Friday Smorgasboard - Government and Gamer Gurlz

Last night Darlene and I got dressed up and went to the preview of new loft appartments in Pittsburgh by the river (I'm not telling you which river! Ha! We got three of 'em, too, so good luck, buddy!). A friend of ours asked us to attend, so since we're suckers we went.
We didn't have enough money to rent the cheapest appartment. Heck, we didn't have enough money to pick up a coffee on the way there. All the same, it was very nice and it wasn't a bad time.
We followed that up by going South when we should have gone North on Rt 579. *shrug* That only added 40min to our 5min trip home. No kidding - how does traffic get that bad at 7:30 at night?! Go home, people!

Anyway, without further delay, your Friday Smorgasboard:

The Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (Republican, Illinois) has taken the time to start his own blog that is linked from the official Speaker of the House website. In his first entry he talks about the damage we have seen over this freakish hurricane season and about oil (are we surprized about that one? Actually, I don't think that he owns any oil companies, but his plea for more oil refineries are questionable. Does he want to get gas to the American people cheaper and faster or does he want to add the the considerable wealth of oil companies?).
I'm hoping that Hastert's committment is not based totally on publicity. Blogs are big right now. Their shining moment has come and gone, if you ask me, but the word is in the hands of almost every American now. I know that I'll be keeping a close eye on this page to see what our Speaker has to say next.

To keep with the government topic: Keeping secrets is not anything new when it comes to the Government (always done with our bests interests, right?). Over the past two years, however, the NSA (National Security Agency) has been having it's own patients blocked by government - deemed to have information in them that would benifit terrorists.

I find this alarming, since this is now knowledge that is denied to the people. The NSA wants to give us new ideas and tools and our government is blocking the path of progress. From 2000 to 2003 no NSA patient has been blocked. In 2004 5 where blocked, while so far this year 9 have been blocked.

Ok, that's enough about government. I didn't even mention 'his' name, even though I wanted to...


Recently PMS Clan and Frag Dolls where at a discussion about Professional Female Gamers. For those of you tuning in late on this, yes, companies are paying people money to play games in tournaments just like they sponsor BMX and Nascar. And yes, there are girl-only gaming groups that play games like Unreal Tournament and Halo 2.
I think it is good that there is a voice out there that says that women can play games other than Bejewelled.

That's all for this Friday. No sense in making you read any more. If you are that bored, you should probably be fired anyway. So go do some work. I know I should.