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  <title>No Fate but What We Make</title>
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  <description>No Fate but What We Make - LiveJournal.com</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/247376.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:08:45 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Changes</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/247376.html</link>
  <description>My journal has undergone a total makeover to represent my current attitudes in life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really don&apos;t update this thing anymore.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh well. I guess that&apos;s a good thing? It means I&apos;ve matured past it...</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/247277.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:33:22 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Stop.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/247277.html</link>
  <description>Stop whining about how unfortunate you are. You take the things you have for granted. Then you complain to me about how hard it is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Too bad the things you have, that you take for granted, that you complain about, are things I would give up so much for.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You offend me.</description>
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  <lj:mood>irritated</lj:mood>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246892.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:18:13 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>A landmark day</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246892.html</link>
  <description>Today, February 12, 2008, was the first time in my life I voted!!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I left feeling SO AWESOME!!! Seriously, walking out of my polling place, I realized how much I love this country. I get a voice in the political process. Not just that, but it&apos;s my CIVIC DUTY. I love being able to do that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I love it!</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246645.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:22:29 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>...</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246645.html</link>
  <description>If ONE MORE PERSON complains about his/her pathetic lack of sex life, I&apos;m going to fucking SPIT IN YOUR FACE.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Remember who you&apos;re talking to, and then contemplate it real good. Maybe then you&apos;ll realize I DON&apos;T GIVE A SHIT. My romantic problems dwarf yours, so stop complaining about what you do have! BECAUSE YOU&apos;RE FUCKING LUCKY.</description>
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  <lj:mood>pissed off</lj:mood>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246427.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:11:23 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Murder.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246427.html</link>
  <description>Every nasty, horrific, scathing thing I&apos;ve ever heard someone say about Microsoft is true.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I got a new computer like 2 weeks ago. It came with an awesome trial version of Microsoft Office 2007. Dude, IT&apos;S SO COOL. The interface is shiny and useful and all that amazing stuff. Anyway, today the trial version decided it was going to expire, and being that I have my last final tomorrow this was not a good time for that to happen because I have a bunch of notes I need to type up. So I uninstalled it (tear tear) and went ahead and plugged in my Office 2003 disk that I bought with my last computer. Well anyway, the uninstallation took forever, and the installation took forever, but in the end Office 2003 was safe and sound on my computer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I typed of one of my sets of notes, and decided to configure Outlook 2003 to work with my mail. For those of you who don&apos;t know, I connect to the University&apos;s mail servers using Outlook instead of the stupid internet client that sucks. It&apos;s a much friendlier, cozier atmosphere, and it works with my PDA too. Nice little unified world there. Anyway, I configure it, and when I&apos;m done I get a very strange message I don&apos;t recognize: &quot;The IMAP store could not be properly updated. You may want to restart Outlook before proceeding.&quot; Now I&apos;m pretty good with computers, and even I could tell that was an error. So I tried again figuring I did something wrong, and the same error came up. Right about now I was getting pretty concerned, so I went ahead and looked up the error I was getting on Google.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;AND NOW FOR THE FUN PART. Ladies and Gentlemen, THIS is why MICROSOFT loves YOU!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Apparently in uninstalling Office 2007, the software package decided to take a bunch of system files with it! Apparently Microsoft asked itself why the hell anyone would want to remove a trial package of $400 dollar software after it stopped working and put in its place an older version of that software FOR WHICH THEY GET NO MONEY, so they unilaterally decided you won&apos;t be needing the system files to run it either! This was a GREAT time for this to happen, you know, with a final tomorrow that I have to get an A on or I don&apos;t get an A in the class (literally. 44/50 means I get a B+)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And in other news...damn it&apos;s been a while since I posted here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But at least my new computer is hot.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even though it doesn&apos;t work for the one thing I actually need it for.</description>
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  <lj:mood>irritated</lj:mood>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246238.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:13:14 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>It&apos;s natural.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/246238.html</link>
  <description>Down to the last...</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/245967.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:38:17 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Proof.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/245967.html</link>
  <description>Proof that I have grown more conservative in the last 8 months.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;table width=&quot;75%&quot; border=&quot;1&quot; cellpadding=&quot;8&quot; align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign=&quot;middle&quot; bgcolor=&quot;#FFFFFF&quot;&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial,Helvetica&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;+2&quot; color=&quot;#0000C0&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;I am&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;+4&quot; color=&quot;#C00000&quot; style=&quot;line-height:100%&quot;&gt;69%&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;+2&quot; color=&quot;#0000C0&quot;&gt;Republican.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align=&quot;left&quot; valign=&quot;middle&quot; bgcolor=&quot;#FFFFFF&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;+1&quot; face=&quot;Times New Roman,Times&quot; color=&quot;#000000&quot;&gt;&quot;I bet you&apos;d like Democrats okay if they wouldn&apos;t keep handing out your paycheck to urban welfare cheats, right?  (And you probably don&apos;t want me to be saying anything about &apos;urban&apos; being some kind of &lt;i&gt;code word&lt;/i&gt;, I bet.)&quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://paulkienitz.net/republican.html&quot;&gt;Are You A Republican?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The original can be found here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/233148.html&quot;&gt;http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/233148.html&lt;/a&gt;</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/245733.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:39:39 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Confessions of a Nose-picker</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/245733.html</link>
  <description>So I had a small nosebleed this morning before my fantastic 8 AM class. It stopped, but not before leaving me almost completely unable to breathe.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I can&apos;t breathe at all through my nose in my class. And I&apos;m sitting there extremely frustrated and uncomfortable, so what did I do? I attempted to clear it. Manually.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, I just admitted to picking my nose in public. Even though it is something I never do, I PICKED MY FUCKING NOSE IN PUBLIC.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So what happens? Well half way through class the lovely human being sitting to my left whispered &quot;that&apos;s disgusting.&quot; Okay. I turned red. But I still can&apos;t breathe. So I consciously controlled myself from there on out to prevent from picking my nose.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the humor doesn&apos;t end there. Later in class the teacher said something, and I mumbled something in response. Once again this lovely human being to my left had input: something along the lines of &quot;be quiet already.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And finally toward the end of class, I saw it. I saw one of the more interesting articles of artistry I&apos;ve ever seen: this lovely &lt;b&gt;BITCH&lt;/b&gt; doodled on her class notes a picture of me picking my nose with the caption &quot;Ewwwwww&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Needless to say I&apos;m still feeling very embarassed about this, but I still couldn&apos;t breathe. So at the end of class I made sure to point out to this beautiful person that if she has a problem with my bleeding nose, she can sit elseware next time. She made sure to point out, laughing, that &quot;it didn&apos;t look red to me&quot;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next time, I&apos;m going to stick my finger up my nose and leave it there. This will be accompanied by repeated farting in class.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fucking bitch.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, and I still can&apos;t breathe.</description>
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  <lj:mood>frustrated</lj:mood>
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  <pubDate>Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:09:14 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Just to feel a little better, this is to someone who really hurt me.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/245425.html</link>
  <description>What you did was so cruel... it was almost evil. But that no longer matters. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You will never know love. You will never know true companionship. And I feel sorry for you.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/245057.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:13:17 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Blah</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/245057.html</link>
  <description>School starts again tomorrow. I&apos;m almost glad because I hate sitting around here bored.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Apartment looks nice though...</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244989.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:17:42 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>It&apos;s true.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244989.html</link>
  <description>I lost my virginity today.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It was to a latex glove and a gastroenterologist named Ann.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My dignity went along with it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kill me now.</description>
  <comments>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244989.html</comments>
  <lj:mood>Ow.</lj:mood>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244489.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:00:41 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>I&apos;m going to cry.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244489.html</link>
  <description>It&apos;s official, I&apos;m going to cry.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In Russian, the verb Снимать/Снять (don&apos;t even ask me about aspectual pairs...) is a very cute little verb. VEEEEEEEEEERY SPECIAL. Oh yes. This one verb means...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To shoot (a film)&lt;br /&gt;To rent (an apartment)&lt;br /&gt;To take off (hate, glasses)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;...HOW THE HELL ARE THOSE RELATED IN THE LEAST?!?! WHAT IF TAKE OFF MY GLASSES WHILE SHOOTING A FILM OF ME PAYING MY RENT?!?!?!?!?!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!&lt;/b&gt;</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244330.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:34:49 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Lucky to be alive</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244330.html</link>
  <description>Last night while walking Shelby, I was stung in the neck by what we now think to be a Hornet. Given that as a child I was deathly allergic to bees, I figured it would have been a matter of seconds before I went into anaphylatic shock--and minutes before I died.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Obviously I didn&apos;t.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After running back upstairs, keeping my hand over the spot, I practically screamed &quot;Dad, I&apos;ve just been stung in the neck by a bee.&quot; It only took one look at the spot for him to see the whole area--about the size of a grapefruit--had turned red and swelled to the point of elevation. Dad rushed me to the Emergency Room immediately.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Long story short, I&apos;m on steroids and Benadryl as a precaution to make sure my body completely fights off the venom. Otherwise I&apos;m alive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How frightening.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244160.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:10:10 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>My Plan</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/244160.html</link>
  <description>My Plan to eradicate incompetence in college-age &quot;children&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mandate comprehensive sex-education in all schools beginning in 8th grade, with an emphasis on the abstinence-only approach. Emphasize the horrifying diseases that can be spread without protection usage (AIDS), with protection usage (ie. Herpes) and the horrifying statistics that can make anyone&apos;s skin crawl (ie. 1 in 2 males will be at risk of throat cancer if they have given oral sex to between 1-5 people). People will understand the perils of both unsafe and safe sex, the ways to avoid them, and the only one true way to prevent them: abstinence. They will also understand that even through having safe sex the risks are just too high, so they&apos;re better off waiting rather than playing dice with their lives.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ban the sale of condoms to anyone under the age of 18. Once you turn 18 and have graduated high school, you should be issued two things: a High School Diploma, and an engraving on your license that says &quot;SEX ED OK&quot;. To get the special engraving, you need to pass a special state-issued test. Without the engraving, you get no access to contraceptives or protection.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ban abortion except in cases of rape, incest, &quot;extended marriage&quot; (over 1 year), and where it can be proven that every possible method of birth control had been utilized and the pregnancy still occurred (ie. Oral Birth control, condoms, and lubrication) &lt;i&gt;while in a committed relationship&lt;/i&gt;. If a girl sleeping around at 19 gets pregnant and opts for an abortion, she should be forced to carry and deliver the child, and then have it taken from her before she can even hold it. Sorry honey, this is the baby you wanted to kill. Time for it to go to a family that actually appreciates the value of a child&apos;s life. However, you&apos;re more than welcome to try to be a mother in 18 years after the mandated court-issued restraining order against you expires. As for the boys who sleep around--a paternity test should immediately be issued at birth. If you&apos;re found to be the lucky dad, you&apos;ll get to show your new found fatherly love through the court-ordered child support checks you&apos;ll be sending to the adopted family every month for the next 18 years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Got an STD? Yes? I&apos;m really sorry, that&apos;s awful. Have you been in a committed relationship for the last 6 months? No? Too bad Federal funding has been withdrawn from herpes and HPV research. Looks like you&apos;re on your own. And to think, if you were married the drugs would be practically free after one year under a joint insurance policy! Now they&apos;re going to cost $500 dollars a pill because you couldn&apos;t keep your pants zipped up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;None of you are going to agree with this. I don&apos;t expect you to. It&apos;s how I feel. People need to start taking responsibility for their actions instead of running to the state for help when things go wrong. I&apos;m AGAINST the illegalization of drugs--yes, you heard right, I don&apos;t care if drugs are legalized--but this is provided that &lt;b&gt;ZERO&lt;/b&gt; dollars of taxpayer money goes toward halfway houses and drug recovery facilities. If you do drugs, it is your perrogative, but if you get addicted don&apos;t you DARE make it &lt;b&gt;MINE!&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My new political stance highlighted in one phrase: If you make your bed, lie in it.</description>
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  <lj:mood>frustrated</lj:mood>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/243857.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:53:52 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/243857.html</link>
  <description>OMG I FELT LIKE A 13 YEAR OLD GIRL.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;    &lt;a href=&quot;http://blingee.com/blingee/view/12233418-Bill-s-Blingee&quot; alt=&quot;Add Glitter to Pictures&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;Bill&amp;#39;s Blingee&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;296&quot; src=&quot;http://image.blingee.com/images11/content/output/2007/6/17/207616503_122d6b9d.gif&quot; title=&quot;Bill&amp;#39;s Blingee&quot; width=&quot;400&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blingee.com&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;Add Glitter to Pictures&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/243650.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:06:28 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Very strange</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/243650.html</link>
  <description>For reasons I can&apos;t at all explain, I&apos;m feeling extremely nostalgic tonight. It all started with thinking about random things, and realizing that it&apos;s been many years since I last played with my Gameboy. One thing led to another, and I started thinking about a lot of the things over the years I loved with so much passion and vigor that ended up dying out. Animorphs, for those of you who remember it, was a book series I loved so much when I was around 9-10. I got curious tonight about what exactly happened to the series, whether it ever finished or not. Needless to say it was finished, and I read a brief synopsis of the conclusion and got so overwhelmed with nostalgia that I realize now, 8 years after the last time I read an Animorphs book, that I hate the fact that I never finished the series. I&apos;m so inspired right now, that I&apos;m almost thinking of buying the entire series just so I can finially finish it and leave one less thing unfinished. This isn&apos;t a cheap proposition either, FYI. One option I saw in passing is an auction, which includes the entire book series and the peripherals for a &quot;mere&quot; 150 dollars. I got through 14 of them (the last I did for a book report in 6th grade, I remember doing so but not at all what the book was on). The series concluded at 54, not including a handfull of necessary side stories. And no, guys, these aren&apos;t exactly heavy reading. The biggest books of the series were at max 250 pages in large print and with double spacing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But it didn&apos;t end there. I started thinking about Pokemon again, and I realized that I never finished Silver. I was not even half way through it. I remember Blue/Yellow very distinctly, but Silver I don&apos;t at all remember--probably because I partially played it once, and never even finished it never even mind replayed it several times like I did with Blue. So now I&apos;m inspired to dig out my Gameboy as soon as I get home and pick up where I left off. That should be interesting considering it&apos;s been about 8 years since I last played Pokemon, and probably 5 since I even last touched my Gameboy. This might prove to be interesting after all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&apos;t know what brought it on, but suddenly I feel so compelled, so possessed, to pick up these things and finish them. Perhaps it was the fact that one of the first things I did when I got my Wii (yes I got one) was buy Sonic the Hedgehog, which brought back tons of memories from being a kid. Then days later, I felt compelled to download the Shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D and play that a little. I have no idea what&apos;s going on with me lately, but I just feel compelled to jump back half my life and do things that I enjoyed when I was 10. Yeah Animorphs is a childrens&apos; book series, and Pokemon isn&apos;t exactly an adult obsession either, but I don&apos;t give a damn. I loved these things so much for such a long time, and there has to be a reason that suddenly tonight they&apos;ve come back and hit me so hard.</description>
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  <lj:mood>nostalgic</lj:mood>
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  <pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2007 20:47:34 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Ha</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/243204.html</link>
  <description>This is hot.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.am-i-dumb.com&quot; title=&quot;How smart am I?&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.am-i-dumb.com/images/stamps/89-4.gif&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; height=&quot;100&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;How smart are you?&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some more interesting figures:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Gender Averages &lt;br /&gt;Male Average: 19.15 &lt;br /&gt;Female Average: 17.44 &lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Ethnicity Averages &lt;br /&gt;East Indian 19.1 &lt;br /&gt;White/Caucasian 18.37 &lt;br /&gt;Pacific Islander 17.73 &lt;br /&gt;Asian 17.44 &lt;br /&gt;Native American 17.41 &lt;br /&gt;Middle Eastern 17.36 &lt;br /&gt;Black/African Descent 17.31 &lt;br /&gt;Other 17.3 &lt;br /&gt;Latino/Hispanic 17.06 &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And here I thought females would be smarter than males, and Asians would be the smartest. Hehehehe.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242711.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 27 May 2007 23:58:57 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>More Social Commentary</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242711.html</link>
  <description>A quote from an ad on hair restoration:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;80% of feeling good is looking good.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Am I the only one disturbed by this equation?</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242497.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 26 May 2007 19:39:02 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Philosophy</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242497.html</link>
  <description>I just saw a Facebook group, &quot;Burn in Hell, Jerry Falwell&quot;, and I sit here and shake my head. This is the height of immaturity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He did what he believed in. He stood up for his beliefs in a society that rejected them. But he stood by them. He didn&apos;t change his beliefs to suit the times, as is so prevalent in today&apos;s world. He stayed with his beliefs despite the fact that they were unpopular. He did not compromise his values for anyone. No, I did not like Jerry Falwell. No, I did not agree with his beliefs. Yes, I thought they were inflammatory and horrible, but they were his. He stood by them. And I respect him for that. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I said to a close friend that it bothers me that so many people would compromise their values just to improve their lives a little bit, she responded, &quot;I don&apos;t particularly see the problem in that... it&apos;s nice to have concrete values, but not always practical.&quot; This bothered me to no end. Having taken a class this past semester where the underlying theme of the entire semester focused on issues of integrity and morality--&quot;sticking to your guns&quot; in the face of adversity, so to speak--I&apos;ve explored this issue at great length and had plenty of time to come to my own conclusions. To me, it is far more important to stick to your own beliefs and values than to bend to what is more widely accepted; sticking to what is right rather than what is easy. To me, knowing that what I&apos;ve done is right is far greater a feeling than that I would get having compromised my values for a small material gain. Again, I don&apos;t believe Jerry Falwell was right--he preached hate discrimination--but I think this is a far greater issue in society than just Jerry Falwell&apos;s beliefs. In fact, this isn&apos;t even about Jerry Falwell anymore; it&apos;s about society at large. Is society so corrupted that anyone will compromise any value to improve his life? Or does an idea still carry more weight than a dollar?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Discuss.</description>
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  <lj:mood>thoughtful</lj:mood>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242318.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2007 22:46:22 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Entry inspired by Sam</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242318.html</link>
  <description>What Pisses me off more than anything:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Righteous Christian Hypocrites.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I absolutely hate Righteous Christian Hypocrites. They make my blood boil. Why do I hate them so much, you ask? It&apos;s simple. Righteous Christian Hypocrites live the word of God where it suits them. They condemn certain behaviors, but in areas such as sex they bend the words to their will. A Christian who in one breath condemned a good person simply because of the circumstances around his death uses the other side of his mouth to proposition people for sex. His mouth speaks the alleged &quot;holy&quot; word of God, but he bends these teachings to allow for his promiscuity. I may personally condemn promiscuity on personal grounds and choices of morality, but it is not that that bothers me--it is the hypocrisy. If one considers himself a &quot;good&quot; &quot;righteous&quot; Christian, he must obey &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; the teachings of God and not just the ones he sees as fitting to his own ends, especially if he insists that the word of God is immutable and iron-clad. To quote a good friend, &quot;Christians make up the rules to fit their lives.&quot; I have NOTHING against Christianity. I think true Christianity is a beautiful religion based on love and forgiveness. That right there is the key word: love. If you, a righteous Christian, are continuously propositioning somebody for sex to the point that they are uncomfortable, you are NOT acting with love. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for backstabbers and traitors. Hypocrites who twist the word of God and apply different standards to themselves than everyone else are more than just hypocrites: they betray the sacred word they so passionately claim to defend; they are traitors to the God they so vehemently claim to follow. Little do the &quot;Righteous&quot; Christian Hypocrites know, but with the &quot;Word-of-God&quot; rhetoric they spew at everyone else, it is &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; who actually go to hell in the end.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just my two cents.</description>
  <comments>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242318.html</comments>
  <lj:mood>thoughtful</lj:mood>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242084.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 11 May 2007 06:20:22 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Okay</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/242084.html</link>
  <description>Finalizing my new career direction. Criminal Law and Criminal Prosecution. Thoughts?</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/241472.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2007 12:24:20 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Essay</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/241472.html</link>
  <description>Using the case of Iran, contrast proscriptions and strategies to address the problem of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that can be derived from the liberal perspective with these stemming from realist perspective. (Don’t forget to take into account the UN Security Council Resolution 1737)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My Paper:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We should use bombs...liberally.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Think I&apos;ll get an A?</description>
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  <lj:reply-count>4</lj:reply-count>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/241301.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2007 07:37:56 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Stolen</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/241301.html</link>
  <description>Stolen from a friend.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;lj-embed id=&quot;2&quot; /&gt;</description>
  <comments>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/241301.html</comments>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/240914.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:42:34 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Wow, kinda cool.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/240914.html</link>
  <description>&lt;lj-embed id=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;	&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center; width:340px;height:25px;margin-top:0px; border-top:1px solid rgb(150,150,150);background-color:rgb(0,0,0);padding:5px 0 0 0; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:11px;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://networking.imagini.blueorange.co.uk/vdna.php?uid=268964-c94f&amp;amp;srv=iwebhd6&quot; style=&quot;color:rgb(255,255,255)&quot;&gt;Read my VisualDNA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:10px;color:#cccccc&quot;&gt;&amp;trade;&lt;/span&gt;     &lt;a href=&quot;http://dna.imagini.net/friends/&quot; style=&quot;color:rgb(255,255,255) &quot;&gt;Get your own VisualDNA&amp;trade;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/240818.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:10:41 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Nice.</title>
  <link>http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/240818.html</link>
  <description>Now THIS is what I like to see.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dealer: FiatJustitia has a straight flush, Seven to Jack&lt;br /&gt;Dealer: Game #9620305921: FiatJustitia wins pot (3770) with a straight flush, Seven to Jack&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Damn computer didn&apos;t have enough memory for the screencap...it was an awesome sight.</description>
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