Looking for Internship/Job in the field of Journalism

Hello out there to anyone in the field of Journalism, especially if your in charge of hiring people for jobs and/or internships. I am looking for either of these at any publication as a writer. I don't do well at editing, but I can write well, don't let my blog fool you, I don't try to edit my writing in this blog. I am most interested in writing about anything relating to new gadgets (big or small) computer games, console games, and anything high tech.

Is it weird?

Is it weird that I want to join the military even though I kind of hate following rules, and really hate stupid rules (which is what the military is full of), and even though I don't think this nation has used it's military in an effective "moral" way since World War 2? I have this urge, almost a need to see combat, and be involved in the combat, unlike a war correspondent which is what I have been thinking about doing these last few months. I logically understand that war is hell, but for some reason I want to see that hell. Maybe I just want to do something with my life besides sit around and learn in college, participate in human rights stuff. I want to see what I am doing up close and personal. I can say this, if in the next 10 years this country goes into a war worth fighting, I would really consider volunteering for combat duty, though special forces would be much "cooler" that being a regular old grunt-that extra training could save me as well.

Right and Wrong

How willing would you be to fight all the way to the bitter end for what you believed to be wright to save someone you don't really know? This is just a theoretical question, been watching House, first season, lol.

Campaign Finace Reform

The Onion has a good article about Campaign Finance Reform. It makes fun of it, or at least some of the arguments for it. I will say now that I do not know very much about the official position taken by people who want to reform Campaign Financing, but it seems to me that whoever wants to spend money on a campaign should be able to with whatever amount of money they chose, ether that, or a set amount for every person and corporation. In this scenarios everyone and every company and corporation, would have to give the same amount, no less, no more. But is that still fare? While I identify my self as a progressive in many respects, I also believe that people should have a certain amount of freedom to do what they want with their own fucking money (after taxes of course). This is not to say I think it is ok to use one's money to do things like order a killing, because that would be illegal even if no money was involved because one would still be ordering a kill. This annalogy can apply to many different scenarios.

Wow

I had no idea that so many people my age going to college had alcoholics or violent people for parents, or otherwise just messed up families. I guess I am much more lucky than I thought. My mom is a recovering alcoholic, she has been sober for 18 years, and dry for longer, so I never had to deal with the personality traits of an alcoholic in my home. Well, back to class.

Fuck all you mother fucking sons of whores that believe in capital punishment

Anyone who really believes in capital punishment after seeing a show like Prison Break, and realizes that there have been innocent people killed before, and that it will happen again, and still believe in the death penalty deserves to be locked up like the killers that they are.

Well duh

I just read a headline that said "'Borat' beats 'Clause' at boxoffice". Why is that news at all? Of course the Borat moving beat the stupid Santa Clause 3 movie! The first two were only ok, the third, I don't know, but given how much press Borat has gotten, not to mention how good Borat is, of course it is beating the Santa Clause Movie.

On another note, I am trying to review the beta for Supreme Commander for the paper I work for. So far I have only played about twenty minutes of actual game, and spend at least an hour installing and now reinstalling the damned game after it crashed and then wouldn't allow me to connect with other players. The funny thing is that the program that stopped working is a launcher program that has been used for several of their other games, therefore it is surprising that it is the piece of software that stopped working, and not the rest of the game.

A Soldier’s Life in Battlefield 2142: Part 1

I was running from the main base, heading for our objective. I heard the sounds of battle ahead in the distance. My pulse quickened. My initial fears were put to the back of my mind, I was excited and angry; my people were fighting for their lives and I wasn’t even there yet. I ran faster.

Upon reaching the top of a small hill, I dove to the ground, pulling my Morretti SR4 Sniper Rifle to my shoulder. Looking through the scope, I saw two PAC soldiers approaching an EU soldier. The EU soldier hadn’t seen them. Taking careful aim, I fired, taking one of the PAC soldiers down. The other turns to fire at me, but the EU soldier had heard the first PAC die; he stood up and fired his assault rifle, taking the PAC soldier out.

I kept scanning the battlefield for more targets. There were some PAC soldiers in a bunker about six hundred yards away. I couldn’t get a good shot, so I got up and jogged forward taking cover behind a building. Just then an enemy hover tank appeared from behind a hill to the left of me. It fired its main cannon as I ran for the corner. He missed me, but shrapnel hit my shoulder.

I kept running around the building, pulling out my explosives. The tank was preoccupied with an APC as I ran up behind it. I threw the explosives at it, they stuck to it magnetically as I ran back around the building, pulling out the remote detonator. I hit the trigger, taking comfort in the loud explosion. Just to make sure, I crept back to the edge of the building, and took a peek. Smoking wreckage was all that remained.

I turned back in the direction of my original target; there were still PAC soldiers on the top level of the bunker, firing at my EU brothers. I jogged to hundred yards forward, meeting no resistance. I found a nice spot with a good deal of cover, and once again pulled my sniper rifle to my shoulder, looking through the scope. I fired five shots, expanding my clip, killing two PAC soldiers and injuring a third. As I was reloading, an enemy Walker cam around the bend in the ravine. It’s gunner was looking right at me. I had no where to go . . .

This was originally meant for my game review column in the Bulldog Weekly, the student run newspaper at the University of Redlands, but my editor didn't want to post something that had scenes of people killing each other in her section. Please tell me what you think of the story (i know its not that good) and if you think it is not appropriate for a college newspaper.

Airline Security (again)

Why are we so damned concerned about airline security? Why is preventing death from terrorists/murders so much more important than preventing deaths caused by accidents, diseases, etc? More people die from car accidents every year than in 10 average years of plane crashes. Hell, more kids die of starvation everyday than the amount of people killed from the terrorists attacks of 9/11. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, die every year from diseases that are preventable. On top of that, we still have to many babies, so lots of people die, but we make way to many.

How about we start preventing deaths from easily preventable things that also improve the quality of life for people in developing nations, rather than making the quality of life in "developed" nations worse? I never have been, and never will be more scared of a terrorist attack than of dyeing in a car accident, and you know what? I still drive as fast as my car will let me without going off the road/getting pulled over (I go slow only when I think cops will be around).

FUCK THIS SHIT

Well, tonight I found out the financial situation of my family. My father is a family practice doctor in private practice, who has been in practice for over just over 20 years, he's 57, and he makes the equivalent of $27.48 an hour He works about 80 hours a week, and he's going to burn out at this rate.

This is Medicare at work people, for the past 8 years they have been lowering their reimbursement rates for doctors. The companies that make medical software constantly fuck over physicians, the government, along with the insurance companies, dictate how much
a doctor can charge. There is no market competition, its all dictated. For all those pre-med people, don't become family practice doctors, or internal medicine doctors, become surgeons, radioligists, and anithisioligists, they are the only ones who are going to make any money what so ever in the coming years.

Anyway, back to the point, my family has enough money set aside for me to go to my current University for one year, then I would have to take out about $48,000 worth of loans. Or I could go for the next year, then switch to a state college in Oregon, and take out around $20,000 in loans, or I could just go to the University of Redlands for the next semester, and transfer mid year too a state college and end up with only $10,000 in loans. What should I do?! I love the University of Redlands, and grew up with my parents promising that I would go to a private college, but things went down hill. Hell I'm thinking of robbing a fucking bank, that's how nuts I am going right now. I currently get $12,000 in scholarships from the University of Redlands

One would think that I would qualify for financial aid, but because of the way FAFSA is set up, I only qualify for $2,000 worth of subsidized loans a year.