Something different
Rob's out doing the high school reunion thing again so I'm hanging at the house by myself tonight. But I'm not listening to Heavy Metal, drinking beer and playing WoW as usual. Instead I'm listening to Techno, drinking wine and playing Freecell. Hey, everyone needs a change of pace once and a while.

And I must say that I'm rather pleased with my $4 bottle of wine. It's a Shiraz made by Barefoot Wines and while it's a far cry from the best Shiraz I've ever had, it's not bad for four bucks. Music is courtesy of Pandora which thankfully hasn't shut it's doors in the US... not yet, anyway.

A while back I wrote my congressmen and congresswomen about the changes in licensing fees for internet radio. I got a canned response from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's office that didn't address my concerns. I've received no response from Senator John Cornyn which doesn't surprise me since I had to send it snail mail (I couldn't find an email address for him.) Representative Lloyd Doggett's office, on the other hand, sent me a nicely worded reply and based on the response it appeared that they actually READ my email. Now I'm not much of a political activist, but I do vote and try to keep up with issues that concern me. I was much more active in politics when I was a child and distinctly remember having an hours long debate with a fellow daycare captive about whether Nixon or Humphrey was the best choice for president. I'm sure anyone listening in would have found a debate by a couple of six-year olds very amusing, but it's interesting to think that I (and my childhood friend) had a much greater awareness of political issues at the age of six than I have now at the age of 45. That interest and awareness had waned by the time I was a teenager, probably because I was no longer reading voraciously everything I could get my hands on. School, work, hobbies and other aspects of teenage life had cut my non-school related reading time from over 20 hours a week to maybe two or three. As an adult, I've raised that some, but unlike the vast amount of non-fiction books that I used to read as a child, it's mostly just bits and pieces off the internet. Ah, but what a wonderful selection of bits and pieces that has been. And I can say without a doubt that I do know a little about a lot as opposed to a lot about a little... which is probably not a bad thing in this day and age of rapid change.