Where to begin.. should I even begin? I'm generally not big on sharing my problems, but I think I might as well get it out.
I've never been so anxious and unsure of the future. I'll cut most of the shit out, but to make a long story short, all my roommates are or have moved out. I've always struggled to even pay 1/3 of the rent, and now it's all on me. And if that wasn't enough, my power gets cut at the end of the month unless I can somehow come up with the money. Everyone who left, left owing me money. Some more than others. But if I were to randomly total it all in my head quickly, it's hovering near 2-3k in total. I suppose it's better than me owing people money, but only in a moral sense.
On the 13th I have to go to the rental housing tribunal to see if I can argue my way into keeping a place to live. I have a hell of an argument, but if things go badly I'm pretty fucked. Even if they go well I still have to worry about power, which I only have in my hands half of the necessary funds to pay.
cont...

I've been reading all the stuff on space exploration these days, and thinking about it hit me: it's now too late to bring socialism to the population en mass. Through any tactic or strategy.
The future of our species, should we keep going for another 50 years or so, will be driven by corporations. For good or ill.

The future as I see it:
For the next decade or two, it will remain the governments of nations with space programmes who drive space exploration. But the corporations have already struck their foothold, and with every passing year they will invest more and more until they surpass the funding of NASA, CSA, ESA, etc. combined.

Whether it is a nation or corporation which first colonises Mars, the end result will likely mirror the founding of the new world, and a conflict will break out over taxation or supplies or something similar. Maybe multiple wars. And maybe just political awkwardness, but some kind of conflict.
It will be around this time that corporations and governments have been going into

With all the recent discussion on the right to bear arms in the US, coupled with my personal dissatisfaction with the way our governments are being run, I struck upon an idea.
What if, instead of a rebellion, per se, you just formed a government.
Obviously, you have no authority, no resources beyond what you bring in and convince others to donate. But you involve the people the way governments of today do not.
If you do it well, and the people support you enough, then eventually the support for your government will force the government to cede all authority. That's the nature of democracy.

This isn't an overnight revolution, and it isn't an easy one. You must know all you can about what the current situation is, and come up with real solutions. Solutions that make a practical sense which the population can easily understand and support.
You must have people willing to work for effectively nothing on a project which has a real chance of failure, and little obvious chance of success.

I was reading the interesting discussion between Luminon and Old Seer in his 'Corner' when it hit me that the ongoing and upcoming religious and financial wars are linked, perhaps inseparably. I'd drifted off for a few minutes, so I can't point to what exactly they were saying, but a quote I'd heard popped into my head and just started bouncing around: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful".

It got me thinking about where the money is, and what it's being used for. It got me thinking about how religious institutions are desperately seeking new members. It got me thinking about control and power, who has it and how much. About how, regardless of logic, after WW2 socialism has been linked heavily with atheism (which I'm sure is a constant annoyance to our right leaning members), while capitalism has been linked to theism.

Strangely, there is actually a logic to it which escaped me before.

Long story short, a former roommate screwed his own credit rating just to get revenge for being evicted for being a fucking idiot. 16 days later I'm back online and he still owes the cable company $300+.

Personally, I'd say I won. Hell, no net gave me the opportunity to play a game I'd picked up recently and never got around to playing while I had net: Final Fantasy Tactics. I must admit it's a pretty sweet game.

Anyways, I'll just get back to my religion bashing and spam removal.

Cinematically, sure. But in real life? I don't know. So I ask you:

Have you ever hated something, or most especially someone?

I don't mean getting angry or disgusted or even furious, but real HATE. As in, if you could obliterate its existence with a thought, you would?

I personally have never experienced this emotion, so I must question its existence.

I have been and can be a total asshole. But if you're willing to change, so am I. It's how I can out troll a troll. It's also how I can later become best friends with said troll.

Am I fucked up or lucky?

I'll preface this as regarding North America. I can't speak for anywhere else, as I have too little experience with the rest of the world.
For the last 10-20+ years, at an accelerating pace, children are being taught to have healthy egos and self confidence. Often lamented by myself and others is that rarely is it justified. All the confidence in the world won't help you when you can't back it up.
It started, as many things do, with concerned parents. They didn't want their kids committing suicide or giving up hope for a brighter future.
Now it would seem I'm about to rant on the spiralling stupidity of the education system and the consequences of too much of a good thing, but I'm about to switch gears on you all. Because a side effect just occurred to me.
This has also had the effect of reducing belief in gods and religions. While the youngest generations are, in general, the cockiest and least educated (through no fault of their own, they didn't dumb down the education system), they are also the

So I'm playing Transformers 2 online, and I'm playing a team DM (death match, for those unfamiliar with the acronym). I choose Starscream, as always, because he's fucking awesome. Join the game, and it's me and this guy Transformers-TF-1 vs 4 Autobots. Long story short, we owned the enemy so badly they couldn't even get a kill. 2 of them leave, a third switches teams, and my former teammate apparently decides it's time to see which of us is better, and he switches teams as well.
The next game is rather epic. The nub on my team quits halfway in, which is annoying. He sucked, but he was perfect for distracting the opponents so I could take them both down while he dies. Oh well, I know I'm better than Transformers-TF-1 by now, so it's just a matter of divide and conquer.
Unfortunately I couldn't kill them enough for the win, but I keep it tied up.
Game ends, I look at the stats:
Autobots 11
Decepticons 11
Kills Assists Deaths
Autobots:
Transformers-TF-1: 5 1 3
Nub: 0 1 9
Decepticons:
Vastet: 7 2 2

In the last month, I've suddenly been told that I have an "epic voice", or something along those lines. I've been trying to figure two things out. The first is whether or not it's true, the second being what to do about it if so.
Obviously I can't ask people their views on my voice without a sound bite, which I'm currently too lazy to assemble (in part because I'm not sure I believe it yet).
But I can ask for some advice/input on where to go with it if it pans out.
I put a bit of thought into making vlogs, but I'm not sure I'd be able to create enough content to satisfy consumers on a continuing basis.
I thought of maybe doing commentary ala Day [9] and see where that goes (if you don't know who that is no problem, he's a former pro gamer that focuses significantly on StarCraft 2, with strategies and heavy insight, you can easily find him on youtube).
It dawned on me that perhaps if it is a great voice that maybe I could donate its use to the RRS whenever it may be useful.

Honestly, I'd never put any...

Roommates are off with family, I have the place to myself. Woken up hearing someone moving in the room beside mine. Grab weapon, jump up, and then decided I didn't want to massacre an intruder with bed hair, and grabbed my hair brush.

Turned out to be the cat anyway.

Time to get a coffee. Day that starts this way must be prepared for.

Well what do ya know. It's already been 5 years since I found the RRS. Good times.

Was a little excited to find an atheist forum, so I wasn't concerning myself with details like logic at the time. lol.

Glad I stuck around though.