I sit here and I try to bring my thoughts in order. There are so many words flying at full speed through my mind. I sit back everyday to check on my friend's facebook status, thinking to myself, "I love my friends, and I want to see what they have to say, how their lives are, how they feel", and I oftentimes find myself troubled by a status, either a veiled cry for help a plea for attention, complaints of live or love. It is all understandable. Life is hard, and we all need outlets for it. But what sometimes makes me troubled, is viewing political comments. I feel threatened, hurt, embittered, empassioned and depressed, all at once, and never know how to feel, or what to say, or not say.

 

I seem to attract people. I have friends ranging from Liberatarians to Socialists, and everywhere inbetween, Democrats, Republicans, Independents (which are actually conservatives of somekind, but like to feel different). I like that I can reach across barriers, I like that people see me, before they see my politics. And to any of you, who cannot stand liberals, Socialists, Communists or Democrats, you who claim that they are scum and deserve to be spat on and insulted, look at me, look me in the eyes, and tell me you hate me. I dare you, I dare you to come see me, who you've known for years, who you joke with, laugh, play, eat with and by all means are able to communicate with, without problem. Tell me how much you hate me.

 

Any of my friends on my side of the proverbial fence, I dare you to do the same to any of your conservative friends.
 

 

I doubt any of you will do this; I hope, most sincerly to God herself that you will not.

 

You love eachother, you wouldn't be friends otherwise.

 

 

Everyday I see slander on both sides, it is so easy to blame eachother for problems. But all it does is sicken me. I grow so tired and so weary of it, everyday.

 

I find myself unable to even focus these thoughts anymore, it fustrates me to no end. I want to say something, but I don't want to hurt. I want to clarify something, for there is much dishonesty in the world. I want to help understand, but not to be scorned.

 

And I know myself, I see things through my own lens, I do not fully understand you, or anyone. I somedays cannot even understand myself. Anything I say to you, will always be from my point of view, not yours. I am an empathic person, I can put myself in your shoes, but even then, I can never fully understand you or your motivations, and I cannot try. My life dictates that I must have focus on so many things, that I cannot focus on talking to everyone about everything, there is no way that I can pour my energy into trying to emapthise with you and everyother person I know.

 

All I can do, is be myself, I can talk, and I will be scorned. I will be spat on and hated, I will lose friends, I will hurt them, I will do all the things I wish not to. It is impossible for me to be silent and true to myself. I guess, this is my statement of preparedness.

 

Maybe in someways I want to be hated, in many ways I hate myself, and by being hated it justifies my self-hatred. It shows me how I am a horrible person, and that I deserve all horrendous things that happen to me.

 

I cannot be anything but my liberal self, anything else that I try to be creates more self loathing, and I don't think that I even want that. I already hurt and abuse myself (not in physical ways, before anyone begins to worry that I cut or maim my body).

 

So, as this outpouring of my heart and soul continues, let me segway into my own self.

 

I am Catholic, practicing, and I do not worship Mary, not does any other Catholic. I also do not condone pedophilia, nor does any other Catholic. We are not out to create a new world order, or subvert the United States government. I am not about to force convert you or tell you that my beliefs are superior to yours or that you will go to hell for not believing in Christ. Our religion, and my personal faith boils down to a simple phrase, "I will treat you at least as well as I treat myself". In my case, it would be altered more to "I will treat you better than myself", for my own self abuse belongs to me, and I would never hurt another person like how I hurt myself.

 

As a liberal, and more specifically, a Socialist, here is what I believe: I think large buisinesses are bad, because extreme wealth leads to extreme abuse. As often as the persuit of wealth tends to require you to sacrifice others around you for yourself. To sum it up, I think greed is bad. Capitalism requires extreme personal greed to even exist. In my mind, you will never convince me that greed is a good thing. I think personal freedom is imporant, but there are limits. I don't care what religion you are, unless your religion requires you to hurt yourself or others, and other than cults, there are no religions that operate this way. I think every government that is worth it's salt needs to be able to provide and protect it's populace, otherwise it is useless. By populace, I mean everyone, not just the rich, not just the poor, not just the middle class, but every person that is within it's borders.

 

Now as politics and religion are everyone's own personal favorite topics, I could go on for pages about my own beliefs and my own ideas, but that isn't the point. The point is to establish some basic ground rules for things I see on Facebook (primarily).

 

In the last year or so, I get myself into so many arguments, often needing to drop out, because I cannot handle them. Let me clarify, I can argue with any person till I collapse due to lack of breath, but I love you, and I don't want to continue to hurt you, or pain myself with arguments. Each argument tears a part of my heart assunder. Everytime I see a lie or an ignorant scream across the ether, I die just a little. A part of my innocence is lost forever a part of my soul is irreprably tainted.

 

Over the last few months, I have been strugling on whether or not to give up politics. In some ways I feel like giving up on religion and faith as well. I am tired of hurting and being hurt. But I always fall back to this one thing, I cannot give up my fight. I feel like am I right, and by giving up my position, I sacrifice myself to everyone. I sacrifice my identity to the masses, for the sake of making friends.

 

I don't know if I want to do that.

 

I love you, but if I cannot be myself, if you scorn me for who I am, why should I remain in this relationship? I don't want to hurt you, but I do, and I feel so hurt.

 

Pain and suffering are part of the world, and we cannot deny this, lest we deny a truth of existance. Pain and suffering bring understanding. If I experience your pain first hand, I will know you better, and I can know where you come from. We need more understanding in the world.

 

If I can make one plea to everyone right now, it is a plea for more understanding. It is a plea for education. You cannot even begin to understand anything if you do not even try. Try listening to someone else, try reading or listening outside of your friends, of your family, out of your comfort zone. Try to understand that everything is part of everything else, we are all interconnected. That is my plea.

 

I finish this with the following statement, this is raw, it is not refined. I did not go back to refine words, and have only re-read this to make sure that my thoughts are being as accurately reflected as possible. It is not spell checked, due to a computer bug that I am tired of trying to solve, and will contain many many errors of grammar, punctuation and spelling. I don't give a care if you read this or not. It is long, it's probably boring, but it comes from the heart.

(c) Bartholomew Brandner

Hey everyone, long time no post.  I'm planning on putting up more coding examples soon, but besides that...

Anyway...

For anyone in the Portland Metropolitan area, you should go to the zoo this Monday (because it's free), and more importantly, you should donate food and/or clothes.  They are accepting these things for the SnowCap and Transition projects.  Homelessness is a really problem in Oregon, and helping others is a wonderful thing in and of itself.

Thanks, and enjoy your weekend everyone!

www.oregonzoo.org/Newsroom/2011releases/2011Jan.htm#mlk

So this is a "Connect Four" game, it isn't obviously CF, because I don't want a copyright infringement, but it's the same idea.  It comes into two classes, the first being:

( Connect4.java )

And the second being:

( Connect4JButton.java )

Feel free to use my code, just please credit me if you use it.  I like feedback, so if you want to comment on style or any particular thing, please let me know.

As one small thing to note, the code works on Linux and Windows, not on Mac, I couldn't ever figure out why, if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them

-B

If anyone may be wondering where my new reviews that I promised went, well, they are on indefinite suspension.  I felt like doing something that I would be interested in doing for a living, as in writing game reviews.  And I enjoyed it to a degree, but I think maybe more than anything now, I realized that I don't really want to do that (for a living), but it was fun to explore it.  I might throw a couple more out, ones that I started or promised *cough*Assassin's Creed 2*cough*Mass Effect 2*cough*, sorry, something in my throat.

Either way, I want to thank readers for being patient with me.  I'm going to start posting code here, especially with school coming up, I should have lots of C++ and some Java code + whole programs.  I think I'll start with posting my code from my final Java project from last Spring term at Chemeketa.

-B

Ok, I lied, unintentionally...

I do plan on doing an AC2 review at some point, and truly intended to have it up a month ago.  I've been just way too busy.  I'm currently knee-deep in a Java project.  When it's finished, I'll probably put it up here so that people can try it.  Again, sorry for taking so long with the review, maybe I'll throw in a bonus review with it to sweeten the deal.

Yeah, about that...  I got nothin'.  These last couple weeks have been very busy and hectic,  I intended to have it up and ready a week and a half ago...  As anyone can see, it isn't ready yet.  I hope that I can pull it together soon, but expect it sometime later this week.  

By the way, anyone seen the reveal for LittleBig Planet 2?  It looks amazing!  I am a huge fan of the first, but I wasn't really interested in a sequel.  Then I watched the trailer, and then watched it again.  It's changed my mind.  I'll wait for the reviews, definitely, but so far it looks like Media Molecule is pulling something amazing together.

I will be doing a new video game review soon, expect it by next Friday at the latest.  Here's a hint:

Requiescat in Pace