October 30, 2003
Mr. Scott
And I honestly tried to link up Scott last night... but the people at Blogger had other plans. But now, after the delay... we're back.
The Fysche Bowl
Wow... that attempt to cleanse my soul yesterday felt very good. And then I began to return to my nirvana and become one with the cynicism again. It feels really good. And thus...
Disturbed Link of the Day: The Fysche Bowl - Go and "Learn to write the Lingo-go"
October 29, 2003
Warped Links are Back!
You know... I've been bumming around lately and feeling lethargic and just apathetic as though something was missing from my life. And then I remembered that I had been negligent in the disturbing of the masses and thus depriving myself and others of the benefits of my altruism. So here now, I bring the disturbance.
Disturbed Link of the Day: The Temple of Shao'Kehn (translation: Got warped, home-made half-baked religion? ...because we sure do!)
October 27, 2003
Traffic Light Disruptors!
I want one of these. People are already worried about them and there is talk of upgrading systems to lock out some of the cheaper one. Here's an article about the whole situation.
My man beat the charges!
My man beat the charges! I am so happy I could do a jig.
October 26, 2003
A Head-Banging Good Time
S*Palways has these great ideas... like this.
October 25, 2003
I'm faster than you!
Because I'm a speed-reading nut and because I have to one-up others,
I read at 2719 wpm with an accuracy of 91%
October 24, 2003
Stupid People Strike Back!
Every now and again, I get afraid that my cynicism may leave me. After all, with every passing day, I intentionally shelter myself more from the idiotic public and spend more time with intelligent individuals. And this may last for a day or a week or even a month... but then I get out and I remember what the world is really like. And it's this kind of stuff that reminds me that I will always be a cynic and a firm believer that humanity is nothing more than a pile of hopeless morons.
One wonderful excerpt:
"I worked at the front desk of a hotel for about two years. It was at a major ski resort in the Rocky Mountains, destination of stupid tourists. "
Dumb Guest #1: "Can you tell me which of these mountains is the Rocky Mountains?"
Dumb Guest #2 (calling from room): "What time is it?"
Me: "8:30."
Dumb Guest #2 "Is that Colorado time?"
(I actually laughed in the phone, wondering why in the world I would give her the time for another time zone).
Dumb Guest #3 (calling to get room rates): "How much would a room with a queen bed be?"
Me: "$69.95 plus tax"
Dumb Guest #3: "Is that in American dollars?"
ME (well, I didn't actually say this, but i thought it): "No, that's 69.95 in Yen. If you want the conversion into American dollars you'll have to call someone who doesn't think you're an idiot."
Dumb Guest #4 (team captain for a European Men's Ski team): "Someone stole my skis."
Me: "Someone stole your skis? Were they in your room?"
Dumb Guest #4: "No, they were right outside the door."
Me: "You left your skis in the hallway?"
Dumb Guest #4: "No, outside the front door of the hotel. They where there last night, but I went outside this morning and they're gone."
And last but not least:
Dumb Guest #5: "Could you tell me how much the complimentary breakfast costs?"
October 23, 2003
Jack Chick, a la MST3K
Mmmm.... everyone loves Jack Chick tracts. Here's my favorite one... ala MST3K. Here's another good Chick tract (no MST3K, sorry) on rock and roll.
If you're in the market for a t-shirt, this one ought to suit most of my friends.
And here's one of the best prank ideas ever...
October 22, 2003
Fun in Dallas
Well... after trying to find someone to go get Toad in Dallas and failing... I did it myself. Fortunately, I brought good company for the drive and even when I took a wrong turn and got lost, she managed to make things better. Wenches are very handy.
Also, Gallagher has passed the threshold for posts to be included on the links list... not to mention having posted a rather interesting church review of his home church in Sherman, TX. Guess that's one less church I have to visit... and one more little hell-hole town in Texas to stay away from.
Morons are Back in Force!
There are lots of morons who should be shot... and their idiot lawyers with them. Here is a tale of one such set of morons. I feel their pain, but this is ridiculous. How about we not blame the video game makers and instead sue the defective parents?
If you are amused that people are sick and screwed up... check this site out. And for good measure, here's a man who got battered by his wife. Husband abuse!
October 19, 2003
My life's philosophy
Arguably the pivoting point of my entire philosophy and
eschatology and everything that I am, summed up right here.
Two Cows
I usually don't post stuff that is this long, but it's amusing:
Two Cows
DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.
REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?
SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your
government.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have down sized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they
also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don`t know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.
RUSSIAN
CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You don`t milk them because you cannot touch any creature`s private parts.
Then you kill them and claim a US bomb blew them up while they were in the hospital.
IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.
POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who like the brown one best, vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can`t figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best looking
cow.
CALIFORNIAN
You have a cow and a bull.
The bull is depressed.
It has spent its life living a lie.
It goes away for two weeks.
It comes back after a taxpayer-paid sex-change operation.
You now have two cows.
One makes milk; the other doesn`t.
You try to sell the transgender cow.
Its lawyer sues you for discrimination.
You lose in court.
You sell the milk-generating cow to pay the damages.
You now have one rich, transgender, non-milk-producing cow.
You change your business to beef. PETA pickets your farm.
Jesse Jackson makes a speech in your driveway.
Cruz Bustamante calls for higher farm taxes to help "working cows".
Hillary Clinton calls for the nationalization of 1/7 of your farm "for the children".
Gray Davis signs a law giving your farm to Mexico.
The L.A. Times quotes five anonymous cows claiming you groped their teats.
You declare bankruptcy and shut down all operations.
The cow starves to death.
The L.A. Times` analysis shows your business failure is Bush`s fault.
Fall Break Rocks!
Yesterday was a good day... a very good day. In case you ever doubted, I am the king of corruption. Give me money and power and I will corrupt people and organizations to do my bidding so that I get more money and more power. Just ask Wheeler, I am a ruthless monopolist... Carnegie and JP Morgan have nothing on me. I raked everyone else over the coals and bankrupted competitors and monopolists alike to emerge the owner of the world of Anti-Monopoly.
Oh yeah, and I also bore a bit of witness to a fairly mean game of Risk and played a bit of poker... not to mention taking a nice long walk with my favorite girl... yeah it was a good day. The only real downside was that I didn't get to play D&D and in honor of that, here's a nerdy cartoon in that vein.
October 18, 2003
The Break is Upon Us!
Mmmm.... fall break. Now the million-dollar question is what to do over said break. Obviously, I will be wanting to spend copious amounts of time with The Wench, and some of this will also be spent with those who didn't skip town on me (also including some of the Gallery who don't have blogs and the infamous Martinez.)
There is always the question of what to do in said time... but right now that seems a bit too complicated. After being up for 10 minutes, I think I'll just go back to bed for a while. That seems a bit simpler and more straight-forward.
I Made It... to Bed!
Well... I made it to the weekend. The blissful break weekend. And I'm tired and feeling a tad sick. I'll be going to bed now.
Consecutive Software Systems Classes the Cynic has Dismissed : 3
Cynic's Chapel Credit Count: 28
October 15, 2003
One Screwed Fellow!
Wow... this guy hates life. Wouldn't you love it if the media published your name and picture on the internet? Especially in a rabid city like Chicago.
Attendance Policies Suck
And I think to myself, "Guh, why did I come to class today?" and even as I do that I already know the answer, "attendance policy." The miserable thing about undergraduate study in this sort of environment is that going to class is always a crapshoot. Especially in Software Systems, where you never know if attendance will be taken, if group meetings will be called, or if important assignment-critical information will be distributed. Odds are good that none of these will happen, but by the same token, if a student does miss on one of those critical dates, a volatile explosion on the part of Dr. Varnell is all but ensured and you'll either have to mollify him or take it in the shorts on your grade. And yes, today would be the second day in a row that I've dismissed software systems myself.
And while you're at it, check out this wonderful news post.
Consecutive Software Systems Classes the Cynic has Dismissed : 2
Cynic's Chapel Credit Count: 26
October 14, 2003
My Current WMD Cache
Updated 15 Oct 2003 2:00 CST
Thank you all for your kind weapons donations. I am now the owner of 10 WMD's and hope to receive more. Thus far I have been gifted with:
Fear Gas Bomb
Donated by A Dark Shadow
Neutron Bomb
Donated by Mad Scientist
mass to energy conversion bombs
Donated by A Librarian
Sunshine supercannon
Donated by Doug
Sunshine Cannon
Donated by Anna
Bombs. Lots and lots of bombs.
Donated by Ross
nuclear fusion devices
Donated by Jon M. Sharpton
Instant Pun Generator
Donated by heh heh heh...
Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Donated by A Concerned Citizen
Hydrogen Bombs
Donated by Blame Jared
The African children will be very pleased by your generousity.
October 13, 2003
Need WMD's!
*shoulders sag*
...so very, very tired... and I don't have the slightest clue why. Maybe it's just that I keep bottling up mental stress and putting it off to deal with a bit later and when I'm swamped with work on Mondays, it all comes crashing down. Or maybe I should just get a bit more sleep... hard to say.
*smacks self awake
On with the program...
Well, that chapel today was all kinds of special. Memo to people who disagree with chapel speakers: the proper way to voice your displeasure is NOT to stand up in the middle of chapel and say so. Even if the speaker is dead wrong and spouting heresy, you just won't get anywhere like that. However, in that vein, I figured it would be pertinent to share that my Mormon name is Johoshua Chevrollette, in case you were wondering.
I would also like to take this chance to thank Jared for pointing me in the right direction to find the little gem on the right (duplicated below):
Please find it in your heart to donate. The poor starving African children will thank you.
October 12, 2003
Writing During The Semester...
You know, on one hand it is really great to be back at school and be able to grind out all of the good conversation that I missed out on over the summer, but on the other hand, the writing of the combined LU Blogdom has taken a marked turn for the worse since the beginning of the school year. We all write much better when we don't have homework and friends sapping our time and brainpower.
Dante's Inferno!
This is just great.And speaking of that sort of thing....
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Eigth Level of Hell - the Malebolge!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Moderate |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Very Low |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Very High |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Very High |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very High |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very Low |
| Level 7 (Violent) | High |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Extreme |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | High |
October 10, 2003
I Need a Creative Scam!
I was sitting in class today and pondering about live in general and came to the conclusion that it would be really nice to have a car of my own. The problem here being money. I'm not sure as to the solution as of yet, but I'm thinking that with the help of my clever friends and readership we could probably think up something. I know that there has to be a gimmick, or internet stunt of some variety that hasn't been done that we could do to scam some money together.
Really, I don't even really need a car, I just want us to come up with some scheme to scare a lot of money up so we can go down in infamy with such millionares as the creators of:
1) Pogs
2) Pet Rocks
3) Beanie Babies
4) Slap Bracelets
5) Pez Dispensers
6) Troll Dolls
7) Tamagotches
October 09, 2003
The Collective Attention Span...
This kind of came to mind because of what Randy put up...
Did you know that quite a few of the trees and structures on this campus are memorials to someone or another? Over this summer Sam and I were working Phys. Plant and got to clean out the basement of old Student Services... and we found several things that had been tossed off there. I seem to remember Sam even going over and running into Dr. Graff about a memorial plaque for one of the old MIR's here... but ask him about that.
Long story short, this institution has a criminally short attention span. To be fair, it is the nature of educational institutions to forget a lot... as a friend of mine put it, "if something hasn't been relevant in the last 2 years or is done for two years, for all that half the people on campus know that is the way that it's always been, and after 4 years only a handfull of people will remember beyond the common memory." Of course, this shouldn't be true at LU. Unfortunately, it is the habit of this place that we are so busy looking ahead that we hardly have a grasp on where we are, much less where we've been. Again, the typical myopia of a University... but that's not an excuse.
I just think of a really good friend I've lost and how many others this school has seen have their time cut short, and I wonder if anything would be different if we tried a little harder to remember. I wish we were more concerned about their memories than about the newest attempt to put screws in some old man for his money to build a new hunk of concrete on campus...
October 08, 2003
Have Some Patience?
I think I might have finally hit a bit of oil again...
It's one of those things that whenever you get hit with a really great idea, you're never in the right place at the right time to jot it down and remember it for posterity. Fortunately for me, mine (not necessarily great, but an idea nonetheless) happened to rebound again this evening, after blessing me on the way to Digital earlier today. The profound thought is namely this: why should administration be requesting patience and understanding when they so rarely bless us with the same? I know, I know... the golden rule and all of that. But I just figured I'd take the time to point out the hypocrisy in this.
The last Bud chapel (I think last Wednesday) he alluded to the fact that the "summer project" is just now coming to an end and is indeed, still not done. However, he admonished us that we should be glad that this is going on and noted that this delayed termination date is typical of many large projects and that things should be done shortly. Furthering this line of thought, we have the ever-present security dilemma and the cameras which Bud alluded to sometime last year (aside: we really should probably go through and find the actual date he made reference to those and quote him for posterity.) They're still not here, we have no closed-circuit tv and the budget for security seems to be much less than it should be. Cars are broken into regularly and this whole situation is something of an ongoing debacle. Yet Bud admonishes us that we live in an insecure area of the world and that we really are quite safe and ought to count our blessings and be wise. This is all well and good, and I think these are reasonable requests.
The problem comes out when administration turns around and refuses to make any concessions or hold anything back with regards to its own students. My favorite example, and I will hold this until I leave, is the legend of the 37 chapel credits. For those of you who have never benefitted from this story, here we go...
My old RA Aaron ran things on my floor, quite smoothly all freshman year. We even had the occasional room check, nobody did anything really dumb on his watch and largely things went quite well, especially as a guys' floor goes... well over par. Aaron had a fatal weakness, and that was that he never could seem to go to chapel and thusly ran deficient and had to do makeups. It was the same fall and spring semester... Aaron got behind, Aaron did makeups. But alas, during spring semester his memory slipped a cog and rather than do makeups to sum things up to 38, he only got to 37. And so in August, administration comes calling. It would seem that 37 chapel credits is 1 short and that due to this unfortunate circumstance, Aaron would no longer be allowed to be RA. No matter the fact that he had an impeccable service record, the love and respect of the floor, and had really gone to a lot of effort to make chapel credits up and had just fallen one short... this wasn't good enough for LeTourneau Standards.
I'm really at a loss on this one, because on one hand, I don't think I've held up the standard all of the time myself and I'm not one who deserves the right to judge. But on the other hand, you've got to see that something isn't right here and that this is more the rule than the exception: admin demands and does not reciprocate. If you were God, would you want these guys building a "temple" at LU in your name? I sure wouldn't.
October 07, 2003
Got Oil, Need Well!
Have you ever tried to write something and you get part way and you know it's in your head somewhere, but you just can't make it go to words. Or tried to get a picture out on paper and it just won't do what it's supposed to do. The problem is that I'm trying to get it to come out but I can't even figure out what it is.
It's like somewhere in there in my head, there's a big underground oil well or something. And every time I go drilling for it, I miss. Sometimes I miss badly and come up with nothing, and sometimes I miss with a glancing blow and manage to get a couple of barrels. But no matter how many times I go after it, I never manage to get near that oil reserve. Somewhere in there, there's a story, or a program, or a painting, or a revolution, or something. I'm not sure what it is, but I can feel it in there but for the life of me, I can't get at it. Anyone got a muse for sale?
October 06, 2003
Creative Use of Beer
I've been doing some pondering today, but in lieu of any forthcoming great conclusions... have a warped news story. Can't say as I approve of this use of beer, but whatever works.
October 05, 2003
The Church Hunt Ends Here
Well... today I have yet another edition of "Exploring Longview's Church Scene." This week we went to Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church. In the past, the name of this church successfully weirded me out and even in the face of a lot of my good friends going there, I wouldn't go. Then over the summer I went with a lot of the crew that was still in town, at Dunny's prompting I think. This might have been pursuant to going to a wedding there, I can't remember which came first. In any event, I liked it and came to realize that the name wasn't really creepy and in any event, I shouldn't be driven away from a church by the name... especially in light of a really vibrant service and some really good preaching from Father Neil and Jeff Richardson.
Over the summer, Father Neil went on vacation and thus was replaced on a weekly basis by whatever local priest in the parish needed a spot to preach. Sometimes Dr. Watson preached and sometimes Jeff preached, and both were very good. This itinerant preaching varied from really good to really sucky. But the worship was solid and the fellowship good. Thus, after 2 years of on-again, off-again church visitation, I was encouraged to get back to church and thus prompted to do a bit of church shopping in Longview before settling at Saint Mike's... and thus the great exploration began.
Here we are, at the beginning of October and by a series of odd coincidences and interesting timing snafus, we found ourselves at Saint Mike's this morning. I was encouraged and uplifted by the worship, revitalized by the service, and renewed in spirit by the sermon. Neil preached a very good sermon on revival and apparently he's going to be doing a series on this in the next couple of weeks. And I think that this is going to mark an end to the great church hunting extravaganza for at least the immediate time-being. While I'm not 100% satisfied with Saint Mike's, I don't think that it's possible to be 100% satisfied with any earthly church and I really do feel like God is calling me to Saint Mike's. So, I guess that's where I'm going to start showing up every week. Incidentally, I apologize for a lack of any really odd/entertaining tidbits from church this morning... I guess that's the downside of going to a good church.
Morgan and Parents Come to LU
Morgan and her parents came out. And we met them and they met us... and then a lot of us went to IHOP. Nothing really profound except, in the words of Morgan's dad, that blogging is a lot like pergo laminate flooring. For those late adopters, they need to see how things play out before they get in. It was definitely interesting talking to him. Probably moreso than any of the other conversation I had this evening. No offense to everyone else... I was quite pleased to see the turnout, but one of my biggest passions in life is interacting and relating with people and nothing intrigues me more than interacting with someone and trying to find some commonality in which we can relate. Morgan and Julie already have commonality with this ragtag bunch... but I didn't know Jim and he had more or less avoided the LU Blogosphere and thusly I had to do more work in relating to him.
And now comes some puzzling out and around. I've gotten several underhanded comments about my language of late. Nothing overt, nothing condemning, just a little comment here and a little comment there. And it occurred to me that at someone point or another, it had become a crutch. I, the arrogant man of thesaurus, had slipped to using 5 or 6 words to frequently express myself. Not that these words don't have a place in the language within certain context and that their superlative meaning has been lost on me. But I really need to introduce enough variety that each word retains its unique flair and thus when I call someone an ignoramus, a moron, or an idiot, they mean something different than when I refer to someone as a walking experiment on the human condition post-lobotomy or when I call someone a fucking moron, it really takes the cake. That's the inherent problem with humanity right there, familiarity dulls the inherent art of living. If I were to use the same words all the time, even if they were the best words to describe something and perfectly good words, they would eventually lose meaning. That's why we need so much variety and synonymous syntax: so that people continue to appreciate the profundity of what we're saying.
Anyways, all that to say is that I came, I saw and I've returned... and the LU weapons policy is still among the most empty-headed, rash and irrational things that one could have puzzled out to keep students safe. They would be better off wasting their time and resources on putting up armed guards and razor-wire, because there's no way in hell that students are a bigger threat to other students than the social denigrates of South Longview.
October 02, 2003
Martinez: Best Emailer Ever!
This is the best end of an email ever:
(Please make checks payable to Adam Martinez; he is not responsible for lost or bounced checks, death of delivery persons, the common cold, Al Gore, call waiting, IT, Saga, [The Cynic] or anything he says, Rejected Cartoons, expired milk, pipe bombs, homework, anything stupid that the Guatemalan says *dodges hammer*, triple integrals, snipe hunts, exploitation of the working classes, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords, small rodents, killer rabbits, the French, Rigoberta Menchu, the Judge, Communism, rascalism, cronyism, nepotism, any-other-ism, the choreography and "Inspiration" of the white-robed order, "Blocked by LetNet", Miracle Baskets/Seed Faith, "fuzzy studies", happy quotes, references to pi, Moore's insatiable appetite for edible matter, or any offense you may have received from reading this paragraph. He is, however, completely responsible for various and sundry bad puns (and the occasional good one). As for the rest, blame Jared *dodges hammer again*.)
And the man is still resisting starting up a blog of his own. It's utter foolishness I tell you. Blame Jared.
October 01, 2003
My HANDS!
Well... that's annoying. And by "that" I mean my hands are swelling up with some manner of evil and itching like the death.
You see, when I was in high school, I went on this mission trip to West Virginia. And there I shoveled sand out of a yard that had been flooded so that the grass could grow green again. But apparently this was the sand of death or had the nasty West Virginia River Disease on it or something, because it caused my hands to break out in hives. I had to get steroids to make said hives go away, but alas... the foolish wench of a pediatrician to whom I went gave me an incomplete steroid regimen and the hives came back with a vengeance. In the end, she was afraid to put me through another regimen and just gave me hand cream.
Because of this unfortunate series of events, the hives never went fully away... just dormant. And so when I'm really stressed out, I'll get about a dozen itchy little red bumps the size of pinpricks on my hands that annoy me a bit and last a day or so.
But this time, I had a bit of physical stress on my body. You see, I sat on the south end of the berm last week and apparently got a bit of poison ivy/oak or something on my back, but it refused to go away and went nuts. Maybe I'm allergic to poison oak... I don't know. But regardless, after about 3 to 4 days of this, my hands started breaking out. And now, they're close to their original horrific glory. Thus I was brow-beaten to go to the doctor today. But fear not, the doctor was good and gave me steroids to ease the itching and get rid of the bumps. I guess now is as good of a time as any to go start lifting...
Oh... on a side note, new warped link for today: Nude Man Carrot (not pr0n)
Maledicta!
We can all thank Wilson and Wheeler for their generous contributions to todays warped link: Maledicta Links. Maledicta is the self-defined repository of: "International Web Sites Specializing in Insults, Curses, Slang, Swearwords, Blasphemies, Slurs, Obscenities and Vulgarities." Amusing stuff.