Flying!

So, the thing about travelling is that I show up four hours earlier than the flight is supposed to leave in order to make sure that I can actually get through security, and then have to find something to do for the three and a half hours that are left over after I've gotten through security and eaten breakfast. So to this then. First of all, let's do some news.

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It's old by now, but something still needs to be said about the fact that everyone with a myspace account will eventually inflict horrible crimes upon their fellow man. That's evidently a requirement for having an account. I say this only because a week or so after they brought David Ludwig and Kara Borden back to Pennsylvania (whose Xanga and Myspace accounts have been deleted since), Dominick Maldonado of Tacoma, Washington decides to go on a shooting spree at the mall in Tacoma, where fellow R&M moderator Scott works at a Baskin Robbins. Even more incredible than the fact that this guy would feel the urge to put on a shirt and tie and go into a mall to shoot some people and hold hostages without actually having any demands and moreso than the mall he decided to do this to employs Scott is the response to the negative comments on his Myspace posts. He'd only posted twice in his associated myspaceblog thing, and soon after he was arrested, the a few dozen people descended upon his posts to tell him what a waste he was.

Fine. Whatever.

That's understandable, as he's got a little corner of the internet that people can interact with and that they would do so after he goes out and injures six (one critically with several gunshot wounds) and holds some children hostage in a Sam Goody is only natural. What's odd is the response of one of his friends that had gained access enough to the account to change the biography but not to delete it and chose to respond to those posts, asserting that everyone "was just reacting to what the media was telling them" and that "Dominic is the victim of slander." Not only is that entirely false (as many people who were responding were at the mall he decided to shoot up, and so were probably responding more to bullets whizzing past
their heads than any media coverage), but... well... it's not hard for the media to portray you as a bad guy when you shoot innocent people.

But whatever. The only reason I really mention that is because of my shock that Scott was somehow entangled in this (being shot at and whatnot) and that it provides further proof that myspace and Xanga are either inherently evil or that people are
starting to commit this horrible violence for the blog traffic.

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Oh, while I'm somewhat on the subject, prosecutors in the Ludwig case are not claiming that Kara Borden was kidnapped, but that she went willingly and so kidnapping charges will not be pressed. It's an interesting turn as I believe it saves Ludwig from a possible death penalty, but as that's most likely what happened, that's appropriate.

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I've been watching/reading Fullmetal Alchemist recently, which passes the time. I think my original rejection of the series was simply because 1) I'm not now nor have I ever been a fan of anime or manga of any kind, as it struck me mostly as a fad/cultural envy 2) Inuyasha's spot on Adult Swim makes me cry, as I hate Inuyasha and 3) I was initially skeptical of the way they were using the word "alchemy". I'm ignoring all of that now and it's actually a decent series. Good for them.

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As for information you might actually use, here's a tip. If you're tired and still not entirely comfortable with relying on Bernoulli's Principle to make sure you get to Pittsburgh, don't listen to Randy Newman's "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)," particularly if the next song your computer selects at random from the playlist is "Magical Mystery Tour," followed by "Break Ya Neck." You are not prepared for that kind of shift. Trust me.