Things were better when girls had cooties.

Media Review: Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

I thought that this movie was by far the best of the new Star Wars movies. While it still doesn't measure up to the originals, I am glad to see that it wasn't another total flop.

Unfortunately, this movie continued to demonstrate the lack of acting ability present in a large part of the cast, particularly, Hayden Christiansen, the actor who played Anakin. There is still absolutely no chemistry between Anakin and Padme. All of their interactions are painfully wooden and forced.

There was a lot of cool action in this movie. Some of it was a little improbable, though. In general I thought the movie was as good as its predecessors could allow it to be. Unlike those movies this one was pretty cool as a movie and not just a extension of the Star Wars Franchise.

It gets *** out of ***** stars.

Wasting My Tax Money

http://elitetorrents.org/

This makes me really mad. If you follow the link posted above you will see that the "Department of Homeland Security" has found it necessary to devote their resources to shutting down file sharers. That's right, with all of the terrorists out their they have nothing better to defend than the obsolite recording industries profits.

A couple days ago a woman was raped and murdered at my school by an illegal immagrant. Apparently such incidents are not uncommon. Currently 25% of inmates in federal prisions are immigrants, most of them Mexican. A significant percentage of violent crime commited in the United States is perpetrated by illegals.

I am disgusted that our "Homeland Security" dollars are going to exterminate geeks when there are millions of illegal immigrants murdering, raping and robbing our citizens. I am far more worried about being killed by an immigrant than I will ever be about nerds sharing music.

Murder @ School?

http://www.kirotv.com/news/4520517/detail.html

It appears that a woman's body was found, in a rather dead state of being. Right outside my school this morning. I haven't been able to find much info on the death but the south end of the campus is closed down and crawling with cops. While sitting in the computer lab this morning I saw the CSI truck go heading down to the scene. Now there is a TV van sitting there as well.

My accounting teacher got a unique look at the situation. He was walking into school this morning and there was police tape across the path. He decided not that it would be a bad idea to cross over a police line so he ducked under it, at least that is the reasoning he explained to our class. He didn't get very far before being met by police officers. They asked him why he wasn't stopped and he told them that he where he had come from. There response was something to the effect of, "Oh, that's another escape route we didn't think of. Thank you sir, go on through."

It is kind of interesting. Almost no one on the campus has any idea that someone got whacked this moring. Because the south enterance is the least used, most haven't encountered the police blockade. Everyone is going about their daily routines oblivious to what has happened.

I'll write more when I have more information.

Be Careful What You Say

I think it is very unfortunate that the English language has become such a minefield. It seems as if it has become impossible to speak without inadvertently saying something that has some sort of a double meaning or hidden innuendo that you had no intention of invoking.

Fortunately, the landmines are not attuned solely to me. I often get a bit of amusement from other peoples’ verbal stumbling. One of my favorite occurred a few years ago when my big little sister* describe a guy as a “stud” intending to express her ridicule of his 2x4 like, characteristics. She of course was unaware that the word “stud” has a few other uses. Particularly mortifying for her, was “ a male breeding animal”.

In general, however, I find the constant double meanings and dirty insinuations in speech to be a sad reflection on the immoral state of our culture.

*I just wanted to clarify my sororital status. Since I have three sisters all of who are younger than me, I have given them all designations for use in my various familial stories. Here they are:

My older little sister: Emily who is 16 and the oldest of my female siblings, come to think of it the oldest of my sibs period.

My big little sister: Arita is 13 and is bigger and taller than Emily.

My baby sister: Madeline is a year and a half old and the youngest of my clan.

Fifty more,,,

1 First name? My first name is Matthew, which means “gift of God”. Or so I’m told.

2 Were you named after anyone? When my parents went to the hospital for me to be born they hadn’t decided on a name. A nurse suggested that I be named after my father and they decided that would work.
3 Do you wish on stars? No.

4 When did you last cry? Real men don’t cry.
5 Do you like your handwriting? I can read it and that is all that matters.
6 What is your favorite lunch meat? Hamburgers, cooked in Montreal Steak seasoning and drenched in Worchestshire sauce.
7 What is your birth date? 7-14-87

8 What is your most embarrassing CD? Hmm.. I don’t think I have any. If I had a CD that embarrassed me I would get rid of it.
9 If you were another person, would you be friends with you? I already am one of my best friends, no one shares my opinions and interests quite the way I do. But if I were someone else there is a good chance I would get on my nerves.

10 Do you use sarcasm a lot? No. Not at all. Never. Wouldn’t dream of it.

11. What are your nicknames? I used to be “Hewie.” Then I was “Junior,” then “J.R,,” Now I don’t have a nick name just screen names. MicroftXXX and Rabenstrange being the most prominent.

12 Would you bungee jump? I wouldn’t pay much for it. But if someone else paid it would be fun.
13 Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? The unfortunate thing about lace up boots is that it is quite necessary to untie them to get them off.
14 Do you think you are strong? I can bench 120% of my body weight. Which doesn’t sound so impressive when you hear that I only weigh 135 lbs.
15 What is your favorite ice cream? I love raspberry sorbet with gummi bears.
16 Shoe size? My tennis shoes are 11s and my boots are 9 wides.
17 Red or Pink? Candy apple red.
18 What is your least favorite thing about yourself? I squander the abilities God has given me.
19 What do you miss most? Being a naïve little kid.
20 Have you ever been dead? Yes actually. When I was being born I pinched the umbilical cord in the birth canal. The doctor just left for no reason and I flat lined. I ended up being born Emergency C section with no breathing and no heartbeat. God intervened and I was revived.

21 What color pants and shoes are you wearing right now? I am wearing charcoal gray polar fleece pants and have bear feet.

22 What are you listening to right now? I am listening to Imaginary by Evanescence and my sisters’ I Love Lucy DVD.

23 Last thing you ate? A fudge oat bar that my wonderful sisters made.

24 If you were a crayon, what color would you be? A black crayon in a purple wrapper.

25 What is the weather like right now? There is a low pressure trough and mid latitude cyclone moving in which is causing above average precipitation.

26 Last person you talked to on the phone? I called my mom to see if she could give me a ride home from work.

27 Do you like the person who sent this to you? I got it off of Jessica/TBQelite’s blogs and I guess I like both of them.
28 Favorite drink? Good lemonade.

29 Favorite sport? Paintball.

30 Eye color? Blue Gray

31 Do you wear contacts? I probably should but I don’t.
32 Favorite food? My mom or sisters’ cooking. Grandma is a pretty good cook too.
33 Last movie you watched? The Chronicles of Riddick.
34 Scary movies or happy endings? Comedy
35 Summer or winter? Since I will never get another summer break ever again…winter. It is cold and rainy and thus less conducive to yard work.
36 Hugs or kisses? I am not terribly fond of physical displays of affection but if I had to choose definitely hugs.

37 What is your favorite dessert? Mom makes great strawberry rhubarb pie, but then her fresh strawberry pie is also wonderful. Oh, I like strawberry shortcake too. Are you sensing a trend?
38 Who is most likely to respond? My guess is Jessica or TBQelite will get the first comment. They seem to be my most regular readers.
39 Who is least likely to respond? Elvis, he really is dead.

40 Living arrangements? I live with my Dad and Mom and my five younger siblings.
41 What's on your mouse pad? My mouse.

42 What did you watch last night? My computer monitor.
43 Favorite smell? Good food.
44 Favorite sounds? Good music, “Rabenstrange is Dominating with 271 consecutive kills!’
45 Rolling Stones or The Beatles: Of the two probably the Beatles, but I prefer Simon and Garfunkle to both.
46 What is your dream job? Real Estate investor.
47 What would you do with an extra hundred dollars? Put it in the bank.

48 What disease would you cure if given the chance? Sheepidity.

49 What has/will be the highlight of your week? Going to the pool.
50 If you could be anywhere else right now, where would you be? A good LAN party.

Retaining My Sanity

I've been told that insanity is the only sane response to our insane world but nevertheless I still struggle to maintain my reason. Fortunately, it seems that even now as the world is unveiling its great conspiracy to make me fail, a new avenue of relief has been opened to me.

The local pool has opened for the summer. Now everyday after class I take the three-minute walk, cutting through the elementary school to the swimming pool, where I can temporarily forget my anxieties while I swim laps. My vocabulary is insufficient to describe how nice it is to be able to do this.

Enslaved by the Ur-Quan!

I haven't posted for several days now and I thought that you might want to know the terrible, awful, unfathomably evil reason for my negligence.

I regret to inform you that I have been enslaved by the Ur-Quan. I am now one of there mindless battle thralls forced to play Star Control 2 endlessly as I attempt to throw off my chains.

It all started a couple days ago when I stumbled across a post on the Geekwagon blog, (geekwagon.blogspot.com). The post was about a couple of retro games that have been ported over to modern PCs in an opensource format.

Being the naive person that I am, I felt compelled to try one of the relic games from the dark ages of the early 90s. I installed "Ur-Quan Masters", a version of Star Control 2 onto my computer and have been gleefully playing ever since.

I'd post more but the base is picking up signals from Rygoth.

Silver Back

As Duck Tape Across America Day continues to approach I have been intensively working on putting together an appropriate celebration. As my loyal readers know I have posted a number of duck tape related updates since I learned of this prestigious holiday’s existence. In keeping with my previous course of action I am giving you another use for Redneck Chrome brought to you by the Duck Tape HMO.

At this point you may be thinking Duck Tape HMO refers to some sort of medical use for duck tape. However, you will undoubtedly discard this idea because you, like most people realize that duck tape medicine is purely preposterous. When you do this you will be wrong.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have found that duck tape is useful in the healing arts, primarily as a bandage.

*WARNING* The remainder of this post contains gruesome and bloody descriptions of painful events. My tender, sheltered female readers may wish to quit reading at this point.

Now that I have that of the way I shall continue.

For a couple of years now I have had an enormous mole on my back. It really bugs me. I don’t know why it irritates me so but it does. Or rather it did.

Two nights ago, after taking a shower I decided to get rid of it for good. I attempted to rip it off the traditional way with my bare hands. This proved rather ineffective and merely made the growth bleed. However I wasn’t ready to quit at least not yet. Undeterred by the bloody mess I picked up my handy dandy set of pliers and proceeded to rip at the sucker.

Let me stop at this point to point out that trying to use pliers on a point of yourself midway between your shoulder blades is very difficult. I had to twist and contort so that I could use the bathroom mirror to guide my pliers to the offending growth. If anyone had burst in on me at that point they would have gotten quite a shock.

At this point, about 10 minutes since I began the operation, I had blood pouring out of the gaping crater remains of the mole and running down my back in a steady stream. I had only gotten about half of the mole because instead of coming off in one piece, whenever I got a grip on it, it would rip off in little tiny pieces. Finally I decided to give up.

I mopped up the blood with a rag, which was rather difficult concerning that the blood was pumping out as fast as I could mop it. I realized that a normal Band-Aid just wouldn’t cut it so I retrieved my nearest roll of Silver Miracle ripped off a square piece stored it on a nearby doorknob, swabbed quickly, retrieved tape and slapped it on my back. Now I have a piece of duck tape securely attached to my back until I feel like pulling it off.

According to various sites, I’ve looked at online a lot of people claim that placing duck tape over warts and moles will kill them. I guess I’ll find out.

Auditory Stimulus Testing

Abstract: Rabenstrange and TBQelite two scientists from the Society for the Preservation of Niftiness performed a series of experiments on computer gamers in an attempt to discover what effect different genres of music had on their gaming performance and social interactions.

Hypothesis: Rabenstrange and TBQelite initially conducted the experiment believing that the changing the genre of music being played in the gaming environment would radically change the scores and alter how the participants of the study reacted with each other and their computer equipment. It was believed that playing soothing music such as Switchfoot and Lifehouse would cause gaming to progress at a slower less frenzied pace with players doing a lot of sniping or build and expand tactics. More intense punk and rock music such as Thousand Foot Krutch, Linkin Park and Kids in the Way was theorized to produce a more agitated, competitive environment with gamers using rushing and overwhelming forces attacks. Japanese toddler music was expected to cause massive agitation and possible real world physical violence as gamers took out their music induced anger on each other. Lastly, harder screamo music like Demon Hunter and Project 86 was to provide the most intense focused game play.

Methods: The experiment participants consisted of 9 gamers ranging from a variety of gaming backgrounds including both console and PC gamers. All the participants were Caucasian males between the ages of 15 and 21.

The experiment was conducted at TBQelite’s ultra secret research compound that also happens to be his primary residence. More specifically six of the participants were placed in close proximity to each other in TBQelite’s 8’ x 12’ quarters. Two participants were placed in the overflow section in the hall directly outside of the primary testing room and a control section was maintained by putting a single participant in exile in the basement.

To maintain applicability to normal LAN party conditions the participants were heavily medicated with the traditional gamer drugs and were encouraged to comply with special dietary guidelines for the duration of the experiment. The drug used by the participants was a caffeine and sugar rich supplement commonly known as Mountain Dew manufactured by the Pepsi Cola company. The additional dietary additives consisted of pepperoni pizza, Pringles brand salt, fat and carb supplements and Tostitos brand “hint of jalapeno” chips.

Results: Contrary to researcher expectations the music had little effect on the bulk of the gamers. There were two main exceptions to this finding. The first was the Japanese toddler pop. This music caused immediate reactions of horror, paranoia and violence. Participants immediately began to cover their ears, cry out and attack the researchers in charge of the music. This was of course the expected result. The second exception was when participants attempted to play their own music over that of the testers. This resulted in exchanges where the errant participant would turn up his volume which prompted the tester to in turn increase his volume and so on. These competitions generally ended when gamers who had brought only headphones and were thus restricted from competing began to threaten and physically attack those playing music. (In case you’re wondering the 5.1 surround sound in place in the testing facility was able to win every volume challenge).

Discussion: The lack of effect of traditional styles of music may have been due to previous resistance built up in the participants by previous exposure. Also many participants used headphones which were capable of at least partially canceling out the effects of the test music.

Finally the concentration of the gamers in intense battles prevented them from actively listening to the music and thus it is postulated erased its results.

Whoever causes one of these little ones to fall into sin...

Short Update:

All I wanted to say was that it was probably a bad idea for TBQelite to suggest TPing his brother's room to his 7 year old sister. By the way four rolls goes a long way in a small room.

Vehicular Exertion

While I have a natural disinclination towards hard work, I spent a good part of my afternoon pushing a Blazer around a parking lot. The pleasant afternoon of video games and TV binging that I had planned for myself was utterly destroyed. It is time I will never get back.

To make a short story long, I am currently camping out at the residence of TBQelite and his clan while the my family and a big part his family are in Idaho for various quizzing activities. The reason for this relocation is that since I will be catching a ride with him to school and would be coming to his LAN party on Friday/Saturday it would be most convenient if I was living in the same local as he for a few days.

Anyhow, Rawkstarman, generously allowed us to beat him into giving us a ride home from school. Unfortunately, after listening to me quote my last chapter, and walking out to the remote region of the BCC parking lot where Rawkstarman had parked his vehicular, he found that the old piece of junk wouldn't start.

Rawkstarman then suggested that we try to start his car "the cool way" which involved him sitting in the car while TBQelite and I pushed. Predictably the coolness of the technique was related somewhat Disproportionately to its effectiveness.

We then peered under the hood. Rawkstarman dug around his vehicular's guts while TBQelite and I looked on and uttered knowing phrases such as ,"Uh-huh,", "I see," and "That might work."

Eventually, Rawkstarman decided that the problem lay with his corroded battery terminals which he postulated could be expedientally repaired by pouring Coke on them. One can later we discovered that this was another "sweet" move that possesed only limited utility.

To wrap up this tale before it gets long winded and boring. Rawkstarman got out and pushed with us and after a few tries the modified version of "the cool way" produced the desired result along with a funny smell. We ended up getting back a little later than normal but now I have something to blog about. That's about it.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Puppy Test

In the spirit of conformity I will now post my results to an online quiz:

You Are a German Shepherd Puppy

Intelligent, quick witted, and a bit aggressive.You've got the jaw power to take a bite out of anyone you choose.

What Breed of Puppy Are You?

Another Use

A friend of mine, Neemund, turned 21 yesterday. Now that he has reached that golden age he is finally able to get his concealed carry permit. In honor of his near-future acquisition, I gave him 100 rounds of .22 LR ammo, wrapped in, the pinacle of human engineering, duck tape.

Runaway Bride

Everything may have turned out for Julia Roberts in the 1999 romantic comedy but it doesn't really work that way in real life.

Jennifer Wilbanks ran away to avoid her wedding and not only will she have to deal with the personal and family consequences it appears that she is facing a possible felony conviction, five years in prison and $100,000+ bill for the search.

Ms. Wilbanks ran away after saying that she was going for a jog. She then made national news when she was reported missing a few days before the wedding. It appears that she didn't runaway on the spur of the moment but had made preparations, including getting a hair cut and a bus ticket, ahead of time.

I don't know what is wrong with this lady but I can't imagine what it would be like to be so self centered that you could do something like that to your family. She probably needs some serious help.

How am I? I'm glad you asked.

I was reviewing my posts of late and noticed that I haven't said anything about my life or what is going on with me for a long time. Because I have an egocentric tendency and have nothing witty or interesting to say, I feel compelled to give you a crash update on the last few weeks of my life. Anyways, here goes:

Spring quarters seems to be going pretty well. I seem to be doing well in all of my classes except possibly accounting (I got a B on our first test. Oh well class average was a D-, one point above an F and half the class failed.). Taking 20 credits hasn't been too bad.

I only have a couple, that's right 2, chapters left to quote for the National Award. Which, for those of you who don't know means that I have nearly finished memorizing the book of Matthew. I expect to be done by Thursday.

Wednesday evening I am going over to stay at TBQelite's while the rest of my family, Neemund, and the TBQ novice team are at Regionals. This is happening for the sole purpose of allowing me to get a ride to school from Rawkstarman(.blogspot.com) who has generously acquiesced under intense pressure to picking us up and dropping off for a couple days. This is strictly for convenience and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that TBQelite and I are stockpiling movies and planning a Friday night LAN party.

Spiritually things seem to be flat lining, which I find rather scary. I am currently embarking on an attempt to re-regularize my daily devotions and take a more conscious approach to seeking God.

My future plans include taking night classes this summer and getting a full time job. I also intend to get succumb to peer/parental pressure, learn to drive and get my license. I guess it would be a good thing to get that before I get too far past my 18^th birthday.

So that’s how I’m doing. I’m sure you were all fascinated and were unable to divert your attention from the fascinating details on your screen as you read this account. Unfortunately, I can think of nothing else to post at the moment so you will have to bide your time and sharpen your pitchforks until I return to dazzle you with another insightful post

Before I get harangued by someone who doesn’t understand my humor (which, incidentally includes almost everyone) I am really not as impressed by my own writing as my shtick might seem to indicate. Also I really don’t expect anyone to understand the pitchfork remark.