A little something for my DDR-loving friends.

So many crises, so many needs
Leaving us weak with compassion fatigue

- "Fuddy Duddy Judge" (rap section), Dee-Lite

I'm a little embarassed to say so, but I'm don't have feelings either way about the Terri Schiavo case. In some ways, that makes me feel less than human. After all, it seems like everyone has something to say about it. I think the biggest problem for me is that everyone is saying something about it. It's the latest news sensation, and the TV networks, newspapers, radio stations, and online news sources wont shut up about it. Neither will people sitting near me in restaurants or in line at the store. One woman in a chatroom I frequent goes on these long tirades about it every time she's there — thank goodness for the "ignore" feature.

The main thing stopping me from having an opinion on the case is that I don't have all the facts. I don't have all the facts because I can't even bring myself to research the case. And I can't do that because I'm so tired of hearing about it in the first place.

The only good thing that's come out of this non-stop media sensationalism is the fact that I get a break from Michael Jackson trial coverage for a few weeks.

Another thing that bugs me about the whole thing is the sheer childishness of people on both sides. When it came to gay marriage, the common term for sympathetic judges among conservatives was "activist judges". For this, I've heard the words "skinheads and Nazis" bandied about, supposedly because these other groups place such little value on human life. The Yahoo! message board on the topic has some choice subject lines like "Bush/Schiavo brains identical" and "I HOPE SATAN WILL TORTURE U LIBS 4EVER".

Those of you who have opinions on this one, good for you. I encourage you to go forth and speak, protest, or whatever you feel the need to do with regards to this case. This is America, and we have the right to speak freely about things that matter to us. Me personally? I'll be in the basement with my hands over my ears, dreading the next non-stop media sensation…

Ok, it's been a while since I did an entry, so here's what's been going on in my little corner of the world:

• I'm down to 187 pounds. If I can just lose one more, that'll put my losses at 30 pounds since the end of October. Wow.
• We're taking an honest-to-goodness real vacation this year! Last year's vacation involved sitting around the house and getting new windows installed. This time, we're off to San Francisco (first week of April).
• We had a great time at Katie's party Satuday night.
• I finally tried Webmin for administering my unix boxes. I normally hate point-and-click utilities, but this one gives you access to pretty much every feature you could need. It made setting up Samba printer & disk shares a snap.
• I ordered a new digital camera for the trip. 7.2 megapixels *drool*
• I wasted quite a few hours in front of the Commodore this weekend playing Elite. I haven't played this game in years, and I forgot just how much fun it is. Within the first hour, I went from a harmless trader to a "mostly harmless" fugitive dealing in narcotics, slaves, and firearms. That's when the game gets really interesting!
• Our taxes are done! H&R Block's tax software cut what we owe down by about $500. We still owe over a thousand, but it's not at bad as we originally thought.