So, while I was not sleeping last night…again…I found this on wikipedia.

It is widely believed that regular exposure to painful stimuli will increase pain tolerance – i.e. increase the ability of the individual to handle pain by becoming more conditioned to it. However, this is not true – the greater exposure to pain will result in more painful future exposures. Repeated exposure bombards pain synapses with repetitive input, increasing their responsiveness to later stimuli, through a process similar to learning. Therefore, although the individual may learn cognitive methods of coping with pain, these methods may not be sufficient to cope with the boosted response to future painful stimuli.[1] “An intense barrage of painful stimuli potentiates the cells responsive to pain so that they respond more vigorously to minor stimulation in the future.”[2]

Does this mean that I will forever be getting better / stronger / more powerful pain killers because I will forever be in more pain than I was the last time? :\ Sounds like fun doesn’t it…

Ever since I actually started posting things that were interesting (Feb / March this year) my traffic has increased. I suppose creating a Facebook account and linking it to here probably helped some. Sadly nothing that interesting is going on right now; still haven’t heard back as to when I will be moving; though, hopefully I’ll hear something within the next week or two.

The Book of Tea is a really interesting book that I think a lot of people would benefit from. Yes, I know not a lot of people drink tea but it’s still a good read. Just make sure to have a decent dictionary handy, every few pages I run into words that I haven’t even heard of before; maybe I should just read better books. :p Should see a review of it somewhere in a couple weeks unless I get really motivated to finish coding this website that I’ve been putting off or I end up moving; then it may take a little longer.

To anyone who reads anything I ever post on here, thank you and to those who link to it or comment…you’re awesome.

Not that anyone from the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives or Mr. Obama himself will read this; but for those of you that do, please consider this before voting on any kind of “assault weapon ban” that may be coming through the news or your local voting booth sometime in the next four years. I stole this off of some website I found…the site seems to be down as Google only has a cache of it.

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control.
From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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In 1911, Turkey established gun control.
From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
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China established gun control in 1935.
From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Guatemala established gun control in 1964.
From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Uganda established gun control in 1970.
From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Cambodia established gun control in 1956.
From 1975 to 1977, one million ‘educated’ people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.

With Guns…….. .. …We Are ‘Citizens’.
Without Them…….. We Are ‘Subjects’

It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in:

Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent
Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent
(yes, 44 percent)!

Note: Admiral Yamamoto, who crafted the attack on Pearl Harbor, had attended Harvard from 1919-1921 & was Naval Attache to the U.S. from 1925-1928. Most of our Navy was destroyed at Pearl Harbor & our Army had been deprived of funding & was ill prepared to defend the country.

It was reported that when asked why Japan did not follow up the Pearl Harbor attack with an invasion of the U.S. Mainland, his reply was that he had lived in the U. S. & knew that almost all households had guns.

For anyone who didn’t know, I actually managed to graduate from ITT Technical Institute. Last Saturday, the 14th of March was the ceremony. Somehow I managed to graduate with a 3.35 GPA; guess it’s official now…I’m smart AND I have a piece of paper (diploma) saying that I can doom the world! muahahahaha.

I ordered myself a couple of books with some money I received for graduating. Not that I don’t have enough books to read already … think there’s three or four on my bookshelf I haven’t read all the way through yet and probably one or two I haven’t even opened. These two books looked really interesting and if they are what I hope; will help me with everything else.

The first The Book of Tea was a book recommended by a blog post that was about perfectionism. This book led the author to another book; Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. After going through the 200th or so rendition of my website without ever actually getting a UI started; this seemed like a good book to read.

Hopefully I’ll actually get both of these read and can start putting up reviews like I promised ages ago. No I didn’t forget, it’s written in Outlook, my palm Z22, at least one sticky note and off and on it’s written on my white board. Maybe after I move I’ll have some time to get them done … we’ll see.

In preparation for my upcoming move to Las Cruces I have been going through my bookshelves, closet, drawers under my bed (yes, I have drawers, my water bed is awesome). The thing that amazed me the most was the amount of crap I have kept. There is more stuff in this room than I’ll ever know what to do with, most of it I don’t even use anymore … some of it I thought had been lost or I didn’t even know I had it. I guess moving is a good thing for me; helps keep me from being too much of a pack rat. Keeping things that I might need one day, could use sometime for something or maybe my kids will want is almost an art I’ve come to perfect. Hopefully this move will clean out everything I don’t want / need / use and I’ll be able to get myself down from 12395208 boxes to a more realistic 10 to 15.

The thing I still have the most of is odd toys and things I found as a kid. As to why there was a rock on one of my bookcases … nobody will ever know lol. However, the metric tonne of old broken or useless computer parts has been filed away into the giant green trashcan in the garage. Really I don’t think I’ll be using a broken AT keyboard anytime soon.

Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever seen to pack isn’t fine china, glass mirrors, computer parts, or that $35,000 diamond encrusted whatever it was you got from some ancestor who’s name you only remember when your parents tell you. It actually is plastic models; you know how hard it is to put those into a box in a fashion that won’t cause them to be a failed Mythbusters experiment on the other end? Tediously wrap each one in cheap toilet paper until it resembles some kind of ball or squished ball; good thing tissue paper thin toilet paper is cheap and can be bought in bulk. =D Hopefully I’ve wrapped these well enough that they’ll be as close to one piece as possible when I arrive; though, if a moving company was shipping them instead of me there would be more toilet paper, some bubble pack and enough styrofoam peanuts to cushion the International Space Station.

Even though the earliest there would realistically be a place to put me in Las Cruces would be the first week of April; I have decided to start packing some things now. If I don’t it will be a day or two before I have to leave to get out there and it will be like a scene from a cartoon. You know the one, when Wile E. Coyote runs off the cliff, then realizes what he’s done and tries to run his way back before falling into a puff of dust? That would be me walking into my room and going “of fuck, I forgot to pack”. Not that I’m sure how I could forget to do something that big … anything is possible.

I passed all my classes and graduated; I now have an Associates in: Information Technology: Computer Network Systems. I’ve also accepted a job in Las Cruces, New Mexico as an Information Systems Technician D.