i was thinking recently - a dangerous pastime, i know (where is that line from, anyways?) - and i think i've finally been able to make the distinction between terrorists and guerrillas/partisans - they're both small (para-) military organisations, much smaller than their enemy, who usually happens to be a government, with an actual, full-sized, well funded military, but to me, the guerrillas, partisans, resistance forces, etc, focus on just fighting the man = the government and its military, while the terrorists attack regular, normal people. i got no respect for terrorists. leave the average joe out of your stupid conflicts! attack only those that you have a problem with, and leave the people who are just trying to live their lives, raise families, work at their jobs, and just lead normal schmuck lives. if you have a problem with someone, deal with that person, not with everybody in their country. stupid massive armed conflicts made me a firm believer in assassination - kill only the person you have a problem with - you'll let normal people keep living, and it might end up costing you less.
of course this post is about the most recent killing spree between israel and hezbollah, but its also about all other armed conflicts out there. so some hezbollah jerks had enough sitting at home and trying to live a normal life, which they probably were never good at, so they kidnapped some israeli soldiers and killed some of them. well, at least they were military. so israel starts bombing whole residential neighbourhoods in lebanon! i'd call that a terrorist act. even 9/11 was an attempt to get at get at the man's financial (twin towers) and military (pentagon) sides (if the pentagon was actually hit by a plane at all). but even 9/11 should have been done with no civilian casualties - it can be done! so the hezbollah launch rockets at a rush-hour train station crowds, etc, stooping to israel's level. not that they havent done that before. i still believe that israel is in the wrong to start with because they're the ones that invaded and occupied the land and called it israel. sure, historically they used to live there, but then they were gone, and all of a sudden they came back en masse because they were tired of being kicked around and persecuted in europe. well guess what - that land wasnt just sitting there waiting for you to come back, other people were living there! but every conflict can be resolved without resorting to mass killing.

approaching the transcendental object at the end of time

things are speeding up and getting crazier and crazier. or are they more and more crazy..? bah - no time for semantics. or propper grammar. "the crib project" is still going strong. bought a used wooden crib. noticed it had some scratches on it. thought i could sand them down and touch it up. then thought that it would be obvious where it was touched up, even if i found a good match for the veneer or whatever it is. so i thunk i'd just sand the whole bloody thing and recoat it with some thing nicer, more transparent. sanded one surface of one endpiece down with an electric sander, and thought there must be a better way. home depot sells these paint-on strippers - jusrt remove them mess with a putty knife. big mistake. the crap softened the wood more than the veneer, and so it was impossible to get it all off properly, so most of the crap just dried on, making the wood even darker, but still sticky, and the putty knife scarred the wood like a bitch. we went on to try and wipe at least some of the goop off with a paint thinnner, and sand the rest down. this has worked ok. i must have put like 4 full days of work into this by now, with other people helping too. i could have bought more than one brand new crib by now if i'd spent the time working. thats a big price to pay to learn a thing or 2 about woodwork. the crib is finally sanded and i test painted the first coat of the veneer onto a small area of the crib - we'll see how it turns out. its a crazy heat wave over here. i had sweat dripping down my face when installing the car seat for the baby. lots of swearing, but its done. noe just gotta certify it or whatever it is they do. phx' feet keep swelling like crazy, but she keeps helping. i'm very lucky to have her for a wife :)
i better get going help her prep breakfast and then onto our new place - try to fix the walls and test wash the carpet - see if its worth keeping.

thx for the birthday wishes toi! ;)

yeah, my birthday was a nice surprise, although it almost wasnt a surprise because i started to pick up too many little suspicious bits. but i like to be surprised so i usually let my surprisers do what they set out to do :) and it was fun! put on some tunage i like, started pounding back the brewskies, talked about some cool shizznit wit' da peeps, had a toke, went to the bar, had 2 rounds of tequila and a round of goddam 151 - that shit is just vile. and some more beers. then we drove thru mcdix and pigged out on greasy-ass food to coat our guts in grease so less alco-ma-hol would get absorbed, as well as having some of it absorbed into the bun, and diluted it all with the pop - think i had root beer... i like root beer :) only possibly second to sarsaparrilla :)
next morning / mid-day was... delicate, but didnt get to do any heaveage, which is always a deffinite bonus:) just watched the world cup final, and by the time the italians won, i was ready to be happy with them :)
good times were had by all:) except for the bit when Tara freaked out a bit after toking a bit too much and almost losing her eyesight and hearing for a few minutes. hehe - or like the last time she forgot she'd been eating black liquorice and then freaked out when she noticed her tongue was black - wish i'd been there :D