So I had meant to fill this space up with a bunch of blogs and instead I’ve managed to get myself side-tracked. It’s been a really rough few weeks, some of the worst of my life, but I feel pretty confident that I have hit the bottom and things are going to look back up. Coming soon, Bad Movie Night, Killer Deer, and the Automobile Experience. 
Most people with a hint of a religious background have heard the story of David and Goliath. For those that haven’t, it is basically a story about how the small can defeat the big. There is undoubtedly a few morals to be learned from the story, but, the more interesting point it makes is that one should use their own inherit skills to accomplish a task, rather than the generally accepted approach.
In today’s corporate world, I feel like there is another David and Goliath story in the online war between Google and Microsoft. What I find so interesting are the methods in which Google is attempting to take on the corporate “Goliath”. Let’s go back four years and think about the situation; Microsoft had Windows XP rolled out and it was met with a lot of fanfare. If someone were to ask you who you thought Microsoft’s biggest opponent was, you might think of Apple, which was just starting a small come-back tour with the first version of OS/X. You might also think of linux which still had a long way to go in the desktop market (the esoteric might also mention BeOS, AmigaOS, Solaris, etc.). The point here is that pretty much everyone was thinking, how can any OS topple Windows from the throne?
Now let’s fast forward to today (which just happens to be Google’s 7th birthday). I think most people would agree that if there was ever going to be a “Microsoft-killer” it would be Google. But wait, Google doesn’t put out Operating Systems at all, so how could they possibly take down Microsoft? Well that’s where David and Goliath come in. Google isn’t fighting Microsoft on their turf at all, instead, Google is slowly and surely taking away the need for an operating system at all. Ever so slowly, people are clicking on the icon for their internet browser of choice over every other icon on the desktop. In fact, how many of you could probably get along just fine with nothing BUT an internet browser?
It makes you wonder about other things in life that could be solved with a different approach. Gasoline prices could be combated in the short term by having businesses adopt a _work from home_ type attitude. With today’s high-speed internet access, net meetings could easily take place and voice-over-ip could alleviate the business telephone costs. It certainly seems better than Bush’s approach to the problem by adding more US refineries. I found myself saving quite a bit of fuel just by taking the shorter (albeit slower) back roads over the expressway everyday.
I guess the point here is to think outside of the box. Something like world hunger might be easier to solve by teaching people how to farm rather than to send shipments of food over to them. Maize is one of the most adaptable plants in the world and can even be “used to create petrol”:http://www.safrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/sustainable/ethanol-120905.htm to fuel vehicles (which helps out the first problem I mentioned). Guess we can kill two birds with one stone and it’s not like we don’t have the land to this ourselves. Did you know the government actually pays farmers to not plant crops on all their land (in Europe they call this “Set-Aside”)? The ideals for this program are based solely on economic reasons, however, it seems to me that if farmers suddenly got into the fuel business, money wouldn’t be a problem.
I think everyone has a tendency to get caught up with current “hype” and they forget that there’s more than one way to skin a -cat- … err … fish.
So after hearing of how I was painfully dumped (which I alluded to in my earlier post), a new aquantance of mine invited me to his party with the promise of many women being in attendance. Without much else to do I thought that it would help me get my mind off my “X” and maybe meet some new people. I was one of the first to arrive and thusly helped to tap the keg which basically means getting rid of a lot of beer head.
The theme of the party was Mardi Gras (in the spirit of poor New Orleans) and soon the rooms were filling with an assortment of different people. Now, as is typical of most parties, the general consent was that it was indeed a “sausage fest” with a 3:1 guy-to-girl ratio. Certainly not the most encouraging results that one could have hoped for. However, I must admit that the evening didn’t disappoint.
Midway through the evening a round of “keg stands” had started in Dave’s room which I will aptly name the “beer room”. Now with the exception of one woman, I was the oldest there and decided to show my naivety by asking… what’s a keg stand? It was then decided that noone should be a keg virgine and I was quickly forced to perform one of these drinking rituals. For those that don’t know, a keg stand is where you do a hand stand on top of a keg (with the help of a few people), and then drink as much beer as you can without spilling directly from the tap. The general time your shooting for is a slow count of 10 seconds. I’m not sure if it’s the sheer quantity of beer you drink or the blood rushing to your head, but it certainly gives you a quick beer buzz.
It was shortly after this that a few guys decided that the women had to earn their Mardi Gras necklaces. The room was quickly divided with the men on one side and the women on the other with the men jeering and attempting to get the women to show a couple of breasts. The women refused saying that they wouldn’t show unless one of the men showed their “package” to the women. One woman even went as far to say that she would strip completely naked if just one man would quickly show his “jewels” for the women. Well, a few shots later and sure enough, one of the men managed to gather up the courage to show off his pride.
Now, I can’t actually verify that this happened since as soon as the said action began, I closed my eyes shut to block out the horror that would have awaited me. However, when my eyes opened the girl had certainly begun stripping, and strip she did. Completely naked from top to bottom with her arms out prostrate to show us that she had shaved… everywhere. The other women weren’t quite as daring and said that they wouldn’t take their shirts off unless *I* or one other guy specifically showed them our family pride. While I would consider myself somewhat comfortable with my masculinity, I certainly wasn’t about to show myself off in front of a large group of guys. Especially when we’ve all been programmed to think we’re falling short thanks to all the easily available pornography that exists on the internet.
The evening died down slowly after that and ended in the “beer room” with two girls promising to make out french-style if two guys were willing to kiss. I was way too painfully sober to oblige but that didn’t stop a few of the gentlemen were well past reason to quickly peck one another on the lips. Again, I can’t say for certain since I turned my head, but shortly after that the two women had their arms wrapped around one another and were french kissing for the dwindled crowd. I left shortly after that.
Now here’s the part that I find truly messed up about that. Some of these different women claimed to have boyfriends… although most the beloved ones were non-present for the evening. I feel like the guidelines on a relationship must have stretched quite a bit because I know if I had a girlfriend, I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with her going to a party without me and stripping down naked in front a bunch of guys, or even volunteering her breasts for the peek at another mans “jewels”. I would even find her kissing another girl somewhat of a cheat in my book.
Maybe I’m just not liberal enough, but I do consider myself a pretty trusting guy. But then again, I trusted my last girlfriend completely and she spent her time hanging out with guy friends pretty much 24-7 and then dumping me without even a chance to visit and work things out. But I won’t go into that since I promised a friend I wouldn’t use this blog to be bitter.
So is that how relationships are these days? There seemed to be a pretty high volume of “uncoupled couples” at the party on both sides of the sexes. Does the youth population have a much more liberal outtake on what’s considered a relationship? I would imagine that if this is true, it would probably stem from the high rate of divorces that seem to be prevelant in our society today. And worst of all… am I’m going to be able to find a place for the kind of relationship that I want? Maybe I should move to Boston, they seem to at least find happiness with each other.
So this is my very first blog entry. It’s sort of funny since I feel like I have so much to say, and yet, I really don’t know what I should put up here. I guess I’ll just start with an introduction. While I would imagine that most people that stumble upon this will know who I am, it’s always best not to make assumptions. So here goes…
Hi… my name is Jason. I am the oldest of my parent’s three children. I grew up in Utica, Michigan where I went to quite a few schools throughout the years, graduated high school, and then headed to the Art Institue of Pittsburgh. I never finished my degree there and instead headed up to Michigan Tech after a year and graduated with a Bachelor degree in Computer Science.
So now I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life. I’ve decided I know way more than I should about computers and way less than I want to about the world around me. So this blog is my attempt at putting my life onto a more exciting journey and will be used to keep track of the more interesting events along the way.
While this blog is more for myself than anyone else (I hear blogging is a good form of therapy), please feel free to share your comments, suggestions, and complaints at any time.