ThinkingSkull.com

John McCain or Mitt Romney for Republican candidate? Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for Democratic candidate?

While McCain looks like he’s out pacing Romney by sheer will, the Clinton vs. Obama crossfire has the effect of showcasing a distinct lack of a united front for the Democrats in this race. While Rudy Giuliani calmly and professionally threw his support to McCain, I can’t imaging any of the Democratic front runners even pretending to concede anything to another candidate except by saying, “Let the punishment fit the crime.”

After hearing about my own family members suggesting that I’m depressed and in need of prescription drugs, it’s nice to see that I’m not alone in the “pick a pill, pick your mood” being a real problem and something to avoid. This article makes mention of it, and the last line is my favorite.

He does acknowledge the need for medication in the hardest cases. Just like cancer, severe mood disorders can be life-threatening and should be treated as such, Barber says. But we need to distinguish between real depression and just being bummed out.

The vast majority of the 227 million prescriptions for antidepressants in 2006, he notes, were for people in the second category. Barber lambastes the drug industry for its attempt to turn “the worried well” into customers; he also takes aim at the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for according disorder status to conditions like social anxiety and adjusting to a cross-country move.

“Nonsense,” Barber writes, “anger, greed, laziness, impulsivity, as well as jealousy, lust, anguish, and so on, are simply part of the human predicament. They are not medical conditions.”

These are the initial descriptions of a couple panels I’m going to run at a local convention. Did I miss anything?

Occult Television Showdown - Who’s better at investigating ghouls, Sam and Dean or Mulder and Scully? Who’s a better villain, Yellow-Eyes’ Demon Army or Wolfram & Hart? Who’s better at helping the dead, Medium or Ghostwhisperer? And why wasn’t anyone watching The Dresden Files? Brought to you by MovieCrypt.com and hosted by Kevin A. Ranson.

Where Has All the Good Sci-Fi TV Gone (and What Can We Do to Fix It?) - Battlestar Galactica is heading into its last season, and Journeyman failed to get picked up. Jericho is down to its last seven episodes and Stargate: Atlantis is idling. Flash Gordon inexplicably gets a full season while Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles may be our best, last hope for television science fiction. And why is wrestling on the Sci-Fi channel?! Brought to you by MovieCrypt.com and hosted by Kevin A. Ranson.

Battlestar Galactica Panel - Did the original series do anything right other than inspire a better clone of itself? When the Galactica reaches Earth, when will it reach it: now, the past, or the future? Were all the tall people killed off in the initial attack? Brought to you by MovieCrypt.com and hosted by Kevin A. Ranson.

Running You Own Fansite - How do you get started on the web? What do you talk about? How do you get yourself out there? Will joining an organization of like-minded fans benefit or hinder you? Is there any way to actually make any money off any of this? Brought to you by MovieCrypt.com and hosted by Kevin A. Ranson.

ROMANCE MATHEMATICS

Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy

OFFICE ARITHMETIC

Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime

SHOPPING MATH

A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he needs
A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn’t need.

GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

HAPPINESS

To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

LONGEVITY

Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.

DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE

A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, “You’re next.”
They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

(arrived in an email; sorry I don’t know who to credit)

I own an iPod Touch, specifically the 16GB model. No, I didn’t buy it ($400 is expensive for a multimedia toy when cheaper, easier to replace alternatives are available) but I won one at my company Christmas party (Christmas, not “holiday.”) To make a long story short, there’s a feature upgrade available from Apple.com as of yesterday, but they want $20 to provide features the thing should have anyway.

An email client? Google.com is two touches away. So is Google maps. Widgets are okay, but there aren’t any must-have widgets listed (weather? Two touches to weather.com.) So other than the ability to actually add additional functionality right on the iPod Touch screen instead of clicking a Safari bookmark, I have to pay an additional $20 bucks? The last time this happened, Apple lowered the price of their iPhone by $200 and gave credits back to all the poor suckers who didn’t wait.

Lessons learned: if I (and everyone else) waits and complains long enough, you’ll give us the upgrade for the unit you’ve already made money on. Oh, and last time I checked, I got all my operating system upgrades free for Windows XP.

We’re waiting, Steve… have your iPhone call our iTouch and we’ll do lunch (but only when it’s free).

UPDATE: My little brother says I should bite the bullet and plunk down my $20 because it’s worth it and because it’ll actually work (unlike, say, shareware from a Palm). He does have a point…

So Hillary Clinton and John McCain came out on top in New Hampshire, the two people I like to call the “danger” candidates. Here’s why.

If Hillary makes the Democratic nomination, it’s going to feel like putting Bill back in the White House (Bill has probably already reserved “First Man” on MySpace). Isn’t that kind of like rewinding the clock 8 years? Didn’t the last two attempts by Ms. Clinton for universal health care die horrible deaths in Congress? Hillary doesn’t feel like hope or progress as much as she does eerily familiar. It doesn’t mean she wouldn’t win, however, depending on who’s she’s up against. With any luck it won’t be…

John McCain has a history, folks. While being a POW (for what, four years?) makes him sound like a promising president, it also screams “Manchurian Candidate.” Assuming he’s not a preprogrammed counter-intelligence agent, the other irrational fear is that he’s going to go post-traumatic stress syndrome the moment he gets the launch codes from the Book of Secrets (it’s real… there’s a movie.)

But what am I worried about? It’s only one primary with more to come. Sleep tight!

If you are Obsessive Compulsive , press 1 repeatedly.

If you are Co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have Multiple Personalities, press 3, 4, 5 & 6.

If you are Paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call.

If you are Delusional, press 7, and you call will be transferred to the Mother Ship.

If you are Schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are Dyslexic, press 96969696969696.

If you have a Nervous Disorder, please fidget with the hash key until a representative comes on the line.

If you have Amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number and your mother’s and grandmothers’ maiden names.

If you have Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, slowly and carefully press 000.

If you have Bi-polar Disorder, please leave a message after the beep.
Or before the beep. Or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.

If you have Short Term Memory Loss, please try your call again later.

If you have Low Self Esteem, please hang up. All our operators are far too busy to talk to you.

(stolen from Neener who stole it from someone else… keep it going!)

Stupid movie title reference not withstanding, governor Mike Huckabee does seem to be getting attention for Republicans following the Iowa Caucus, while first-run senator Barack Obama is getting more than just Oprah’s endorsement for Democrats. But could it be for the first time in years that the candidates being championed aren’t due to party affiliations but due to the candidates themselves?

The very name “Clinton” sounds like a step backwards; after all, another “Bush” has worked out so well. John McCain still scares the hell out of people, while Fred Thompson might have been a shoe-in if he championed ANYTHING as a platform. John Edwards and Mitt Romney just seem too ordinary to be presidential (but may make nice running mates), while Rudy Giuliani still feels unpredictable.

I’m not endorsing anyone, by the way, but the race for the next president kinda feels like its going this way. Just my observation.