Silverponies!

I was going to bike to work today (-1 point getting to work, -2 coming back, yay!), but the rear tire is completely flat. This is a little alarming since I filled it last week, rode it to work and back and nary a problem.

Now I have to take it in to the shop or figure out how to fix it myself. Guess how "replacing the kitchen faucet myself" has worked out.

I'm dithering over going to Silverwolf this weekend. I really don't want to day trip because it's over three hours away. I could grab a hotel room for the night I guess, but there are none in Warburg, which means no drinking at the event because I'd have to drive back into Edmonton for the night.

Could someone from Borealis please explain to me why you keep holding events in every little hick town within an hour of Edmonton (rather then in Edmonton proper)? I know it's probably cheaper, but are the shy people without cars just not welcome?

It's Tuesday and I want it to be Friday. I also want to be somewhere else, like Cuba, or Vancouver. Also, I want a pony.

The Good Old Days Are Now

The best thing I've read today. Go read it.

In sixteenth-century Paris, [animal cruelty was a popular form of entertainment] Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the world. This change in sensibilities is just one example of perhaps the most important and most underappreciated trend in the human saga: Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on earth.

Irritation of Dangling Threads

I got into a discussion/argument with wild_wanderer's roommate D the other night. It's still bugging me. Arguments where I can't get my point across always bother me - it always seems like a personal failure to be clear enough. Obviously if I'm clear enough, then they should understand the point right?

Of course that's not always the case. There's been times when I've made my point with utter clarity and the other party still hasn't "gotten it" (and of course, there's been times when I've simply been wrong). I generally give them two attempts and then I walk away (I didn't always do this, Google my name and you'll find some truly quixotic attempts of mine back in University to convince people that the death penalty is a bad idea). The urge to keep trying remains though.

In the specific case of my argument with D, I think we were simply arguing at cross-purposes and neither of us was making our point well enough. D seems like a reasonably smart fellow so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. The problem is, looking back on the conversation, I'm still not sure exactly what D's point was. I'd repeat back what he said, but I'm afraid I'd cock it up and misrepresent him.

I was going to list my own arguments, but that's not entirely fair either, since it makes this post less about "why not being clear bothers me" and more about "I'm going to get the last word in, ha ha."