improving on perfection

it can be done.



hopefully i'll be able to get the thumbnail thing to work later, so you can see a bigger picture. but for now, here is the RISK board, with some ocean.

--UPDATE--
well, the pics are on my parents compy at home, so further editing is for now impossible. however, if you follow this link, you can see a much bigger picture. or, for those of you living in the spokane area, you can stop by my room and check out the real thing.

the greatest feeling in the world

in my opinion, the greatest feeling in the world is being able to do nothing. not having to worry about getting up in the morning for work, or classes, or anything other than getting enough laundry done so your parents continue to feed you. tonight, i was able to just chill and watch some movies (the bourne supremacy and finding nemo) with a friend. and it was great. and within a few days more friends will be getting home, which should increase the greatness.

on a side note, i'm going to try and take this blog away from the political focus it had leading up to the election. i still like politics, but there are others--like powerline and instapundit, to name a few--who can do a much better and much more thorough job than i can. i would recommend checking them out at some point. in the mean time, hopefully i'll be able to keep this entertaining, and keep readers coming back, even if it isn't on a regular basis.

"I had a good quote to put up, but I seem to have forgotten it." --Daniel Bareither, several hours after he was planning on going to bed

mostly dead, or partly alive?

either of those could be used to describe the entity known as "me" (to myself, at least) at the end of finals week. i think i'm going to go with partly alive, cause it sounds a bit more optimistic. anyways, i hope to be updating this on a fairly regular basis... but i also hope to be out doing things that don't involve me sitting in front of a computer.
that's it, really. i'm off to bed now. no more up-till-3 am study/typing sessions, at least not till next semester. it feels good.

oh yeah, and be sure to check out rachel lucas' new site.

things will get better

that's my new theme song of the moment. i decided to take a break from working on a paper that's due tomorrow (still not finished...) to study for a final that takes place 7 hours from now. while typing away, i was listening to music; at this moment, it's the band "Spoken", and the song "Promise", the lyrics of which are below. i figured it was pretty perfect for me at this point in life/school/whatever.

PROMISE

Yet another day seems like it’s wasted

You don’t feel you’re any closer to the prize

A dead end job where there’s no future

Praying that tomorrow things won’t be this way



chorus:

Things will get better this I promise you

And I know that you won’t feel this way forever

Things will get better this I promise you

And I know loneliness won’t last forever



Yet another day, another tired morning

You’re catching up to your intentions

You’re thinking life has to be easier than this

Maybe tomorrow things won’t be this way







Loneliness won’t last forever

I promise with all that’s in me to leave this emptiness behind

it's from their cd "a moment of imperfect clarity", which i thorougly enjoy... i would recommend picking it up. and writing your papers on time.

and the word of the day is...

"rancor", courtesy of rachel. not to be confused with the rancor monster from jabba's palace in star wars: return of the jedi.

my point has been proven yet again

not just my point, but the point of most people who have ever watched anime: the japanese are weird. not convinced? check this out.

"$15 million isn't money. $15 million is a motive with a universal adapter." --some guy who's name i've forgotten, from the movie Way of the Gun.

maybe that's not as fun as i thought

a caffeine overdose, that is. i was originally planning on consuming copius quantities of that substance, in the form of bawls and mountain dew, and staying up all night to study and write. but then i found out that you can actually overdose on caffeine. some of the effects were expected, others were not. you can view the full list at this site; here's a few i thought were worth posting:

the obvious ones:
--difficulty sleeping
--muscle twitching
--increased urination

the not so obvious and potentially bad ones:
--in and out of consciousness
--vomiting/diarrhea
--irregular heartbeat
--hallucinations
--convulstions
--death

no, that last one was not a joke... you can actually die from a caffeine overdose. scary thought.

"... [It] is an honorable action to abstain from another's wife for temperance sake." --Aristotle

i'm dreaming of a red christmas....

so this site is pretty cool. it lists a bunch of businesses and which presidential candidate they donated to. the site obviously wants you to buy from the "blue" businesses; but the "red" businesses are listed also, which makes it easy for those of us on the right. if at all possible, i would recommend doing the opposite of what the site says: avoid the blue stores, buy from the red ones. otherwise, its entirely possible that your own money will be put to use against you.

thanks to mollbot for the heads up.

i wonder...

...why can't more french people be like this? it would be a much cooler country. make sure to read the part where she says: "I love Britain. I love Margaret Thatcher. I love the way you have overcome the unions and are not afraid to privatise. I love the way you work so hard. In France, we have become lazy and staid. We think only of weekends, holidays and how great we once were. We need a dose of Thatcherism."

sweet, i'm famous

well, not really. but forrest (liberal warning) just pointed out to me that one of my comments was quoted in a post today. it was cast in a negative light, but hey, i'm out there now. scroll down a little ways... i'm the fourth comment under the "south of the 49th" section.

in search of a good play

alison has already decided that she is a horrible poet. i'm pretty competitive, but since i don't really like poetry--especially writing it--i won't challenge her for worst poet ever. instead, i'm gonna shoot for worst playwright ever. here's a little something i got started on in shakespeare class the other day... if i have time, i'll maximize the horribleness by finishing it.

Actors
Bob, King of Kalamazoo
Kate, a barmaid
A Panda

Act I, Scene I
Setting: the royal court of Kalamazoo

King Bob: Who dares to enter our royal presence?
Kate: Kate the barmaid, your majesty.
King Bob: And what is your purpose here?
Kate: I come to beg for the release
Of my friend the Panda, good my lord.
King Bob: You mean this Panda?
[enter Panda, in chains, escorted by guards]
This Panda was discovered in the royal wine cellar,
Guzzling the roaly wine. For this
The punishment is death. The more so, since his
Blood-alcohol level was thirteen per cent!
Kate: But he's over eight hundred pounds, my lord! That would mean
That he consumed at least forty gallons of wine!
King Bob: Forty-two, to be precise, [Panda belches]
The price of which shall be take out of his hide;
Following this, his flesh shall be served at a banquet
In honor of myself. You are, of course, not invited.
Now leave us.

that's actually all i've got so far. and i was kinda making it up on the spot during class, so i'm not entirely sure where it was going. my partner was actually a theater major, but she was operating on about three hours of sleep, so the play isn't as good as it could have been.

on that note, or really any note you feel like, i need to get back to homework. for those of you still in school, good luck on finals. for those of you already done... [CENSORED].

good idea, bad idea

i was inspired to do this by something i saw today. and of course, by the animaniacs, who did it on a fairly regular basis.

good idea: having a christmas bazaar right before finals week.
bad idea: selling sharp knives at a christmas bazaar right before finals week.

this post is "interactive", if you will. leave your own in the comments, or if you want to email me, i'll update the post and stick them in.

red state, blue state, wait a minute, which state?

ok, so the title needs some work. but i've been thinking a lot about the whole blue state secession thing. i realize that most people who talk about it aren't actually serious about it, but i still want to put in my two cents. maybe even three, if i'm feeling especially creative/energetic.

also, all of these ideas assume that i'm in charge of the red states, since a lot of the red state inhabitants are more tolerant than i am.

the flyover states
many on the east and left coasts refer to the heartland as the "flyover states", suggesting that they're basically in the way. if they seceeded, the red states would become, instead of flyover states, no-fly zones. any unauthorized aircraft ventured into our airspace, it would be shot first, and questions would be asked later.

international freeway
i have also heard talk of a massive freeway from california to new york, with no on- or off-ramps in between. that assumes, of course, that the red states would allow the construction to take place. and even if they did, there would be a massive fee involved, plus a monthly charge. it would, after all, be taking up valuable farm land.

you and what army?
oh yeah, and over 80% of the military votes republican, which means that if they don't already, they'd end up making their home in one of the red states. we've pinned you blue guys back into the union before, and i don't think we'd have much trouble doing it again.

i was going to write more on this, but i decided to watch the blade movies instead of doing homework, which means now i need to get back to that.

my hero

as usual, i should be doing homework. but during a conversation that was taking place during homework, i started thinking about friday night. and friday night reminded me that the shell station up the street is once again selling bawls, which makes them my new favorite people.



are we huge nerds? yes, indeed we are.

ok, back to procrastinating. g'night everyone.

corruption, one quiz at a time

dang it, here's another one:

don't ask

dictionary entries you won't find in websters.

multitasking: screwing a woman and shooting a bad guy at the same time.

feel free to add your own.

confusing thought of the day

right now (well, 5 minutes ago and then as soon as i finish this post), i'm working on a paper on fascism, using the writings of benito mussolini. while reading mussolini, something confused me. he says that fascism repudiates socialism; yet he was happy to join up with the nazi (national socialist) party, who were supposedly fascist. hopefully i'll get an answer tomorrow in class. in the mean time, feel free to weigh in.

hooray for weird quizzes, and the friends that take them

like this one:



and this one:



i don't totally agree with the villian one, but i took it twice and got the same answer. and smith was a cool guy.

--update--
this one too:
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

--i should really be doing homework...--
but this is really more entertaining:


"Sadism is fun." --Corliss Slack

hooray for randomness

i hadn't read red's blog in awhile, but i'm glad i went back. i had forgotten how many fun, random things he puts up there. like this, for example. or this. its a good place to go if you want to waste time, have a few laughs, and not do homework... pretty much where i am right now.

we need help

really, we do. if any of you have any skill at geography, i ask that you join the fray in the geography olympics. i've been doing decent so far... i'm probably averaging about 70-75%. which isn't as bad as it sounds: right now, the United States is sitting in 101st place (out of 187 countries currently involved) with a score of 57.598%. and if you suck at geography... well, we can't do much worse than we already are.

another fun quote

but not involving alison, this time. actually, it's back on the topic of john kerry (sort of), who obviously never read mussolini.

"In 1919, at the end of the War, Socialism as a doctrine was already dead: it existed only as a hatred, it had still only one possibility... that of revenge against those who had wished for the War and who should be made to expiate it." --Benito Mussolini

actually, i guess that quote applies to a large portion of europe too.

.........

so these next couple of weeks are gonna be crap for the mood. luckily, i have friends to lighten the mood.

"I like being single. I just wish i had someone to make out with." --Alison

the full spectrum

So Good
getting off work an hour and a half early, and having the manager buy everyone gift certificates to either starbucks or coldstone. maybe my job isn't so bad after all.

No Good
having a good 20-30 pages of writing to do over the next week, and finals coming up the week after.

WTF Mate?
if you didn't believe me last time i told you europeans were weird, maybe you will now.

"Oh my gosh, aren't you cold?" --multiple Whitworth students
"No." --me, still wearing shorts when the temperature is sub-freezing