Due to a lack of time and a general burning out of the high quality that has been my effort since the switchover, I apologize and promise quality when I'm in the labs tomorrow...
So yeah... the games I've found online to suck up my time ate a bit of it last night. But here's another good one:
Great Game for Lab Shifts... much better than KOC as far as sucking up a lot of time goes.
Toad: "[Cynic], did you know that closing an umbrella inside damns you eternally to hell? It's part of our new religion... we just made it up."
Ziggy: "Yeah, quick... make a website about it!"
Alright guys... so am I safe from the fires of hell?
Following the odd wedding motif, why not get married in aninflatable church? (note:this is much more in Gecko's style than Ardith's)
This is a bit much, even for a nerd. But then, think about the kind of girl a real nerd would get away with doing that to.
Not that I think she wouldn't kill said guy, but it's hard to say with Ardith. Plus at this point it's pure speculation. And if said guy in the future is ever reading these archives, I would like to point out that I don't endorse this idea and can't be held responsible for any fall-out related to this sort of scheme.
See here why President Bush is amazing at handling the press. At lease he's honest and straightforward in his politics, unlike the jerks at PETA and their little comic book. Oh yes and speaking of animals... in India, Elephants are getting drunk and getting themselves killed... just like their human counterparts.
I love all of these fun links.
So yeah... I am pretty sure that today's chapel message has to be down there with some of my worse chapel experiences. Granted, before we go any further, I will point out that I think the speaker has a good heart and had every good intention in her talk this morning. That said, I didn't think it was worthy of my hearing in a mandatory chapel.
The message itself was on an attitude of worship, and had all of the depths of a puddle... and not the knee-deep variety that you find on LeTourneau sidewalks. While doctrinally sound, there was very little biblical reference save one verse. In fact, there was a reference to the Student Handbook and to the LeTourneau University Catalogue before we even got to the scripture.
The key verse itself was Isaiah 61:3... and actually she started at verse 1 and read about half of that before hopping to verse 3, completely wrenching it out of context and skipping over verse 2.
To go back to the source:
"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor."Isaiah 61:1-3 (emphasis added)
Granted, while I can give the speaker credit for adhering fairly closely to the intended meaning of the text, I will point to the bolded text to note that the Day of the Lord is come in this text and while there is love and restoration for those who have been punished for their sins, there is also a subtle undertone of warning for those who would perpetuate their sin. This undertone is much less subtle when the passage is read in its place in the literary unit of Isaiah 56-66, but the core idea remains that this is a passage of restoration following repentance and God's justice. Let us not read this to be a "Get out of Jail Free."
Other passages were wrenched out of context with even less care for the original message. Psalm 22:3, originally part of a prayer of despair on the part of David, becomes the embodiment of God blessing those who praise him. Even better is Job 38, which the speaker turned into an illustration of God's response to prayer when it should be God's wrathful challenge to Job.
The simple fact of the matter is that while the heart of the message was in the right place, the head was not. As the speaker charged through her scatter-brained diatribe of platitudes with all of the emotionally-laden diction and desperate pleading of the stereotypical Baptist minister at the altar call and with all of the solid basis and clear logic of a celebrity spokesman on an infomercial, I couldn't help but get irritated. These two points especially bothered me:
1) Worship is the act of us exchanging sad feelings for happy feelings
Plain and simple, worship is about God. God might see fit to bless us in living our lives to please him and, in fact, frequently does so. However, this doesn't take away the pure and simple fact that worship is to be focused on God and is all about God and to cheapen it into "The Great Exchange" is very distasteful to me.
2) LeTourneau sets standards to grow us in faith - hail LeTourneau
I'm not going to go into any great detail about this one, except that to note that the claim that LeTourneau policy has the spiritual growth of the students ahead of its other interests should smell funny and seem suspect to any who have attended this University for any length of time.
In the end, while I won't deny that the speaker's message was honest and from the heart, it was also simplistic and cheap. If we are going to have chapel speakers and mandate that students attend chapel and listen respectfully to them, we should also demand better than this... demand that they be worthy of a respectful hearing. Because honestly, I've heard better lessons in elementary Sunday School.
But then again... that will start when these chapels run based on internal politics stop.
"These carrots taste like they added carrot-flavoring. They taste too carroty"
-Anna
"There are women who can write [fantasy] and I'm sure I can think of one if I sit here long enough."
-Wheeler
"I have to take my wife in to the hospital for a tune-up."
-Dr. Baas
Throughout the course of my life, I have known few whom I trust with any details about my life and fewer still to whom I would even acknowledge that I had emotions, much less what they were. From a time early in my education, I was a cynic and deeply mistrusting of any efforts to ascertain who I was and how I thought.
Thus, it is with a clear head and a steady hand that I have allowed those whom I now gladly call 'friend' into my life and have allowed them to see a modicum of who I am. It is frequently difficult to overcome such instinctive fear of betrayal, skepticism of motives, and inability to trust... even in my interaction with my closest friends.
But it's nights like tonight where I come to understand that God didn't make us to live alone, as islands. When I can stand and pray with and for a close friend and truly empathize and feel the pain of another... this is a gift of God. When I can understand that I am His instrument and want to be used by him to heal another, even if it is at personal loss... this is a gift of God.
I feel so unspeakably blessed that God has seen fit to work through my cynicism and bitterness to allow me to by His instrument. That I might be entrusted with friends by God, this is truly an amazing thing.
Take the test here. It's based on the Jung-Meyers-Briggs typological approach to understanding personality.
My type: ENTJ (Extroverted Intuitive Thinking Judging)
As some of you know, my Fridays and Saturdays are frequently spent with my friends and thusly I spend very little time on my computer. Sunday is the day that I return to commune with the 1's and 0's for a while. And thusly, I have a barrage of links and other fun stuff for you to have a look at today. Oh yeah, and in case you were wondering why I was never on IM on Friday and Saturday, now you know.
A Saturday is a good day if you can spend it with your friends. I am truly fortunate that again today, I have spent my day off with some of my best friends and with the woman whom I love.
I guess I set all of this in perspective when I contrast it with this past break where I was 1000 miles away from Anna and at least several hundred miles away from most of my good friends. Sure, I was with my family... but you can only see so much of your family with their busy schedules. It's then that you learn to appreciate the friends that share your daily life.
I was reading through my little notebook that I keep with me that I might record thoughts for later consumption and I figured I might want to get one of them out there:
When I was passing through Palestine, TX on the way back to Anna's family reunion/older brother's wedding, we stopped to get gas and ended up in Bath and Body Works such that Anna could buy some stuff. Granted, the place creeps me out a bit, but it is amusing to go there, as it seems to be a certain appeal in observing "how the other half lives" so to speak... but I digress.
So we went inside and the first thing that I observed was this giant sign on a display in the center room which read: "Shop Now! Buy More! Be Happier!" Right then and there I lost it. I started laughing and couldn't stop. Men, bear this in mind when you go shopping with a girlfriend, women don't appreciate it when you poke fun at their gender-specific idiosyncracies... even if the idiosyncracy has nothing at all to do with her personally and it really is more of a general amusement.
So... I went around the store and smelled the different odors and was generally not amused. Men wear cologne to attract women, but I'm pretty sure women wear this stuff to spite men. After spending that much time in the store, I really started losing contact with the logical center of my brain, deadened as it was from the prolonged contact with the stronghold of "the other half" and I let slip these comments: "Bath and Body Works: It's the Smell of Hell" and "Bath and Body Works is Satan in a Bottle." Yeah, welcome to my life.
Curious about this legal fight between SCO and IBM over Linux that all of your nerd friends keep talking about? Here is an excellent source which explains the fight in relatively unbiased detail.
It's always at the dark watches of the night that I feel like starting these things out. I've been cranking on this for a combined hour or so throughout the day (thank you Wheeler for upping the ante and Anna for following suit.) As with Wheeler's, there is no way I'm going to get all of this into one post, so let's hope it makes sense as a part of a whole...
A proper understanding of my social interactions with others should find its start at the root causations and work its way to the present or, simply put, begin at the beginning. Granted, my memories from extreme early childhood are fragmented and incomplete, but I remember something of a conflicting dichotomy between my internal world and the external reality. Few people realize that I've had a very active imagination for a very long time... as I'm sure many do. Mine's just a bit odd reaching from way back.
At some point in this dichotomy, I began to acheive ridicule for my odd affectations due to my excited imagination. Upon becoming excited, I would do odd things like wiggle my fingers and toes. Granted, most of these behavioral tics were quickly unlearned, but I still caught a lot of grief and teasing from them. Combined with early abuse over my larger-than-average head and I began to realize that I was not like the rest of the world and learned of their cruelty.
There comes a point in every individual's life where he/she realizes uniqueness and a lack of total commonality in thinking. In my own life, I believe this occurence hit fairly early on, relatively speaking. My first real encounter with foreign thought processes was with my brother Geoff learning his letters. Myself, I never remember learning letters and I have it on good authority that this was early knowledge and that I always enjoyed this sort of thing. My middle brother, on the other hand, had them drilled to him the summer before he started kindergarten and believe me, he didn't appreciate his lessons one bit. It was then that I started to suspect that there were people who didn't love learning as much as I did.
During 2nd grade and even more in 3rd grade, the naivete really wore off. While I continued to be (at least in my own mind) friends with everyone, there were conflicts that occasionally arose in a manner that might be construed as serious. I mean, since time immemorial the noble boys had carried out the great Jihad against the feeble and gross girls, but besides that conflicts began to arise between those who felt that they were in some way intellectually superior.
It might be pertinent to point out that a lot of my arrogance dates back to this point in time, when I went to a pathetic excuse for a public school and was one of perhaps 5 kids in my grade who was really ahead of everyone else. And of course, being as that my natural inclination has always been learning and since at this time I was very driven to be the best, I tended to end up getting the top score on just about every test... and our teachers did me the ego assistance of noting the top score. So yes, I can be arrogant... but it has typically come from honestly knowing that I'm the best at something.
It was near this point in time (in 3rd grade or so) that I began to notice some traits in myself that I really didn't like. I had come to like to hear myself talk and I had affected this very sure tone of voice that implied that if someone thought I was wrong, he or she was clearly at error. I also noticed that I tended to get stressed out very easily over stupid little things and since the discipline for the poor behavior of others was frequently meted out upon the entire class, this stress frequently tied up my stomach in knots in an effort to control everything.
So, there you have it... by the ripe and developed age of the end of 3rd grade, I had developed a sort of intellectual arrogance and was very convinced that I was the smartest person of my age and was a better thinker than anyone else (my age) I knew. That, combined with an increasing reluctance to hear myself talk and an appreciation that the world of books was far more informative than my classmates drove me to introspection and isolation.
In hindsight, I had friends in the manner which 3rd-graders perceive friendship and was even fairly well-liked by these associates. Granted, by this time I had developed into quite an anomaly amongst my friends, but most of my hubris was internal and I tried to be an agreeable and helpful enough fellow. I had developed a good friendship with a boy named Tim who went to my church and we got along splendidly.
It was in much this manner I plodded through my 4th-grade year until about fall. I don't remember the day or even the month, but it seems like it was about fall when my father told me we were going to be moving to New York. I remember that we were on Miles road as it zigs and zags through the woods close to my along a creek bed and we were on our way home from Tim's house. And that, friends, is when the Cynic was conceieved, so to speak.
Wheeler and I have been arguing at some length as to the value and purpose of opinions. He has contended that opinion is simply put, the realm of emotions and to introduce logic and reason moves to the realm of fact. I would counter by saying that simply because a statement is logical does not make it factual. The simple truth is that if good reasoning is based on faulty data, it is merely a misinformed opinion. That said, I would also contend that by making opinion merely the realm of emotionalism cheapens the opinions of those whose statements cannot necessarily be construed as factual, but who make good points and back said statements up with logical sense. For instance, there are those who feel as though the War in Iraq is justified or not justified and give reasons and logical conclusions to that end. Now, there is logic and reason present in arguments for both sides, yet these opinions cannot all be factual or else there would be paradox and defying reality. These opinions might be based upon facts and might be coloured by perspective and/or other factors that cannot be logically accounted for, but the simple fact remains that these opinions are not merely the whims of emotionalism that Wheeler seems intent to relegate them to.
As far as discussions on emotions go, I will continue to contend that emotionalism has no part in the discussion except to muddy the waters. Simply put, you must be able to back up your arguments with logic and reason or you are simply talking in circles. It is one thing to acknowledge emotional factors, but quite another to hail them as the totality of opinions. To say that opinions may have emotional factors is aptly put; to say that they must be without reason cheapens them to whims.
Wilson and Ardith started this monster... I'm just responding to them.
Many friends of mine are known to resist interaction on a purely superficial level in the interest of not having a superficial friendships. I guess I have no qualms about this because those who interact on a superficial level tend to have no illusions about what their interaction represents and are largely willing to exist as acquaintances until such point as some closer interaction would be mutually beneficial.
On that same branch, however, I am a flawed and inferior breed of politician/businessman in that there are people whom I cannot stand. Maybe it's that they display personality flaws that I dispised in myself when I was younger, or maybe it's just that they rub me the wrong way... but there are certain people in whose presence I cannot abide. I will either vanish or, if that is impossible, become very caustic and acerbic in hopes of driving the offending party away. It's typically not a matter of elitism, simply that I can't stand some people.
When it comes right down to it, I would probably surmise that I dislike more people than I am disliked by. Granted, there is a certain stigma that comes with wearing a giant black cloak and another that comes with being openly critical of the LU administration, but all in all I would surmise that I am generally well-accepted by those whom I care for. In the end, the count reads that way mostly because I want it to... and I can probably tolerate that. I keep away those I can't stand and am disliked largely by those with whom I'd rather not associate and if that's elitism, I'm quite pleased to be an elitist.
"My first wish, a bazillion dollars... My second wish, a woman."
-Wilson
During a game of Anti-Monopoly
Anna: "Can I owe you a dollar"
Cynic: "Uh... no."
Upon watching Citizen Kane again, I was struck anew by the sheer brilliance of the piece. While some might complain about a lack of emotion and an inability to empathize with the protagonist (Charles Foster Kane), I would note that this is almost entirely the point. It is a rare point in Kane's life where he manages to make any of his close acquaintances (or even those whom he might fancy to call "friend") empathize with him. The simple fact of the matter is, as that the film shows very convincingly, that Kane is an emotional island.
Now, there will be some who will argue that this is not well-done and that given more emotional portrayal, it could be better done. I would point to a scene at the beginning of the movie where Kane is taken from his parents and the sheer look of hateful obstinance on his face and to several other scenes where Kane has been broken and note the raw emotion present. It isn't that Citizen Kane is an emotionally detached movie, it's simply that most of the emotions are that of despair and depression. Further, Welles does such a good job developing the characters that you have a very hard time sympathizing with them because you know how shallow or how thoroughly corrupt they are in that characterization. In total, I would claim that anyone who claims that the film is inferior or lacking due to that emotional element has missed a lot of the pervasive negative spirit of Kane or simply doesn't like a movie so devoid of happiness. And if you want a second shot at watching it, by all means, come by and borrow my copy.
note: interesting discussion on this movie going on at Wheeler's end of the world...
This article on Edmunds.com. If you are ever in the market for a car, this is a really good read. Actually, this is a really good read for anyone who expects to be interacting with salespeople in the future.
Throughout high school and college, I've had a lot of friends with sales jobs and even had one or two myself. Let me tell you from experience, any salesman who claims to have your best interest at heart is probably lying to you. Almost without exception, salesmen will lie, cheat and swindle you to get their commission and sales numbers up. In case you weren't cynical of salesmen before... the above article ought to help reinforce that notion.
Well, the fire alarm went off about 10 minutes ago. Somebody tossed a smoke bomb through a bathroom window on 1A and it summarily set off the alarms over there. I really would like to get a hand on whoever like that... I'd have a good mind to maim him/her.
Take a look at this. I must admit, it seems rather close to accurate in the minds of a lot of the non-Christian guys that I know. Their anecdotes on "Christian girls" give a whole new meaning to the word...
As much as I generally approve of having Bush in office, as opposed to the alternatives, I really don't like his power-grabbing nonsense. This is just ridiculous. Does Bush mean to tell us that he can all of a sudden use war-time powers to relieve American citizens of their rights at any point in time? Does this scare anyone else?
When you boil it down, the checks and balances present in the US Constitution are to prevent a single individual (especially the Chief Executive) from abusing the system to the detriment of individual citizens and the country as a whole. How can depriving a citizen of rights without a trial be construed as a good thing. I want my Constitutionally-guaranteed rights and I want them NOW!
So I rolled out of bed at 8:30 am and am now contemplating bed. I should go play Star Wars with the crew, but I'm just too tired. Over the course of today, I went to breakfast, chapel, Operating Systems, Computer Theory, Statistics, dinner on MSC-3, Return of the King, Starbucks, back to school, Walmart, and back.
Breakfast was standard faire, and the company on MSC-1 as we awaited the onset of chapel was up to the usual quality. Chapel itself featured an appearance from the "Smell-Good Praise Band," who sang Wilson's favorite praise chorus. Although I must say, other than that I really rather enjoyed their worship time... and "Spring Break Missions Chapel" has never flown like this, making it all good.
In case you were wondering, Baas' quizzes are still evil and his matching is nearly satanic. Operating Systems would have been fun today if I hadn't had to stare down one of those quizzes. As for Computer Theory, I love it... and the class should continue to be a lot of fun. Finite computing is all sorts of special.
Statistics insulted my intelligence, as usual. However, today I also got to make a presentation, so that livened class up a little... at least from my perspective. And Erickstad did bust out with, "Some students are class lubricants, others are class irritants. Personally, I prefer lubricants to irritants."
Pizza was due to LSM whoring out to get students to come up and find out about Spring Break Missions. All I know is that I helped Moore hand out pizza and as a result, I got ahold of a respectable amount myself. It was good fun, and I didn't even have to stay for skits or commit to a mission trip.
Return of the King still rocks... and it still needs an Oscar. And I loved seeing it with Anna. Starbucks coffee is still good and enlivening. Walmart is still therer, and it's raining outside. I'm tired... so you'll have to ask for more details.
It's one of those things where I really start to feel bad that I work and all that I really end up doing is answering a couple of dumb questions, looking officious, checking some Student ID's, and bumming around. On the bright side, I spent the better part of 3 hours converting blog entries and am getting ever-closer to done.
As an aside, things seem to be on the way up, but keep me in your prayers... it promises to be a long semester.
For whatever reason, the semester just doesn't seem to be falling into place. If anything, things just aren't clicking at all. I guess some sleep and study would help... not to mention a clean room. I just need things to start going right. I'll take whatever prayers I can get to that end...
It's been one of those days that I'll be rolling around in my head for a good long while. But in the interests of sleep, I've put the major points of contention down in the notebook of continuing thought and will record the sole thought that escaped the notebook and remains recorded on my hand.
"Responsibility Rests Where Authority Lies"
For the record, this responsibility includes blame for failure.
Oh yeah... and I've managed to get all the way back into August... I'm making headway!
I have this nasty tendancy to give up and accept whatever I can get on little or no effort. It comes back and haunts me all of the time: grades, friends, my relationship with God... it all comes back and reminds me of what a slacker I am. Now I'm at the beginning of a second semester, and I'm praying that I can pull this all together and do things to God's glory, rather than to my expedience.
I guess when it comes down to it, it's always been so much easier to do a little bit of work and just get by than to commit myself to excellence. After all, "good enough" is fine by me. In the end, it's a matter of not being satisfied with the bare minimum and trying to live up to a heavenly standard of perfection.
And while I'm at it, let me pass along a link that was found down a long rabbit trail of people. I present to you the D&D Characterizations of the Democratic Presidential Candidates, as was given to me by Wilson. Fun stuff...
Objectivity is a hoax. Reality is viewed from the perspective of the viewer, and experience taints that perspective. Indeed, in order to have a truly objective perspective, one would either have to have a complete saturation of perspective or an absence of perspective: that is to say, you would either have to know nothing, or know everything.
Take today, today has been a relatively decent day. I got to spend time with my friends, I had free time, I have no deadlines hanging over my head, and my girlfriend is in town with me. Yet there are some down-sides and negative news that make it not the greatest day. The problem is that the last 3 days have been some of the best days I've had in quite some time. Thus, from a comparative angle, today was a pretty down day. (I suspect) From a purely objective perspective, today would be a good day, and definitely par for the course, at worst. Yet because of my skewed perspective, today seemed a bit depressing. Funny how that works out.
So with Ardith's help, it was determined that MT's instructions for importing old Blogger entries suck. It boils down to they want you to get all of the stuff from your old blog into a specific format that doesn't include line break tags but carriage returns. Long story short, you either just copy the text from your page, paste it and import from that, or you have to take your page, run it through a word processor, and search-replace all of the break tags with carriage returns: a huge pain in the ass.
But I've got it done now and I'm in the process of going through and editing the arbitrary carriage returns that ended up in my posts through the process, and once I've got all of that nonsense done, I publish the page. It's a lot of work, but it does beat the hell out of copy-pasting the whole mess. I guess I ought to submit a "feature request" to the Movable Type people to see if they won't at least clarify their documentation or update their import parser.
Sooner or later, I'm going to come up with a cleaner way to end the day and sum everything up in a bloggable format. But until then, I think I'm just going to say that my friends are back, my girlfriend is feeling better, and life is good.
I am now incredibly tired and looking very much forward to sleeping in my own bed, in my nice cold room. Pardon me for a couple of hours whilst I sample its goodness...
I can't seem to get my old blog to import to MT. Thus, what you'll see there right now is really a shambles. I guess I'll go restore order until I can get things to work properly. Meh... maybe later.
So yeah... I went to that wedding/familiy reunion with Anna and had a very good time. I met some fairly bizarre family members, spent lots of time with Anna, and just generally enjoyed myself. Oh yeah, and I took down lots of fun notes on just about everything. It should be fun getting all of this sorted out...
So yeah... Anna's family picked me up yesterday and I drove to Grapeland with them. It is good to have Anna back... very good.
Slept in a cabin with Kirk last night, and this morning Anna, her Dad, and I drove back up through Palestine (to drop off trailer), got breakfast, picked up my luggage, Anna's sister Karin, Karin's husband Ryan, and their son Caedin (sp?). Now, we're dropped off at LU, repacking, and headed back down to Grapeland. See you Sunday...
So here I am at Caleb's, waiting until noon so that I might figure out where the crap my luggage is. If I'd been flying, I would be just now arriving in Longview... funny thing that. I'm listening to Caleb and his brother watch something on TV... and I think it's in Spanish, but it could be in Portuguese for all I know.
Anna's family will be here to pick me up sometime this afternoon, and beyond that I just don't know what's up... I don't know if I'll be able to hunt down a computer to post on for the rest of the week, but I'll try and commandeer my computer to bang out a post on come tomorrow. Beyond that, look to my coming in 3 days.
So I called American up and told them about my situation. And I told them that I wasn't getting up at the crack of dawn this morning just so that I could fly to Longview and get my stuff. And they told me that was fine, but I would have to pick it up at the airport in Longview.
Why can't we just get the airlines to man up when they make a mistake and have them fix it? Look, I understand that the airline industry is in the middle of a financial crisis and that they are liable to take a lot of heat for stuff that is completely outside of their control. That said, there are some things that are the fault of airlines:
For instance, there is no reason that there should be overbooking of flights. This is a multi-million dollar industry, yet you are using antiquated and outdated computer systems, rather than modern databases and softwaree. With the amount of information at your fingertips, you should be able to determine exactly what passenger is where, what flight they're on, and what flights they can and can't make. There is no reason that I should have sat on a tarmac for 10 minutes last night while these imbeciles tried to find an open gate... they should know where their planes are and where their terminals are.
And on the topic of customer service: if my flight is late, and it's your fault, you should be willing to help me out on this. Granted, nobody can account for mother nature 100%, but maintenance issues and delays due to gate-scheduling snafus are definately the fault of the airline. And leaving a person stranded in an airport overnight is not an acceptable solution, you idiots.
Now while we're at the issue of customer service, I shouldn't be able to determine that there will be a delay before you tell me. At least have the courtesy of keeping your passengers informed. Yes, they'll be a bit pissed... but at least they can get about the process of making plans a bit earlier.
Oh yeah... and about boarding planes. Let's make this really easy. Start with the very back row and work forward... not the other way around. That way, the whole line doesn't get held up by the stupid lady in the 5th row who brought a carry-on that has no prayer of following the laws of physics and being crammed in that overhead bin. And pre-board the families and the people in wheelchairs more than 2 minutes before everyone else. Yes, I know it's inconvenient... but they're slow, and they make everything else slower. Not that I resent them for that, I was once the one of those stupid little kids that kept getting in the way... but you need to make accomodations for that. Oh yeah, and the flight attendants need to start carrying muzzles and tranquilizer darts...
Don't even get me started on the people employed by the flight industry and the TSA people... this is enough of a rant for one day.
So yeah... I have really good friends who are very good to me. I'm sorry Charlie, I don't know where you got to or why you weren't answering your phone. But anyways, on to the story:
So, shortly after my discovery of the wonder of the undisturbed computer terminal in the abandoned airline terminal in Dayton, I came to the realization that the flight I was leaving on had been delayed an hour coming out of Dallas. And sure enough, we were about 45 minutes delayed leaving Dayton. Now, this raised a problem because I only had a half an hour layover in Dallas. And to make matters worse, the people at American Airlines are morons... because when we landed, we had to sit on the tarmac for 15 minutes, waiting for a terminal to free up. Nevermind that they'd known when we were getting in for the last 2+ hours... they still couldn't figure out where to put the plane.
So we got off the plane, and "Ooh! Look! That was the last flight to Longview for the day!" So I went and talked to the ticket agent and she booked my flight for 9:30 am tomorrow morning... and told me that they couldn't do me any good (no food, no hotel, no rental car... nothing.) So, I went and despondently started calling people. First, I called Charlie, who was supposed to be picking me up at Longview... and I got his voice-mail, which is him quacking into the phone. So I left Charlie a message and called my dad, who told me to go give them hell and call him back. And finally, I called my beloved girlfriend who told me that she would try and call Charlie.
Newly determined, I went back up to the ticket counter... bent on finding something that the bastards could do to help me out. No dice, and no flights anywhere near Longview either. So I called Anna back and told her what was up, and she told me that she's the smartest and most helpful woman in the whole world... no, actually she told me that she'd called Caleb (who lives in Ft. Worth) and he was going to come pick me up and let me stay at his place... I just came to the conclusion about her being smart and helpful on my own. So, here I am, at Caleb's house in Ft. Worth. Now... Anna's family is driving through tomorrow and is going to pick me up here on their way to Grapeland. There's just the small matter of my luggage...
I Get to See Anna Today!
Oddly enough, there is this nifty computer terminal in this all-but-empty section of the airport that I was exploring. It doesn't let aim express load up, but its security settings were loose enough that I could hijack IE and blog. I was supposed to be flying Dayton->O'hare->DFW->Longview, but apparently the plane that was servicing Dayton->O'hare was having difficulties. So, they put me on a flight from Dayton->DFW that leaves here at 5:30 and makes my life simpler. If this actually works out, the only downside will be spending an extra 3 hours in the airport. But this is arguably my best solo airport layover ever.
I take that back.... I just got AIMExpress working. I'll be on until about 4:45 EST... say hello!
So yeah... the blog is FINALLY up off of blogger. Now I have my work ahead of me in exporting all of my old posts from blogger.
I'm way too lazy to go find a disturbed link. Here's to hoping that this is the last post on the old and nasty blogger system!
Alright, here are two joke threads that I was passed.
Days Until I See Anna: 2
Days Since I Saw Anna: 20
"Why do you need a book on wench management? Why, you ask, is it so hard to get females to do what they're told when they have such an easy time manipulating men? The trick is all in how we understand the world.
You see, men tend to be logical and women tend to be emotional. That said, we men have one very powerful emotion that tends to get us in a lot of trouble and emotionally-saavy women tend to use this to their advantage. Thus, we're trapped by an emotion that we can hardly manage, much less control.
On the other hand, you're a man, just trying to get a wench to do what she's supposed to. Problem being, you're approaching the situation from logic and women have no secret logic receptor that overrides their emotions. In fact, playing to logic tends to confuse the issue and create a whole new set of vague and ambiguous emotions..."
That might be the beginning... or it might not. We'll see.
Disturbed Links of the Day: Tricksy Surveys
Days Until I See Anna: 4
Days Since I Saw Anna: 18
Let's put it this way... we're very close to getting off of blogger!
Eric: "So were you the honorable student who didn't look at the board for the answers?"
Jake: "Why?"
Ardith: "Why am I the odd one out?"
Disturbed Links of the Day:
Where verylazy.com redirects
to
Days Until I See Anna: 3
Days Since I Saw Anna: 19
So yeah, today I started writing again. It's been a long
time since I've written anything of a respectable length that I didn't have to,
and most of that unnecessary writing turned out to be trash. It seems like I can
never get past the catharsis stage to the point where I just have quality ideas
and content to generate. We'll see if this goes any
differently.
Disturbed Links of the Day: TibFib's Homepage
Days Until I See Anna: 5
Days Since I Saw Anna: 17
I've been sitting here, toying with a "Year in Review" post. I'm up to April. Hopefully I can publish it tomorrow.
Disturbed Links of the Day: 2003 Google Zeitgeist
Days Until I See Anna:6
Days Since I Saw Anna:16
Before reading this, I would have you note that this is probably the rough draft and there are some places where it needs help and a lot of linking action. That said, feel free to comment on things that you feel I've left out... and I'll probably toss them in there. In fact, I encourage criticism, nit-picking and error-hunting.
2003: A year in review from the perspective of The Vengeful Cynic
January 2003
This month sees the return of the Cynic and all other good LU students to campus for the Spring Semester.
Cynic skips chapel.
During Missions Emphasis Week, the Cynic runs across a contingent of people from Quad 3... and takes a liking to them.
Cynic and Shem spend a lot of time talking down at Q3.
The Cynic starts blogging.
Cynic and Wilson are enrolled in Historiography together... this is a very bad idea but nobody knows it yet.
The Cynic gets access to the electronic bulletin board associated with Contemporary Political Issues and starts assembling the framework to build a
gallows to hang himself.
The Cynic vents... a lot
C-4 informs the Cynic that the age of consent in OK is 16.
February 2003
Space Shuttle Columbia burns up on re-entry over Texas; Cynic's father calls at 8am to ask questions and continues to call every half hour until phone is taken off the hook at 11am.
Cynic skips more chapel.
Cynic pulls an all-nighter down at Quad 3 with female involved... damned shame I could never get the luck to do that sort of thing with SC people.
C-4 reminds the Cynic about the age of consent in OK.
The infamous "satire" post of the Cynic goes up on the Contemporary Political Issues forum; Cynic is nearly lynched by frenzied wenches.
Frenzied wenches calm down and propose truce. This truce is the beginning of very good friendships.
The term "Happy People" comes into existance and the war against them in its current form begins.
The Cynic gets sick.
Cowboy starts blogging.
Brenton is "asked" to take down his confederate flag.
Ardith starts blogging.
March 2003
Manly Month of March.
Anna starts blogging.
Cynic drops Circuits 2; changes majors from CSE to CS and thus gains modicum of sanity.
C-4 again tells us all about the age of consent in OK.
Cynic skips chapel, yet again.
Spring break comes; Cynic's parents come down to visit and everyone else skips town.
Cynic rides with Jenny, ELH-2 girls up to Paris, TX in order to accompany Jenny back to Longview.
Parents leave town; Cynic spends week having a blast on virtually-vacant floor.
New LU Forum starts up.
Judge is stolen by ELH2 wenches; recovered.
Stitch is stolen by Bandits; held for a week.
April 2003
Cynic discovers Something Positive!
Cynic skips more chapel due to this discovery.
Bandits clean house in LSM Pie Auction to send money to LU summer missions.
Admissions Nazis kick Cynic out of his own table at Saga.
Wilson discovers 10 minute rule printed in Faculty/Staff Handbook.
Cowboy decides he's not coming back to LU.
Cynic (and rest of America) submits taxes.
International SARS outbreak hits national news.
Randy's sister dies in a horrible accident; Randy starts blogging.
Cynic, Gecko, Dunny, Anna decide to stay on campus for the summer... Stan and Caleb stick around for a while.
Spring Semester ends with finals.
Cynic does lots chapel make-ups due to all of that skipping; vows to skip less chapel.
May 2003
Cynic moves to the John Thomas Hall for summer residency; decides it sucks.
Gecko wanders Texas; gets corrective eye surgery.
Fire alarms in John Thomas Hall go off... a lot.
Stan leaves to go home.
Cynic starts going to St. Mike's.
Wilson starts blogging.
Moore starts blogging.
Tom Elliot vists East Texas for Jordan Groody's wedding.
Matrix Reloaded comes out; fails to live up to expectations.
Cynic declares war on NOW.
Gadzooks decides to go to an all-female store with a horrid ad campaign.
Cynic starts working at Physical Plant; discovers a whole new definition of slacking.
Cynic gets sick of school; skips town to see little brother graduate.
Anna starts taking a programming class; Cynic starts helping.
June 2003
Cynic returns to school; realizes how much working for Phys. Plant sucks.
Ardith tries to recruit thugs to mess with Cynic; fails miserably.
Fire alarm in John goes off more.
Cynic, Gecko, Anna start visiting "high places" on campus.
Cynic starts playing on Gaia; flaming morons.
Cynic, Dunny, Gecko move to apartments; get out of shitty dorm with much effort.
Cynic upgrades computer.
Cynic catches knife in the back from Anna and Gecko.
Linear Algebra finishes.
Wilson skips the country.
Cynic helps Anna with more programs.
Cynic, Anna, summer residents go to Texas Rangers game; have much fun.
Anna throws up on Cynic.
July 2003
Dunny's car is broken into.
Cynic gets a tetanus shot; doesn't die.
Cynic takes up Wench Management Consulting.
Cynic picks up a wench of his own.
Cynic goes home for two weeks to placate parents.
Cynic and crew play demolition at Perkins
NFL fines Detroit Lions for not interviewing minority coach in hiring process.
Jenny came to visit Cynic in Ohio; they travel the city, loot and pillage.
August 2003
Julie starts commenting on my blog
Crew nearly gets kicked out of Perkins.
Cynic moves back up to Tyler
Cynic gets hired at IT.
Cynic goes with Anna to Lake City to pick up car.
Stu gets fired from IMPACT.
3rd Annual Texas Bigfoot Conference is held.
Wilson returns to school; leaves; comes back again.
The SC is back at school.
The SC church-visitation squad starts up; visits Pine Crest.
Notorious "Demon Bird Sermon" is preached.
September 2003
Cynic and crew visit "El Cancun" get food poisoning; Wilson skips to go to Marketing dinner.
Infamous Yellow Jacket with no back page is printed.
Only Longview Symphony of the semester occurs.
Moore picks up a wench in a record low amount of time.
Wheeler starts blogging.
Wilson discovers Oral Roberts.
Moore contributes Markov Chain generator to cause; runs Leviticus through it.
October 2003
Cynic discovers repository of poison oak; has hives breakout on hands as a result
Martinez sends out more hillarious bible study emails.
Morgan and parents come into town; go to IHOP with the SC and crew.
Cynic and Anna stop church shopping; stay at Saint Mike's.
The Gallery starts causing trouble in their own right.
Cynic starts taking WMD donations.
Fall break happens; crew sticks in town and watches movies and plays board games.
Cynic drives to and from Dallas twice on the business of getting Toad to/from DFW airport.
Gallagher starts blogging.
Scott starts blogging.
Fall-fest week insanity begins.
November 2003
Fall-fest banquet happens; Cynic, Anna, Moore, Sharon all go.
Matrix: Revolutions shows, lives down to low expectations and exceeds them
My brother Geoff's good friend Jamie dies in horrible accident.
Thanksgiving comes; Cynic and Anna go to Dr. Olson's house
Cynic does next to nothing over Thanksgiving break
Master and Commander comes out and doesn't suck; balance is restored to the Force
December 2003
The Cynic has a birthday; is taken to dinner by the SC crew and has a blast.
Cynic buys new speakers with birthday money; the music lives again!
Hell week and finals week hit LeTourneau; many die.
The first semester ever where the Cynic is neither chapel deficient nor
doing make-ups ends; Cynic is proud.
Anna comes down with mono; goes home to Colorado.
Everyone leaves to go home; Cynic sadly drags himself home to Ohio.
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King hit theaters; Cynic
remembers why movie theaters in Cincinnati are so much better than those in
Longview.
Several days later, Ardith and Anna manage to see RotK near their respective podunk towns.
Christmas happens; people give gifts, are happy.
Cynic is sick.
Wheeler finally sees RotK; rest of SC mocks him.
Terror level is raised to Orange; promises to be a pain in the ass to all
travellers.
Cynic reads... a lot.
Cynic ends the year on the phone with Anna, and is generally pleased with how this year has gone
The Cynic Will Exact Vengeance Upon: Blogger
That's the last post you eat, you stupid blogging system!
Here's to the New Year:
If it works, let us be wise enough to not change it...
and if it doesn't, let us be brave enough to try something different.
Let us keep those friends near who are dear to us,
while at the same time making new ones and drawing old ones closer.
Let us have temperance to moderate ourselves,
and wisdom to know when the time has come to abandon moderation.
Let us have the time to do everything that needs it,
and the insight to put off or drop those things that don't need to be done.
Let us see life in the reality of what it is,
and yet have the courage to hope for what it could be.
Finally, let us live in the Hope of our Saviour and Lord,
by whom, with whom, and in whom is our best and only chance at a meaningful year.