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".

Alexander

Sue and I went and saw Alexander this weekend. I did not think it was possible to make a movie about one of the greatest military minds of this or any time boring, but Oliver Stone did a fine job doing just that.

My biggest beef with the movie is that it skips so many interesting things about his life. There are only two battle scenes: one in the very beginning and one at the very end of the movie. In between, the movie drags horribly. I saw Collin Farrel on Ellen yesterday saying the every scene in the movie is very emotional, and that is true. So much so that by the end you are thinking of Alexander not as the brilliant soldier that he was, but as a whinny, crying, little bitch.

The movie tries to paint Alexander's very bloody campaigns as little more than a side note through much of the movie. Instead, it portrays a message of politically correct tolerance for all in a time when such a concept was utterly foreign. It feels awkward and does not work in a lot of ways.

Other points:

• Yet another movie where armor of any sort serves no useful purpose.
• Angline Jolie is still a sexy bitch. Although she does spend the majority of this movie acting like the crazy chick the tabloids always make her out to be (no great stretch there).

Best Quotes

Best Quote of the weekend: "I like my turkey like I like my women: Hot, moist, and stuffed!"

Best Ironic Quote from Rush Limbaugh today: "If you turned on the news channels this weekend, you saw an orgy of talk on morality..."

Textbook Disclaimer Stickers

Recently, the Cobb County School district in Georgia required all textbooks with reference to evolution to include the following text:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Check out this link for a few other stickers that should probably be included in textbooks as well:)

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/

Good Article on Alabama

There is an excellent article on Alabama in the Washington Post today:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&e=2&u=/washpost/20041128/ts_washpost/a16443_2004nov27

P.S. I know it has been a long time since my last update (6 days! My god!). I'm sure the 3 steady readers of this blog have been saddened by our current lack of posts. But we have more coming I can assure you.

Fun movies

When Eric was out of town in Phoenix, I rented a few movies the Friday night before he came home. I didn't plan it to be a Macaulay Culkin weekend, but it was. I rented two great movies that he was in recently.

The first one was Saved! This was the little movie with Mandy Moore and Macaulay Culkin. It makes fun of super Christian people and what happens when some of them do things that are "un-Christian" like. It is hilarious and Macaulay Culkin plays the angry brother of Mandy Moore's perfect christian child role. It also has some good messages in it.

The second movie I rented was Party Monster. This one has Macaulay Culkin as the famous club kid Michael Alig and Seth Green as James St. James. Wilmer Valderrama , Dylan McDermott Chloe Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne Marilyn Manson are also in it. The movie is based on the novel that James wrote about their true lives as club kids. This movie definitely makes you think "Don't do too many drugs at once and not everyday". Michael Alig and the other New York City club kids were famous in the 80's and 90's for changing what clubbing was. They would dress up in crazy outfits and make-up and Micheal Alig would hold crazy party's. They also did tons and tons of drugs. They liked to do Special K, crack, and Heroin together. Eventually Michael Alig kills his drug dealer friend Angel over money. Micheal would do tons of drugs and not pay for them and so Angel got pissed off. Another lesson I learned watching this, do not live with your drug dealer ecspecially if you are not going to pay him. This movie rocked! I loved it and watched it many times. It is also based on a true story so it makes it even better! This movie is totally fucked up, but that is what I like. I recommend that everyone watch it.

Some of my favorite quotes:
Micheal: "Well, what do you know. That is a rat-hole, not a crack- hole! The rat is on crack attack!"

Micheal to Angel "We did all of your drugs and we need some more."
Angel:" What?"
Micheal: "We did all of your drugs and we need some more!"

Pulp Fiction In the Southwest

My four days here in Phoneix so far have reminded me of the great opening to Pulp Fiction:

V: "You know the funniest thing about Arizona? It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that we do here. Just there its a little different."

J: "Example?"

V: "Well in Arizona people think 65 degree weather is the sort where you should wear a winter coat, hats, and mittens. And at Arizona State, the girls wear long pants and long sleeve shirts, but they are crop shirts that show their belly. And do you know what they call the biggest waste of water in Phoenix?"

J: "They don't call them yard sprinklers?"

V: "Nah man, they don't have grass in their yards. They wouldn't know what the fuck a yard sprinkler is."

J: "Well what do they call them?"

V: "They call them golf courses..."

J: "Golf courses..."

I love the night life! I love to boogie....

Sue and I are back from a abso-fucking-lutely awesome 4-day weekend with our college pals Paul (who needs a blog so that I could link to it here), Sue (no relation to my Sue except that they both kick some serious ass), and Kien (who does have a blog).

It was remarkably like being in college again. The alcohol on a Thursday night, the slurpees nearly every night (mmmm...), staying up passed 3am just to chat about random crap (or even until 7-8 the next morning), the little competitive streak that sneaks in when playing Mario Tennis for 3 hours, watching South Park into the early hours of the morning, constantly spouting movie line to one other at odd moments, and general good natured ribbing that comes from folks you have know long enough to call family. The best part was that despite the fact that we were together for only a weekend, it never seemed like we were in a huge hurry to jam as many activities as we could. It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

To our hosts, I would like to formally in writing pronounce to the world that you guys rock, I am honored to stand up with you when you get married, and that Sue and I will be there for you guys in anything that you need. Ditto to Kien of course. My old roommate is one of the best guys I have had the privilege to know. Are there any woman that need a good loyal, smart, funny guy? Cause this guy is it! (I think I just crossed the line from compliments to pimping)

I'm sad that we had to return, and I am REALLY sad I had to catch a 6:45 am flight the very next day. Nothing makes aircraft bench testing at 9:00pm at night worse than thinking about the hella good time I could be having with those guys. I'm stuck here until Saturday afternoon, so everyone needs to send Sue a nice IM/e-mail/call/etc. to relieve her boredom:) While your at it, everyone should do the same for me. Perhaps one of those nice, "I'm still alive and this is what I have been doing since the last time I emailed you", emails that get me back in the loop. Yeah, that would be cool.

Older is Better

A while ago I posted a blog stating that there was nothing to look forward to in terms of birthdays after your 21st. Today I remembered that I need to amend that. Now that I am 26, I am now offically too old to be drafted!

Christmas is Coming

So I was sitting around today thinking about the need for more ideas for Christmas for various family members when I had an epiphany. I said to myself, "Self, why don't I just ask the loyal readers of this blog to come up with good books, movies, music, or other random crap that they think I should read/watch/listen to/do whatever is appropriate with random crap?" Then I can leave all the thinking to other people AND get exposed to some material I might otherwise never consider. Self is always coming up with good ideas like that. :)

So there is your challenge readers. The gauntlet has officially been laid at your feet. Leave your worthy comments!

Circle Gets the Square

The front page story of the Huntsville Times today was that people are confused and alarmed about the first "roundabout" in the Huntsville area. Sue told me that it was also one of the top stories on the local news.

I happen to go though it on my way to work. This morning, someone stopped on the middle of the circle TWICE to let some folks into the roundabout. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE!!!! It's a simple concept. YOU GO AROUND THE CIRCLE! You exit at your street! How hard is this? The people not in the roundabout YIELD. Hence that big red sign at the entrance to the roundabout!