Today was a good day.

Today is only half-way over and its already prooving to be worth waking up for(staying in bed is always an option).

I got the loud noise on my car fixed, and rear brakes put on. Yay.

I did habitat for humanity this morning, and built up bunches of good karma to use for my next line item. I met the woman of my dreams(Again), and I intend to meet a few more before the day is over.

So, all my good karma was supposed to be to ensure that my project was a success when we open for bidness on monday morning. It was supposed to be used to help make my life easier, but my foo co-workers wife went and baked cherry pies. What did she go and do a thing like that for? Karma, all my sanding and mortaring and sweeping this morning gets me cherry pies. I love cherry pies, don't get me wrong, but I was really really hoping for that little extra assurance that my project was going to go swell.

Anyway, my project is now live. The last year of hell is over, and I'm on to bigger and better things. I can relax, no longer having a deadline looming over my head. I can sit down and do something other than worry for a whole day and a half, and then its back to deadlines and worrying.

I love being in balance. Everything just seems to go right. Sure, I'm only operating at about 65 percent of my normal sex appeal due to my missing hair, but that don't matter none, cause the full 100 percent is a little overwhelming for most people anyway. Of course I'm only kidding...I do feel awfully good about myself lately though.

I don't even bother clicking remember me anymore.

I don't know if I'll go through with wearing my pirate costume or not. Its a really puffy shirt. I'll feel absolutely ridiculous in it...of course, it IS halloween, you're supposed to be absolutely ridiculous looking right? It don't matter, its the only costume that goes with a doo rag, and I'm always looking for a legit reason to wear a doo rag. There's only one day a year that a guy can wear a doo rag and not suck. *sigh* its not the 90's anymore.

So I read a thing by Ben Stein on my sister's blog. I figure I'll post my protest here, cause people who don't give a damn about my opinion won't bother coming here to see it, and people who do give a damn, and still don't like my opinion still like me well enough to deal with it.

Stop reading here if you're easily irritated by opposing opinions, because as a former atheist, I have a rather strong opinion on this, and it has nothing to do with belief in god, or non belief thereof.

The problem with Ben Stein's point of view is that its short-sighted and selfish. I wonder, what Mr. Stein would think about a recently sacrificed goat lying in a pentagram on the courthouse steps? Fact is, that if you are *for* placing a manger, then you must also be *for* allowing other religions to place their stuff in public places as well.

If you disagree with seeing a savagely slaughtered goat lying on your public courthouse steps, then you are a) either admitting that you are close-minded to other religions that don't fit your ideal idea of a religion, or b) soley interested in only spreading your religion to the world, and intend to use public places as a means to do that.

That being said, I have no wish to see bloody dead goat carcii lying about in the streats next to mangers, or manorahs, or meditating monks. Everybody is free to practice religion in their own home, and even in dedicated worship places in America. My question to the religious camps is, why is it so important that you display your artifacts where everyone must see them? A courthouse is neither a private place, nor is it a place of worship. Its a public building designed to accept america's wide diversity of citizens.

Should we place a yin-yang next to the 10 commandments on the wall? Should we place the satanic version of the 10 commandments next to that? If you are pressing for the right to place a manger in front of a court house, you are also pressing for the right to place a christmas tree next to it in its true form -- covered with dead rabbits and other small animals hanging from the limbs. Be careful what you wish for.

This is too often billed as an "atheist vs theist" debate, but its not that at all. Sure, it was brought to light by atheist groups who were sick of their children being forced to see religious artifacts outside of public places, but flip the coin for a second. If it were dead animals lying in front of the courthouse, it would have been the religious groups of america protesting and seeking to have it removed long before the atheists ever had a crack at it.

This argument also applies to our coins and our pledge of allegience. I wonder what the evangelicals would be saying if our coins said "In Bhudda We Trust", and our pledge of allegience contained the words "one nation over satin"? Would you still hold that we shouldn't be trying to remove religion from america's schools and governments, or would you join in the fight to have things that were counter to your point of view removed from these things? Think about it honestly for a second. In a school, where your children were forced to utter the words "one nation over satin" every single day, taking everything you worked hard to teach them and having to explain to them why their school's pledge of allegience was implying something other than what you taught them.

This is the true nature of this argument. Those that think otherwise should take a second and consider what their feelings would be if the tables were turned.

Need a break...

...from my speech writing, so I'm gonna blog. I finally got my grade back on my first speech, it was an A-/B+. What the eff lady? Is it an A-, or is it a B+? Make up your stupid mind. I didn't know it was possible to give an ambiguous grade. I hate this class, and I can't wait until its over and I can get back to grades that I have control over. If you're given a math test, the answers are either right or they're wrong, there's no subjectivity in math or science. It has nothing to do with your eye contact or posture.

While staring at a reflection of myself towering over everyone else in line at sheetz, I came to a new understanding of myself. I take up a lot of space, like a mountain, but I'm more of a gentle rolling hill, but I'm a gentle rolling hill with a sharp cliff on it that makes it pretty imposing, but on the other side of the hill, its pretty smooth climbing, just a leisurely stroll to the top, but most people don't look past the cliff, which is fine, because the cliff is there for a purpose. The cliff keeps away the kids that just want to climb a hill and party at the top throwing beer cans everywhere and trashing the place. Only the people who really want to see the view from the top will bother to get there.

I love when I get to ramble nonsense, its helps in my lifelong journey towards my ultimate goal: to be just like Detective Columbo when I'm old. That guy is awesome, and so lovable.

I'll leave you with this thought:

If someone yells duck in a crowd, should you duck, and risk looking silly if there is nothing to duck for, should you not duck and risk injury from whatever is duck-worthy, or look up to avoid getting pooped on?

Personally, I don't ever want to be pooped on, but that's just me. *sigh*, this is why I hate speech class...my brain is fried.

Continuing my shameless mountain goats plugs

This is great

Shooting monkeys in a barrel

Life Update:
I cleaned the crap out of my house this weekend, and I'm not talking about "swiffer" clean, I'm talking mr clean magic eraser clean. Not, "Put stuff in the closet" clean, but "have the neighbors over for punch and pie" clean. That's one monkey off of my back.

My lifts, which had stagnated over the last 2 months while my diet was in flux all went up this week. Two monkeys off my back.

My project at work, which can only be described as a year of hell was put onto the training servers on friday. That's one step from being live. That means in 7 days my project(along with 2 others of mine) goes live. [thecount]Three monkeys ah ah ahhhh[/thecount].

My car is still making a loud noise, and needs cleaned badly, but I'll take care of at least half of that tomorrow. 4 monkeys.

I feel in control again. Good deal, cause I hate being out of control of my life.

I'd like to point out that I got through this most recent rough spot without even considering smoking a cigarette. That probably sounds trivial, but nicotine holds a psychological edge over you long after its gone(its like your brain has a working "remember me" checkbox, hint hint). Its easy to think "one cigarette sure would take the edge off", but it won't. Its easy to forget the downsides of smoking when you haven't experienced them in a long time. You think "I was skinnier when I smoked, and happier too, and I was more in control of my life....why did I quit? I think I'll have a smoke!" Bad shit, nicotine is. Bad indeed.

TV Ban lifted, update:
Battlestar Galactica was super fly this weekend. I teared up again, and screamed at the TV a bit. Too bad its a doomed show, its too late into the story line to pick up new viewers. Most people would watch it and be like "huh?".

The steelers lost, but looked good doing it...if you pray, pray for Big Ben tonight.

Pitt lost, and looked bad doing it. I'm glad Palko is a senior, he's a bum. Probably not fair since the o-line is even more bumlike than Palko.

Watched "Heroes" for the first time, pretty good stuff.

Shaved head update:
I'm pretty sure I accomplished the goal that I had in mind when I shaved my head, which was to make a friend of mine feel more comfortable loosing her hair due to going through kemo therapy. I'm not very good at expressing sympathy for people cause it always seems insincere since I don't really understand what they're going through, but as we sat around and talked about how much faster it was to get ready in the morning without any hair and laughed about it I realized that for the moment at least, she didn't feel out of place. I'm glad I could do that at least, she has done a lot for me since I moved to wilkes-barre, from simply inviting me over for dinner when I first moved here, to waking up and driving me to my sugery at 4:30 in the morning.

I think I'm coming back into balance now, things seem a bunch easier, and just in time for a halloween party and ping pong tournament.

Thats it for the updats, don't eat free tacos being handed out by midgets at the mall, seriously, just take my word for it.

Great big you, and little old me.

Seriously, fix the fracking remember me checkbox. I like to be remembered long after I'm gone.

I've been pimping the mountain goats to anyone who will listen, they're my new favorites. Here's a bootleg of my favorite song by them, "lion's teeth". I wish the quality was better, but alas, its not. Anyway, its still a damn good jam, and 3:15 well spent. Heck, if you multitask it while reading this blog, you won't even have to waste an extra 3 minutes, it will be the same 3 minutes that you've already wasted.

Anyway, you can draw your own conclusions about the meaning of this song. I think its pretty clear what he's talking about. He gets his message off pretty well using a parable about a fight between someone who is obviously pretty small(probably a small boy), and a lion(seemingly a father figure of some sort). In the beginning, its an "opportunity" to tackle the lion, and by the end he realizes that he has to learn to coexist with the lion. He might not have won, but he fought the lion, and I think that's the point. We all have lions that we have to tackle, and even if we can blindside them and catch em by the tooth while they're sleeping, we still have to live with them in the end so its probably better to learn to coexists with your lions rather than trying to get rid of them.

That's just my take on it, your milage may differ.

Hey blogger, fix the gaddam "remember me" checkbox!

Most people remember me, yet you, you choose not to. You choose to ignore my chosen preference and forget me every time I leave. This annoys me. Now on to blog!

My first thought this morning(which is rather dysfunctional) was "I wonder how much a case of energy drink costs? So I hopped out of bed and into ye old computer chair and looked it up. 45 dollars. That's stupid. Here are a few things that are cheaper than being addicted to energy drinks....being an alcoholic...being a crack head...buying a crack hooker....a bag of marijuana....a carton of cigarettes....filling up my car with gasoline. You get the picture.

So I'm drinking an energy drink right now as my before bed snack. What? Yeah, I'm immune to them now. That means that I'm currently operating on energy drink levels, which probably means that if I quit drinking them that I'd be damn near lethargic. What up with that?

Why can't I get in my car without thinking "I'll stop at the gas station and get a sugar free rockstar! ROCKSTAR!!!!!". I dunno.

Got a 4gig ipod nano at walmart tonight. The late night "help" actually was very helpful. They must've picked an ipod savant for his particular duties. He was able to answer every question I had, albeit rainmanesque, but informative nonetheless. I pressed "yes" on the screen when it asked if my cashier was nice. I wasn't going to go to bed one more night thinking "why didn't I buy an ipod tonight?".

That's it for the update, keep cool and stay off crack.

Laters.

Yesterday I was reminded...

...how damn annoying it is to be sober in the middle of a bunch of drunks. Curse my curse of not being able to drink because it will eventually lead me to nicotine and then BAM! selling myself on the streets for crack. Anywho, game night was fun, if not needlessly long because of the inherent slowness that comes with inebriation.

Anyway, I shaved my head last night for good reasons that I don't care to go into lest they loose their virtue.

Everything below is Taoist ramblings, so you can move on if you're not in to that stuff.

I think Taoism is such a hard concept to grasp for most people because it doesn't really offer anything up front. There is no set plan, nor is there any ruleset to live your life by. Explaining Taoism is even harder, because Taoism is a journey, a path to a destination. Normally, a Taoist is already well down his path before he is ready to talk about Taoism, or even knows that he is a Taoist. By that time, its like trying to explain how to make a cake, by starting in the middle of the recipe. On top of that, its not within the Tao to preach Taoism. The only method of teaching that we're allowed to employ is the act of living a Taoist life as an example.

Last night I was once again asked to explain Taoism. Normally, I avoid the question, saying that its beyond comprehension, or the little thing about the ocean, or sometimes just answer with "a sack of rice". It depends on the mood. Last night though, I was in a mood to give it a go, and actually I feel that the Tao was leading me that way because I was having a bad weekend, and needed some perspective.

I'm still out of balance, and I'm not sure what I need to do to correct that. Things are looking up recently, but still not quite right. I have to continue to walk my path I suppose. The answers are all there in front of me, I just need to see them.

A random thought

I was in the hot dog shop a few minutes ago(yes, that's right, hot dogs...it is saturday), and for the record, I no longer like hot dogs. I used to love the things, and its been about 9 months since I've had an honest to goodness hot dog, apparently I've lost my taste for them. I ate 2 and a half and threw the rest away.

Anyway, my dislike of hot dogs has nothing to do with this post. One of the hot dog girls was talking to one of the hot dog boys about the SAT tests. The boy was about a year younger and apparenlty hadn't gotten to that point yet. She made the statement, "They're bad, they're aweful. You have to be there at 7:45 for 5 hours of testing that determines the outcome of the rest of your life!"

Amazing the drama of teenagers. First off, I've been places at 7:45 that makes SAT testing sound like eating cupcakes and watching cartoons while playing with puppy dogs, but I guess it might be a bit daunting when you're 16. I thought back to my day of SAT testing. I wasn't riddled with anxiety, nor did I spend months preparing. I just kind of showed up, took the test and went home.

My real problem with her statement was the last part. I scored an 1190(that was before this new 2000pt system) on my SATs. No preparation, just showing up with a pencil. The previous sentence marks the 3rd time ever that I've said my SAT scores to anyone. Needless to say, they didn't determine the outcome of the rest of my life. Actually, the outcome of the rest of my life still hasn't been determined, and while I admit that the immediate prospects look rather bleak, that has more to do with my dark outlook on the state of the world and growing depression rather than an integer gathered through standardized testing over 9 years ago.

Why do we lie to our young children? Telling them things like SAT scores are the most important thing to have? Honestly, SAT scores are peanuts compared to an ability to handle whatever life throws at you and get back up ready to take some more. Employers don't give a crap about SAT scores. They want people who can learn on the fly, be versitile and self-manage. This isn't stressed enough I don't think.

Our entire educational system is designed around a structured system of standardized testing. But everything after education is a chaotic mess with little to no standardization. Job duties change daily, if not hourly. Entire project can be put on hold and you're entire focus has to shift to something else entirely in the blink of an eye. Meetings can change the entire goal of a project when on person mutters a sentence starting with "oh yeah, by the way, I forgot to tell you...". Moments like that require nothing more than the ability to restrain yourself from throwing one hell of a right hook. You just smile and say, "ok, we'll get it done", and you will, because its your job, even if you have to be there at 7:45 on a saturday for 5 hours.

Shouldn't we be teaching our children life skills instead of putting them in some cushy fill in the circles environment?

I don't know, maybe other people's jobs do imitate the standard fill in the circles paradigm. Maybe my job is different, I am after all supposed to be developing on the fringe, breaking new ground and solving problems on a daily basis. (yes, even programmers from insurance companies get to do cool shit with code). Maybe I'm wrong, maybe SAT scores do ruin or make other people's lives, and I'm exempted from the norm for some reason.

Bleh, just random thoughts on a depressing day. Luckily I get to go to a board game party next...not that I want to, but I do have some social commitments I suppose. Even a hermit must show himself once in a while.

terrible horrible mistake

I skipped the season premier of battlestar galactica, mostly because of my no-tv oath. Screw that, BSG is the bomb, and now I need to find a re-run. For those that don't watch BSG, you need to. Its like desperate housewives, except there are spaceships and robots and nuclear bombs and stuff. Its great entertainment. Think for a second...if football wasn't good enough to draw me back to watching TV, but BSG is, how good must BSG be? Pretty good. Actually, BSG is some of the best acting that I've ever seen, the characters are even stronger than those in firefly, and the story line is terrific.

Apparently I have to be awake at 1:00 friday morning to watch the rerun of the season premier. That means I'm gonna have a rough day at work on friday, cause its a 2 hour premier.

I know, I know, you don't need to say it, Tivo would fix that.

Dentist

I hate dentists, actually, I hate going to the dentist, my dentist is a pretty nice guy, and I don't hate him. He's the guy that found my tumor, so I like him even a little better. When the dentist is pulling your tounge back and forth, and rubbing your jaw, he's not just being wierd, he's actually looking for things like tumors that you might never know about. How often do you stick your finger in your mouth and feel below your tounge for a tumor? Not very often I'm thinking.

Anyway, my dentist has told me that I need to quit biting my fingernails, so I'm obliged to listen, because teeth are the only part of your body that if you eff em up, you can't really grow them back. I guess they have fake teeth that they can wire into your jaw and stuff these days, but that's a pretty expensive thing I think.

Just what we need.

Apparently, one of George Bush's friends must have opened up a fencing company. That's the only reason that I can see for building a 1.2 billion dollar fence on the mexican border. Like Pedro is going to walk 100 miles, risking arrest and death, only to come upon a fence and say "Damn, Juan, did you know they put a fence here?" "Nah, amigo, there wasn't a fence last time we crossed the border here!", and then turn around and go back to mexico.

George effin bush needs to stop making statements like "This is what the american people want.". No George, what the american people want is stable social security and affordable health care, oh yeah, and more jobs for americans that pay better money. What YOU want is issues that puts american tax dollars in your friends pockets. I'll be looking for the list of companies that bids on this fencing contract. Do we still bid on contracts, or do you just hand them out to whomever you want these days?

Damn, I can't wait until november.

I had my first speech due today for speech class. I'm a terrible public speaker, but I think it went well. This may be the first class that I've ever taken that I feel like regardless of how hard I apply myself I will not get better than a C. I am NOT a likable person when it comes to speaking to groups of people, or even speaking to 1 or 2 people, actually, I'm not really all that likable overall.

Stupid People

So I'm rollin up to the wegmans(I'm sure you can see where this story is going), and I'm stuck behind one of those arsehole people who can't take a parking spot more than 30 feet from the store. You know the type, they drive around the parking lot instead of just taking a space that's a little farther away, OR they'll sit there for 10 minutes waiting for someone to load up their car and pull out of their spot so they can take it. Anyway, I was particularly annoyed because said person was in a brand new mercedes-benz, and we all know that as far as german vehicles go, I'm a BMW guy, not that I'd ever buy anything but a nissan ever again.

Anywho, Stupid lady parks her benz and I get a spot 2 spots down(yes, it was there the whole time she was waiting), as I'm getting out of my car, I hear her remark to a guy loading up his car something to the effect of "Us poor people have to work for a living", she may have known the guy, I don't know, but his response seemed to indicate that she did not. He said something like "Shit, you ain't poor", which coincidentally was exactly what I was thinking. She says "Yes I AM!". The lady was driving a car that costs as much as a lot of people's yearly salaries, and wearing a 200 dollar business suit. I was too far away to hear the rest of the conversation.

What an ignorant uppity...ugh, I'll stop there, if I was the type of person that smacked people upside their heads, then she would have gotten an upside smack fo shizzle.

Uh, spanish? Yeah, whatever dude, who makes these things?

Your Inner European is Spanish!

Energetic and lively. You bring the party with you!

Who's Your Inner European?

Rain-X for president!

Rain-X rocks. In their current condition(being held together with a rather shady construction of plastic wire ties) my windshield wipers serve as the back up plan for keeping rain off of my window. Mostly because I'm not quite sure how long 3 wire ties can hold together a windshield wiper transmission assembly. I'm gonna have to order that part soon.

Anywho, I hit a rain storm about halfway home, and < snappy > daaaaaaamn< /snappy> , the rain beaded up and rolled right off the window. It was awesome. It was just like in the commercial! Who'da-thunkit?!

Now, I'd like to bitch about the stupid ass(oh yeah, cuss word filter on) crazy stupid lame crappy highway system in DC. Its stupid, effen stoopid to be precise. How can one road be 95N, 495E, 495N, and 95S at the same time? I'll tell you how...BY BEING STUPID! My directions told me to take 495N, but my choices were 495E or W, coincidentally 495E was also 95N(and apparently 95S...stupid), the next turn on my directions was supposed to be 95N, so I figured I was going the right way WRONG! I went all the way around the beltway, probably 45 miles out of my way or so. I've made this mistake before, years ago.

Aside from that, I had a great weekend in VA, thanks for having me shayna/carl, Kiga said she had a great time as well:)

I'm gonna go watch o'brother where art thou. I got some lines from that stuck in my head on the way home...namely "Well ain't this place a geographical oddity? Two weeks from everywhere!". That movie is slowly taking monty python and the holy grail's place as my favorite comedy ever made.