Does this mean you won’t hear from me ever again, though? Hardly! This isn’t an ending.. or at least, not just an ending. It’s also a new beginning. With renewed energy and a new sense of purpose and change, I’ve started a new blog, called Katsu Steps Out, over at http://katsushiro.squarespace.com/ (expect me to buy a proper domain for it soon enough). Just like I’ll be continuing my life soon in a whole new city, so will my online journey continue at a new home.

So! Thank you, to all of you who’ve taken the time to read any of the random idiocy I’ve posted here throughout the years. Thank you, and goodbye. The journey continues… here.

Today, thanks to many Cif readers, the overall total raised for the Atheist Bus Campaign stands at a truly overwhelming £135,000, breaking our original target of £5,500 by over 2400%. Given this unexpected amount, I’m very excited to tell you that 800 buses – instead of the 30 we were initially aiming for – are now rolling out across the UK with the slogan, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”, in locations all over England, Scotland and Wales, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, Cardiff, Devon, Leeds, Bristol and Aberdeen.

From today’s launch, two hundred of the buses will run in London, because the campaign was originally started as a positive counter-response to the Jesus Said ads running on London buses in June 2008. These ads displayed the URL of a website which stated that non-Christians “will be condemned to everlasting separation from God and then you spend all eternity in torment in hell … Jesus spoke about this as a lake of fire prepared for the devil”. Our rational slogan will hopefully reassure anyone who has been scared by this kind of evangelism.

The atheist bus journey

So, I bought myself the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition boxed set today. The one that includes all three basic books: the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual. I grew up with D&D, as I often tell people, I actually learned to read with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Ed. books (thanks, Dad!). I’ve bought every edition since then: 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, and now, 4.0. One thing is different, though, about today’s purchase. Up until the last one, I had always bought my gaming books at, well, a gaming store. Well, not just a gaming store: a comic book/gaming/card/collectibles store, but you get the idea. Almost by necessity, these types of stores are always small ‘mom and pop’ types of stores, run by geeks, for geeks. This is the place where you go and the dork behind the counter knows your name and has a bag with your weekly stash of comics already ready to go, the store where the employees know what your game is and tell you that the newest expansion just came out. The place where you can still get into an argument about who would win in a fight between Superman and Batman (pro-tip: Batman would mop the floor with Supes) with the guy behind the counter, and still leave happy.

It’s also a place that is doomed, and while it is within my power (and that of countless other geeks) to save it, we won’t. Why? Because as nice as the idea of the place is, the fact of the matter is that the ‘mom and pop tax’ has become unbearable. Case in point: the D&D 4th Ed. set I bought today. The local gaming store had it for approx. $105 (plus tax). Amazon had it for $66, with free shipping. Do the math, that’s nearly $40 in difference.. that’s a couple of expansions right there.

Blame the Internet, I suppose. Once upon a time, buying from the local store was the only way to get your books, unless you were willing to order from the back of trade magazines, which turned out to be as expensive, or more, than just buying them from the stores. But with the advent of the Internet, all of a sudden anyone can buy anything, at the same price as the local store buys it. And you don’t have to pay the store’s markup. Why bother going to the store to see if they have the book you’re looking for, and facing the crowds, finding a parking spot, and dealing with other nerds, when you can just click a few times, and its on the way to your house (and did I mention the free shipping?).

And yet, there’s that stab of guilt. Small though it may be, it’s there. I, for one, am always a little ashamed when I walk into the local comic book shop and rarely, if ever, walk out having bought anything. After all, these are your people, your geeks, the ones who, like you, always dreamed of having a comic book/gaming store, except, that they actually went out and did it. And you want to support them, much like you’d want them to support you if the roles were reversed, right? But the simple fact of the matter is that you have to be a moron to buy from the store instead of buying online. It’s one thing when the ‘mom and pop tax’ is only a couple bucks, but when the difference is dozens of dollars, either immediately such as in my case, or over time, as with a comic book subscription.

So, what can these stores do to grow and get back my business? Not sure.. Provide free-use computers for me to order books or comics, with a knowledgeable employee nearby to help with recommendations? Or perhaps rent out gaming tables for RPG or CCG players, along with snack/drink sales? Who knows.. but I get the feeling that it’s going to require a very major shift in the way they do business before I start bringing my own business back to them.

Seriously, Rick Fucking Warren? Author of that pile of shit ‘Purpose Driven Life’ book (which I won’t link to here since I have no intention of increasing its Google or Amazon rankings), a book that purports to be a self-help book but at the end of the day basically boils down to telling people ‘you’re worthless, you’ve always been worthless, you’ll always be worthless, and your life will always be meaningless and without purpose unless you submit your will to that of God’. A more despicable ’self-help’ message I’ve never come across.

Rick Dickhead Warren.. the same man who compares gay marriage with incest, pedophilia and polygamy, and who fought to get Prop 8 approved in California. The man who claims that marriage hasn’t changed in over 5,000 years. The despicable little worm who claims that a non-religious man could never be a capable leader. Rick Warren, who is so far in the closet that he can probably see Narnia from where he’s standing. A man who stands for so many of the very worst things in America, so many of the back-ass-wards repressive, disgusting beliefs that have been holding this country back for so long..

I know what you’re trying to do, Obama. But this is not the way to do it.

Now, I’ll be honest, this is really a fight I could just sit out. Gay marriage doesn’t really concern me one way or another, for the most part. Hell, I’m skeptical about this whole ‘marriage’ concept to begin with. Also, I’m neither gay myself, nor do I have any sort of religious or moral opposition to gay marriage. No one would blame me for not really giving a shit either way.. and yet, I do give a shit. And here’s why:

It’s a human rights issue. It’s an issue about the basic freedoms and rights that all humans should have, regardless of race, creed, or sexual orientation. And it’s an issue that’s been confused due to the idiocy and fear of religious morons who claim divine knowledge about the ‘wrongness’ of homosexuality and homosexual relationships. When I hear religious kooks spout off about how the bible condemns gays and gay marriage, and about how they’re supposedly defending the 5,000 year old definition of marriage, I just can’t keep my mouth shut any longer. So, let’s tackle the reasons given by gay marriage opponents, one by one, and tear them apart, shall we? First off, there’s the big daddy classic:

1) The Bible Tells Me So – Not neccesarily. It really all depends on your interpretation of what the bible specifically says, what it accepts and what it condemns, and of course what you believe the bible is. Needless to say, the more fundamentalist bible thumpers tend to be the ones most opposed to homosexuals, but in reading and interpreting the bible, it’s quite possible to see that not only are there multiple examples of alternate relationships other than the usual ‘one man, one woman’ monogamous one, and that these relationships are not condemned in any way in the bible, but that the bible itself has several examples of what appear to be homosexual relationships that are practically celebrated within its pages. And let’s not even get started on the amount of places where the bible contradicts itself, condemning something on one page only to celebrate it a few pages later. Point is, even if the bible *did* clearly and precisely spell out that homosexuality was a sin, the bible is a notoriously bad book on which to base major decisions like this one.

2) Every other reason: I could go on and on about this, but I actually found a single resource that pretty much goes point by point laying out the truth behind every single one of the usual anti-gay-marriage arguments, and I think I’ll just link to it and save myself the trouble. Go, read it, it makes the point a whole lot better than I can: Common Arguments Against Gay Marriage: Moral and Religious Arguments

In the end, every single argument against gay marriage is severely flawed, illogical, and/or based on superstition, fear, and intolerance. if we were talking about blacks getting married, or jews getting married, or anything else, this wouldn’t even be a debate, no one would go against it. Mere decades ago, people still used the bible to justify slavery, and now we all know better. Let’s hope that sooner, rather than later, people will realize the idiocy behind opposing gay marriage and basic human and civil rights for homosexuals, and we can put this sad, sorry chapter behind us.

Gizmodo’s protestations about netbook’s suckiness aside, I’m quite happy with my little Eee. With the 10″ screen and weighing barely 3 lbs., it’s the perfect balance between a full notebook and a PDA for me. I can (and do) take it nearly anywhere. It’s powerful enough for web surfing, blogging, managing music and pictures, and even light gaming. Hell, I play WoW with the full WoTLK expansion) on it just fine. The Atom processor is flexible, and just powerful enough for my needs. No, I can’t play Call of Duty 4 on it. I wouldn’t want to. But for my uses: portability, power, and battery life are perfect. Sorry the netbook format isn’t for you, Gizmodo writer, but, honestly, keep the venom stored up for a product that deserves it. I’m the target market for this thing, and I *love* it.

And next year, when I can buy this same netbook with a slightly faster Atom and NVidia’s Ion for under $500? I’ll be first in line. Have to start planning my stickers for that one already, I think.

Yeah, well, you mostly thought right. For the past year or two, I’ve barely been able to string enough words together to make a post on Twitter, much less sit down to write a proper blog post. And yet, here I am. Blame Anthony Bourdain.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been perfectly happy just twittering my thoughts away, casually tossing out little bits of brilliance and banality mixed together, occasionally folding in a link from Flickr or Tumblr or some other web service when 140 characters just weren’t quite enough. And this might have continued for the indefinite future, if it wasn’t for the Travel Channel and Anthony Bourdain. There I was, sitting, watching No Reservations and feeling vaguely dissatisfied with my existence, when it hit me: that’s what I want to do. Well, not exactly what Anthony does, I don’t have the money or a camera crew. But, his way of just writing about what he experiences, expressing himself in spur of the moment, train of thought, rambling yet coherent little vignettes, that’s what I want to do. And that requires more than Twitter can give me.

I needed to get back to blogging. And, hey, lookit that, it just so happens I have a little blog here that I’ve kept going on and off since 2003. Excellent! Combine that with my recent acquisition of an ASUS Eee PC 1000H (dubbed ‘teh Shiny’), and, well.. I no longer have much of an excuse not to blog. I want to, I can, and I will.

So, of course, being the expert procrastinator that I am, I immediately began the arduous work of blogging.. or, err, preparing to blog. I upgraded Wordpress to the latest version. I installed a new theme. Downloaded new plugins and set them up, got and installed API keys, configured everything until it was working to my satisfaction. And once I was done, I sat with teh Shiny on my lap, my ‘I Blogged Your Mom’ shirt on for good measure, and I stared at the ‘Add New Post’ page on my blog.. and I drew a complete and total blank.

This was off to a great start.

So, of course, I pulled that most traditional of all writerly cop-outs: I wrote about my problems with writing, and how I have no ideas. And, will you look at that, it worked! Already have a full blog post, and it’s cost me practically no work. Eeeeexcelent.

So, stick around. I’m back. I’ll try to update daily or more, but no promises. I’ll also try to be a bit more entertaining. I may not get to travel to many exotic locales, but I’m still on a journey. And as they say, it’s the journey, not the destination. I’ll try to make the trip worth remembering. And follow me on Twitter, its where most of my stray thoughts go these days anyway.

Watch this space.

… like a hawk.