http://balkin.blogspot.com/2003_11_16_balkin_archive.html#106944325583265936

This is the text of the proposed Constitutional Amendment:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

Here’s the deal – the notion that this amendment is anything other than a bait-and-switch is absolutely absurd. The notion that this is a “defense of marriage” amendment is absolutely absurd. What this amendment is is a Constitutional amendment that is 100% about denying several basic rights to gay people. It is about discrimination, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE.

Read the last line a couple of times, if you don’t believe me, and explain exactly how this is anything other than a line of text that is written explicitly to make it Constitutional to discriminate against gay people.

It boggles my mind.

To believe that our President is endorsing this blatantly discriminatory AMENDMENT TO OUR CONSTITUTION is so utterly FUCKING ABSURD that it’s simply beyond my ability to comprehend. Ei-Nyung was surprised that I was surprised. She figured that nothing Bush does should surprise me anymore. But this? I don’t know – maybe I’m more of an optimist than I think, or something. But there are some things, some basic understanding of the rights that we confer upon our citizens, and the rights that we should *all* have access to as HUMAN BEINGS, that I figured that anyone with any minimal level of humanity would acknowledge. But I guess I know where Bush stands.

He’s a pathetic, horrific excuse for a human being. Even if this nonsense bullshit doesn’t pass, undoing the harm that this man and his administration has done will be a nightmare. It’s like he’s taken us back to the dark ages. Good grief. I can’t even find a good way to wrap this up. The whole thing just makes me really, really sad. Angry, too. But mostly sad.

Ah, at work. Whee. Installing crap, and basically doing a bunch of setup, so that we can be productive sometime or another. Kinda weird, though, because this is all on temp systems, and once we get our real computers (hopefully with a monitor that’s not hemispherical), we’ll have to do it all again. Basically a couple huge downloads to sync to the info, and a bunch of system set up stuff today, reading docs, getting up to speed. That sort of thing. Whee! Fun. Or, not fun, but whatever. Gotta get done.

Got a dog! Half Siberian Husky, half American Eskimo dog (or something like it), one year old. We named him Mobius. Wacky little guy. Definitely energetic, sheds a lot, and needs some training. But man! It’s crazy. Also, I start work tomorrow. That’s particularly weird, because I haven’t gone to a regular 5-day work week in something like … maybe 3/4 of a year, or so. It’s strange. But I think it’ll be good – it’s work I’m really interested in, and I think that’ll make the work interesting. Though I loved working with the people at Fox Group, it really wasn’t work that I was tremendously motivated to do. I love games, and I think that working in the gaming industry again will be something that’ll be both a lot of fun, and actually help with what I want to do as a career.

Fun. Nervous, definitely, but I’m looking forward to it.

*sigh*

Rained again last night, and the main downstairs bedroom window is leaking from the top. No idea what the heck is going on, but as it’s on the front of the house, it’s “guaranteed” by one of the contractors. So, hopefully, they’ll take care of it.

Yarg!

Lazy day today. Just read more of “High Score,” which is an illustrated history of electronic gaming. Pretty darned entertaining read. Lots of nostalgia factor, since it covers a lot of the ’80’s adventure game scene, and the early PC gaming industry. Great stuff.

Ah, a good news/bad news day. Maxis got me the salary I asked for, so I signed the form, and will be working come Monday. The right side of the house (from the street) is leaking, which means I have to get Jose to waterproof the whole god damned house. Rats.

*sigh*

well, good golly gosh. There’s light in the living room downstairs. It’s like magic. Basically, the electrician took a working outlet, which appeared to be the only thing properly connected on that particular breaker, and ran a power line from that to the light switch near it, which was connected to the “grid”. So, basically, things are pretty much set, which is crazy, to be honest. Just out and out crazy. Cost another $350, which I’m gonna bill to the guy who initially installed it, but I don’t expect to get that money back.

Still, that, and knowing I’ll have a job again soon (more info forthcoming), really takes all the stress I was feeling off. It’s a great feeling.

Managed to finally get in touch with Mike Mohsini, after days and days of trying. Also managed to get a professional electrician from Gill’s Electric to show up to do troubleshooting simultaneously. So, hopefully, this will get sorted tomorrow, from 11-12. Do I think it’ll work? No, I don’t. But good god, I can hope, can’t I?

seppo

Ah. Productive day, for the first time in ages. I cut out the hole I made in the downstairs drywall, and it turns out that it’s acutally not a bad thing that it broke the way it did, because it made it easy to put in a new outlet box, which is twice as wide. That’s a good thing because the wiring in the box was really, really crowded in a single-wide box. So that’s not too bad.

The physical details of the downstairs are being worked on, and it won’t be too long until the bedroom’s actually useable, which is nice. The electrician’s also talking to the original contractor about the electrical system, to try to figure out if it can be fixed, so that’s good, too. And some friends of mine are moving out to the Bay Area! Awesome!

So, things are … interesting. Moving forward, at least, which is a change from the last few weeks…

When frustrated, it is unwise to destroy things. This is a lesson I should have learned when I destroyed a PS2 controller a while back. It’s just not satisfying. I mean, it is satisfying, for a few moments, until you realize that the only thing you’ve done is then destroyed something that wasn’t likely the root of the problem anyway.

So, the electrical system in the downstairs is fucked. It just doesn’t work. The kitchen lights? Fine. The bedroom? No problem. The dining room downstairs and the hallway to the garage simply don’t work. So, in a bout of pretty extreme frustration this morning, I kicked in one of the walls. Which, of course, wasn’t the wall I needed (though at the time I thought it was). So of course, now I’ve got a wall that I’ve wrecked. It requires basically a new piece of drywall to be put up, so it’s not like it’s terribly hard to fix, it’s just a pain in the ass, and didn’t do any good. And I ripped up my wrist on the drywall at the same time, so … yeah. Dumb, unproductive, not as cathartic as it should have been, and all in all, pointless.

I cut back the broken bits so that there’s a rectagular piece, which ends in joists. So, it can be fixed relatively easily, but again… just a pain in the ass.

And the electrics still don’t work.

In better news, I’ve got an interview for a new job Friday. Which is good news. In other better news, the weather’s been such that I’ve finally been able to finish the front door. So now, the unfinished door a year or so ago is now a really nice, sort of maple-y color, and almost ready to go. One more coat of varnish, maybe, if the weather stays good, but not really necessary. Gotta scrape down the windows, then it’ll be done. It’s really sharp looking. Also fixed a couple other little problems, like a glitchy light switch in the computer room, and a middle sink that had no drain connected to it. Little things, that make a big difference. Finally starting to feel like a house, in some respects. When the downstairs is done… man. It’ll be a whole new world.