well, my laptop seems to work fine, but i fear my pc, henry, is permanently disabled. it appears the motherboard is fried, which is dissapointing. it was only a year old. if i do rebuild it again it will be the 3rd incarnation of my pc. thankfully i no longer need a computer for much beyong internet access and resume writing.

i need a job, but i am not motivated or care enough to go actively search for one. i filled out some aps, haven't dropped them off. i wouldn't be starting a serving job until my current cold went away, as I'm sure there aren't good tips in coughing all over the customer's food. i'm really getting rather tired of coughing ALL DAMN DAY LONG! i get tired of just hearing myself cough. actually i don't feel all that sick beyond being congested and having a bad cough. still, i'll end up dragging myself to the doctor in a day or two, paying up the ass, more money i don't have and can't spend. I need a job. someone just call me and offer me some crap job in a mail room for $9 an hour. that's what i'm thinking should be happening.

i watched a really interesting "Law & Order" tonight that provoked some thoughts. I know, I know, should have been reading. Anyway, it was about this kid who murdered one kid, and another person got out in jail for it. the real killer told a priest, then thought the priest would turn him so he tried to kill him, but instead killed another priest. the priest refused to divulge any of the info the real killer told him, and the entire show was about his dilema: testify against the killer and betray what was told to him in confidence as a man of God OR refuse to testify and keep what was said him a priveledged conversation. the conversation wasn't a "confession" so the conversation was admissible. the priest had to chose between his moral obligation to do what was right, to convict a killer and free a wrongfully imprisoned man OR his obligation to his sworn duty to God and his chosen profession. to clear his conscious on one and, but to endanger his soul on the other? its difficult for me to put myself in that situation because I do not share such a devotion to a religion or deity, but I do like the idea of how much weight moral obligations carry. its similar to the question of: when is it okay to lie? when it saves someone's life? when it is for the benefit of someone in trouble? in other words, when the lie will result in a positive for someone else, a selfless act. but what about one's duty to keep one's word? isn't there a moral obligation binding you to a promise or a confidence even if the penalty for not divulging the secret is something horrible? obviously there's no rule to this one, no set guidelines to follow. is it okay to lie if it protects someone? its done all the time in movies and on television. hell, the government has been lying to the world since before there was a formal gov't all under the guise that "they don't need to know, its for their own good..." nice mantra.

I don't know that I buy that mantra. I don't know that I agree that lying at any time in any circumstance is a good thing. I'm not sure that I believe in any absolute truth any more. If you lie, if you violate a promise or a secret than you violate your principles and a trust. that's all we've got, isn't? principles? for some reason these intangible things have become a cornerstone which we define people by and regard people with. when we die we can't carry our principles with us, but here's the thing: what matters in LIFE, as I see it coughing in front of my computer screen, is how we treat each other and the earth while we are of it, that is, while we are of the living. the principles you develop for yourself help shape the very ways that you treat other people. when we lie, when we violate that moral obligation, we sacrifice some part of our principles, which in turn means that we alter the ways we treat other people.

i need micah around to bounce my ideas off of him, he'll always contradict me with some religious insight of his.

"all that you have is your soul" -tracy chapman