Monday,
September 29th, 2003
2:08 a.m.
I decided how I want to run comments on this site. I'm
going to do like Kim
du Toit (this is my night for sucking up, I guess)
and have people email their comments to me, and then I'll post them all
at once, with brief reminders of what is being commented on. I
think it'll work well; I have a hotmail acount set up and everything,
so I should be ready for whatever comes.
[Disclaimer: I reserve the right to have the
final decision on which comments I post, and which I do not. I
may decide not to publish a comment for any reason without having to
explain myself, although that probably won't be necessary unless I get
flamed or there are simply too many comments to post all at once.
If it's the latter, I'll probably just wait a couple days and then post
the rest. Thank you, and good night.]
1:53 a.m.
Okay, so technically it's Tuesday, but I don't care. I
haven't gone to bed yet, so to me it's still Monday.
Kim du Toit, in the
course of this
post,
accomplished something
amazing. He summed up, in one sentence, something that I have
been
trying to say for years, but that always managed to come out wrong and
make me sound insensitive. All he did was reply to another
blogger's
accusations, and in the process, he came up with this little gem of a
point: "That means I don't care what you do in your bedroom, and it
also means you don't get any special
favors from me because of it." [Emphasis my own--Ed.]
Wow.
He just said, in less than thirty words, what
would have taken me
a Whittle-esque
essay to say on my own. To put it in my own
words: I
really don't care what your sexuality/ethnicity/gender/personal belief
system happens to be, and I'm not about to favor you or cut you slack
because of it. If your (fill in the blank) intrudes on my life,
liberty, or pursuit of happiness, or any of my freedoms as outlined in
the Constitution and its amendments, then I will have something to say
about it. But if I'm not intruding on your rights, and you're not
intruding on mine, then whatever you are really makes no difference to
me. Now, of course, with certain issues (such as homosexuality)
we may
have serious disagreement due to my deeply-held religious beliefs, but
I can't change anybody's mind for them, so I'll agree to
disagree.
Whether you go along with that is up to you. But I am not going
to
pussyfoot my way around my own blogspace to ensure that I don't offend
anyone. My Blessed Mother once said that "being a Christian means
offending people," and ever since she told me that, I have felt
remarkably free to say whatever I feel needs to be said. If
someone
doesn't like it, well, they can either email me (the link is at the top
of the page) or they can find their own forum and air their own
views.
10:21 a.m.
Okay, so my roommate's
not quite the princess I made her out to
be last week.
She's worse.
She had a good weekend, and she seems to have
either forgotten or supressed the phone unpleasantness (her (new)
boyfriend bought her a new phone, which may have something to do with
it), so she's decided to be nice to me. And by nice, I mean
civil. She's not a bad person, really--she's got a lot of issues,
and emotionally she's stuck at about ten years old, which makes me feel
like I'm rooming with one of my younger cousins, but she's a sweet girl
at heart. She's just been spoiled all her life, and it's going to
take time for that to work its way out of her system. Somehow,
the lack of deliberate, malicious hell-raising on her part kind of
takes the wind out of my sails, although if she decides to get, as my
sisters and I say, 'itchy' with me, I can out-itch her any day of the
week. *cracks knuckles and grins wickedly* Naturally, I'd
prefer not to get itchy at all, but if it needs be done, then so be
it.
Something that nags at me, though, is the fact
that even though she has her own phone now, it's plugged into the same
jack as my phone (she got a splitter), so I still may have to lay down
the law when it comes to the length of her conversations. I am
not about to miss another call just because she wants to blab for hours
with her old school buddies.
I decided not to call her Veruca. It's
just a little bit too harsh.
Friday, September 26th, 2003
1:33 p.m.
First things first: my roommate is a dysfuntional baby princess
who can't stand that I'm more confident than she is, and got all bent
out of shape when I asked her to stop using my phone so much, even
though it was her blabbing ON MY PHONE that made me miss a happy
birthday call from my loving family. She has a cell phone, but
nooooo, she doesn't want to use up the minutes. She said, "If you
don't want me using your phone" which is not what I said--I said I
wanted her to switch to her cell phone if her conversation went longer
than twenty minutes "then maybe you shouldn't use my tv so much."
Or something to that effect. There's a big difference between
using a tv, where if she would just work up the balls to ask, I would
gladly change the channel or hand over the remote, and using my phone
when she has a cell phone and I do not. Stupid baby
princess. I might start calling her 'Veruca.' In fact, I
think I will (at least on this web site). Ha ha ha!
Veruca.
Okay, I'm glad I got that off my chest.
I might Next item on the agenda: Ann Coulter's latest column, "It's the
Winter Solstice, Charlie Brown!" In it she discusses David
Limbaugh's latest book, "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War
Against Christianity," which she describes as a "copiously researched
book" that "documents how the courts, the universities, the media,
Hollywood and government institutions react to any mention of
Christianity like Superman recoiling from kryptonite, Dracula from
sunlight, or Madonna from soap and water."
I like that last analogy.
Anyway, Ms. Coulter gives examples from
Limbaugh's book, such as that of Kayla Broadus, a kindergarten student
in New York state. She recited a cute little prayer with two
other students before snack time, and was sent to the principal's
office and severely chastised. The principal of the school even
sent a letter to her parents. Then, as Ann puts it, "The school
board then issued a triumphant press release crowing about its victory
over a kindergartener praying before snack time. . . . . Hearing the
G-word [God] in kindergarten might interfere with the school's effort
to teach proper sexual techniques in the first grade."
Yeesh.
And that's just one example. There are
several more that Coulter references, each more chilling and outrageous
than the last. Something I noticed, though: with the exception of
an incident in St. Louis (which doesn't really count because it's a big
city), none of the examples given are set in the Midwest. The
optimist in me would like to think that this is an indication that
there is still a part of our great nation that has not plunged
completely off the deep end.
Unfortunately, the realist in me knows that
this area is not far behind.
Wednesday, September 24th, 2003
11:06 p.m.
Today is my birthday! Yay! I have officially been
alive on this earth for two entire decades.
Wow.
That's a big thing, for me. It means two
things: one, I'm not a teenager anymore, so there goes another excuse
out the window. Two: there's a lot of stuff that happened between
1983 and today. I only remember about half of it, because for the
first fifteen years, I didn't care. Heh heh heh.
I need to figure out a way to have comments on
my site. I think I'll do like the inimitable Kim du Toit and have
people email me, and then post the emails all at once at a later
date. I'll be sure to give him credit when I rip off his
idea. Ah heh heh. Please don't kill me.
Maybe I should ask first.
Monday, September 22nd, 2003
4:41 p.m.
The first installment of "The Adventures of Steve and Julie,
Intrepid Explorers" is up here.
Go forth, ye masses, and read of it.
Friday, September 19th, 2003
9:36 a.m.
Avast, mateys! It be International Talk Like A Pirate
Day. Yaharr.
I probably won't post much today, because I
have a lot of stuff to do and a lot of errands to run before I can
relax and enjoy my weekend. My roommate's leaving at one o'clock
today because she's in a wedding tomorrow and they're having her help
decorate the church this afternoon, so I get the room to myself for
two-and-a-half days (which is nice). It also means I'll be alone
for two-and-a-half days (which is not so nice, but still a welcome
relief).
Someone wrote the word 'poop' on a piece of
paper and stuck it to my door last night. What is this world coming to.
Wednesday, September 17th, 2003
7:21 p.m.
Those of you who read IMAO will
remember this
story from his Links of the Day
Monday. It's about a man named Rick Rescorla, who served in
Cyprus, Rhodesia and Vietnam, and later was head of Security for Morgan
Stanley Dean Witter. He worked in the south tower of the World
Trade Center on the fourty-fourth floor, and saved hundreds of lives
when it was bombed the first time in 1993. Then, in 2001, after
helping to evacuate the tower for the second time, he was killed when
it collapsed.
On Atomfilms,
a web site devoted to showcasing short films of all kinds [some are not
appropriate for children--ed.], there is a film called "Voice of the
Prophet." It is footage of an interview with Rescorla, filmed in
his office in the south tower, and the predictions he makes are truly
stunning. For a little more than the first half of the
eight-minute segment, he speaks of his combat experience, but it is the
last three-and-a-half to four minutes that make the video truly
extrodinary. He speaks of the war of the future, of the war on
terrorism, and the new ways in which this war will have to be
fought.
The footage is from 1998.
The interview can be found here.
It can be played in either Windows Media or RealPlayer, and at a
variety of speeds.
Read Rick Rescorla's story, and then watch the
video. You will be astounded, amazed, perhaps even disturbed, but
you will not come away untouched.
5:59 p.m.
Aw, [unintelligible]. We're getting closer to the mark,
according to Wired Magazine:
Radio
Tag Debut Set for This Week. [Link via: Drudge Report]
4:56 p.m.
I feel like such a fool.
Today is Wednesday, and as such, I have
a philosophy class at eight o'clock. I got up at seven, went to
my class, and when I got back I took a nice long nap because I didn't
get much sleep last night.
Unfortunately, I slept right through my twelve o'clock English
class.
Then, because I entered REM while napping
(which always throws off my sense of what day of the week it is), I
kept thinking it was Thursday, and missed my three o'clock journalism
class.
Oh yeah. I'm on a roll. At least I
didn't have any homework due in either class, and I got caught up
a little on my sleep, but now my inner clock keeps screaming that it's
Thursday, and that tomorrow is Friday, and that the weekend is one day
closer than it really is, which means that Friday will feel like an
extra day of class, which means that subliminally I'll be depressed
until my classes are over that day.
I dunno. The whole situation reminds me
of a 'Mutts' comic strip I saw once, with Earl and Mooch (the cutest
dog and cat in all of cartoondom) laying under a tree, and one of them
(I forget which) just says "I keep thinking it's Tuesday." That
about sums up my life at this particular moment in time. Too bad
I'm not a cat (or a dog). I actually have responsibilities.
Argh argh argh.
7:23 a.m.
My roommate has been giving me the silent treatment since
Monday night because I made a social error over a football game.
I'm going to be twenty in a week, and I feel like I'm back in sixth
grade. She just turned eighteen this summer (they stuck me with a
freshman), but that's no excuse.
My mom said in an email that she's behaving
this way because it's how she was raised--if she thinks she's been
wronged, she's going to 'punish' the person by pouting for a few
days. Apparently, she's following the same pattern as one of my
mom's old college roommates: get miffed, stay miffed for three to five
days, then get over it and pretend everything's normal until the next
miffing opportunity. The best way to react (according to my mom)
is to refuse to be punished, to just go on with my life not really
caring that she's not speaking to me. This tends to be my natural
course of action in these situations anyway, so it's not hard to pull
off. She just better not mess with any of my stuff.
Monday, September 15th, 2003
1:18 p.m.
The inimitable Mark Steyn does it again with his
latest piece of common-sensical brilliance: Don't
wait for government protection. [Hat tip: LGF]
9:19 a.m.
I'm supposed to be doing my English homework right now, but I
was inspired to blog today so I thought I should go ahead. It's
not like I don't have time later to do my homework; the word of the
Lord doesn't wait.
I have always been plagued with fear.
Fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, fear of responsibility, fear of
failure (or of success), even fear of the dark. These fears
paralyzed me spiritually for years, as I let myself be held back from
succeeding in my spiritual growth, in school and other aspects of my
life. I even let myself be kept from walking through my own home
at night. Things would lurk around corners and nip at my heels,
and I would tremble and shake as I made the long walk to the
bathroom. Fear of the dark was my most obvious and easily
pinpointed fear. I knew, deep down, that I didn't have to be
afraid, that I had been claimed by God as His child and that He did not
give me a spirit of fear, but that knowledge didn't seem to make much
difference. I would lay in bed and shake, and pray to God to make
the fear go away, to make the things sitting there in the darkness go
away, but the fear that paralyzed my core being remained.
Then one day I realized, with a healthy
wake-up call from Livingstone (who I truly believe was a mouthpiece of
God at that moment), that I had to walk through the fear in order to get
past it. The only way to get past a gaunlet of any kind is to run
through it, instead of just standing there pathetically and wishing it
would go away. I began turning my face to the wall at night,
exposing my back to the room (something I had always been very
reluctant to do). I began walking through to the bathroom with a
"You can't mess with me, pal" sort of attitude. I had already
pretty well conquered most (if not all) of my fears by then (whether or
not I realized it at the time), but fear of the dark was still a
problem. Yet I found that the more I stood up to it, the more
quickly it receded, and it was always weaker the next time it came
around.
Now, after only a little more than a month, I
feel almost no fear of the dark. Anything that does show up to
try itself against me finds itself brushed aside as pathetic and sad
and not worth my time. I mean hey, I'm higher on the food chain
than they are, anyway. I'm a child of God; they're just a bunch
of pretentious upstarts who get their jollies by paralyzing people like
me. Well, they're not going to paralyze me any more.
12:29 a.m.
I'm not sure if this counts as Sunday's post or not. I
tend to count the day as over when I go to sleep, instead of the more
traditional midnight reckoning, so I guess for me it's still
Sunday. Of course, it's my blog, so I don't really give two figs
for what somebody else thinks.
I talked to Livingstone today in a free public
chat room (as is our wont when I am away at school). Livingstone
is the second-oldest of the three of us, and probably the most
sensible. Don't get me wrong, Nigel (she's the youngest) and I
have our moments of lucidity, but Livingstone undoubtedly outshines us
both on a regular basis, with one exception: she seems to have
unusually bad taste in men. Her first relationship ended after
more than a year with the boy getting depressed over a bunch of stuff
and then breaking up with her, supposedly to spare her more pain.
He then spiraled into a deeper funk, and has only just this past year
started to come out of it. This guy had (and still has) some
serious issues. The next guy charmed her in a matter of weeks,
until the day before the prom when he fed her a line about why he
wasn't able to go to the prom, but he would still buy her ticket.
Too bad for him, his mom called our mom that same morning and gave her
the real story, along with the fact that she was the one buying the ticket,
not him. He turned out to be a slick, smooth-talking
beast-turd. Luckily, Livingstone just went stag to the prom,
danced with everyone and had a great time. She has a remarkable
ability to bounce back, and once she found out he had lied, she
completely cut him off.
And now the guy she's been trying to cultivate
a healthy relationship with has turned out to be nothing but a spoiled
rich boy. She seems to be all right, if more than a bit
frustrated. We all had great hopes for him: his emails were
always nice, and in his last one he led her to believe that he was
going to ask her out at her birthday party Saturday night. At the
party, he chickened out, our mom didn't like him and our dad thought he
had a weak handshake. Evidently he was leading her on because he
liked having a babe pay attention to him. While I doubt his
actions were malicious, he's still a reprehensible coward.
Nigel herself has been having some troubles,
too. A guy that we affectionately call 'Duck-butt' because of how
he gels his hair was making eyes at her, and finally asked her
out. He then ignored her for a week, and finally told her that he
didn't like her in quite the way he thought he did, and dumped
her. She was pretty bumbed until Livingstone's party, when all of
Livingstone's big strong guy friends started discussing what would be
the best way to murder the little twerp and make it look like an
accident. [Note: on this blog, all references to doing violence
are, unless otherwise specified, completely without threat to any and
all persons involved. Everyone in my family is a law-abiding
citizen. Heck, my uncle is a cop.] Needless to say, this
made her feel quite a bit better. Livingstone and I discussed the
situation in the chat today, and my thought was that she should get all
their friends to call him 'Weenerboy' for the rest of the year.
I feel sorry for the guy, though: both my
sisters are highly respected members of their high school marching
band. Livingstone is co-section leader of the trumpet, and Nigel
just got moved up from bass drum to snare (and apparently, she's
absolutely kicking butt. More on that at a later date).
Now, as anyone who has ever been in a marching band knows, it's a sort
of brotherhood; a family, if you will.
Families look out for their own.
Both the Spoiled Rich Boy and Weenerboy are
members of the band, too. SRB plays trombone, so he's probably
fairly safe, but Weenerboy plays trumpet. This means that not
only is he under the authority of the big sister of the girl he
wronged, but the drumline (which looks on Nigel as both a baby sister
and a goddess) is positioned right behind the trumpet line during
practice. I keep getting a picture in my head of twenty
drumsticks suddenly smacking him in the back of the head, and the
drumline saying as one "Oops! Soooorrrrrrrrrrry." Like I
said, I feel sorry for the guy.
Me, I've sworn off guys for a while. If
someone comes along and God says "Go ahead," then I'll go with
it. But somehow I doubt that'll happen any time soon.
Saturday, September 13th, 2003
2:01 p.m.
I had planned to start sharing my witty
and insightful views with the world today, but unfortunately, I'm too
busy trying to remember the license plate of the truck that ran me over
yesterday. I've got the mother of all head colds, and just
answering yes/no questions is a struggle.
I got sick twice last year, once with an ear
infection (I get naaaasty ear infections--something to do with the
shape of my ear canal) and once with the flu. Luckily, I got the
flu the day before Christmas break started, so I just had to make it
through one last final and then I could go home. I wasn't so
lucky with the ear infection, but at least I had medicine for it that
cleared it right up. That's my main beef with the common cold: there's nothing I can do to make it go
faster. There's stuff I can take to make myself feel
better for a little while, sure, but over-the-counter medications have,
shall we say, interesting
effects on me, and I can't always gauge just how I'll react to
them. About the only thing I can do at this point is to chug
green tea with lots of honey in it, and drink orange juice, and eat
soup, and try not to spread my germs around.
For me, the worst part about being sick at
college is that Mom's not here to take care of me. She sounded
very concerned in her emails, and she's going to call me this
afternoon, but it's just not the same as being home, camped out on the
couch, with Mom bringing me tea and stroking my forehead, and saying,
"Oh, you poor thing," in that special tone that mothers reserve for
sick children. I guess I'll have to make do with the dining
service ladies clucking their tongues and telling me to go to bed when
I come through the line with my tray, looking pitiful.
I think I'll just stay in bed today and watch
tv. I've got cable. I'll survive.