No posts for a while

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell folks that Sue and I will not be posting anything while we are here in Michigan (except this post to tell you that their will be no other posts. Paradoxical, I know...). We get back on 1-2-2005. Until then, stay out of the kiddy pool and party like its 1999!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town..." Well, in this case by "Santa Claus" I mean Sue and I and by "town" I mean the good old state of Michigan, but you get the idea. Sue and I are heading out on our fun 10 hour drive to Michigan on Wednesday. Man am I psyched! Can't wait to see all the friend and family that I have been bumming about not seeing lately. Sue pointed out to me yesterday that when we awake on Thursday from our trip hangover, we will only be two days from Christmas (one if you count Christmas Eve, which I would). That makes me happy.

Our time slots available for hanging out with friends are rapidly closing (and lets be serious: EVERYONE want a piece of Sue and I), so if you are interested in scheduling time with Sue and I you better put your request in now. Right now! I'm serious. Stop reading this and send email to Sue right now...I'll wait....done? Well what the fuck is taking so long? Are you computer-challenged? Are you a "special" kid? Did you ride the short bus to school? Did you try to bite your own ear? Can't type under the pressure can you? CAN YOU? Loser.... ;)

Nextel and Sprint

For those not in the business know, Nextel and Sprint merged today. Boring I know, but I have a suggestion for a new name for the company...Sextel! (say it with Jazz Hands for that added bit of excitement). They could replace that Sprint guy in the black trenchcoat with Jenna Jameson in ONLY the black trenchcoat.

Or to please the conservative majority, they could get Bill O'Reilly could be their spokesman! The ad line could be something like, "I'm not only the spokeman for Sextel, but I'm also their number 1 client". Then the commerical would cut to O'Reilly holding the phone to his ear and whispering slowly "...oh baby. Now say that you want to spank me with the Bill of Rights...Yeahhhh...thats a GOOOOOOD federalist!".

Susie is still around...trying to get in the Christmas mood

Hi all, I am still alive and I am surviving through finals. One more Thursday and then I am done until Jan.! I will be partying a lot in between!! I am still finding things to blog about, I just never have time to actually write one. I found a story today that I wanted to write about.

On ABCnews.com I found this story: Christians Aiming to Boost Religion which is about how a bunch of Christian conservatives are trying to force people to put "Christ" back into Christmas by trying to make businesses put up signs that say "Merry Christmas" instead of the considerate and neutral term of "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays".

My first problem with this is that "Christ" was not even born on December 25th! That was a day that Constatine picked to prove a point. Dec. 25th was first "the important Mithraic feast Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (the Birth of the Unconquered Sun). Replacing the pagan feast with Christmas was likely a ploy to make Christianity, the newly official religion of the Roman empire, more palatable to Roman legionnaires, many of whom had been devotees of Mithraism." Constatine decided to put Christmas on Dec. 25th to prove a point that any other belief would not be tolerated. Of course then he went out and killed all of the "pagans" since they did not believe in "his" religion. Should we begin that again too? Shall we revisit the Crusades and have that occur all over again, oh wait, that is basically the Iraq/Afghanistan war...right. We both have different beliefs and have decided to kill others for it.

Second of all, long before "Jesus", the holiday season was celebrated by many. The History channel has a neat summary of the history of Christmas. "Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight." There are many traditions that we do for Christmas that have been around since way before Christianity. Just to mention a few: "In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year. The end of December was a perfect time for celebration in most areas of Europe. At that time of year, most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter. For many, it was the only time of year when they had a supply of fresh meat. In addition, most wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready for drinking. In Germany, people honored the pagan god Oden during the mid-winter holiday. Germans were terrified of Oden, as they believed he made nocturnal flights through the sky to observe his people, and then decide who would prosper or perish. Because of his presence, many people chose to stay inside."

The history of Santa is great too and yet on one bible website I visited to try to find some info. some guy was ranting on about how horrible it is for kids to believe and follow the Santa tradion. "The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick." He became known as the protector of Children and sailors. Why is this bad? If anything, it is a good story to tell Children. It is also a great way for children to fuel there imagination which is important for their development. What is wrong with believing in Santa, a symbol of peace, love and Unity?

The Christmas tree has been around for many years, way before Christianity. It also has a good story behind it and you can read it at The History Channel's web site. Ancient people would decorate there homes in boughs or with a tree to remind them that even though it is winter and cold, the trees still grow and soon it will be spring time again.

Warning: rant up ahead... This quote just made me sad: "There is a revival taking place in our nation that is causing Christian and right-minded people to say, `Wait a minute. We've gone too far,'" says the Rev. Patrick Wooden Sr., pastor of the Raleigh church. "We're not going to allow the country to continue this downward spiral to the left." Wait now, Bush only won the election by one state by a couple hundred thousand votes and many Democrats are Christian too. The "right-winged nut jobs" have not won anything first of all. Secondly, since when is being considerate to other's beliefs and wanting to wish everyone well during this time of the season bad? I don't get why the Christian conservatives think that since Bush won that all of a sudden they have the right to throw Chrisianity into everything. This is still America!!! Freedom to believe in what you want!? This country is composed of people from all over the world and from all kinds of faiths, beliefs, and backgrounds! The damn country was founded by people escaping religious persecution, but now all of a sudden they think that they can start it again! Why? Should we start hanging non-christians again because we think that they are witches? I don't get it? If these people want to be so accurate then they should not put up a tree, have no Santa, no presents, and they should be celebrating another day.

Just replace the word Grinch and you get: How the Christian conservative right stole Christmas...

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all enjoy and celebrate what YOU want to celebrate.

I can only hope that the celebration of peace, love, unity, and respect spreads on.

More Proof that Bush Folks Can Do No Wrong

I read on CNN today that George Tenet (you remember him. He was director of the CIA; told Bush that the intel about Iraq having WMDs was a "slam dunk") was getting the Medal of Freedom. That's "the nation's highest civilian honor". Bush said he played "pivotal roles in great events." Are you fucking kidding me? HE GOT THE INTEL WRONG AND GETS A FUCKING MEDAL!!! I need to start being more incompetent so I can get some government recognition and perhaps some of those sexy intelligence agents that all those security education videos at work tell me are out to steal secrets in return for sex.

The Heroin State

We all know New Jersey is the Garden State (thanks to the movie of the same name and the fact that the name is routinely mocked due to the fact that nothing will in fact grow in New Jersey). But did you know that New Jersey is also the place to go if you want to score that perfect heroin high? The AP reported today that:

"For the second straight year, DEA lab tests of samples bought on the street will show unprecedented levels of heroin purity. In 2002, New Jersey heroin was 71.4 percent pure, nearly twice the national average."

My favorite quote was from a DEA agent interviewed for the article:)

"You can't buy any better heroin in the world than you can buy in New Jersey," said Michael Pasterchick, special agent in charge of the Newark DEA office.

Of course, the article tries to make this out to be a public health issue. Something about addicts, overdoses, blah, blah, blah. I think they have the wrong take entirely. NJ should be living this sort of press up! All press is good press right? I mean, lets face it: NJ does not have a lot of other reasons to visit. They should create some sort of national advertising campaign based on this fact. I'm thinking a live, touring version of Pulp Fiction set in NJ :) With that sort of press, they could almost guarantee the hat trick. Once they have that, the endorsements will come rushing in. That's where the real money is in this scheme:)

Or create the first National Heroin Festival. Oh man that would be sweet! Think how jealous those bitches in Amsterdam would be if NJ were to win the "best heroin in the world" award THREE years in a row!

Quick Side Note: I'm really enjoying the fact that the word "blog" is not in the built in blogger spell checker, but "heroin" is.

<Insert your Deity Here> Bless America

Man, I love this country in a lot of ways. For all the cynical bitching that I do about America, it still has a lot going for it. For example: today I went down to the corner gas station (Wynn and US-72 for those in the area) and got 32 ozs of Pepsi for 32 cents. How can you argue with a country's economic plan when you can buy an ounce of Pepsi for a freaken penny?!?

Pointless links for a Friday

Badgers

Banana Phone

Badgers WITH Banana Phone (What could be better?)

Another CD Review

I'm listening to the new Seether CD I got for my birthday right now. I really like it and have meant to post about for a while now. I really bought it originally just for the song Broken (the one with Amy Lee from Evanescence, another EXCELLECT band), but the rest of the CD is very good if you like good hard, angry rock (which we have previously established as some of my favorite music for those paying attention). However, it is important to note that the song Broken is like NOTHING else on the CD.

On another note, this is my fifth post in four days. Some of them were even good posts worth reading:) Most were not even my usual rants against stupid people or news (well ok, the Alexander one was a bit of a rant). Pretty good if I do say so myself:) See? I told you more was coming, and now I have delivered. I've been writing a bunch lately, so much so that I actually had a few in reserve that I have been doling out over the last few days (for example, I'm not listening to Seether at all right now. HA! You fell for that line like a cheap whore in a back alley).

Alberto Gonzalez

Alberto Gonzalez was nominated for the US Attorney General Post on Nov 10th. I saw these couple of quotes from Bush about him in a CNN article, and I just had to comment:)

"The memo warned Bush administration officials that they could be held accountable for "war crimes" if they did not agree with the conclusion of Justice Department attorneys that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

Translation: We are torturing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

"His sharp intellect and sound judgment have helped shape our policies in the war on terror," Bush said at the time.

hmm...maybe it would be better if you picked someone who DID NOT help shape the current policies on the war on terror. They did not seem to go over to well in a certain Iraq prison that I'll refrain from naming.

"He has an unwavering principle of respect for the law."

That is, unless you mean the Geneva Conventions or the international treaties we have signed against torture. In those cases, his "respect" == "do whatever the fuck I want and lets just see someone try and stop me".