I have a bunch of work to do, but I can’t really do any of it. I have to study all of biology… which is fine in theory, but it seems really fruitless when you’re actually doing it. Sure, now I remember what a Woronin body is, but what are the odds anyone is going to ask that, and if they do how many points is it going to score me? /shrug

I have to read papers that aren’t posted on the internet yet. I have to make a statistics proposal but he has to approve the general idea, which he hasn’t done yet. Yadda Yadda. It’s really not bad at all, I just want to whine like the other bloggers.

I’m a little cranky I guess.

I have a bit of a thought about universal health care, which I may someday blog about, but I’m sorta hoping that someone brings it up in conversation and I can go on a giant rant that just snowballs into extreme ridiculousness. That’s the best way to start any thought process. Later you can tone it down and figure out what actually makes sense. If nobody brings it up soon enough prehaps I’ll do the rant thing on here. It’s harder though cause no one will be egging me on with stupid hippy nonsense.

Mother is coming down tomorrow or the next day or something. I don’t know. She talks to 8 more than me apparently. Kinda sucks for her cause I have to study for my test or goof off with my friends pretty much the whole weekend. I don’t have a lot of time to express my complete apathy as to the quality of my room decorations or the variety of food consumed. I dunno why I think these little half jokes are so funny.

lol

So my adblocker extension isn’t perfect. The reason I force you to look at this picture of the type most unholy is because her eyes aren’t the same color. Wha-aa! Gotta sign up now, huh? Took me a couple seconds to figure out why she looks weird. At first I thought it was just her nose.

I’m on the way to sleep since I have that class thing again in the morning. I have to turn in my first lab (hehe, I typed lap on accident) report. It’s ok if I don’t do very well though because I got a 95% on that take home test I blogged so much about a couple weeks ago. I, haven’t gotten, it, back yet to, find, out what that, missing; 5% is all, about, tho,ugh,.

If she looks hot, you’d better not. It rhymes therefore it is true. Note the absence of any rhyme in the second sentence.

Engineering Food at Level of Molecules – New York Times. I knew it was soon.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Another View of the Gambling Bill. In the interest of completeness, this guy has a more possitive outlook on the whole gambling law thing.

This article gets at some of the deeper issues involved in the gambling bill like our guest blogger brought up. These are the issues I’m actually interested in most. Although it is also worth noting that the multibillion dollar online gambling industry is now an underground industry and will likely have negative legal ramifications beyond just the gambling sphere. But whatever.

I’ve been lying in bed trying sleep for about an hour now because I have class at 9 tomorrow, but it’s not working. So I guess I’ll type random thoughts for a while and see what that does.

Today, technically, is Columbus day which apparently means the post office will be closed. This affects me because I have to send a book back to Amazon. I ordered the book on the first day of classes and they didn’t get it to me until last Friday. So, naturally, I’ve already purchased the more expensive paper back version that came in 3 weeks after class started to the campus bookstore. I only bought the campus version after Amazon e-mailed me telling me that they weren’t going to be able to make their shipping estimate, and that I had to confirm that I still wanted it later, or they wouldn’t ship it. I didn’t confirm it, but apparently they did manage to obtain my book before the official cut off for me getting off the hook. So now, according to my research, if I box it up all pretty and pay the shipping they’ll refund me my $105. I did the boxing thing, but I have to wait for the post office to be open, which is hardly ever around here.

This weekend in Six there was a LAN party and some D&D. The LAN party was a school function this time, not the classic Ody LAN. There were quite a few people there, it was quite exciting. I played a game I’d never played before, but it was mostly the usual stuff. Was the most successful CS LAN I’ve ever attended though.

Saturday and Sunday I had D&D, different campaigns. Saturday was an Eberron game Dimitri started like the second week of school that hasn’t met since, but I like quite a bit cause it’s Eberron. It’s me and noobs, although now I think John and Keston are in it too. Sunday we started up Ravenloft, which is awesome. We played it quite a bit 2 years ago, but haven’t played since then. I still had my character sheet, and 8’s, so that was swell. Since the campaign is from 2 years ago the players are 8 and I, John, Dimitri, and Mike. Keston DM’s. All the old ones. Good times and such.

I have the first lab write up of my MCB class due on Wednesday. I have tried a couple times to start work on it but have failed. It’s always hard for me to do the first of anything, and this is made more difficult by the fact that the experiment isn’t really finished. We should be done, but something wasn’t working right so we dunno if we have actual results, or what the nature of our lack of results is. So hopefully that will be cleared up in class tomorrow. 6 pages, shouldn’t be too bad I hope.

My Senior Comprehensive Exam is 8 days away. About time to start memorizing those things that they will probably want me to have memorized but that I don’t actually use and so don’t already know, like taxonomy. Mother and possibly other people are coming down for family weekend, which is this weekend, so that will make for a nice excuse not to study while at the same time hopefully raising my anxiety because everyone will be asking if I’m ready and telling me I should study and stuff. (This is, of course, not true. I’m a rock and unaffected by those around me.)

Mother and 8 will probably team up to take me suit shopping or something which will be fairly horrible. I have to dress up for this thing, which I think is cruel and unusual. But at least I’m not being stoned for eating a snack. Anyone else hear about that? Can’t find the link anymore.

Just got to give a little note that I added The Order of the Stick to the web comics list. I’ve been reading it for a long time now… like at least 6 months, and it’s really good. I dunno why I didn’t add it to the list earlier. Anyway, most of the jokes are D&D related, but the general silliness is entertaining as well.

Agyris – Fantasy RPG Campaign Setting – Free and Universal Gaming

Recently a law was passed that had some sort of effect on online gambling. I didn’t hear a lot of coverage of it, so I asked my gambling addict friend Pat if he wanted to write a guest post. He actually did it. Here it is.

How It Happened

On Friday, September 29^th, 2006 Congress was in its final hours of session before taking the election period recess. Only one thing was left to do was for a vote to be taken on a bill called the Safe Port Act, HR 4954, that dealt with port security. Seemingly harmless, this bill contained an Act that would strike horror through the community of online poker players and gamblers throughout the world. Title VIII, The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, was stuffed into this unrelated Safe Port Act by Senator Bill Frist that was sure to pass. And sure enough it passed with ease minutes before Congress went in recession.

What It Does

This Act is designed to target the prosperous overseas gambling companies, the online banking companiesm, ISPs, and not the individual gamblers in their homes. Pretty much it says that the government will now hold any “financial transaction provider” or any company in the “business of betting or wagering” accountable for causing such harm to the American public. This includes any internet provider, Neteller, Firepay, Pokerstars, Partypoker, and many others.

Its Effects

On Monday, October 2^nd, the stock market opened for the first day after the Act was passed. The two major companies that are traded over a Stock Exchange are Partypoker and Neteller. On Monday Partypoker, who happens to be one of Britain’s most successful companies, had a drop in their stock price of 58%, from 107 to 45, in a single day. Practical devastation of the British company done solely by the American Act that has not even been passed into law. Also Neteller has dropped significantly but not near the amount that Partygaming lost.

The Problems

HMMMM…. where to begin here. How about the way in which the Act was passed through the Senate in the first place. Senator Bill Frist took an Act that was supposedly being voted on sometime next year and shoved into a completely unrelated bill that was almost sure to pass. We poker players have been planning our defense since a vote was held in the House of Representatives in July. Yet we were not allowed to defend our position whatsoever. Next, the supposed reasoning of the Act compared to the actual reasoning. This Act took the assumption that Internet gambling was illegal by the Wire Act, while in reality this is a leap of faith. It is near impossible to find a federal, state, or tribal law that clearly defines an Internet bet as illegal, with the exception of Washington State of course. Then it declares that Internet gambling is a growing problem for banks and credit card companies. How so? All major banks and credit card companies already have blocked all accounts from transactions with Internet gambling sites. So what is the real reasoning? The fact that the U.S. Govment is not benefitting from all this Internet gambling. Instead they are watching money go from us gamblers in the U.S. to sites overseas. This pisses them off obviously. Then fucking make it legal and regulate it you dumbshit politicians. Sorry, lost it there for a second. Finally the Act uses the wording “games subject to chance” to describe the desired illegal gambling bets. This wording is designed specifically to allow Internet trading in the Stock market such as securities, commodities, and futures. But ask yourself, is playing the stock market any less of a gamble? Or is it legal because the U.S. Govment benefits from it.

What to Do

Every person in America should be concerned about this Act and all of its aspects. It shows the trend of the government sticking their noses into business that does not concern them. My hope is that the WTO really sticks it to this Act. How long until the government decides they want to control an important aspect of your life? This has affected myself and many of my friends in an extremely negative way. Already many sites have pulled their business out of the U.S. with most of the other companies still indecisive but likely to do the same. Internet Poker is the job for many people that I know and have met over various sites. It is not gambling, it is a game of skill, just like trading in the stock market is and there is no reason the government should have the right to tell me that I can’t play poker with my own goddamn money. If you feel strongly enough on this subject and want to help the cause go to the following site.

http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/