CelticPaladin's Xanga

Behold My Creations!

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:12:50 GMT

I've been playing around with the trial version of the Spore Creature Creator. In an attempt to make a light hearted post instead of one full of politics and cynicism, I've decided to share with you some of my creations.

This is Warmachine, a rather evil looking bug lizard thing. Here are some pictures;

This is Mandicycle. I have no idea why I called him that.

And this is my favorite one, Waterhorse. (That's not trademarked, is it?)

Isn't he cute?

Spore looks like it's going to be awesome. The amount of creative control in the demo, where you get 1/100 of the possible part options (not including the ability to stretch and edit these parts to look differently), is crazy. I can't even imagine the game itself.

Ciao!

-fin-

Liberty as Philosophy

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:04:56 GMT

    The entire basis of my own political philosophy has to do with self-ownership. You own yourself, and are entirely responsible for you. No one else owns you, no matter what. No one can own you, and you can own no one else. That is slavery, no matter what anyone may call it.
    Liberty is to recognize self ownership, and to be entirely responsible for your actions. That is, the fruit of your labor is yours, and cannot be taken away from you. It can only be voluntarily given. You can't take anyone's property, and no one can take yours. That's stealing, no matter what anyone may call it.
    You may see what I am getting at. In a truly free society you have natural human rights to be free and to do what you want, so long as you do not impede the liberty and rights of someone else. This is where Law comes in.
    Law's purpose (not currently, but I'll get to that later) is to ensure the security of rights. Therefore the Government is there to ensure that no one else hurts the life, liberty, and property of anyone else. The government should not be able to force you to give them property, nor should they be allowed to tamper with your liberty.

    The American system of government is the closest one could have to this truly free society. Unfortunately, it's still far off from the original intention of the founding fathers. Things we take for granted today would be horrific to them (except perhaps the Madisonions), especially things like a Central Banking system, an intent to draft, and most especially an interventionist foreign policy.

    Let's return to my philosophy. In my perfect government, contracts between individuals would replace a lot of federal and state requirements. Marriage is a major one. Marriage should not be a government institution; marriage should simply be a contract between two people (any two people), and these two people should define in the contract exactly what their marriage is. This doesn't effect churches or faiths in their marriages; the marriages they sanctify should simply set up their contract to fit the requirements of their church, if they so wish. This does not mean, however, that any faith should mandate the union of two adults who do not follow that faith, or who have a different philosophy on that faith. A free society is a society in which religion has no political place. Religion should remain ideological. This means gay marriage would be 'legal', yes, but in fact any marriage would have no legal definition. This also means polygamy; three individuals should be able to set up a contract between the three (or more). I may disagree with polygamy, but in a free society what someone else does is there business; so long as it doesn't affect my right to be free.

    Certain things, like roads and an army for national defense, would not be dissolved of course. The Constitution requires these things, and I see the Constitution as a contract between people and their government. This means that when the government breaks this contract, as it has numerous times recently, the people need to stop the government and put it back on the right track. People need to be impeached, imprisoned, and sued for breaking this contract.

    This is all a pipe dream, I know. But this is my ideology; this is what I believe. This is the only way to truly have a free society, and to me is the most ethical. Personal rights, property rights, income rights; these are all key. What you do belongs to you. Any money you give the government should be put towards things that directly help you. The government is not a charity; if you want to help the poor, you can put your funds towards that cause yourself. The government should not force anyone to be charitable.

    Here's a link to a video that describes a liberty philosophy in more depth; here.

    Also, I recommend reading books by the following authors; Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, Ludwig Von Mises; these books will lead on to more books, and etc. If you start reading them, believe me, you'll eat them up and look for more, while at the same time becoming a cynical miser about our corrupt government.

-fin-

I Quit Speedway Today

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:17:53 GMT

I found a 20 dollar bill in my drawer that was counterfiet. I tried to drop it in the safe, and when it wouldn't, that's when I suspected it. Anyway, I marked it with our little marker thingies, and sure enough, it was a fake. I was like, oh noes!

I told a police officer about it and he was like, "Oh yeah, definitely a fake. You didn't take it did you?" Oh noes! "Yeah, I did. I didn't know." He sighed and said, "Just tell your manager to make a report when he comes in."

Stress stress stress 5 hours later, Ron comes in. I tell him of the dastardly item within my drawer. I showed it to him. He told me? "It's yours. You have to buy it."

WHAT?!

I argued for half an hour, he wouldn't budge. "It's the rules." I wanted to discuss it further, but he refused. I said, "We need to contact the cops," but no answer. Just the repeated answer; you have to buy it, it's yours, it's the rules.

Finally, after he told me to leave, and I asked to discuss it, and he said NO. I said, "Fine, I can't work a job I can't afford. I quit."

And that's that.

Or is it...?

Corporate phone numbers are being looked up.

Viva la Revolucione

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:36:19 GMT

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/30/palace.takeover/

Go, Hawaii. Get away while you still can.

Anyone wanna move to Hawaii with me?

-fin-

PS; In other news, I did a refund at Speedway for a phone charger that was apparently against the rules. He had a receipt, and no one ever told me that we weren't allowed to refund phone chargers, but I got in trouble. However, Ron (my boss) is trying to force me to buy the phone charger since I did the refund. Is this illegal?

Float.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:44:34 GMT

    Gas prices to soar. Tuition raising 9%. Dollar plummeting. Wages not keeping up with inflation.

    The newspaper is rather depressing these days.

    What can we expect, though? This is simply a problem of living beyond our means. Every tendril of this black problem can be traced back to it's root; an ineffective Federal Reserve system. Couple this with a sort of naive public perception that we can pay for anything, and obviously you're going to see an economic relapse. Look at all of the money we're spending overseas. Did we ever think our military campaigns were going to somehow pay off?

    I don't mean to be so negative with my entries, but it really is a sad state we find ourselves in. I only hope that our economy crashes quickly, so we can begin the rebuilding.

    I wonder if I am going to be able to make an entry without dragging some politics into it?

-fin-

"As a rule, indeed, grown-up people are fairly correct on matters of fact; it is in the higher gift of imagination that they are so sadly to seek." - Kenneth Grahame (The Golden Age)

Mrglgrlgrlgrl.

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:03:33 GMT

    I don't think I've had an intelligent thought in about three months.

    Winter, work, and worry (triple-double-u?) have latched onto my brain like some sort of cerebral vampire, sucking me dry. I need to read more... my mind is dull. I need to sharpen it back. I had a spurt of writing, but that quickly faded. My (obsessive) following of my preferred presidential candidate was refreshing as I studied politics, but that quickly descended into cynical madness as I realized how the processes are set up to serve the political machine, not the people who bear it's weight.

    So, Xanga has suffered. I apologize for the lack of blog entries. I don't even know who reads anything on Xanga anymore. Perhaps a yak herder. No matter... I've not quit, and don't plan on it. I'll try to return to my regularly scheduled textual rantings.

    Spring is here, so things are looking up. In a manner of speaking, anyway. My school career has suffered grevious (self-inflicted) blows, and it'll be simply miraculous to try and recover. It's becoming more and more apparent that to truly live as a free person, I will have to learn to make money through writing. The way our world works, we're all trained to simply be work mules until we retire, when the government hopes we die quickly so we stop feeding off of social security.

    No one works to perfect themselves anymore. Where are the craftsmen? Craft has become hobby, hardly anyone takes up a craft and pursues it with their life, and makes their money from the sweat on their brow. Writing is one of the few crafts left like this, I think. I can't see myself working at Speedway for too much longer, marching to a government funeral waltz. I have to break free, I have to take up my craft, perfect it, and help define myself.
    Here's to success, whenever I meet her.

-fin-

don't you know that you are a shooting star?

RIP - The Original Game Master

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 06:28:38 GMT

On March 4, 2008, the father of modern Roleplaying Games passed away. Gary Gygax, born in 1938, was the creator of the first pen and paper RPG, Dungeons and Dragons.

This man has provided millions of people, directly or indirectly, with a lifetime of entertainment, hobbies, and social interaction, when they would otherwise have none. I know I certainly would not be the same person if not for that first fateful roll of the dice. Rest in peace, game master. You'll be missed.

-fin-

Detach

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:25:25 GMT

    The first Christians obtained their wisdom through detachment. They went into the desert, founded monastic and ascetic societies, and thusly detached from the material of civilization were able to focus on the immaterial.
    Buddhist monks do the same; in fact, in all religions one can find that wisdom is generally found through detaching one's mind from the present material and sending it into the immaterium of deep thought, prayer and contemplation.
    I believe prayer is vital to spiritual health. I also find it very hard to pray; this is a personal issue I wish to resolve. In general terms, however, it is contemplation of the self and prayer to the divine, God, from which our human wisdom comes.

    Let me suggest that all of you seek and learn detachment, if only for an hour or two a day. Find an hour in your schedule to lock the door, sit on your bed, close your eyes, and pray, contemplate, or just think about yourself, your environment, and how they interact with the spiritual.
    I find that many who 'pray' simply speak and that ends the prayer. I personally believe prayer should occur within deep thought. If it helps you to say it out loud, then do so. True prayer, as described in the Bible, however, is that which occurs when you are alone, "in a closet". I dislike open prayer simply because I don't want to prove to others how spiritual I am. "I am holier than thou" isn't something I like to say. I prefer private, contemplative, prayer.
    Read some Thomas Merton sometime. He's a wonderful Christian writer from here in Kentucky.

    Thanks for reading.

-patrick

Wow.

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:09:05 GMT

I didn't expect Paul to show at all in Iowa. I mean, it's main voter base is evangelical, and the corn farmers there live on subsidies; both things at odds with Paul and his policies. However, he still managed to go 5th with 10%, barely below McCain and Thompson (13%), leaving Romney and Huckabee to split the delegatory spoils.

I expect an even stronger showing at New Hampshire; live free or die, so they say.

-fin-

Edit: 95% of the precincts have been counted in, leaving 5% yet to be counted. I doubt it'll make much difference, however. It'd be nice to get another 1 or 2 %.

Am I a fanatic?

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:24:48 GMT

    The last year of High School, I believe sitting in my AP Government class, I realized suddenly that I hated George Bush, hated the Iraq War, and hated every classmate sitting beside me who argued about nation building and bombing Iran.
    I didn't speak out, of course, and just sort of sat there, wondering where I was. Could I be a conservative? I believed in small government, free market economies, and privacy rights. In fact, these three conservative things were what pushed me over the edge. Bush broke all three with NAFTA agreements, No Child Left Behind, and the Patriot Act. At the time I was unaware of the term Neocon, and aware but ignorant of the Libertarian movement.

    During the first year of college I got more into Libertarianism, and as can be seen on my Facebook history, had a schizophrenic battle deciding whether or not I was a conservative or a libertarian.

    Recently, the storm brewing in my political mindset was abated by a little known candidate; Ron Paul. He, with his radical spamming supporters, held almost every view I did about the role of government. I got caught up in this movement. I wrote about it, lauded it, annoyed my friends and my fiancee about it. He's the only candidate I'd ever wave a sign for. He's the only person in a political position I've ever donated too. I just hope I've not become some sort of fanatic.

    I am an Old Right conservative. A paleorepublican. A Goldwater guy, a Reaganite, a 'libertarian at heart'. This is why I want to vote for Ron Paul; he's the only guy up there, among these Big Government Republicans, saying the long forgotten ideas of classical conservatism. Non interventionism, no entangling alliances, free markets, small government, and localized power among the people. He voted against the Gay Marriage ban, wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and give the power of that authority to State Governments, and wants to bring the troops home immediately. This is the same crap I've been preaching on this very Xanga for a very long time now.

    Anyway, do you think I'm a fanatic? A cult member? Or am I just excited?

-fin-