The 1st SteamCon was a huge success.  I had sent Omega7Red’s own infamous Captain Jamison Dao of the HRMAS Prometheus to the SteamCon event.  However, he failed to report back.  Apparently, he was killed in a duel, most violently.  (hit the more to read on)

Captain Jamison Dao, being the adventurer, scoundrel, pre-emptive salvage operator, purveyor of fine goods and worldly wonders, that he was; well, he was given to drink.  The man simply could not handle the combination of Brandy, Cigars, and fine Women.  I received numerous reports that a man matching Dao’s description was seen at the SteamCon.  This person was clearly intoxicated to the point of barely being able to walk without the aid of his servants, bragging how he single-handedly won the Tunisian War, and putting his hands upon the ladies there about in an unsavory and sometimes unnatural fashion.

One of these ladies was indeed a former lover that he had failed to recognize.  Upon her scorn and realizing his error, he unjustly spoke ill of the woman’s aesthetic qualities and questionable breeding.  Naturally, her gentlemen came to her defense and challenged Dao to a duel.  Dao accepted and in a manner most unlike a gentlemen immediately drew his sword.  His opponent, being sober and more intelligent in disposition, drew a gun and dispatched Dao.

Mind you, this was no ordinary gun.  These are after all crazy people with way too much time on there hands.  The weapon bragged of gears, valves, aether energy, and radioactive elements.  Poor Dao was not only killed, he was ripped apart at the atomic level and converted into a puff of red smoke and blue ash.  To add insult to injury, the opponent’s canine companion relieved itself upon Dao’s ashes.

I hope the reports are not true that Dao is dead.  I intend to go to SteamCon II and look for him.  Perhaps he is  just on another one of his adventures, and has forgotten me.

Allow me to introduce myself – I am the infamous Jamison Dao, Captain of the HRMAS Prometheus. Adventurer, scoundrel, pre-emptive salvage operator, purveyor of fine goods and worldly wonders. At your service.

The Doc’s a good man, an old friend and a wily old bastard- we go way back. Don’t ever let him deal the cards or mix the drinks. I remember this one time, we were holed up in Tunisia during the War. Stuck in a brothel, short on ammo, out of booze and a parlour full of… well, I’m getting off track.

Doc’s asked me to help him out here, show you fine, fine folk what’s going on with Steampunk art, culture, music and fashion. Plus he hoped I’d tell a few stories of my daring exploits. Might be tricky, statute of limitations on some stories is “well after everyone is dead.” Pity that, really. My safari with the King of Cashmere is quite the tale.

Tally-ho, pip pip and all that. There’s a whole world out there, kiddies. Let’s see what it can offer us

Talk about irony. In an Orwellian moment, owners of Amazon’s Kindle discovered that their recently purchased copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm had been deleted by Amazon. Apparently, a third-party retailer who specializes in selling public-domain books used Amazon’s self-service platform to sell copies of two Orwell titles. Unfortunately, those books aren’t public domain in the U.S.A.

So, with a kindle, “they” can reach out and remove books from your possession.  Sounds a little like depriving you of your property without due process.  Here it comes.  It’s starting to happen for real.  This is the warning sign.  We’re already suckers for DRM crap, and DCMA garbage; we can’t copy, move, lend, or basically use anything we pay for and own.

But there’s a flip side.  It turns out that, as usual, we are our own worst enemies.  Society has bread a kind of soccer mom criminal.  It’s become socially acceptable to simply go to a Torrent website and illegally download copyrighted material whenever it suits us.  Music, movies, books, games, and software.  Shoot, if young women could illegally download pregnancy, I’m sure they would.

So, the bad news is that we will end up creating the Firemen or Grammaton Clerics ourselves.  It won’t be government, but private corporations.  Think about it, who wants to get rid of your rights the most?  Is it your job, or the government?  The Government that we always seem to fear is by the people and for the people; the Government is ourselves (at least for now).  But what is the government becoming?  It’s becoming privatized.  We already know that huge corporations buy our politicians.  Since Corporations are running America, maybe we should be concerned about them being big brother.  Perhaps they already are:

At Work, here’s what happens:

1. Someone accuses you of doing something wrong to your boss.
2. Your boss didn’t like you anyway, and the accuser is kind of cute.
3. The boss concludes whether or not you are guilty.
4. You are not informed about the specifics of the charge.
5. You are not allowed to know who accused you.
6. You are not allowed to cross examine witnesses.
7. You are not allowed to examine evidence.
8. You have no representation.
9. You are terminated by a pink slip; it’s the first you’ve heard of it.
10. You realize you should have joined a union.

Man, at least with the government, you get some kind of fair shot.

Anyways, these dystopian book-burning warnings come in all shapes and sizes.  Pay attention to them!  Some of my favorites are:  Equilibrium, Idiocracy, 1984, Farenheit 451, Gattaca, V for Vendetta, I Robot, The Matrix, Metropolis, and Animal Farm.

Source: SHIFT

• Spend thousands of man-hours tearing your hair out looking for SteamPunk or other cool material to blog about.
• Enjoy vast disappointment as you realize you can’t make squat with Google AdSense.
• One-Up that Dr. Warthan idiot genius by showing us your superior intellect.
• Impress women and/or men and get laid and/or respect.
• Freely use foul language, such as [expletive deleted] and [expletive deleted].
• Get even with that Geekologie bastard writer who didn’t want you on his team (j/k, he actually does good stuff).
• Freely express yourself (freedom of expression subject to censorship).
• Get a BS title, such as Doctor, Professor, Mistress, or whatever toats your goat.
• Have a real hobby that contributes to the community so that you can finally stop playing World of Warcraft.

Since I mentioned AdSense.  The bone I will throw is this:  As the blogger, you can put your own ads into your own posts.  They won’t show on the main page, but will show up on the individual post page; and as an added bonus, I’ll throw in an ad box for you on the side-bar.  I already have a thing in that works with AdSense for multiple contributors, and I can accommodate other stuff as well.

Interested?  E-mail me at eric.warthan@gmail.com  Oh, and if you spam me or waste my time with BS, I will FIND YOU!

Let’s talk about Mexican’s for a bit.

Like the Russian’s I wrote about on May 9th (note the temporal disorder here), most non-Mexican’s don’t know squat about Mexican’s.  So, I’ll learn you some, just about the ones you need to know though:

Mexican-American: I did some growing up in Lindsay, California.  It’s mostly populated by Mexican’s (like 95%); consequently, it’s one of the few places in California that doesn’t suck.  These people are mostly migrant workers, picking oranges and olives, and working in packing plants.  As a kid, I worked in an orange packing plant with them, and was honored when one of them said “you work like a Mexican”.  They’re proud, honorable, trust-worthy, and very hard-working.  In fact, in 1995, Lindsay was given the All-American City award by the National Civic League and was also named a California Main Street City in 1987.  They’re as American as apple pie.

Illegal Immigrant:  Unlike the Mexican-American, this usually refers to Mexican’s who illegally come into the United States.  Now, I’ve lived my entire adult life in Arizona.  I understand the Mexican’s point of view.  Imagine that you, as an American, discover that you can get a job in Canada working in restaurants, and the pay is $200k/year.  Problem is, this is the part of Canada that speaks French, and you only speak English.  Also, you can’t get into the country legally.  Ok, for $200k/year, most would illegally enter Canada, work in their French-speaking restaurants, pay off their house and support their family back in the US, and then go home after 3-years.  That’s exactly what the illegal immigrant from Mexico is doing.

But that’s not the case.  I can’t go to Canada and live off of their wealth.  In all honesty, if I could, I would NOT enter Canada in violation of the law.  Ok, some Americans go to Canada and illegally get medical benefits from their socialist heathcare system, and they should be shot; However, in their defense, Canada’s not even a real country anyway.  In Arizona, illegal immigration causes tons of social and economic problems (too many to list), as with other parts of the US.  Most importantly, I’m on this side of the fence, and this is my backyard.  I don’t want to be the welfare system for any country that can’t take care of itself.  This is MY country.  Any immigrant who enters legally, works hard, and earns their place at the table, I will welcome them with with open arms and call them my fellow American.  I consider those who enter illegally to steal from America’s wealth to be no better than thieves.