Pragmatism... not Idealism

Fool! Neither of us is the Dark Lord!

In a tremendous upset, the Queen, er "King" of the Elves won.

Even Hitler had a few setbacks. I'll be the Dark Lord yet.

New link added to the right. Actually, it's an old link I just forgot about, but you get the idea.

The Dark Lord cometh to reclaim the one ring. (cue Requiem for a Dream song LOTR's style) "A dark cloud forms in the west," says Frodo (aka Cole Stryker). "But it's ok as long as I'm with you Samwise Gamgee."

"What?" you ask. It's quite true. Frodo is one gay hobbit and by that I don't mean happy.


As the ring bearer Cole Stryker, I support your right to enter into a civil union with whomever you please. That won't stop me from destroying you tonight though.

P.S. Pictures taken from here
P.S.S. If Cole's mom should happen to make her way to this site, sorry for making fun of your son.

I'm having some image hosting issues. My old provider won't let me link to pictures from an external site anymore. That's why the Herby picture won't load. You can just use your imagination for now. It will probably look better then my crappy picture anyhow.

I took Money and Banking from Dr. Herbener last semester. Everyday he would come into class with his huge coffee mug and take a sip. The sight was similar to a solar eclipse (the mug being the moon, Herbener being the sun). Of course some of you probably don't know what a solar eclipse looks like because you actually listened to your teachers in grade school when they told you not to look at the sun because you would go blind. I never understood that argument. The sun is almost completely covered so if one wanted to look at the sun, wouldn't it be best to look at it during a solar eclipse? I had stared at the sun before and it never did anything except make me see strange colored spots for a couple minutes. Someone told me that the rays from the sun were especially destructive during an eclipse. That doesn't even make sense though. If the sun was that bad during an eclipse, why would they have a bunch of elementary school kids outside and risk having them all go blind?

I was looking through some old documents the other day, and I found some blog ideas I never finished. I didn't finish apologizing for the crappy Jonathan Roths out there and I never did my Dr. Herbener looks like series. I can only think of two people he looks like right now. More may be forthcoming.

Grove City finally got to me- I've turned into a nerd. Yesterday I got up, showered, went to lunch, studied, ate dinner, studied, wrote "I AM the bread of life" on another man's chest, studied more and went to bed.

Bush expands war against hummanity to animal kingdom.



Weren't the Iraqis enough?

The chapel service tonight was quite bad, so bad I feel the need write about it. I debated this decision since I'm afraid that it will make some of you whose minds have wisely repressed the memory of tonight remember the horrors we all had to endure.

John Fischer is a conflicted man. During his message he complained about how horrible the Christian music of today is and then proceeded to make some of worst music I've heard since... well, I don't know. Probably the last time I heard Christian music.

If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge then it's safe to say I'll be a genius by the time I hear him speak again for chapel on Tuesday. Unfortunately I still have about 17 (out of 23) chapels to go to this semester so I don't have much choice.

This seriously has to be be the coolest end to a crappy week ever :)

And I seriously need to never skip New Life again. Somehow it has an anchoring effect. It's my one contact with the outside world and it helps me keep things in perspective. I find it difficult to "preach" at the guys though because I realize my faith is pretty unsubstantiated. I'm not a theologian or a philosopher so I have difficulty making truth claims since I know I can't support them very well. This one boy named Jose nailed me with question after question last night. In a matter of 15 minutes we talked about what grace, salvation and sanctification are, how Jesus got our sins placed upon himself, explained(?) the Virgin Birth (me: well, Jesus was born, but he existed before he was born; Jose: huh?) , the trinity, where the Bible comes from, how it was translated, where the OT and NT come from, who decided what was the Bible and how, how we know it was translated correctly, how we know Jesus was God/perfect, and how to best read Revelation (my least favorite book in the entire Bible).

Apparently it was a false alarm. My Dad didn't have surgery today so there's nothing to worry about.

"Mmmbop – Hanson- one of the greatest songs ever not about love.

You might expect a song written by a 13-year-old boygirl to be about some unrequited crush, perhaps on a maths teacher (watch your back, Bob Dorough), but NO! “Mmmbop” by Hanson is about the death of the future! About the inalienable denial of access to the past! About the nature of the moment! About the realisation of the nature of the existential self as it exists right now! About the horror of death! About the intransigence of the human spirit! About taking life by the scruff of the neck and shaking it until it lets you live in the freedom of the land without history! About old people dying! About carpe diem! Of course you don’t believe me, and you can’t get past the spectacle of three teenager siblings of indeterminate sex (except the older one, who’s sex is ‘ugly’) yelping the phrase “mmmbop!” loudly and repeatedly while being all cherubic and Aryan and healthy and virginal and alluring and and and and and… “In an mmmbop it’s gone / In an mmmbop it’s not there” – feel the existential pain of the delivery of those lyrics! Feel the truth about the nature of human existence! You think I’m lying, don’t you? I’m not."

someone other than me wrote this somewhere

And then Saddam started a farm:


yes, those are chickens

My Dad's going in for a heart operation tomorrow. He might just need a stint or an angioplasty, but there's the chance that he may need another bypass surgery. If you could keep him in your prayers, that would be great.

I've been reading the news like crazy lately for my WSAJ job and there is nothing cool going on in the world. Most of my stories are on the Democratic primaries and the Rykbin abduction. I need Bush to start up another war to give me something to write about.

FCC chairman Powell says we've hit a new low on television

At first I thought he was talking about reality television.

I had one of the most incredible conversations tonight with a guy on my hall. As many of you know, I love music, and the music I love is generally obscure. Somehow a guy on my hall named Hans dropped the term minimalism and so I asked him if he liked Philip Glass. At that point he flipped out. His eyes lit up and he was genuinely excited. Just a side note about Hans- he's the best piano player I personally know. He learns everything by ear and once he hears a song he can play it back to you without too much of a problem. After talking about Philip Glass for a while I played a whole bunch of music for him and every single song he absolutely loved. He analyzed the heck out of each song and tried explaining what the artists were trying to do. I didn't understand most of it but I feel like my music tastes have been justified.

Maybe I should just live with him next year. He loves film too which is an area which I'm trying to become more knowledgeable. I once watched Ingmar Bergman's 7th Seal in which a critic talked about each camera shot and all the intricacies the director was trying to convey. Maybe Hans can teach me how he plays the piano too. He's probably going to get a single though,

Needless to say though, I'm pretty dang excited that someone else on the hall shares my interests.

Perhaps heaven on earth is possible (scroll down)