthday – with readings and case studies!

How Great is Arrested Development?

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My mother got me the box set of Season One of Arrested Development for Christmas. I wanted to watch it over the winter break, but I never got a chance. I have, however, had a chance to watch the first two discs of the set the past two days and it is by FAR the most hilarious sitcom on television!

I mean, I’ve always enjoyed the show whenever I got a chance to watch it, but being on Sunday nights I never really made time to watch it. Oh no – no more.

This show is hilarious! For those of you that don’t know what it’s about – it tracks the life of a former multi-millionaire family (The Bluths) from the time that the head of the family is arrested by the SEC through how they are all coping with not having a ton of money, etc. The interaction between the cast is excellent and I highly recommend the show – it’s on FOX on Sunday nights.

Good show.

Wow – I’m the Victim of Identity Fraud

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Listen up here folks, I want you all to be aware of this. Yesterday I checked my credit card balance online and I noticed a charge of $9.95 from a company called Absolute-Soft. Apparently this is some type web design company – something that I obviously do not need having built the internal and most of the external infrastructures of TheBalrogsLair.com, WOWRevolution.com, and SigmaPi.com.

Folks, I was the victim of identity theft!

Somehow, either this company or someone pretending to be me used my credit card number and personal information to make a purchase of $9.95 from this website. I’m currently using the process in place from my credit card company to have the situation checked out, but there are a few points that I want everyone to take away from this.

First, this Absolute-Soft.com group apparently doesn’t do a good enough check on the financial information that they are given so beware of using them.

Second, being it’s the holiday season and that it’s the year 2004 we can all expect a lot of online shopping to take place. BE CAREFUL of where you put your credit card information online!!! If you’re not sure of a site (and I was ALWAYS sure before today), then do NOT use your credit card there. Just find the 800 number and make the order online.

And finally, I only caught this fraud because I haven’t used my credit card for the past two months. Hence, when I checked my account online ANY charge would be odd to me. For those of you who make a lot of charges, please be sure to check the charges made to your account. You never know if someone is out there pretending to be you!

The Federal Trade Commission’s Online Fraud Page

Praising Senator Kerry – Bringing Sides Together

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This could have been a long, drawn out post-election month. This could have been a “recount-from-hell” month. This could have been a damn disaster!

But it wasn’t.

Tons of credit must be given to Senator Kerry for making that potential post-election nightmare go away. By conceding the election, Kerry has shown that he cares more about the health and unity of the country than the denizens who would rather tear this country apart than see the United States come together.

I don’t agree with Kerry’s political policies and apparently a majority of Americans (some 59 million now) don’t either – but you have to agree that by gracefully bowing out of the election, Kerry has reached one of his campaign goals: he’s helped bring the country together.

Perhaps one of the greatest things that Kerry said in his concession speech was that elections should be decided by the voters, not the courts. That’s something that we all should remember in the coming years and decades. It’s the power of the VOTE that matters, not the power of the courts.

Now it’s time for President Bush to take the lead on his campaign promise of bringing the country even closer together. This is going to be a great four years for the President and regardless what the self-professed elite have to say about the end of our country as we know it (more coming on that in a future post), I believe that we can all look forward to a great four years for America.

But – at this point in history, we can thank John Kerry for starting the “unity” ball rolling. If the political extremists can swallow that bitter pill just as Kerry has, then we’ve got a great future ahead of us.

Dilbert – Tech Support

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Before I turned in for the night, I thought that I’d post the following comic strip from my Dilbert day calendar:

I think that this comic pretty much sums up all of the tech support problems that I’ve ever had! What are we stupid? Dude, most of the time the TECH SUPPORT people are the ones who are lost!

Book Review: Slander

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I began reading Ann Coulter’s Slander about a year ago, but haven’t had the time to really finish it up and take a good look at the message that the book is sending. However, with the lazy days of summer coming to an end in the past few days, I decided why not use those lazy days to finish up this book and get it put behind me? And I’m sorta glad that I did…

Ann Coulter is filled with venom towards the left-wing extremists that are ever-present in the media, politics, and Hollywood. What I found interested about the book was the way that she cited numerous sources to back-up her claims of slander and used the actual words of the extremists to prove that they were indeed slandering Republicans. There’s nothing better than using something that is already on the public record against those who are trying to use the public record in their favor!

One thing that was especially interesting about the book was the fact that many of these “extremists” are the very people that you and I see on the news each night or read about on the Politics page of the newspaper! Coulter does an excellent job of showing examples where Republican “hate-speech” has been used to actually destroy people’s reputations while words that are much worse and much more filled with invective are used by the “left” and never questioned once.

Though I will say that Coulter is 110% right-wing and proud, it also should be noted that the vast majority of publications these days are so overly liberal that it’s nice to have a helping of the “other side” to balance out the equation.

Overall, I would suggest this book if you are interested in hearing a conservative take on how the Republicans have been displayed in the media in the past few decades as well as if you are looking to see what downright hideous things that the major media outlets have been hiding from you about the Democrats and their words.

Why The Bush Girls Were Good and Why The Commentators Don’t Get It

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Last night I listened to some idiot talking heads on the television say how not only did the Bush girls just talk about themselves before introducing their Mother, but how they made themselves out to look just like the “ditzy” idiots that they have been portrayed as for the past few years. Ugh…the talking heads just don’t get it!

There are TWENTY MILLION “young” voters out there! They don’t want to see Senator Ted Kennedy ranting and railing about this and that, they don’t want to see Vice President Cheney talking about things that might have happened in the past when we they (and I) weren’t even born! The young voters want someone to identify with! They want the Bush twins to tell corny jokes, to talk about themselves, to ACT their age…the young voters of America don’t want to see the same bullshit politics that disenfranchised us all from the beginning – we want to see the politicians acting as themselves. We want to see the Bush twins acting as THEMSELVES!

For the life of me I won’t be able to ever figure out why the talking heads on television are only 45, 50, 60, or even 70 year old pundits…

GET THE YOUTH OF AMERICA INVOLVED! Get an 18 year old off the street to give some commentary now and again. Don’t just send a camera crew out on the street and ask the passers-by for a comment – go to the colleges in America and get the Presidents of the Young Democrats Club and the Young Republicans Club, go out and get the Validectorian of the local high school – get the youth INVOLVED in what goes on and it will spread like wildfire!

Yes, Governor Schwarzenegger is a master of the camera and had a damn near perfect presentation last night and yes, Mayor Guiliani is known world-wide and can bring in the “swing” voters. But to all of the cable news and network news people out there – do NOT cut the impact that the Bush twins (or the Kerry daughters) will have on this election. You’re not going to get a newly-turned 18 year old by giving them Sen. Kennedy or Vice President Cheney…but if you get a few 22 year old girls who just graduated college to tell those kids to vote for this person or that person – trust me, you’ll get results.

Good job for the Bush twins and even though the Kerry daughters faced a rough reception at the MTV VMA’s – I commend them for going out there and getting involved, too. And come November, I’ll commend those of you who are in “our” demographic (18 – 23 years old) who go out and vote!

Book Review: Inventing a Nation

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Inventing a Nation is a historical fiction about just how the Founders came together to resolve (push aside?) differences and make America work. I thought that his use of funny witticisms and some modern day parallels to 18th Century events were laughable at best. The entire book is bogged down by an over-arching anti-Republican (circa 2000 AD) feeling that really does more to harm the overall intentions of the book than to serve the ulterior motive of the author. For what it’s worth, I believe that the intentions of this book are to show that even in the illustrious cradle of America’s Democratic Republican history, there were problems that occur in today’s society. These problems include issues such as treason, protection of civil liberties, and looking forward into what the future might hold for policies that are decided today.

However, I cannot recommend this book to aspiring historians nor can I recommend it to those interested in the Founding Fathers since the overall tone of the book is such that it lends itself towards bashing the current political climate – regardless of what popular opinion believes in.

That being said…

If I had known that Gore Vidal – the author of this book – was an extreme liberal, I wouldn’t have bought this book. After reading this book and seeing his obvious dislike for the current administration and – on a larger scale – our entire government, I had to find out more about the guy who would profess this type of rhetoric. What I found was disturbing to say the least.

This man has asked for an investigation into whether or not the Bush Administration ALLOWED the 9/11 attacks to take place in a manner by which he means to imply that they knew full and well before-hand that the attacks were coming. Filth – utter, disgusting filth.

Having also just completed reading the 9/11 Report I can tell you that a bipartisan look into EVERY aspect of that attack has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was not only no fore-knowledge of an attack on the United States, but that our government (from the days of Clinton until 9/11) was NOT prepared to deal with an attack if it did come to our soil (which we all, sadly, saw on that September day).

My overall recommendation is to read this book if you are looking for a rendering of our Founding Fathers that lends itself towards an anti-Bush administration/Republican Party aura. However, for those of you who want the facts or who want a historical fiction with no other motive than to tell a good/funny story, you might want to look elsewhere for your next book.

Book Review: The Da Vinci Code

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Hey all,

I just got done reading this book – not bad overall. It makes great use of symbolism and religious folklore. The author does a great job of intertwining mystery, suspense, and top-notch storytelling to present a really damn-near-close-to-life representation of the search for the Holy Grail.

If anyone is interested in this book, I recommend it for a nice weekend read. If any other people have thoughts on the book, please feel free to post them here. Again, overall I thought it was pretty good.