$8 trenchcoats and presidential debates

for the sake of convenience, we'll do these in order. first, i definitely bought a green trenchcoat for $8 today. which is pretty sweet. for those of you who live in the spokane area, i would recommend checking out "the classy rack", my new favorite store. its somewhere near the spokane arena... sorry i can't give you better directions. i also got a pimp plaid jacket, which will be fun to wear around, if for no other reason than how rediculous it looks. that one cost me $5.

i was supposed to have some sort of a running commentary going on the debate, but i couldn't figure out the scripting for it. oh well. here's my quick summary:

Bush: my opponent is a flip-flopper, this is hard work but we're progressing, the world is safer, i forgot what i was going to say, he has no consistent point of view, yay america! oh yeah, and transshipment.

Kerry: what he said, only i'll do more of it, and better, and faster, and for less money. and i do have a consistent point of view, which is that you're wrong. yay america! oh yeah, and i was in vietnam.

i was actually fairly impressed with kerry... he only mentioned vietnam 3 times (that i noticed, though it couldn't have been many more than that), which is a big improvement from the dnc. i still think bush came out on top, though he didn't kick nearly as much ass as he should have. he gave kerry too much slack; and as much as i dislike kerry, he's smart enough that giving him slack is a bad idea. it will be interesting to see the next few debates... hopefully they'll be a little less boring. bush's sense of humor wasn't really in play, and kerry's attempts at it were almost painful to watch.

i think that's about it, really. have a good night all.

another cool blog

i meant to include this in my last post, but totally forgot. anyways, i just started reading powerline a few weeks back, and i think it's a keeper. you should check it out.

since i'm on a library computer and don't have access to my quotes file, i'm just going to pull one off the top of my head:

"Good luck everyone, and may the first man to finish win." --Josiah Pickett

john kerry, a man of... well... something, i think

actually, this post is only indirectly about kerry. it's more about bush, and how he continues to lead in the polls. i don't put a whole lot of stock in polls, but when they all say the same thing--or at least the usa today/cnn/gallup poll and the washington post/abc poll do--it becomes a little more worthwhile to watch what they're saying.

off to work... check out the polls, and enjoy the quote.

"The London Guardian found documents showing Paris fed intelligence to Baghdad before the war. Iraq got diplomatic secrets and military guidance from France. Who else could have taught the Iraqis how to lose their entire country in two weeks?" --Argus Hamilton

still alive

for anybody who reads this on a regular basis, i just wanted to let you know i'm still alive. nothing really exciting going on. maybe i'll just start putting up a quote every day or something.

"In the long run, the greatest weapon of mass destruction is stupidity. In an age of artificial intelligence, too many of our schools are producing artificial stupidity, in the sense of ideas and attitudes far more foolish than young people would have arrived at on their own. ...Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an avowed enemy can destroy many Americans, but they cannot destroy America, because we are too strong and too capable of counterattack. Only Americans can destroy America. But too many of our schools have for years been quietly undermining the values and abilities that are needed to preserve any society -- and especially a free society."
--Thomas Sowell

some random stuff

seems like random stuff pops up quite a bit these days. oh well... sometimes it's the most entertainting.

first off, being sick really sucks. if i'm complaining a lot in the near future, blame it on the sickness and ignore it. if i'm still complaining a few weeks from now, tell me to suck it up and deal with it.

anyways... yeah, i'm falling behind on homework already. i meant to get a lot done this weekend, but lack of sleep, a pretty nasty cold, and The Political Machine (cool game... i'll add a link later) all conspired against me.

also, it seems that kerry has flipped--or was it flopped? i can never keep up with all his "nuances"--again on the issue of iraq. i'm too lazy to type up all the info, and i'm about to head to lunch, so head over to the lunatic left for a pretty good summary of the situation.

i'm sure there was more i wanted to talk/complain about, but it seems to have slipped my memory. so now it's off, and a quote. or maybe the other way around.

"Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong." --Calvin Coolidge

revenge will be had

just ponder this question for a minute... what's better than a fire alarm going off in your dorm at 3:30 in the morning? no, the answer isn't "nothing." the answer is "another fire alarm going off in your dorm 15 minutes later." seems the boys over in macmillan (mac) hall thought it would be fun to start up the prank war again. somebody snuck into the dorm, threw a bunch of bread into the oven in the kitchen and turned it up on high, then proceeded to steal several of the shirts hanging in the halls before running off. the first fire alarm was their fault; the second one was due to the ineptitude of the security guy who came buy to check it out. he found the bread (now fairly burnt toast) in the oven, and shut the oven off. but he didn't take it out of the oven, or even open the door. this oven, like most ovens, was designed to keep things inside of it hot; in this case, it kept right on burning the bread, and 15 minutes later enough smoke had accumulated to set the alarm off again. needless to say, everyone was a little pissed at that point. and this time, we will not sit back and turn the other cheek; the men of baldwin-jenkins will have their revenge.

a job of sorts

it's not much, but it's better than nothing. i now work for the Whitworth Phonathon. which means i get to call up alumni and ask them to donate money to the school's scholarship fund, which enables poor students like me (well... relatively poor, considering the school costs about $28,000/year for tuition, room and board) can keep coming to whitworth. it'll be somewhere between 10 and 12 hours a week; enough time to make it worth working, but not enough that i get overloaded.

that's it, really. i just wanted to have a decently sized post so i could justify sticking another random quote in.

"Government does best when it helps people help themselves. Human dignity is found not in a handout but in being able to do for one's self." --Trent Lott

did i mention how much the school network sucks?

probably. but if not, here goes: the school network really(e14) sucks. we had everybody hooked back up to the internet for a day or so; but somebody wasn't doing their job, and there was still a virus floating around. so we didn't have it all day today. i was actually surprised to see it up again when i went to check my school email a few minutes ago.

originally, i think i had something important to blog about. if it was, it should come back to me; if not, it probably wasn't worth putting up anyways, so no big deal. one fun note, though; the feinstein-schumer (names may be misspelled, as may the word mispelled... i'm not sure about that one) gun control law expired today, meaning that average, law-abiding citizens are once more able to defend themselves against criminals with ak-47s. while i understand what they were going for with the laws, i think they're pointless; the people committing all the gun crimes are obviously criminals already... they're not gonna care if their gun is illegal, as long as it makes it easier to get what they want (money, death, etc.). that's like telling al-qaeda "you know, blowing people up is kind of illegal... you really shouldn't do it."

and a random quote... i'm just going to start going through my collection, and hopefully remember to put one on each post.

"The real threat to world stability is not too much American power. It is too little American power." --Michael Mandelbaum, Johns Hopkins University

having a computer, on the other hand...

is very nice. except for the part where it distracts me from my homework. oh well... that was to be expected. anyways, now that i've got both my compy and the intorweb back, i thought i'd put up another pic. no real update tonight.

not having a computer sucks

it really does. i have to go to the library if i want to accomplish anything useful now, and it's really annoying having to actually get up and walk across campus to talk to friends, instead of IMing them. i suppose its more exercise... but i think i'll be getting plenty of that as the semester goes on anyways.

on the bright side, there is a slight chance that my computer will actually be ready to use again before monday. they're working really hard to get everyone back on the internet here, so they were able to get some people to work this weekend. i'm not holding out too much hope, but we'll see.

anyways, time for lunch, and then homework. if i do get my computer back sometime this weekend, i'll post again; if not, that probably won't happen till monday.

yarrrgh....

stupid campus network. my computer was doing just fine until i hooked it up; now it's getting pwn3d by a virus. since the school disconnected everything but the library (and maybe the research labs... not sure about those) from the internet, i can't download a fix for it, so i had to take it in to the help desk. apparently they're understaffed and way behind, so unless they rope some people into working this weekend, i can expect it back... monday. which means no computer all weekend. so assuming i don't die of boredom, i may actually get some homework done. we'll see.

anyways, time to do some reading. hopefully i'll be able to update again sometime soon.

side note: unfortunately, i won't be putting up any more pictures until my compy gets "fixed".

church sign contest

i've got one of them up already, and i'm going to stick another one up in this post. and i figured, what the heck? head over here and make a sign, or if you've already got a picture of a good one, send me that.



now that my readership appears to be over 2, i figured i'd give this a try. i'll arbitrarily pick the winner, but feel free to weigh in in the comments section.

oh yeah. and another random pic.

can't forget this. i think i'll shoot for one a day from now on, until i run out of pictures. enjoy.



and even though it says it really small down at the bottom, i figure better safe than sorry: this pic is from www.rightwingstuff.com. which is a great site, by the way. you should check it out.

the RISK factor

or something like that. for those of you who i haven't told yet, my RISK board is now complete. well, sort of. it's done enough to play on, and that's the important part. as i think i've mentioned before, i'll just bring it home during breaks for some touch-ups, making it even more awesome than it already is. the grand unveiling will be sometime monday night, probably in the BJ lounge. i'll take some pics that night, so those of you unable to attend will be able to see the finished product.

on a side note, i'd like some reader comments on bush's proposed "opportunity zones," which he hopes will reduce unemployment even further. i think it sounds like a very interesting idea, but i don't know how well it would work, and i don't know enough of the specifics to make an informed decision.

more random piczors

this post will pretty much just be pics. thanks for getting me around the whole gray box thing forrest.





and last but not least, i can't forget to make fun of kerry:



alright... you can expect more pics in this vein, but not until at least tomorrow... i've got the closing shift at work again tonight, so i'll be home late.

well, most of my political pictures don't want to work, so i just do this funny one for now

though not as entertaining as the real lloyd and harry, the name still fits these guys.

it's hunting season

grab your guns, your gear, and your ballots; it's time get the liberals out of office and get this country back to its roots.

well, crap. it's not letting me post the picture. or at least it doesn't look like it on my end. so i'll just post them seperately.

----update----
looks like forrest found away around the whole gray box thing, so here's the picture i meant to post:

yay! i have a friend again!

yeah, so basically i've hardly seen my friends at all this summer. they were all (except trevor, who was stuck in iraq) home for about a week for jon's wedding; but then josiah went back to alabama to finish flight school, rachel went back to work in southern california, and jon and his wife headed down to mexico. i got to spend some time with kate-lynne, but then she left for europe for about a month and a half, and just got back on tuesday.

ok, that's enough complaining for now. i've only got 2 days of work left (yes!), and then it's back to school and writing papers again. for now? back to the RISK board.

oh yeah... and i'll be posting some random pics making fun of the john's edwards and kerry; partly because i think they're funny, and partly in an attempt to piss off forrest. here's the first:



there are some more i have that target liberals and democrats in general... watch out for those too.