From what I can see on twitter, today seems to be the National Day of Silence. I used to participate in high school, and if I remember correctly it was a day where you would be silent to bring attention to those that have to live their life in silence for fear of repercussions. While the concept is nice, I always felt it was a little flawed. The people that really need to be reached by this movement are probably too close-minded to realize what is going on. The people that are indifferent won’t really care, and the people that understand what the day is trying to achieve are most likely already involved.

The other problem I have with the Day of Silence is that silence is apparently a very subjective term. Back when I was in high school, people wouldn’t talk, but they would sit there passing notes all day. It eventually got to the point where people would “participate” so they could have, in their minds, a day off from school. Now, on twitter, I am seeing people who in one tweet say they are participating in the day of silence then turn around and send out a bevy of their normal day-to-day tweets. I am sure Myspace and Facebook are the same way.

What really constitutes silence? Is it simply the act of not talking for a day? I am sure that for some people that is really difficult, but if the only change you are making for a day is not talking, yet still communicating, is the purpose of the day really getting through? If you are still writing notes, tweeting, sending texts, writing blogs, and doing everything you would normally do in a day, are you really doing anything different?

Maybe it is just because I was raised Roman Catholic, but I feel like there needs to be some sort of struggle and  sacrifice for something like the Day of Silence to have meaning. While the main goal is to bring attention to the silence some people have to live in, I feel that it should also remind the people participating of the difficulties others have to live through day-to-day. To me, silence means just that… silence. No communication.

I really don’t get this whole “tea party” thing that is going down tomorrow…

There is one happening here in Cincinnati. I don’t understand what they hope to accomplish. Will this mean we don’t have to pay the outrageous tea taxes any more? I for one hope so, because those stuffy Brits have had it coming….

Ohh, wait. It has nothing to do with unfair taxes. According to the Cincinnati Tea Party home (which is a horrible use of the title tag, BTdubs), the “tea party” is a protest on government spending. The first sentences on their site are

Most of us do things the right way. We go to school, get a job, work hard, raise a family, build a home. Our government takes an ever increasing share of the money we earned, and wastes it on every pet project under the sun.

If these people are so concerned about spending, where were they the past 8 years? It seems to me that the spending by GWB was all fine and good, but the second Obama stepped in to office there was this unacceptable spending that started. I wanted to give them some credit and hope that maybe I was just to cynical. They couldn’t really think that all of the horrible spending was caused by the current president. There had to be a balance of blame on past policy and spending, right? No such luck…

They have a link to suggested sign ideas. One of the first ones listed is “220 Years to Build the Republic, 1 Month to Destroy It”. Really? These people think that Obama has destroyed the country in a month. Wow. It is interesting that people are clamoring to mollify him when he had to step into the shitstorm that was the wake of the past 8 years.

If you couldn’t tell by now, I am not a huge fan of GWB and the way he handled the country. I don’t agree with the way Obama has handled things either, but I am not ready to throw him under a bus just yet.

Maybe I am resistant to the whole “Tea Party” thing because Fox News has been trumping these things up and is sponsoring a bunch of them. It just seems that this is put together by someone with a blatant agenda who wants to play off the fears of the uneducated (which, ironically is how the whole mortgage issue started.. playing the uneducated… hmm).

Meh, hope you enjoyed the ramble.

There have been a few times now where people have commented that my photo on Twitter has confused them. I can see how something that full of awesome could be difficult to wrap your head around (and really, is there anything more awesome than Ron Jeremy dressed up like Mario?).

I am looking to my fellow Twitterati (tweeple?) to help me out. I have been in extra goofy mode recently, and snapped off a few possible pics to use. Leave a comment below and let me know which one you think would be fitting.

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For some reason, I tend to put way too much stress on myself. A good majority of these stressors are really insignificant, and I have no idea why I let myself get so worked up. For example, I had no down-time at work today and didn’t get to dit down at my computer until now (11:45pm). I opened up my RSS Reader, and this is what I saw:

I know it if silly, but having that many feed items to go through got me frazzled for a second. I had to take a deep breath and realize that not only did I know what priority these feeds had for me, but I can just mark things as read and go back to them later.

As you may know, I am a huge fan of electro-house music, mainly with Justice and Daft Punk. I try every now and then to make my own music, and most of it is done through my MacBook Pro. These midi controllers by Korg would be really helpful, especially if I want to ever perform this music live.