Neverwinter Nights
I've been playing this computer game non-stop for a number of days now. This game is great. It's put out by Bioware, the company that created Knights of the Old Republic (the HUGE Star Wars game that was probably the greatest game I ever played). NWN is a D&D game with Forgotten Realms rules. It's amazing how much fun this game can be.

Some of the strategies you have to adopt can be kind of bizarre (I never do anything the right way). This evening, I was fighting some Yuan-ti creature, so I had to destroy its power generator with my level 10 wizard, who did it the old fashioned way by hitting it with a club as my partner, a barbarian warrior, was attracting half the dungeon and taking on everything to give me the time to destroy the generator. Then the Yuan-ti (without her power generator) chased me around the huge room for about two minutes as my pet bear kept biting it until it finally died.

Good times.

I hate the real world.

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The Western Herald - Neither party seems to care about new ideas

Neither party seems to care about new ideas

By Duane Gundrum
Opinion Editor

July 21, 2004


With an election around the corner, it should come as no surprise that both major presidential candidates are showing a great interest in attracting the younger voters of America. In a recent response to an editorial in USA Today about both sides not attracting youthful voters, both Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, had something to say.

The Democratic response was that its party is “committed to finding new ways to connect with young voters — to listen to their concerns, but also to provide them with direct avenues of empowerment so that they can make a difference in their communities.” The Republican response was “we have the right message and the right candidates, especially for the next generation,” and even more important, at least because they are actually serious about this, they introduced a “56-foot, 80,000-pound 18 wheeler” they called “Reggie the Registration Rig,” which visits “college campuses, NASCAR races, World Wrestling Entertainment matches and scores of other events that are packed with younger voters.”

Huh? Am I missing something here? Are we trying to attract thinking voters or viewers of “Finding Nemo”?

This is the problem I have encountered this summer as I decided that I wanted to be more involved in the political process. At first, I tried to find at least one campaign interested in wanting help from a political scientist with a talent for writing, even if my mommy does dress me funny. I gave up on trying to find any interest in the Republican Party, as it hasn’t been interested in attracting those not within the mainstream since day one of the current administration. Believe me. I’ve tried.

So, I began to buy into the “take back America” slogans of the Democratic Party, an organization claiming to be speaking for the Americans who have been pushed out of the system by the Bush Administration. Well, my inquiries and attempts have shown me something I didn’t expect: The Democrats aren’t any different. No one in the Democratic Party was at all interested in what I had to say if it wasn’t written within the confines of what is part of the Kerry dialogue.

When I attempted to get information about participating in the campaign, I was told that people with political science Ph.D. experience weren’t really needed because those “positions” were taken up at the national level. They were more interested in people to pass out bumper stickers and contribute money directly to the campaign. The few times that I tried to make an actual contribution in the dialogue, I was told that policy was a national thing, and that there was no room for that sort of thing on a personal level. I can’t begin to describe the number of local campaign people who stared at me with blank faces whenever I asked about what the Democrats would do about this or that issue that was important to me. I got the impression they didn’t care.

From my experience, the election for the Democrats has become about winning back the White House from a person they consider bad. But the goal hasn’t been to win it back for the rest of us. It has been to win it back for those who are within the mainstream system at the top levels; the rest of us really don’t seem to have much input.

What this has shown me is that this coming election is about keeping the status quo for one or the other side, but has little to do with enfranchising the disfranchised. As we see more and more attention to attracting undecided voters, keep in mind that no one is trying to attract new ideas. And it bothers me that I seem to be the only one concerned.

Duane Gundrum, the Western Herald opinion editor, is a Ph.D. candidate from Santa Monica, Calif., studying political science.

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Why I have found myself at odds with the Kerry message and why I probably won't support him in 2004

This was in response to someone asking me the question: sarbonn, in your opinion, what sort of things would the Kerry campaign have to do to "get its act together?"

The Kerry campaign has been giving the impression that it is the necessary momentum to win back the government from the powerful. However, whenever the disenfranchised try to become involved, the Kerry campaign feels the only contribution should be in either monetary contributions or participating in winning voters. At NO time has the Kerry campaign been interested in what America has to say, what is actually bothering us, about what we want to see done if we give him the power to take back the White House in our name. Instead, we're being told that he is the only solution, but the solution and the prizes of that solution are somewhat ambiguous, and we may not be part of the bigger picture.

Try to become involved in the Kerry campaign as someone who can actually say "John, perhaps we should deal with THIS particular problem to make America better." You can't. They don't care. If you're not supporting the Kerry vision of ambiguity, then you are not a part of the "solution." Until I see the Kerry campaign go out of its way and actually give the impression he's working for Americans, and not just to get American votes, then I'll start to believe the Kerry campaign is getting its act together.

I'll give you an historical example. I know there are many here who hate Clinton, but he did something so right when he first took the White House. He went out and listened to the people. He held town meetings where the opinions of people weren't just voiced, but those people felt they were heard. You don't have to like Clinton to realize that this was the first time in a long time that the American people felt they were being listened to.

THAT is needed by Kerry. Not these pretend town meetings where people speak, and then are ignored from that point forward. If you want to win America by being an American, at least listen to America and make Americans believe you have their interests at heart, not that you might be lucky and be included in someone's American version.

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The Intelligence Chief and Why I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Stupidity
Okay. By now everyone has finally figured out that the CIA dropped the ball. By now everyone has figured out that every intelligence agency dropped the ball. They were guilty of groupthink, a process where everyone believes the same thing, so that all of their conclusions will end up sustantiating incorrect information.

So, the solution from the Kerry campaign has been to create a central intelligence cabinet position to oversee all intelligence. Bush's response is akin to "yeah, what he said." Now, all partisanship aside, this is the stupidest thing to come out of Washington since...well, pick anything because lots of stupid things have come from Washington. Are they even thinking anymore? Or is politics the ONLY rationalization?

Think about it for a second. The problem as accepted by everyone is that the CIA got it wrong and orchestrated the wrong information to the president. Explain to me exactly how having one person, working for the president, or working for God, or working for Elmo, is going to make this any better. The problem would be increased even further because now we don't have groupthink. We have dogmatic interpretation by one office, deciding for everyone, which helps groupthink but makes it happen much faster.

The solution is to make intelligence agencies even more autonomous, but to make communication between them much more accessible to those agencies. Otherwise, the next war (and yes, there will be a next war) will be decided on even flimsier standards than this last one was.

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A new novel
I started the outline of my newest novel earlier today, and I actually got quite a bit of it down. It was a novel idea I had with my former writing partner, Allen Amundsen. The novel is called For the People, and it is a political novel. It was originally created to be a play, then a screenplay, and then I decided to write it as a novel.

I began the actual writing of it this evening. So far, it is going exactly as I wanted it to go.

This is my 12th novel, by the way. The first Innocent Until Proven Guilty was published two years ago.

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The Kerry Campaign
I went to the local headquarters of the Democratic Party, and I said I was interested in volunteering, but for some reason I could never get a response from anyone. When I said my name, the woman said: "Yes, we've been in contact." Then she said her name. Turns out, she's the woman I've been leaving messages for who has NEVER returned one. I guess that's "in contact" these days.

I sat down with her in the kitchen (the Democratic Party headquarters in Kalamazoo County is a regular house, and it's a very lived-in place...it was actually difficult to find because there wasn't a sign outside, just bumper stickers on the windows; well, it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but you pretty much had to be looking for the place to actually find it).

So, after talking to her, she told me that the Kerry Headquarters is the only place that actual quantitative work is done; they dictate everything down to the precincts. She said I could be a precinct captain, but that wasn't what I was looking for. The more I talked about options I was hoping to find, the more of the impression I got that you had to be a paid member of the national staff in order to even be taken seriously.

Then a better option was entertained, and that was the possibility of helping out one of the local politicians who could use that kind of assistance that wouldn't be filtered down from the top. She mentioned Mike Ankley, a Democrat running for Kalamazoo Treasurer. She told me that he was an accountant running for the position, and that the position was an open seat (no incumbent) that was being fought by two Republicans and Mr. Ankley. She gave me his phone number.

When I returned home, I did a search on the position through the Internet, and after a bunch of searches, I discovered this wasn't the case. A Republican woman is actually the current treasurer, and she's running for re-election. Granted, there's also another Republican running as well, but it's far from an open seat.

I'm really not sure what to do now. The whole "decisions are made by the national campaign that isn't open to new people" thing really bothers me and convinces me that getting involved really isn't possible.

Just an update on the whole election thing.

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Writer's Digest
When I first started writing professionally, or at least at the time I was trying to become a professional writer, I used to rely on the Writer's Digest big time. This was the magazine you turned to if you were starting out because it catered to the beginner, and it acted as the publication that helped separate the beginning writer from those who prey on beginners.

Well, the latest edition of Writer's Digest has pretty much showed me that they have sold out completely. For decades, they spoke out strongly against subsidy publishers and self-published books, trying to steer writers towards actual paying markets. This year, however, they have (for at least the second year in a row) sponsored a contest for those who have self-published their books, in which you had to pay a hefty fee to enter their contest. In the last few issues, I've never seen so much advertising for self-publishing and vanity presses.

Looks like freelance writers are slowly becoming alone to fend for themselves again.

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Latest article in the Western Herald

The Western Herald - Cost overruns, not tax rates, unbalance budgets

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Furniture nightmare defeated by little sarbonn, the infamous lego spaceman!
Okay, I didn't actually defeat it. I was in the middle of moving when a really nice guy asked me if I needed some help. Half an hour later, all the big items were in my new apartment. Now, that's just cool.

Personally, I think it's karmic payback because yesterday, a friend called and said that his car's battery died and asked me if I could jump his car. I knew I didn't have a set of jumper cables, but I also knew he was in the middle of nowhere. So, I went to another friend and asked him if he had jumper cables, of which he didn't have either. So then I drove out to my friend's car, and then I offered to drive him to Kmart to buy jumper cables. Then we drove back to his car, jumped it and everyone was happy.

And now I have the large items in my new apartment. Well, still have to move bookshelves and a million other things, but the nightmare stuff is here now.

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My larger furniture sucks
Not because it's bad furniture, but I can't move it. It's too big for me. I was able to move here a few months ago with all of my smaller stuff. I moved my entire one bedroom apartment here. But then I had to buy furniture (because I went from furnished to unfurnished), and that furniture is defeating me. I have one more day to get this stuff here, and there are four items that I just can't seem to lift and carry 70 yards to my new apartment.

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Updates
I finally received a call from one of the Kerry people. We spoke for awhile, and he recommended I contact a woman in charge of the quantitative research being done in Michigan. I contacted her three or four days ago, and I've heard nothing back from her. I'm finding it really hard to actually volunteer to help.

Moving
The internet problem finally did me in. I moved. I am still in the same apartment complex, but I'm in an apartment with what is supposed to be better internet access. I am using it right now, but we'll see over the next few weeks how solid it really is.

I still have a lot of stuff to move, but fortunately, I have the weekend to do it, and I don't have that far to carry all of my stuff.

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Kerry's VP running mate
I'm not one for making predictions, but I found this really interesting. First of all, tomorrow Kerry is supposed to be announcing his vp choice, and I've been following the Kerry official site pretty closely.

Some guy posted that he knew for a fact that Dean was going to be the VP choice. A bunch of people responded that the guy obviously didn't know what he was talking about. Then, out of the blue, they removed the thread.

What is interesting about this is that they rarely remove posts unless they are hostile towards Kerry. Even stranger is that there is no dearth of threads about Kerry's running mate. They're still on the site. However, this one is the only one that was pulled.

Should be interesting to see what happens tomorrow as I suspected Edwards was going to be Kerry's choice. Dean would be somewhat of an upset.

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I'm starting to hate My Yahoo
For some reason, the ONLY banner on the top of the screen is for hair loss in Grand Rapids. I don't care about hair loss. If I lose all my hair, I don't care about hair loss. If I don't lose all my hair, I don't care about hair loss. I don't care about hair loss!

I don't care about hair loss, penis growing pills, viagra results, defense ministers in Nigeria who need my help smuggling out their millions, how to stop spam (?), or anything involving Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Punk't, or ANYTHING about actors/actresses under 35 years of age. I don't care.

When are they going to figure out that this is NOT marketing they are doing?

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Here's a picture I took of myself using my new camera

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The first photo I took with my new digital camera

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Independence Day celebrating
I mentioned this on another board I troll on...I mean, post on, and as usual I was completely ignored so that the self-posturing could continue as usual without addressing an issue. The conversation was about celebrating Independence Day, and almost every posting was about supporting the troops, and how important it was to do that on July 4th.

This brought up a question that has bothered me for a very long time. Why don't we ever seem to remember the peacemakers who are working for the United States? There are individuals who spend their entire lives never killing anyone, never carrying a weapon, but just making it possible for opposing forces to communicate in a way that keeps both sides from having to go to war with each other. Many of these people aren't politicians running for offices, but bureaucrats that live in foreign countries and do their jobs in the quiet background in hopes of maintaining peace.

Why don't we ever honor them on our national holidays?

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Doing absolutely nothing
Today was kind of a strange day. I wandered campus trying to get my account information straightened (which I believe is now finally fixed), and then as I was heading back, I found myself at the water fountain area on campus and just stopped walking. I found myself a bench, and for two hours, I sat down and did absolutely nothing. I had a book with me, I had writing paper with me, and I had my PDA with me as well. But I didn't even touch those. Instead, I just sat down and focused on doing absolutely nothing.

It was kind of bizarre actually because for the last six years (if not much longer than that), I don't believe I've spent more than any time, when I was not asleep, doing nothing. If I'm home, I find something to do. If I'm out, I am doing something. This was time just sitting, staring at the water and watching people walk by.

At one point, this very attractive young woman named Mary Ann stopped by and talked to me for awhile. She was looking for her friend who was supposed to show up with her two young boys. Her friend never showed up, but I got the opportunity to talk to Mary Ann a bunch of times. She seemed like a really nice person. It was kind of funny because the first time she wandered by, she was way across the quad, and I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be interesting if that woman wandered over here and talked to me for awhile?" And then she did. I guess the Force was with me.

Finally, a little after 6pm, I stood up and wandered home.

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