Random ... I mean really random! ... thoughts:

--This blog is so empty! I really should put more about me in it, rather than just business stuff. Then again, it is supposed to be a business-type blog, not a personal one. What to do ...

--The world seems permeated by politics lately. (Of course, living in Denver meant I was up-close-and-personal with the Democrats' convention.) I don't mean "politics" as having to do with the way a government is actually governing (that seems to be on autopilot at the moment, at least here in the US), but "politics" as in a bunch of candidates obfuscating as much as possible anything about what they'd really do if elected. I've just tried to get a comparison between McCain and Obama, and all I can find are vague promises and voting records (which you'd think would help, but don't, since I'm trying to discern broad philosophies, and voting records pertain to very narrow, very certain bills, etc. that may have been worded in ways a candidate didn't like, or may have been too strong or too weak for the candidate's taste, or any number of other things that don't nail down anything other than an opinion on that particular day about that particular bill). Add to that anything about the VP choices, and it's almost impossible to really know where any of them really stands. (Except on a few issues; unfortunately, I already knew where they stood on those, so my search was of little help.)

--The above is, of course, a bit of an overgeneralization. My search was helpful. A little helpful, anyway. According to one of those quizzes that tells you which candidate agrees with you (glassbooth.org), I can see that neither major candidate agrees with me on more than about two-thirds of what's important to me, and this percentage varies wildly when I change the relative importance of one issue over another, or answer with slight variations on sliding scales. Even more fun is the "fact" that they agree with me on very different things, so I'll have to choose which dearly-held beliefs to sacrifice and which to hope a candidate truly supports.

--The above two rambling comments lead me to this more succinct observation: It's much easier just to play a game like Civilization, and build your world as you see fit. (It's also easier because no real, actual other people get hurt if you make a catastrophic choice!)

More later ... :p