Today, we celebrate our hard won freedom from an oppressive, tyrannical government which held little regard for the rights of the individual. The many were heavily burdened so a privileged few could benefit. Sound familiar? We won this precious independence by taking up arms and saying, “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore.”

Just remember that, if we again feel the heavy boot of such would-be kings on our necks, we must be willing to fight again. Enjoy your ball games, your BBQ, your family reunions… and exercise your right to bear arms. Come the revolution brother, you’re on one side or the other.

Change in Relationship Status

I’m becoming single again.  I know it is the right thing for both of us, but I’ve never been good at dealing with breakups.  I realize I’m hurting her more by extending a relationship that isn’t (and will never be) what she wants, than by ending it.  I hope she can see that.  I hope we can remain friends.  She is a wonderful, loving woman with a bright future and a big heart.

Change in Financial Status

My financial situation is a mess.  At my age, with by background, I have little hope of becoming employed again.  Perhaps it’s a blessing.  I have no patience left and do not suffer fools gladly, even when I’m working for them.  I will be exercising my sales muscles, despite my fear and loathing of sales.  It’s the only way I can build my online revenue into something livable.  Fortunately, it’s something I can do anywhere I have an Internet connection.  Which leads me to the scariest part.

Change of Scenery

It’s time to go.  I’ve lived in this house (in a state I detest) for five years.  That’s twice as long as anywhere else I’ve lived since I was sixteen years old.  Wanderlust?  No, believe me, I’d much rather settle in somewhere.  But where?  ”LA’s fine but it ain’t home.  New York’s home but it ain’t mine no more.”  Time has come for a road trip.  I have no money, but I can’t delay it any longer.  A quarter of a century ago, I left New Jersey with my last (damn small) paycheck in my pocket and the clothes on my back.  Put my thumb out on I-95 and I was gone.  If I have to, I’ll do the same thing now.  It will be hard, no doubt.  But staying here is killing me.

Change of Faces

Since the death of my brother in ’06, I’ve been trying to look after my mom.  She’s eighty-one now and still manages to push my buttons.  My best friend, more like a sister to me, lives here and I will miss her more than words can express.  I just can’t stay any longer.  There are people and places I want to see before I die.  That event isn’t as distant as it once seemed.  The time to act is now.  Change can be scary.  But never changing is death.

—–

I have used the name Rain King online since 1994. I took it from the Counting Crows song of the same name. It was only later that I learned of the Saul Bellow novel, also excellent. I use that name because I feel it describes me… my life. I’ve been blessed with the melancholy celtic spirit. It’s in my blood, the rain, and it calls to me wherever I may run to escape it, physically or emotionally. One day it will take me home; my elusive, dreamed-of home where I truly belong, where I fit in, no where to be found in this world.

So why am I meanirishtemper? Why else? Every variant of the name I wanted was taken, save bizarre numerically-tainted versions like 6969The_Rain_King_666999 or some such nonsense. And it has been pointed out that my temper could use some hmmmm… tempering? My business is Timbury Computer Services and you will find me online as timbury in many places, like http://www.cre8buzz.com a great social network.

Enough of this. I’mback off to IMVU where I am… TheRainKing, of course. Peace.

I consider myself a spiritual person, but I’m not a fan of organized religion.  One of the few things that offends me are people who are easily offended.  Especially those who  believe they somehow deserve to be protected from any speech, image or ideology which they find offensive (typically, anything not their own).  I found out there were two similar themed Ubuntus, the Christian Edition and the Muslim Edition.  With a few hearty chuckles during installation, Ubuntu Satanic Edition became my desktop for a few months.

Recently, I followed a link which took me to Distrowatch, a well-known and respected site which offers reviews and news of Linux distributions.  It is run by Ladislav Bodnar (distro AT distrowatch DOT com).  Mr. Bodnar is an intelligent man with an interesting and impressive background.  I noticed he had included the Christian and Muslim versions of Ubuntu, but not the Satanic version.  I thought it unlikely that he was ignorant of it’s existence, but I sent him a short note just in case.

Hi, Ladislav!

I wanted to inform you of another “themed” Ubuntu distro,
Ubuntu Satanic Edition or UbuntuSE. The site is
http://ubuntusatanic.org/ and it has been around since
2006. I see you have UbuntuCE and UbuntuME. I would
like to see UbuntuSE included on distrowatch. The artwork
and attention to detail are amazing. After all, Linux is a
“journey of freedom”. Thanks for a great Linux site!

Peace,
Tim

I quoted the phrase “journey of freedom” from Mr. Bodnar’s description of his experience with Linux. I received this response a few hours later:

I don’t feel comfortable with listing this distro on DistroWatch. I am not
religious or anything, but I think there are some limits of what is an
acceptable name for a Linux distribution. Sorry

Ladislav

I ask you to tell me the unvarnished truth.  Is this in keeping with the spirit of Linux, open source and freedom?  Is this arbitrary dictation of what distro shall be included based on the acceptability of it’s name to the maintainer offensive to anyone else?  I think Mr. Bodnar is not telling me the whole story  Perhaps he fears some expression of outrage by Christian and Islamic fanatics if he lists the UbuntuSE distro.  I can’t really speculate further on his true motivations.  I only post this to express my belief in freedom of expression, religious and otherwise.  That is one of the reasons I love Linux: the devotion of the community to freedom.

Mr. Bodnar is using his freedom as the site maintainer to censor the Linux community.  I don’t think he’s right to do so.  I think he needs to re-read his tagline on distrowatch: “Put the fun back into computing.”  What do you think?

Why does this come as no surprise? The defendants waived their right to a jury trial, which many people thought was a risky move. What was risky about it? Instead of having twelve honest citizens decide their fate, they entrusted the decision to an agent of the corrupt, murderous, out-of-control mega-gang known generically as “the government”. It’s high time the people took matters into their own hands.

I’m so f#ck!ng  sick of hearing pseudo-intellectual @ssh0les debate the relative merits of the crapweasels running for office as if any of that matters! Do you really think that our civil liberties will be restored if Obama gets elected? Do you honestly believe the war will end, gas prices will drop, the government will stop screwing the poor and middle class? That the police will suddenly act like enlightened protectors of the innocent and not like the ignorant thugs that many (but not all) of them are? How freakin wonderful the bliss of that naivete must be! I wonder how much it matters to Sean Bell, his family, or his fiancee?

Now, I’m off to install Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 on a server and (hopefully) forget goddamn politics, news and people. Like an ostrich, I’ll sink my head into the sands of geektopia. But come the revolution, brotha…

And, since it’s Madison’s birthday sometime this month, here’s our other birthday girl!

I’m enjoying this new site so much! Cre8Buzz! is a friendly network of talented people trying to spread the word of their projects while making friends and contacts. Because of the ranking system, and the communities, it is easy to quickly find talented people in many fields. Two things I noticed immediately: the warm welcome from the community and the lack of css themes. Both may be attributable to the relatively small size of the user group.

The Buzz, as some users call it, just launched recently. Many users keep the default theme, which is clean and functional. Some try using Myspace themes with predictably horrendous results. Some members use themes from khenny of Quartz Mountain Communications, a California-based web design studio. His themes are very good but limited in number. As some of you may know, I love to play with themes, changing them to suit my mood. So I’ve started saving them to themes.timbury.net where they are available to all. While the site is not “live” yet, the themes can be accessed now. I hope to get the site built up soon, with a snappier look and an upload facility so everyone can share. As always, feedback is welcome.

So come join in the fun, sign up on Cre8Buzz! and use my themes or create your own. Stop by my page and give a shout out to my friends Antman, RealWorldMom and piper of love. They all have great profiles and links to some really slamming blogs of their own. Peace.

No man is an island… Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

The world is filled with pain and it’s easy to turn away. But we don’t have to solve all the problems to make a difference. If you’ll allow me one more quote, it’s so eloquently expressed by Loren Eisley in The Starfish Story:

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?
You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…”
I made a difference for that one.”

Ashley Spencer Memorial Fund(click for more info)

You can make a difference. Give if you can.
Spread the word.
It works if we all stick together. Peace.