Gay people have always been in the military, and will continue to be. Whether they’re flamboyant, masculine, whatever the case may be… It’s just unavoidable. Up until now, “don’t ask don’t tell” has pretty much had every gay service member scared to do anything about harassment. Well, “Don’t ask don’t tell” is now practically gone, but honestly the fear is not.

July 9, 2009 the body of an openly gay sailor (August Provost) was found in the guard shack on base at Camp Pendleton in san deigo. He had complained to family members the months leading up to his death of harassment from another service member in particular. However he refused to go to his chain of command with the problem because of “Don’t ask don’t tell”. There aren’t any support services for gay service members either, so there is nothing to do but keep everything pinned inside.

I know this isn’t breaking news or anything, but this in conjunction with things you hear in your departments and division are what make you feel like there is nothing you can do. All there is to do is make yourself seem to be what everyone wants you to be, or else. You either go with the flow, or the flow goes against you. Especially while you’re deployed at sea, living in a berthing with up to 150 other guys there is a lot to be worried about.

Petty officer third class Joseph Roca was abused for 2 years after it was suspected he was gay for not being interested in prostitutes. He was stationed to the Bahrain working dogs division, and here is what happened to him:

“Rocha’s unit mates reportedly abused him by tying him to a chair and pushing him, still bound, into a dog kennel full of feces. The sailor also said he was forced to simulate oral sex with a man more than 30 times, on video tape, as part of a training exercise to teach sailors how to respond to a hypothetical complaint about homosexual sex. They also reportedly hit him as hard as they could repeatedly while forcing him to bend over a desk.”

There are things the military could do to prevent things like this from happening. Actually opening up resources such as chaplains services, maybe even a dedicated person who handles special issues like this. Just someone to talk to and if any problems arise to go to the right people with the problems because a majority of the time, in these cases your chain of command is responsible for the actions.

I’m sure with time gays will be completely accepted and welcome in the military, but for now the military knows we are here, and they should do something about it, before something else tragic happens. Here are links to the articles I mentioned.

Gay sailor terrorized by unit mates for years

Gay sailor found dead at Camp Pendleton

Now I knew apple always had bite to it. But this has got to be a slap in the face for nokia. The amount of money each company has just spent on that law suit. Then to turn around and have to go through ANOTHER law suit? Where they may actually lose? I can only imagine whats going through their mind.

If you want more on the story, engadget has a VERY detailed article, and even a .psd of some of the files. Here is the link, and remember…. DON’T F*** WITH APPLE!!!!

Apple counter sues nokia

idk, this just seems a little off the wall to me, anyone agreeeeeeeee?

      I noticed lately that EVERY text message I send has an “lol” in it somewhere. It’s fine for a while, but it gets in the way of conversations after a while. For example:

Jessica: OMG larry my cat died!

iLarry: OMG I’m so sorry lol

Jessica: You don’t sound sorry

iLarry: lol, why not? I really am

Jessica: Ugh, larry you’re so mean!

iLarry: OMG you know I’m not mean lol

So while LOLz are completely appropriate at times, there is always a time and place for them!

Just realized today is the actual anniversary of when I found out about the Onion News Network, probably one of the most hilarious sites ever. They make hilarious videos about some pretty off the wall stuff, while pretending to be a news station.

I came across them on youtube when I saw a video titled “Dying child bankrupts make a wish foundation”, and I watched the video, completely oblivious to the fact that this wasn’t a real event. I showed my mother, grandmother, father, and anyone who would listen until I went to show my friends a few days later. He said “Thats from the onion news network larry”… OoOoOoOoOoOoOh, needless to say I felt a little ditsy haha. Well anyways, here is the video, and you can see why I got pretty upset about it!

CHILD BANKRUPTS MAKE A WISH FOUNDATION

So this is the weird looking DSLR everyone is talking about. It’s called the nova, designed by Erin Fong, and to say the least its a bit outrageous. Although its a concept we were kind of hoping to hear of some specs that might be possible with the design. As ridiculous as it looks though, it could come in handy in awkward positions. So what do you think about the design? Do you think it could actually be the future of DSLR cameras? Comment below

Make sure to follow me! iLarry on twitter

Third place: Seesmic desktop

Most avid twitter users have actually heard of seesmic before, and since they started “video tweeting” thats all most think of when they hear the name. However their seesmic desktop application is extremely light, quick, and not video based as some would think. The only problem that I could really notice with it is it takes up alot of system memory. It was using twice as much memory as skype (their bad enough as it is). So for that reason it makes third place, so its a good choice among the hundreds of desktop apps, but not number 1.

Second place: Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is a desktop client that I’ve actually been using for a while now, and I found that it gets better and better with every new software release. It’s a single column app, or you can chose multiple columns, and customize them to show whatever you want! The thing I most like about tweetdeck though, is the notifications (when minimized) don’t interrupt anything you were doing, but you still notice them. Also, this app is not nearly as heavily weighted as seesmic desktop. However facebook and other social networking sites are very neatly integrated. So for that it comes in second.

First place: Destroy Twitter

The name might be a little intense… However destroy twitter is simple, but feature packed! Its not sophisticated (one account at a time) but its lightweight, fast, very customizable, and allows for everything you could possibly want to do with twitter. updates come through almost immediately whereas the other applications brought them in at certain set time intervals.

So from what is out there now, these were my top 3 twitter desktop application choices. Which one is best for me though may not be best for you. If you are a power user (more than one username on twitter) then I would certainly recommend Tweetdeck over Destroy twitter for that obvious reason. Plus, there are probably quite a few new twitter apps in the making, so who knows… Maybe they will be game changers?

The site I got it from kind of dogs on it for having some sugar… Big whoop, its delicious, the holidays are the time to indulge (I doubt anyone is wearing a bikini soon) lol. But here is the link so I don’t get in trouble for using their picture: pumpkin spice haterz