Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Paul's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
11:45 am	it's that time again... the time when i rant about sociology. lol. today's quote is "women-owned businesses [earn] on average about 40 percent less than businesses owned by men." and here is why i don't trust statistics. from the context of the quote, it seems like they're trying to imply that there is sexism against women in small businesses. but wait. how many times have you walked into a store, found out the owner was woman, and left? never! two questions go through my mind in a store: 1) do i need/want this? 2) is it affordable/is this the lowest price i can get for this? it's just silly to blame sexism. but then the only other implication is that women suck at running businesses, but i refuse to believe that as well! maybe the kinds of women that do run businesses happen to be bad at it in general. or maybe women tend to choose to start less profitable businesses than men do. like you know how they say "women make 67 cents for every dollar men make"? it's because women tend to pick less profitable careers! it doesn't make them any less or more virtuous than men, it just means they're different. it's not that ALL men do jobs they hate because they're only motivated by money. who's to say that the stock broker making a million dollars a year doesn't love his job, as high-stress as it is? my dad makes a lot and he loves his job! fran doesn't and she hates her job! all i'm saying is that she theoretically could have gotten into computers in college and ended up with a similar job to my dad. but she didn't. because she doesn't like computers. she went into a field she wanted to go into and now she makes as much money as they pay you in that field. it's like. there are more women in college now than men. is that automatically sexism? if it were the other way around, i think feminists would call it sexism. but it's not! guess what it does mean? it means there are more women in college than men. THATS ALL IT MEANS! maybe men don't feel as pressured to go to college, maybe men are tending to careers that don't require a college degree. i dunno dude, but sexism is pretty far down the list in my mind. you can't assume that statistics indicate malicious intent. you need to look at cultural trends. more kids drop out of high school in inner city chicago than in naperville. is that because the system is set up to MAKE the inner-city black kids fail? NO! in the inner-city, people tend to place a pretty low value on education while in naperville, it's basically the most valued resource. lyke omg, white kids can't dance very well. it's because the system sets white kids up for failure at dancing!!!1111!! NO!!!! white kids just tend to not grow up exposed to hip hop and dancing as early and as often as inner-city kids. for example: eminem. he's white, but he's a good rapper. why? because he grew up with hip hop all around him. hip hop was important to him and his culture. it was something he valued from a young age, so he practiced and got good at it. it had nothing to do with race at all. sorry... i just keep giving examples. rant's over. we'll resume our regularly scheduled programming at a later date. EDIT sorry, i found another quote that was just too offensive. to paraphrase (really i'm just cutting out some adjectives), it said that crimes committed by people in the upper and middle classes are motivated by greed and crimes committed by people in the lower class are motivated by feelings of frustration and hopelessness. l m a o. wow, how obvious can you get. they're totally excusing the crimes of the lower class (which, btw tend to be violent more often) because it's not their fault! it's the system that makes them feel frustrated. oh so frustrated that they have to steal and kill. whereas if a moderately wealthy person steals, it's not due to frustration, they're just inherently greedy. yea, that brings up a good point. the rich people steal as a result of a character flaw, while the poor people are committing crimes due to emotions- fleeting moments when they are just overwhelmed by their feelings and do something they normally wouldn't do. freaking sociology... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
9:44 pm	Tonight's topic is idiocy. There's this forum thing i'm on. Someone posted a thing that was basically saying that radical muslims should leave the country. if you hate our culture/God/language/etc. just leave. don't kill us plz. And this dude was like "OMG THIS IS HATEFUL AND DIVISIVE HATESPEECH" Stfu. i'm not even joking. i'm so effing sick of people protecting the terrorists. If you say anything bad about terrorists, these people jump in and go "OMFG YOU MUST HATE ALL MUSLIMS" it's not a difficult concept. stop connecting the terrorists with the peaceful muslims. speaking out against terrorism is not the same as racism. i'm sick of that. Ok, second is pastor ahsh. We were talking about the use of Kristos in the new testament. The word Christ is used interchangeably among christians for the word Messiyah. Messiyah is Hebrew for "anointed one" or "anointed implement of Yah". "christ" comes from "kristos". it literally has to do with the application of herbs to a wound. The thing is that Kristos isn't explicitly used in the earliest copies of the New Testament. they used like KS (the first and last letter of Kristos) with a line over it. Some people say "oh, they were just doing that to save space" but there are some that say it was written like that because "kristos" doesn't fully convey the idea of "messiyah". I was talking to Ahsh about this at one of our earlier meetings and he was like "well, messiah is a word that was commonly used in Hebrew and stuff. so it's like a church word now, one of those words you hear a lot in church, but the ancient hebrews didn't use it just to talk about the Messiah." so i was like ok, that's fair enough. i already knew that though and it didn't conflict with my position at all, so it was kind of a wasted discussion. but then this week, we started talking about the word "church" and how the greek word is "ekklesia" which means "called out assembly." so "church" wasn't even a word for a few hundred years after the NT was written. The book we're reading (that ahsh supports) was claiming that when they used "church" in the gospel they meant all like... the roman catholic church and the protestant church and america and white people and the religious right and all that stuff. i brought that up i was like "when Yahshua said 'This is the rock on which i will build my ekklesia', He wasn't using the word 'church' as we know it, He was using 'ekklesia', which is an assembly of people." omg. ahsh talked for like 5-10 minutes about that and how "ekklesia" is used in the NT and stuff and eventually he came around and was just like "so yea, he did mean 'church' as we know it today." so i'm like "um... but He would have said 'ekklesia' or the hebrew/aramaic word for 'called out assembly' at the time and they didn't have all those NT writings about the church, they just knew that the word 'ekklesia' meant 'a group of people' or 'a called out assembly'." and he's like "oh, matthew was written after the epistles." SO?! did Yahshua come after the epistles??? omg. basically, he's so stuck on the idea that he has to challenge every point i make and he has to defend everything this book says, that he really can't see past that. and he's so caught up in his college education about the bible. it's really more about the various facts than about the Truth, if you know what i mean. he can justify anything by spouting enough facts. like that church/ekklesia thing. he talked about related facts but when you add it all up, he's still wrong. he knows all the facts and the DO NOT support his position, but he thinks that because he knows these facts, he is qualified to say them and also maintain a position that disagrees with them. i guess... and it's painful to watch. if you listen to his sermons, you'll hear that like 90% of what he says lines up with 90% of what i believe and he just rejects the big, controversial stuff, where my beliefs are based on Scripture and his are based on tradition. stuff like celebrating easter and christmas but ignoring passover and the other feasts, or replacing Yahweh's name with "LORD". ok, i'm tired. peaceout. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 29th, 2008
10:32 am	So it is with you, and how you make me new with every season's change. Dude. I miss the seasons. Not even lying. Winter is only cool sometimes, but the changing to and from winter is pretty much amazing. it's almost heartbreaking. i thought of this song today and watched the music video and it reminded me of early spring last year. like... super early spring. like... still snow on the ground. so maybe that's not really spring. but it was getting warmer out. and it reminded me of that. i wonder if the seasons are the same in North Carolina as they are in Chicago. Also, this song is super beautiful and relevant. Maybe i'm gay for liking it, but whatever. http://youtube.com/watch?v=0SqG50ynfdw Current Music: And so it will me, as you are recreating me. Summer Autumn Winter Spring (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
9:16 am	wow, i keep barely dodging the bullet, staying just ahead of the wave of destruction named "homework". or whatever. i wasn't paying attention and then i found out that two accounting things were due on wednesday. i finished them tuesday night. then i found out my Business homework was due today. ...well i'm almost done. but i thought i had till noon today, which is 8AM my time which meant i needed to get it done last night, but at 11:30 last night i found out it was due at midnight tonight (8pm here). so i'm doing that today. then i found out, once again by sheer luck, that i have a criminal justice paper due friday at 8PM. if i had one more assignment due this week or if one of those assignments were due a day early, there's no way i could do it. so lucky. but it's so stressful too. it's my fault. when i started FFXI again i was like "I'll play DOTA during the week and FFXI during the weekend". uh uh. i got white mage up to level 37 yesterday, which means i never have to level it ever again (because 37 is half of 75 rounded down) yay! I also got my goldsmithing skillz up to level 55. very nice. so yesterday i didn't get my work done. i was distracted by a lot of things, but FFXI didn't help any, that's for sure. i gotta get it together today and tomorrow, which means i have to stop updating here. Partly because of Spring break from Mar22-28, my next assignment for Business class isn't due till April. nice. I really need that. The rest of my classes will be tight till just after Spring break. I'll be working through spring break so that i will be ahead of the game and have a more relaxed pace. shalom (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
1:14 pm	today is an awesome day because i'm getting my scooter and i only have like 30 minutes of homework left to do so i can ride my scooter and play FFXI all night. but today also sucks because at work, this old lady started yelling at me to stand on the other side of the street. i thought she was crazy, so i was like "ok, i will!" and then i didn't. well apparently she called the police station and told on me cuz my boss told me that there was a complaint. he told me that i was supposed to be on the other side of the street (whatever, like it even matters) and that there was a complaint about me wearing headphones. so that sucks. i forgot to tell him that i kept the volume low and (usually) turned it off when the kids are around. he wasn't raggin on me though. he was like "yea if there's an accident people are gonna think you weren't paying attention." so i'm sure he doesn't really care, but it's policy. i can't imagine going a whole hour without listening to anything at all, so i'll just take them off completely until all the kids are long gone. so that sucks. -my accounting homework is way easier this semester. -i officially give up on the rock band guitar. it's just awful. -i played the drums on RB today for the first time in over a week. i was rusty. i realize that i'm not coordinated enough to be a real drummer. EDIT---- ok, my accounting homework ended up being impossible and i'm still working on it. heck of tired though. also, my scooter is actually really awesome. my first motor vehicle ever. sweet. (Comment on this)
Monday, February 18th, 2008
8:06 am	This is my body, broken for you So in dealing with finding out who Yahshua really is, i've come to find (so far) that there isn't overwhelming evidence that He is Yahweh. It makes sense based on Old Testament Scripture, but that stuff like "Emmanuel- God with us" could be figurative. Also there's a controversy over His baptism. Why did He bother getting baptized? What was the deal before then? Did Yahweh say "This is my son in whom I am well pleased" (as in a passage in Isaiah) or did He say "This is my son, today I have begotten thee" (as in Psalm 2)??? I think these are references to different things with the begotten thing being a figurative thing. Also, baptism is an outward sign of the inward baptism of the Holy Spirit where we get born again from above. Even if it was "begotten thee" it could be referring to baptism. Still, you can't say that Yahshua is just a man who is just a special worker in Yahweh's eyes, like any other prophet but maybe slightly specialer. John's Gospel (which i have found to be Canon and Scripture... Yahshua's calling out of John makes it pretty clear too) says that Yahshua is the Word of God, which existed "in the beginning" before time and "He was with God and He was God". There are those (especially Jehovah's Witnesses, and i would assume Mormons) who say that it reads "And He was a God". I dont think there is any truth to that, but whatever. Even if it's true, you really can't say that Yahshua is just a normal prophet or whatever if John's Gospel indicates that He was a being which existed before time and "through Him all things were made". i don't think any other prophets were like that... lol. I'm gonna keep looking into it though. Ok, that's my thoughts on that. What i really came here to write about was Communion/Eucharist. It's kind of a silly thing to do. I looked it up to see if it was a pagan ritual that the Church adopted or whatever, but it's not. It's still kind of silly though. Think about the Last Supper. Think about everything you know about it. Did you remember that it was the Passover meal? As Christians, we basically know nothing about Passover, so most people don't think about the fact that this was a special meal. Not only was it something that Yahshua did only once in His life, but it was Passover. You know, the symbol for His death? Yea, that Passover. Is it possible that when He said "As often as you eat this bread [that would be the Passover bread] and drink of this cup [the Passover cup], you proclaim my death", He was talking about how Passover was a symbol for His death? Basically, Christianity rips the Last Supper from it's context. Final Summation: Is Communion in and of itself a bad thing? Not that I know of. It's kind of an empty ritual though. Is it bad to celebrate Communion every week and to never celebrate Passover? Um. Yes. Was Yahshua's command to "take, eat" and "drink" a command to eat bread and drink wine once a week? No... it was to observe the Passover, thereby declaring His death. Why don't Christians observe the Passover? I don't know. Because the Christians before them didnt. And before them. and before them. etc. Pretty lame. I seriously don't get why Christians have taken Scriptural Holy Days, thrown them out the window, and started celebrating pagan holidays as if they were Holy. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 15th, 2008
9:25 am	I'm kinda updating often, but at least it's kinda short right? I'm excited about my mp3 player. it shipped yesterday by two-day air. it could technically get here tomorrow, but probably not. I beat rock band drums on easy. i played "Say it ain't so" on medium and it was still pretty easy. it's one of the beginner's songs though. later i played some of the harder ones and it was harder. basically, the only hard part is that they keep throwing foot pedals at you. since i'm not coordinated at all, i can barely do two things at once (both hands) let alone three. let alone my foot. lol. it's tough, but i'm gonna keep working at it. kyle has gotten used to the RB guitar, but i haven't. i still don't like it. i just don't play it. oh yea. i miss FFXI. I don't know what it is. i just do ok? i'd like to play again, but i think you can't restore your character until there's a "return to vana'diel campaign". Now that i have two computers set up i've been thinking about how i could play them both. mostly have FFXI on my laptop and play solitaire or research stuff while i'm waiting for a party or whatever in FFXI. i know i swore not to do this in hawaii, but it's not like i've been surfing much lately. i think i'm in a different place now (mentally that is...) than i was in high school. it was only a few years ago, but i think the problem then was that i felt like i had to play it ALL the time. i felt entitled to it. now, i think i could handle playing it mostly on fridays and the weekends or days when i finished my homework really quick. i have a lot of games i could play now, but i miss that progress thing. where getting a level up meant a LOT after a certain point. and getting equipment to be the best black mage possible. i keep remembering mining which, while kind of boring, was also exciting when you found a rare ore. and camping notorious monsters for their super-equipment. that was fun. i got some really hard-to-find stuff like the leaping boots and moldavite earring. omg, that earring. it was my pride and joy. boosts your spell damage by like 3-5% or something. it sounds small, but every little bit counts in that. when you add up all your gear it ends up being a lot more dmg overall. if i could contain it, i could play ffxi again. i'm thinking about asking for that (and a beard and mustache trimmer, lol) for my birthday. just asking that they would pay for FFXI until i stopped playing it. I haven't been getting allowance since i starte ffxi, but i also haven't played in over a year. wow. over a year. I just went to the site to see if they had a return to vanadiel thing, but they don't. however, they had a new expansion a while ago and they added two classes: dancer (cool!) and scholar (huh???). actually. i just called them and they said that if it's been less than a year i can rejoin. turns out it was less than a year cuz my characters are still on there. (note: i think it's been more than a year since i played, but the subscription stayed on for a few months till dad's credit card expired. so i'm trying to join now. Sociology Update!: I'm mad at my sociology book again. I'm in the chapter on deviance. Ok. i'm fine if you want to say that white people get off from crime easier than black people and everything. i can shrug that off. but check out this statement: "[W]omen's deviance and crime are a rational response to the gender discrimination that women experience" omg. I mean i get their point, but they could word it in a way that doesn't blatantly justify crime for women. when the book talks about certain methods of studying sociology, like the functionalist model which says that generally society and it's components create social stability, they end up saying opinions as facts. they really jump in between the two without giving much indication which is which. We have to memorize it all for the tests, so practically, for us student, it doesn't matter whether it is fact or opinion, we just absorb it as fact because in effect, it becomes fact for the test. ugh... and i hate to beat a dead horse, but they consistently show one side of the issue: the side that makes people who are white, young, wealthy, and/or male look like bad guys. and i belong to all those categories. they talk about how the death penalty is racist because "ex-slave states" have higher rates of people on death row and there's a higher percentage of black people on death row than there should be. They completely leave out the facts that: 1) Black people commit a higher rate of violent crimes, including murder, than white people. 2) Ex-slave states, aka the south, have higher rates of violent crime, including murder. 3) the south has a higher rate of black people than the north and west. So if you put it all together... it makes sense. There's a higher percentage of black people there, so that means that a higher percentage of convicted criminals are going to be black, there's a higher rate of violent crime there, so a higher percentage of the black population is going to commit a violent crime, and a higher percentage of black people commit violent crimes, so the percentage of black people committing violent crimes is going to be higher yet again. I'm not completely 100% saying that there is absolutely no racism in the justice system, but it's not as bad as they make it out to be. they purposely withheld information too. there isn't really an excuse for a textbook to do that. this type of deception belongs in a michael moore film. also, i'm currently updating the FFXI version i have. i'm officially playing again. i hope it doesn't become boring all of a sudden. and that it doesn't take over my life either. *nervous laugh* (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
8:37 am	Not to swell my head or anything but...... my teacher posted this on the class website thing: " Throughout the term I will post some sections that serve as terrific writing samples, alternating Sci-Fi book/movie sources as I can. Check out the one for today by logging in!" The first one was mine. Nice. heh heh heh. At first i was like "man, that must mean i was trying too hard and i can slack on the quality now." but i think i got a low A on that. not that low A's are bad, but if that's what "terrific writing" gets, what do i have to do to get an A+? lol. i'm just being bitter because i didnt get a perfect. spoiled. i'm going to pearl harbor this weekend, since it's president's day and we'll have monday off. sweet. i'll still have to do homework though :( i'm getting pretty good on the drums in Rock Band. I can do a lot of the songs on easy. I should move up to medium soon, but I have like 5 songs in the main game left to do on easy, so i figured i might as well finish those up first. there's only one song that i've come across on easy that i absolutely can't do. something about the syncopation... i haven't tried it for like a week though, so who knows? dad and the grandparents are going to hilo today, so i'm gonna jam out once they leave. i'm supposed to be working until then, but i'm obviously not. ok... i'll start now. or not... i'm kinda nervous about my mp3 player. it was a really cheap player and i have like 90 days to return it, so i shouldn't worry. but if i don't like it, i probably won't like the 4GB one either and then the only other 4GB and 2GB ones cost like 100 bucks. oh yea, it's expected to arrive between tuesday, becki's birthday, and friday, molly's birthday. XD pleasedontsuck pleasedontsuck. there was a decent-looking 20gig iRiver on Amazon for 100 bucks. that's a sweet deal, but it's also a lot of money, and i have 35dollars in gift cards at walmart so.... we'll have to see what i do. i just hope i like the one i get now. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
12:53 pm	so i've got some walmart gift cards valued at a total of 34 bucks and i'm looking to get a mp3 player. freakin a. i should have gotten a mp3 with my best buy gift card. anyways, i've gotta choose. there's a 4gb one for 40 that uses AAA batteries or a 2GB with a rechargeable battery for 35. the $40 is double the storage space, but i freaking hate AAA batteries. in the long run, i guess the rechargeable one is a lot cheaper. it seems obvious, but it's only half the storage space. i guess i can live without that. which is more of a hassle: changing the batteries or changing the songs? i guess the batteries. there's never any AAA batteries around when you need them. actually, they have a $40 2GB one with a video player and free shipping. i don't care about a video screen, but with free shipping, it would be cheaper than the one without the screen, so i might as well. but maybe i should check out what they already have in the store first? these look like quality players for so cheap. i went to the manufacturer's website, and they look legit. frick, nevermind. no free shipping. haha, i'm glad you could join me in this thought process. aw heck, i think i'll splurge the extra five bucks for the view screen. it's gonna only end up costing me like $7 anyways. argh! there's one for 50 that's got 4GB and a rechargeable battery. just to piss me off. cuz i just convinced myself to get that other one. that would end up costing me almost 20 bucks, which is like... ridiculously cheap for a 4gig mp3 player. but now i have to choose. 4gigs would be over 9 CDs. but 2 would be about 5. so.... i don't know. is it worth ten bucks for double storage space and no view screen? i really grew to love the view screen in the 5 minutes since i wrote about it. crap! cuz if the view screen is nice, like an ipod that would be good, but if it's not that great, i don't really care. ok, i have to go to work. this is going to haunt me. oh yea, i was listening to CD's while i was at work, but my CDplayer is draining batteries like crazy. it took like 6 hours to drain the two AA to dead instead of a week or two. ok, i'm out. EDIT- I decided to get the cheap one, and see if i can live with that. if it really bugs me, i can return it and order the expensive one, but if it's cool, then that's good cuz it's the cheap one. ya know? cool. crap crap crap. the only reason i was getting the view screen one was cuz it was gonna be the same price as the other one when you have free shipping. but there isn't free shipping. so i gotta think about this more. lol, i'm so bad at making relatively easy decisions. FINAL EDIT (i hope)- Ok, i'm gonna get the viewscreen one because it says you can have e-books on it. which could be awesome. if it isn't awesome, or 2gigs isn't enough, i will return it. whew. 1.ok, it'll be a week or so until it gets here, but i'm excited for the mp3 player. 2. the first loveline in the archive was a pretty good one. the only time besides loveline that i actually laugh out loud now is when i'm laughing at myself for something. so that's nice. Drew: were you raped? Caller: well, my mom says i was... Adam: yea, my mom is always tryin to tell me i got raped. hahahaha omg. i just realized that i could load loveline onto my mp3 player. i knew there was a reason i was so excited for the mp3 player. stuff like YadaYahweh, Prophet of Doom and Loveline can go on there! Heck yea. 3. i tried to set up my school schedule to start off easy and get gradually harder... because that's a form of procrastination... but it turns out that it actually cycles. last week ended up starting easy and ending harder as i fell more behind, but i buckled down today and almost finished my stuff before i had to go to work today. tomorrow i am gonna start a project and then finish it tomorrow, but last unit, i did the project in one day. it took all day, but i know i can do it if i have to. so i expect to slack off tomorrow. but yea, either tomorrow or the next day will be really easy, depending on when i do the work. Friday is catchup day as usual, and then monday i have my criminal justice stuff, which is easy, and tuesday is my CrimJ test, which is only slightly harder. i'm trying to put a positive spin on this so i can have some momentum goin into hump day. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, February 11th, 2008
8:29 am	Part one: My beard gets cooler every day. I know i keep updating about how i like it and stuff. but that's why. it's like... i can feel demonic energies making me vain about it. lol, it's so weird. I look at pictures of me pre-beard and... they just look weird to me. I look like a baby or a girl or just weird. it's baffling to me. i think i really am a beard person. Part two: My mouse has been crapping out on me. especially during dota. I have a feeling its cuz my laptop has a function key between the ctrl key and the windows key. when it's pressed down, it has the effect of messing with my mouse, among other things. I think my keyboard is really dirty and that's why it keeps messing up. so i'm going to clean it. so i set up my desktop computer to use (mostly for dota) until i get the stuff to clean my keyboard and get it all fixed and stuff. it's the first time this thing has been on for over 7 or 8 months. lol. it's a trip down memory lane. first of all, it's weird to have a square screen. my laptop is widescreen. second, everything is so ancient here. i'm on the msn web browser now... downloading firefox. all my final fantasy 11 bookmarks are on this computer too. sigh. oh, the really great thing about this computer is that it has a CD burner, so i can burn the songs that i downloaded from the coke rewards stuff and i can burn CDs of some cds i used to have that got lost or broken. very cool. part three: i probably won't get any work done today... lol. (Comment on this)
Monday, February 4th, 2008
10:34 am	i was able to get my homework done, which is good. I figured that if i updated whenever i had a thought to post, my updates would be more frequent, but not such behemoths when i actually posted. I set out to do this yesterday and forgot what my thought was. The Super Bowl was good. Really sweet game. I think they said it was one of the best Super Bowls. It looked like it was goin the Patriots way most of the game but it was kinda like "the Giants have a chance though, there's still time" cuz it was 3-7 Patriots most of the game. But then it came down to the wire and i think the Giants scored, then the patriots scored again and it was like "crap now they have 4 minutes to score." so if they messed up that drive, they were boned. they BARELY made it to get the TD and there was like 1:30 on the clock. it was tense. but then the Patriots offense is really strong and they had all 3 timeouts, so they still had a decent shot. i don't even know if i remember it that well. it might not have actually happened like that. i feel sorry for the patriots, but it's cool that the Manning brothers won the Super Bowl two years in a row, you know? Also, Chris likes the Giants so we rooted for the Giants for his sake. If i didn't care about who won, the game might have been boring. as it was, it was a nice game. Omg, play of the game. They nearly sack Manning, he SOMEHOW GETS AWAY. like, the one guy had his Jersey in his hands and was pulling him down, but Manning got away. He throws the pass, the guy who was most open had a guy on him, but he gets a hand on it. He barely has any control over the ball and he' going down (remember, he only caught it with one hand) so he pins against his helmet until he can bring his other hand up to get a solid grip on it. he ends up having possession and they report it's a fair catch and everything. He was going down right after he caught it, but it was still a 32 yard gain. which is amazing. Oh, and the Giants Defense did really well sometimes. they got some great sacks in the second halve that probably saved the game. This one dude faked like he was gonna go cover a receiever or something so the blockers left this HUGE hole for him and he just plowed through for the sack. When they showed the replay in slow motion, it was like a horror movie: you saw it coming a mile away, but you couldn't do anything to stop him. So i really like football i guess. Especially after playing that table top football game against dad in north carolina. you get into the strategy of when to run and when to pass and such. I would probably actually watch football regularly if A) it didn't take like 5 hours and B) there weren't commercials. I mean, Super Bowl Commercials are pretty decent, but they still bore me. Point is, after watching that horrible Sugar Bowl with UH, it was nice to root for a team that did well. That wasn't the point of this entry. lol. it was supposed to be short. I was just gonna say: my beard is still cool and my classes aren't as hard as i thought they would be. at least until accounting starts. on the 18th (i think). Two of my classes are just like "ok, here's the assignments for unit 1. unit 1 is due on January 28th" and so on for all 5 units or whatever. Criminal Justice is just like "ok, turn all this in before the semester ends and you're good". I'll still try to do it regularly. Hopefully i'll be done with CrimJ in mid-April. But this Unit section, from now to the 22nd, will be easy. one class's unit is due the 22nd and i'll be easily ready by then. the other class's unit is due the 28th and i'll be done with that class's unit by the 22nd, so that's cool. then i can spend a little more time getting into accounting maybe. One of the hardest, but most enjoyable part of these classes is figuring out when everything will end up being due. Online classes would be so easy if I could just get myself to start the work and to keep working till i'm done, without getting distracted. Anyways, i better get started now. Peace. EDIT. ok... it's been like 15 minutes but i just thought of something: if there was a democrat in office, i feel like obama would do the least damage. especially compared to Hillary. oh man. If there was a republican in office, i kinda actually think Ron Paul would do the least damage. lol, i'm such a college student. but seriously, i buy into it. they are both like "screw how we are doing things now. things are messed up cuz we've been doing it this way for so long. let's do something different: here's how it's gonna work." Ron Paul seems like that more than Obama, actually. With Obama, it seems more like the election strategy and he's more of a good speaker. Ron Paul seems like he is so confident in his ideas that he doesn't care about the political game. the race isn't something he just wants to win, he genuinely believes that his ideas are going to make some real positive changes. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
11:27 am	School Situation I might be able to catch up on my school work, but i'll have to write two papers tomorrow. yikes. my sociology reading sometimes pisses me off. a lot of times it will go with the assumption that white people are motivated solely by racial superiority. umwhat? they have this story that a white woman went up to two people speaking spanish and yelled at them for speaking spanish. fine, that's cool. i accept that there are people out there like that. however, they went on to say something to the effect that this is normal behavior for white people. WHAT? The only time i have heard people (actual people, not like a story about what some crazy person said one time) protest against the use of Spanish is when 1) the person in question spoke ONLY spanish and not a word of English and 2) said person was working somewhere where their job required them to speak to english-speaking customers or said person was in the American school system, for which the official language is Spanish. I have never, ever, ever heard anyone argue or even imply that all non-English languages should never be spoken in America, even during private conversations. I mean come on. The most anti-spanish argument i have heard is that people in small spanish-speaking communities in America should learn english (and i think this was a character in a TV show). I say, if you want to stay in your little community and never be able to communicate with the rest of America, including potential English-speaking customers, that's fine with me. i don't think that's a good choice to make as it is so limiting, but whatever. also, this one study said that children in the US, upon entering school for the first time, will have watched more hours of TV than the total number of hours they will spend in school for their entire school career. ok. let's look at the math. 6hours/schoolday x 180schooldays/year(ithink)x12.5years = 13,500hours 13500hours / 5years / 365days/year = 7.40 hours/day. and for 6 years of age at entering school: 13500hours / 6years / 365days/year = 6.16 hours/day. They are claiming that the average american child from birth watches an average of 6.16-7.40 hours of television a day. yea, ok. i think the only time i've done that is during grade school over the summers. if you want to count only the years in which the child is even capable of watching and comprehending TV, it ends up being 9.24-12.3 hours per day. The statement is obviously just meant to shock you. It doesn't even include homework time, which increases the time which kids spend learning by probably an hour a schoolday on average. Now that i think about it, if we go to school 180 days/year, i would rather have that spaced out more. like work 3days one week and have a four day weekend and the next week, work four days and have a three day weekend. all year round. but still. i used to get so sick of summer as a kid. omg. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
9:41 am	I just finished Children of the Mind, finishing the Ender story line in the Ender's Game universe. I want to read the Bean story line, but I won't be able to do that until after i read Brave New World or 1984 for Sociology. I like reading, but it's kind of sick that I have to read a whole book. It can take like what, 6 hours? I don't even know because I don't pay attention to time when I'm reading. But it's safe to say that it takes at least six hours to read a novel of that length. 6 hours isn't a TON of time for school, but most of the book is irrelevant, you know? That's what I find whenever I read a book for a class. So? I can read it for fun, right? Well yea, but it's also kind of sick that they get to determine which books i read in my free time. I might sparknotes it. I was interested in Moby Dick, so one night I went on Sparknotes and read the first chapter, found it was too long, then read the summary of all the chapters. Lol, i didn't read it, but i get the jist of it. If i needed to write an essay on it only using sparknotes summaries and using the full text only for quotation purposes, i could do it. I'll have to see if they have the full text for the books i can choose from for Sociology. Ok, here's my brief book review. Ender's Game is awesome. Speaker is equally awesome, but in a completely different way. I can see how for some it might ruin the story. Xenocide is pretty good. It's a good book, but not as good as the first two. Children of the Mind is... eh. I felt like everything was resolved at the end of Xenocide pretty much. He touches on some philosophy in it, but it's mostly about tying up some loose ends from Xenocide. It was originally supposed to be included in Xenocide, but Xenocide would have been too freaking long. He didn't really do enough to make Children of the Mind stand up on it's own. Yay! a short entry! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, January 25th, 2008
12:27 pm	My random thinkings It's pretty much stream-of-consciousness here... Omg i can't freaking do any work at all. I've done almost nothing all week. including today. it's freaking scary. i don't know why i can't get any work done and it's all gonna catch up to me in a week. yikes. i beat advance wars 2 and when you beat it, you get a harder campaign. i thought it was gonna be the same campaign but with a smarter computer, but they have new maps and scenarios and stuff, so it's cool. I might have to get Cartel's other album. They're a pop band and totally cliche' with just about every line, but i really like this song on there and few others are pretty good too. And i like the album i got. so yeah. I also have to get John Reuben's latest album. The one i got for christmas confirms that the dude is super cool. I replied to becki and she replied back instead of just never talking to me again. oops. that wasn't part of the plan. basically she was just assuming that everything i said meant i was trying to get with her. i think that's why she was acting like such a jerk. it doesn't excuse her at all, and she'll probably keep being a jerk if we ever talk again, but at least i'm able to straighten the record now. I think i could improve their lyrics without changing the song too much. But when i write lyrics myself, they're all cliche like that too. I need to find someone that can improve my lyrics and i can improve theirs and we can rock out together. at least the sabbath is here. i haven't done a lot of work recently, so i'm really stressed. also, it's been harder to sleep, so it will be nice to sleep in. i'm also glad to just chill. i play dota a little more now than i have the past few weeks, but still... there are some heroes i haven't played in months just cuz i haven't played often and there are a lot of heroes. i really hope i can just read the bible and pray... it's been hard that past few sabbaths to get myself to do that. and my little cousin wrote a story that i've been meaning to read for a while. i should really do that. omg, my sociology stuff is hard. I spent like an hour reading (skimming really) the text so i could take the test, which is over four chapters. ok. so i fell asleep AND i was only halfway through the first chapter. WTF. i was skimming! stupid school. i might just read the chapter reviews. i did that a few times last semester. and then i might take the test open-book. it's cheating, and there isn't an excuse for it, but... COME ON! ok, i'm really really gonna try again now. wish me luck! Current Music: "At least we know if we die, we lived with passion A-Whoaoaoa" (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
9:12 am	Le Semestre This semester looks like it will be hard. My Sociology class and Business class both take themselves seriously. WTF this is CoD! ONLINE COD no less. So each class is about twice as hard as the classes i took last semester. boo. for now i'll be fine, but i don't even have my criminal justice class yet and accounting won't start till February 13. Since it's shorter by 4 weeks or whatever, i'm assuming it will be slightly more rigorous. so it will probably be a tough semester. especially since i'll just want to play xbox all day. honestly, since he Box is in the family room, i can really only play it during the day while everyone is at work, and at night, but only if kyle isn't playing it. so i'll probably play games all day and do homework after school gets out. that's ok i guess, but there are more distractions then. i can do this. heck yea. LETS ROCK LETS RAWWWWWWK (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
9:41 am	In 24 hours I will be in a car on the way to an airport to fly 12 hours to Chicago. I'm done recording that song. There's actually two versions that turned out ok, so i don't really know which i wanna use. I finally got to play a game of DotA yesterday. I'm doing laundry. I wanna see Juno. It's got the cool guy from Superbad and it's all romantic and sappy. and funny though. maybe potentially becki will see it with me. and then she'll want to make a baby. ok that last part wasn't funny. Beowulf is still at ogden 6. andrew...... Quote: "My book will be made into a movie (someday maybe eventually)! I say 'someday maybe' because these things take time. My first book has been in the 'going to be a movie' phase for about three years now. Another example is Beowulf which was made about 1100 years ago and the movie came out last month." lol. that was one of the vlogbrothers. I Am Legend looks pretty good too, but i hear it's bad. w/e. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic stuff. I'm really excited to see becki now. Kinda nervous too cuz, you know... I don't know how she'll feel. This week I bought "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by Smashing Pumpkins (aka "Rat in a Cage") as well as "Movies" by Alien Ant Farm. Such great songs. I wanted to get "Then There Was Silence" by Blind Guardian, but it wasn't on Itunes. it's that song i wrote about like two years ago that's thirteen minutes long. so epic. It's about Iliad. that's the only metal i like, the kind that's all epic and the singer has a super-high voice. the kind that's inspired by like JRR Tolkein and Greek Mythology, not vampires and Satanism. Satan is a title meaning "adversary" or "enemy". his actual name is Halal ben Shachar (sp). I forget everything that it means. Something about imitator/deceiver and something about a false light or something. It's cool to call him satan though cuz he doesn't like it. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
8:20 am	( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. ) Current Music: Pandora Radio Trip Hop Station (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
6:40 am	NEED KAWFEE why don't they make enough??? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
10:27 pm	I had my crossing guard orientation today. it was cool. i made 30 bucks just for being there. My first day is tomorrow. not really looking forward to that. I won't get my first check until Dec. 15. ouch. i took some pictures of me in my gear, but i'm not putting them on facebook yet. haha, this will ruin it, and it's probably gay to begin with, but i'm taking a picture of me with my vest on, but not wearing a shirt under it and i'll be unzipping it and holding up my stop sign and i'm gonna write "don't" on there in MS Paint. The idea is to look gay in a way that everyone knows i'm just joking. I tried it and it didn't work. i just looked gay. it didn't look like i was joking. so i gotta try again later. So i came home, played the 360 for like 10 minutes, ate, did some stuff online, did my homework for two hours, lay down for 15 minutes, and then went to dinner/prayer meeting. It sucked cuz it took all two hours just to catch up on the stuff i didn't finish last week. So i'm still behind. There's always friday i guess... it's just stressful. Yea, i guess it's been pretty stressful overall lately. I've also been really tired in just about every way possible. Those go hand in hand cuz being stressed wears me out and being tired makes me not wanna work which stresses me out. I think i've talked about this before. semester's pretty close to being done though. my last Hawaiian Plants assignment is wednesday and then i have the paper and the test and i'm done. i liked it at the beginning of the semester. somehow i would finish my homework by lunch most of the time. i am way too easily distracted now. NOTE: I typed this yesterday (Monday) and then I stopped cuz i needed to work some more. f'sho. so here's today! i've had a few story ideas that i just haven't posted about. They aren't really even complete ideas, they're more like seeds of ideas. that i could sow. or sell. whatever. lol... no. The most recent one is tentatively called "Martyr." It would go nicely with the other one titled "Hubris" and maybe that other one could be called "Heresy". Maybe you know what i'm talking about. Cuz there were two main religions and he started preaching a third. So that would be like heresy. It would be cool to have all my titles be religiously charged single words like that. Anyways, "Martyr" would basically be about a guy who was kinda thrust into these situations where lots of people's lives are in danger so he acts recklessly in the hopes that his death would help the other people but he ends up living. To flesh it out a little more, I think it would be more of a medieval kine story, with swords instead of guns and bombs and stuff, but that's not set in stone. Also, he might be an artist, which would explain why he can't fight and why he is all dramatic about offering his life for others. This could also be an example of one of those stories where the main character is actually a side character. It works, but i have to admit that i only thought of that just now because andrew said something about that. lol. The other one is about a guy who is convinced that he will die by drowning (prophet? psychic? i dunno). So he stays away from water at all costs since the next time he swims could be his last. It would be less action-y and more of a short story about fear and choices and stuff. I thought about this when i was surfing. lol. oh yea, i should note (because my characters almost always end up being the exact same age as me somehow) that i always imagined the dude being old. like 50s or 60s, although the whole story could possibly just be flashbacks leading up to the present. It's definitely a more artsy story. Does the guy drown? Does he live? Does he stay afraid of water? Does he swim? I would probably leave the end unresolved or leave it up to the reader to decide what happens. Years later, after 37 consecutive months on the #1 spot of the Bestsellers list, i would write a sequel explaining that the old dude got abducted by aliens and chronicle his adventures around the galaxy as his thirst for immortality drove him to become a mere husk of a man surrounded by chemical and robotic enhancements. He would eventually achieve his dream of conquering the universe which would in turn allow him to achieve his dream of immortality when his body fully transitions into and impervious, self-sustained barely-sentient creature. At which point, he would destroy the galaxy by self-destructing. wow, i dont know what that was ^^^ most of that is true. i'm a little tired. unfortunately, i get all woken up whenever i try to sleep. I was so tired at 6, but i had homework to finish up, and then i had dinner, and then by the time i was actually able to sleep, i wasn't sleepy. The "Jonah" lyrics fit into the Hyrule Party Mix song rhythmically, but not so much contextually. I dunno, i'll do a couple trial runs if i ever get time, but i might have to come up with different lyrics (the main reason i scrapped the project in the first place). I guess Jonah should be sovereign. i'll need to make at least one more verse for it though. Also, the "how long can i last in the belly of a whale?" part ... i SWEAR it sounded cool when i wrote it, but it doesn't sound cool at all in the HyPaMix. So yea....... I may end up scrapping both. The only reason i keep the HyPaMix (i like that nickname) around is cuz i like the beginning. I came up with a rap. it's so legit. i can't help it. I don't know if i posted it before, but here it is cuz i like it so much: "When I met you, you seemed Like the girl of my dreams So I had to find out If you lived up to the clout I couldn’t get you out of my head Thinkin bout you all night tossin turnin in my bed Cuz you were hot, you had me twisted I never knew girls like you existed I praised God every time we met Reminded me to be thankful for every breath That’s when I saw my whole life was blessed Even before I knew Him and felt this calm in my chest He sealed me with a peace that none could ever contest Like He was watching me and never takin a rest" It really expresses what i want it to. That's cool cuz it's hard to be flattering without being all like "OMG I NEED YOU" like so many love songs today. The rest of the song does an OK job of that too, but this sounds good in addition (to me at least). P.S. I just recorded the original version of Jonah (except the verses I havent written), and I forgot how I did the bridge (the belly part). I rest of the song came back to me naturally, but not the bridge. so now it really doesn't sound that great, but it does sound salvageable. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 17th, 2007
9:42 am	Kyle got an Xbox 360. How long did it take him to get tired of it? I dunno, how long does it take me to shower? He was playing when i went in and when i got out, he was watching TV. Now i'm not complaining or anything. Cuz, like the Wii, I understand that I didn't pay a cent for it, yet i'll play it twice as much as him (if not more). But COME ON. Ok. Let's look at some things i bought. Alien Vs. Predator. $2. I played it for several hours so far. Not so much this week because I've been doin homework and i played DotA a little more. But still. It was $2. If i destroyed it right now i would have paid like 25cents an hour for something i genuinely enjoyed. Halflife 2. I consider that game a waste. It was like 20 bucks. I played it for the story and that was it. I played like 2 hours online total and that was boring. The story was fun and everything, but it was the whole game. And that was not even 10 hours. The story doesn't even end! It's a cliffhanger so they can sell you more games. Dungeon Siege. That was another failure. It was like $15-20 too, but i'm pretty sure i whittled that down to $1/hour. I only got it cuz ken wanted it. it's one of those games that keeps getting worse, but you expect it to get better any second. yea. lol maybe i'm too harsh. it was a decent game. just not as good as some other games.... next was this computer. $900. I paid 400. I've used it every day since i got it (except when i haven't had access to it). I've had it over two years so that's less than $1.20 a day. And if i spend an average of 6 hours a day using it (with school online and... nothing to do here, it's really brought that average up), i've spent about 20cents an hour on this thing. And that's for the total price, not what i paid for it. what i actually paid is about 9 cents. And that's not just for fun stuff, that includes homework and such. and yea, i figure i have at least another year in this thing. I'll probably try to use it till i graduate, unless i end up with a surplus of money somehow. ok. finally is Warcraft 3. I didn't pay for it, but when the game and expansion came out i was probably 70 for both. I've spent about a year and a half playing anywhere from 1 hour to like... 6 hours or more (i'm so ashamed) of dota. There are a few days where i didn't play for whatever reason, like playing halflife or cuz i was away from my computer. Even if i only played it for an hour a day, that's just over 7.5 cents a day to play one of the funnest games i know of. my real average is probably up around 3 hours a day... maybe. So that's 2.56 cents per hour. But wait, there's more. before i found dota, i used to play WC3 for the story/campaign. twice. lol. cuz we had it for like 2 years before i found out about Dota. I wasn't as consistent then, but i still played it. i'm really getting my money's worth. especially cuz jon bought it and played it for like 10 hours max. obviously that doesn't count internet fees cuz dad pays for them. so yea, i'm a pretty big nerd. i'm calculating statistics to see how good of a value i'm getting out of my video games. and then bragging about it. haha. i guess i have pretty high standards and a pretty thing wallet (or pretty tight grip on my cash) so instead of looking for the next big thing (aka, buying a $300-400 system for one game) constantly, i've found something i like and i'm sticking with it. now granted, sometimes i don't want strategy and i just wanna shoot stuff, but that's why i've got AvP and Halflife. sorry........ unless you're interested in this kind of thing. (7 Comments |Comment on this)