If you’ve been reading or listening to the news at all these days, you’d have heard about Trent Lott’s career suicide. The Senate Majority Leader basically said at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party that the US would have been better if we had segregation. The funny thing about all of htis is the liberal media is all but calling for Lott’s resignation as Senate republican leader. However, the Republican party has just been mulling it over, waiting to gauge public opinion before making a move against Trent.

The Republicans can’t do what’s right because they don’t work that way. They don’t take the decisive action needed to correct what’s wrong in their party. Do they support white supremacy? It sure looks like they are standing around waiting for focus group results on whether the American people would tolerate a move towards promoting segregation. What’s even more telling is Lott’s apology on BET. He said that he would change his ways, he didn’t mean what he said, he would start voting for affirmative action related bills, and would promote programs against racism. Trent, it took you this embarrassing situation to realize that you were politically wrong? Just another reason why I would never register as a Republican even though I am against more taxes in general. I’d just hate to join a party that takes two weeks to figure out that racism is wrong.

Apple has released the newest version of it’s OS to 10.2.3. This would be Jaguar, take 4. This version has finally fixed a printer problem I had and resolved a strange kernel panic that was a part of it. It also updated OpenGL to 1.4 which has improved the graphics even more. Last week, I was playing Warcraft on my ibook and it was really bad. Slow and stuttery. This was due to an HP printer driver problem and who knows what else. I reconsidered giving my PC to my parents, perhaps I would keep my gaming rig. However, I just popped Warcraft 3 in this morning and it ran really well. I’ll try it on dual monitors after work today, but it looks like I can still hook my parents up with my PC. I’ll miss this 1.2 Ghz Athlon behemoth, but I figure they’ll be able to use it more than I do. Actually, I leave it off most of the time because it is just so damn loud. My fault I guess, since I built it.

I just had a wonderful Sunday night and I’m pretty much exhausted. Two of our friends came over for dinner and some intense Scrabble playing. Our friend Minal is a vegetarian, so we made an all vegetable meal. This was a little different for me, since I usually make steaks or burgers for my friends. We found two nice recipes on the internet. One for orzo, the other for some mushroom sandwiches. The sandwiches were a real hit. I marinated them in a mustard, rosemary, and oil vinaigrette. That kicked up the flavor. The rosemary came fresh from the garden. The orzo was colored up with some roasted red peppers. We added those to the sandwiches and it was great. I learned that when you want to roast red peppers, you should just put them whole on the grill, then char the outside. Stick the peppers in a paper bag for 15 minutes to make the skin literally steam off. The skin is kinda tough when you finally get it off, but the steaming really helps. The sandwiches were totally awesome once we finally bit into them. Even Yara ate most of hers. Minal brought some delicious brownies over, then we cracked our knuckles and sharpened our wits for Scrabble.

It was a tough match. Matt is an English grad student and works for a newspaper, so he sees a lot of words in a day. Minal and Yara are med students. I went to Vandy. Yara led early in the match with a masterful use of the triple word score. Minal then used a Y and an E on a triple letter score to produce some 28 points. Matt never really got going, except very early with his word, “Fiasco”. I managed to pull into the lead with “Zen” played off of Yara’s “Zit”. That gave me a ridiculous 36 points with a triple word score. I then finished them off by playing an X (8 points) on a triple letter score. I ended up winning with Minal in 2nd, Yara just behind, and Matt still challenging “GAR”. (Turns out it is a fish!) Minal showed me that QAT is a word, it’s a plant common in Arabian countries. Maybe Qatar is named after it.

It was a fun night and we had a really good time playing and talking about lots of things. Matt and I will probably hang together some more since I found that he loves playing video games. He saw my Gamecube and Dreamcast and was pretty excited. I hope to whoop up on him in Soul Calibur. But for now, I must rest… much work to do before Christmas. Gotta go buy gifts too!

My ibook is pretty sweet. It runs really well and is incredibly reliable. Plus it is just fun to look at. All the icons look really good. Well, the thing that I really like are the Radio streams available in iTunes. While I would really love some political radio streams, I’ve found a winner - NPR 24 hours a day! Yes, I can listen to people talking intelligently and calmly all day long. There’s a station KCRW out in California that streams their NPR content all day long. It’s nice, since I don’t drive to and from work anymore, I can still get my NPR fix.

Some people have been asking me how I maintain my lithe 190 lb frame, well a diet of whatever and no exercise is how I maintain this silouette of gluttony. Now , Yara and I are trying to do Pilates on a regular basis. What is this weird philosophy? First, it’s not a philosophy, it’s a exercise regimen that was developed a couple of decades ago and practiced by dancers and other pretty people. Here’s a link to some good stuff on the web. Do a google search if you want more, there’s a lot of stuff out there. We got a video, appropriately called Pilates for Dummies. It’s pretty challenging for just a workout that you don’t need any weights or any other equipment. It works your midsection and legs a lot! Man I feel pretty tight right now, since we just did a workout. I really like that you don’t need any other equipment, so I did some Pilates while I was traveling.

Of course, I look pretty silly doing it. Actually, I feel like I’m back in elementary school doing stretches and stuff at P.E. Too bad kids don’t get that anymore. A lot of my friends are getting into Yoga and stuff. My friend, Marc, who kills for a living, even showed me some Yoga stretches they do in the Navy. Yoga is mainstream, Pilates is in Hollywood. Expect to see it in the mainstream in 5-10 years. Just like that 48 hour diet.