Please don't get me wrong...democrat, republican, I disrespect them all equally. I used to try to vote for the person who I thought had the most character. I'm beginning to realize that best character doesn't necessarily equate to best at the job, and I'm not sure what to do with that. In any case, Dad sent me a link to a prototype 2004 voting machine, and I saw a way to improve it. So here ya go:

If there's one thing I've learned about prayer, it's to present the problem and leave the solution to the professionals.  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy - if you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, time-transcendant Creator-God it follows that what you can dream up in a lifetime or two will pale in comparison to what He can.  Case in point:
 
Us:  We didn't listen to you and now everything's screwed up and we're all dying down here please help thanks.
 
God:  No problem how 'bout I let you kill me and then I blow death apart from the inside out like Neo and Agent Smith in the first Matrix flick.
 
Us:  Ha yeah OK right.
 
God:  No, seriously.  Go ahead.  Hit me.
 
Anyway, a great guy named Christoph Geiser in Switzerland sent us this link to a touching movie he made about Uru Live (if you play it and get audio but no video, you most likely need to install the divx movie codec which you can get here).  My reply to him applies to everyone who's supported us:  To strive to create something with meaning, with purpose...it means everything when people get it.  Thank you and thank you.
 
I can't think of anything that expresses the spirit here at Cyan any better than Finger Eleven's One Thing.  I wish I could tell you what is happening, all of it.  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...

In college I had a friend named Chas through whom I stumbled upon the secret to making things happen that I shall now impart unto you.
 
Chas is a little guy (think Macaulay Culkin).  He looks like he'd break if he bumped into something too hard.  I also suspect him of narcolepsy.  Nevertheless, Chas believes he's tougher than he is in a way that's contagious.  A small group of us in Navy ROTC played something we called the Game.  Anyone in the Game could call a Game, but only after midnight and before dawn.  It involved a rugby ball, and a hill, and it basically hurt.  Sometimes it hurt a lot.  Good times.  I think Chas might've invented the Game.  A year or two after I met him he started studying a form of martial arts called Aikido (think Steven Seagal).  I went to one class with him, and that was all it took.

You might say Aikido is about using your opponent's weight and momentum against him.  I think that interpretation hides its full potential.  A subtle reformulation of the concept opens fantastic possibilities:  Aikido is about redirecting the weight and energy of another to a more agreeable end.  By applying this more generalized form to daily life, where hand-to-hand combat is generally frowned upon (though certainly not without its proponents), you'll arrive at what I call Social Aikido.  If you can stop the bull in its tracks, you will survive to fight another bull.  If you can redirect the bull and smash the gate, you can free yourself from the arena altogether.  You can transcend the battle.  You can make things happen, influence outcomes, bend the energy of the universe...

Use this knowledge for good, young padawan.  Stop fighting the same battle over and over. Smash the gates and escape together.

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
-- Harry Truman