Hypocrites!

The Internet is slowly destroying my faith in mankind. Seriously, we're getting so screwed up that we're going to bomb ourselves stupid just to see what death feels like. Nearly anything you'll find on the Internet makes the human race look that stupid.
Particularly, I'm reffering to a very long, and extremely boring movie here. Don't watch it; your time is too precious. I turned it off right after I heard something about mormon temples. They look like this:



Beautiful, isn't it? I mean, after all, the church has spent buckets of money getting it that way. And that's what this guy said, claiming that it seems to him that Mormons are spending too much on this fancy stuff, when they could be helping the poor.
The debate is to show the difference between mainstream Christianity and Latter Day Saint Christianity. The mainstream Christian stuck his foot so far down his mouth with that comment that it came out his butt and swirled back in. I have photo evidence that they do the same exact thing.



That's right punks, your "bling bling." You spend a whole friggin' lot on gold and fancy crud too. And tons of people waste their money on this stuff; I'd find it hard to believe that you don't spend more than we spend on temples.
Now, here's the difference that saves us from your hipocracy: ours is the house of the Lord. We're spending money to give God the best of the best. You're just spending it to hang a bit of gold around your neck.
You sicken me, hypocrites!

Message Boards Are Good

I need people to use my message board. I've even changed one of the rules on it to make it more fun. You will be transferred there shortly. It doesn't matter what you post; just post something! There's even a flaming forum if you want to bash me, whether for a good reason or not. Be aware of the new rule if you're going to the flaming forum; although I won't ban you from there, there is another surprise.

Violence is Good

Hippies everywhere, you are fools. I've been thinking so hard the universe imploded twice and I had to build a time machine to go fix it so nobody would know. If you think long and hard, you realize violence will save the world.
Now, there's a lot of you out there who haven't thought this through. You keep living in this utopian fantasy you've built in your head where everybody loves eachother, and we all smoke pot. First, I'm never smoking pot. Second, no matter what you do somebody will always hate you.
Given that, the only way to achieve peace is to become a powerful jerk who doesn't take crap from anybody. Let's take the war in Afghanistan, for example. The Taliban thought that they could fend off the United States. Why? Because too many of us have this hippy crap drilled into our skulls. They realize that we'll try to cause as little lifeloss as possible. However, if we were to bring back the styling we had at Nagasaki in WWII, any government in the world would think twice before crossing us. The Taliban would have handed over Osama bin Laden already if the US kicked that much butt.
Now, I know what you're thinking. If the US had the power to strike fear into the hearts of everyone, some moron would get elected who would abuse this awsome power for his own purposes. I've already thought of that. You see, all we have to do is build a robot that will pass judgement according to democracy (except when everyone's being idiots, then he takes charge like a robot should). Sure it'll cost a lot, but it's worth it for world peace.
If you know his e-mail, send this to the president of the United States.

I Know Everything

Yeah, that title is a bit self-concieted. But so what? I tried this before when I was getting less traffic, so let's try this again. I can answer every question. Click the link below for more info on this claim.
Last time I tried this, people didn't know what I meant. I started getting trivia. Why waste such a talent on trivia? Any trivia sent to me will be ignored. Send me deeply theological questions, like "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" and I'll make up an answer off the top of my head. Since I know everything, it'll have to be right, no matter how messed up it is.
This will be sort of like the expired comic, Captain Ribman.
Send your questions to leo.damascus@gmail.com.

To get things rolling, how about if I anser that example question.
Q: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
A: It has to be the chicken. Otherwise, how the heck did the egg get here? Some people may think you can't get the chicken without the egg, but they're forgetting the awsome power of radiation. The chicken is a radioactive mutation of clowns. Where did the clowns come from? Somebody bought them off Ebay. Ebay has always existed; it just hasn't always been on the Internet.
There's no way you can argue with that.

Stuff that Annoys Me

The next time somebody tries to pass me on when I'm travelling the speed limit, their car will be mysteriously rammed off the road. Heck, I like to go just as fast as the other guy, but these people are going to cost me $60 for a speeding ticket by making me think I'm going slow.
Another thing that annoys me is how some bloggers like to stop their preview right in the middle of the sentance, like anybody cares.... Ok, actually I'm making fun of these people who feel that clicking to continue reading is such a big chore.
Lazy Blog Reader: 0 n0 he r teh make me click taht r s0 hard!!!!1
These people need to be irradicated from the face of the planet. A click is not a hard thing to do, especially when it saves you time from the scrolling wheel. These people seriously need to take a web design class sometime in their lives! Call themselves net-savy!
I also hate how I was forced to move out of my dorm. My family is leaving for Washington D.C. before I move in, so pretty soon I'm going to be completely homeless. Not to mention, I had to move everything, when I had spent the previous night up all night cleaning for this stupid move.
Ok, glad I got that off my chest. You may continue wasting your life away.

Spambots!

If you look at the comments for my last post, you'll see I've been hit by spambots. That is, you will if I haven't deleted them by the time you read this post.
Now somebody's going to call me on hypocrisy for this one. "Chris, you said you don't mind ads!" That's true, but remember the following:

1. I have a section of my message board dedicated to random ads. It's empty and needs to be used.
2. Comment rule #4 states that I don't want spam. That means comments must be relevant.

Here's an example of what was posted:

President Bush Indicted for Podcasting?
Two pieces of blog related news today centered around the President of the United States have nothing to do with his stance on speaking with Iraq War protesters, making millions by injecting Jose Canseco and ...

I really enjoy reading your blog. Another bookmark, I would say.

_______________
teenage hairloss [link removed] related stuff!

The article was about werewolves. I assume the spambot programmer decided I wouldn't delete the post if it sounded like I'd made a fan, hence the bookmark comment. Then there's all of that Bush crap. The programmer figured all blogs talk about Bush, and never vampires and werewolves, therefore nobody would notice this. And lastly, the actual ad. It scanned the post and noticed the words hairy and conditioner. I was talking about werewolves when I said hairy, and conditioner to emphasize how gay vampires are.
Checkmate, spambot! You've been discoverd!
I don't care about hairloss. Baldness does not run in my family, and I've got more hair on my head than Robin Williams has on his whole body! I'm happy with my hair!
Too bad spammer. Better luck next time!

Werewolves are Better than Vampires

This has been a subject of heated discussion for me lately. I mean, who the heck would want to be a vampire? Vampires are gay!
Case in point, look at this guy:



What's he going to do, kill you with his conditioned hair? Or better yet, slap you with his limp wrist (which is covered by his frilly dress, by the way)?
Now, sure there's this whole sucking your blood thing which is pretty rugged, but nothing compared to any other monster.
If a monster were to bite me and turn me into it, I'd much rather it were a werewolf. I mean, look at how awsome they are!



Oh man, I get goosebumps just thinking about how awsome being a werewolf would be! Somebody looks at you wrong and their voicebox is dangling in your teeth! Not to mention you're a hairy beast!
Let's compare their weaknesses, because weaknesses are what will stop you from being the awsome monster you are.

Werewolves:
Silver Bullet

That's it. Nothing else can kill a werewolf. On the other hand, what about vampires?

Vampires:
The Sun
Garlic
Wooden Stake
Lowercase letter "t"

How many people are carrying around a silver bullet? And better yet, if you can afford the silver bullet, how'd you afford the gun? Only rich people can kill werewolves, and they're usually too big of pansies to do that anyway. Any idiot with two sticks can make a cross, though. So werewolves win!
Plus werewolves aren't assosiated with goths. Friggin' goths! Ugh, now I hate vampires even more!
Lousy vampires!

Format?

I pride myself on my blog's ability at interaction. I mean, I put on a link to my AIM account, I've got a link to my e-mail, I have comments, I have a message board, etc. I've even been asking about my blog in other forums. Consequently, I've been getting some feedback on my blog, and the only real critisism was my multi-page layout, which I chose to clean things up. So now I present the following poll:
Click Here to Vote
Personally, I'm voting for my way, since I went to so much trouble to create it, and after all, it worked for Maddox. He currently outranks XiaXue, another blogger in my same genre who uses the other format.

Why I'm Also and Idiot

I know what you all are thinking: *gasp* *shock* *horror* Chris
admitting to idiocy? Yes I am, although not the worst I've had
recently. The worst has to be the guy who lit his own pants on fire
yesterday and took 2 minutes putting it back out. At one point he was even just standing there with his pants ablaze, not taking any action.
But even so, I've finally learned the following lesson:
Sleep is a nessecary evil.
Last night marked the first time I've attempted to stay up all night. I
did not go to sleep at all last night. I even downed sugar water to
make sure I stay up all night. I made it to 24 and a half hours until I passed out.
That means I lost the contest to stay up. Travis, I think, is the winner, with 27 hours without sleep.
This contest kills you the next day. I mean, absolutely no getting up to finish
anything. So now I ... *snores*

The Word "Probably"

Have you ever noticed how often idiots use the word "probably?" It's only one thing in the whole profile of things that make idiots, but today it just hit me.
I don't mean using "probably" such as in: I should probably do this, but I'd rather not. I mean the use of probably where people take hypothetical situations as evidence. For example, there's this gem from my own hate mail:

she was probably looking at a picture of brigham young BEHIND your ugly @#% and comparing you two.

You see, he's making the assumption that

a. There was a picture of Brigham Young in the room.
b. That it happened to be in my eyes.

And as soon as he finds out that none of the above is true, his comment is thrown completely out the window. And that always happens when you pretend something that probably happened/will happen is ample evidence.
So that you know I am not being entirely presumptuous, I also present the following not related to this blog.

classic rock music is what started the music that you probably listen to today.

Am I the only one noticing a grammatical pattern here? It seems like use of the word "probably" has a direct correlation with not capitalizing the first letter in a sentence. Now, I'm not saying all people who don't capitalize use probably as evidence; I'm just saying they're morons.
Like in the previous example, this person is also making assumptions.

a. This guy listens to music inspired by classic rock (even though he said he respected classical music).
b. His comment means jack.

I mean, seriously, who cares what inspired what?
Let me clarify quickly, because I like some classic rock (Doobie Brothers, Queen, some Beach Boys, and others). The classic rock referred to in this comment is the bubblegum of the old days, such as the Beetles or the Monkees. A prime example of what I'm talking about includes the Monkees, actually.
Smashmouth "I'm a Believer" vs. Monkees "I'm a Believer."
It's the same song, except Smashmouth's came a whole lot later. But the Monkees had an awful part where they tried to pass of "De Doom De Doom De" as a legitimate instrumental. Smashmouth realized that that was killing the whole song, and replaced it instead with a guitar solo, which instantly made the song less awful and more awesome.
I'll keep you posted on that list. But now I'm tired, and I want some sleep. So in closing, I am your master.

The Frog

I've developed a new mathematical formula: C = P. This formula refers to any object in the world. C is the object's crappiness, and P is it's popularity. Examples include (not in order of crappiness):
1. Eminem
2. Anime
3. Vampires
4. (See picture below)

"Crazy Frog has held No 1 spot for five weeks on the Eurochart. It also ranks No 2 in Finland, No 2 in Sweden, No 2 in Austria, No 1 in Wallonia, and No 1 in Norway. Estimated European sales are over one million to date." (http://top40-charts.com/news.php?nid=16407)

During my 3 1/2 years in Europe, the last two where sheer torture, mostly due to that stupid frog ring tone, which aired on TV commercials nearly every commercial break (sometimes twice), and on people's cell phones. It features a frog, with anatomy usually non-existent in frogs, pretending he's on a motorcycle with a high pitched engine (Click here to hear it, but you'll be sorry). Now I come to learn that the USA has picked up on it too!
Not in my country!
So here's my plan. First off, I train a bunch of babies from birth to become ninjas. These ninjas will be pre-programmed to destroy any phones using, radios playing, TVs displaying, or people imitating that stupid frog (by the way, I mean Batman Begins style ninjas, not anime scantily clad female style "ninjas"). Once all my ninjas are capable of pulling out a guy's heart and showing it to him, I'll find the moron responsible for this frog and unleash my ninjas. One of them will rip out his voicebox and feed it to the bloodhounds that'll appear out of nowhere. Another will rip off his fingers, so he can't do anything with cell phones anymore. Then the last one will gut him for good measure.
I hate that frog.

Another Reason People Are Idiots

SHUT THE @#% UP if all you do is judge people you are pathetic. your too busy with thinking your the @#% to see that people like you are tha reason sane people commit violent crimes. my guess is that you were once picked on so now the only way you feal good is by thinking everyone else has a problem when your the one who needs to rethink your whole life

This was posted on an associate of mine's blog (the associate calls himself "The Epitome of Macho"). It was in response to a very well written critique of today's popular music. The critique was awesome.
But apparently, some people were way too wussified to take any critique. They feel that people like "The Epitome of Macho" make the world a worse place because "all [they] do is judge people."
There's the hypocritical statement of the year. Think about it; by accusing somebody of being too judgemental, aren't you judging them?
But the cold fact is that judging others is necessary. Take, for example, getting a job. When you sit down, your employer judges whether or not you'll be a good employee, or if you'll be one of those people who can't do the job. An employer's not going to waste $25,000 a year giving a failure a salary. He's going to judge you to be a lazy mooch and fire your sorry self for incompetency.
The biggest load I hear from people like this (usually "Gangstas") is that that's "just they way they are" and they "can't change." Bull crap! You weren't born with those ugly, oversize headphones growing off of your ears! You weren't born with an iPod you destroyed yourself to make it look "Ghetto!" You did all those yourself, moron! All you'd need to do to change is take off those crappy headphones and stop listening to that awful "Ghetto" crap. It's that easy; people do it every day!
You're a failure at life, purposely destroying what intellect possessed that brain of yours before you started listing to that crap. You are the filth of society. Don't like people telling you that? Stop being that; it's simple enough. Suddenly you'll notice people stop judging you. Problem solved, idiot!

Update: I thought I'd include this just to solidify my point, since I don't even have to comment on this one.

@#% @#% is ure pr0blem u b actin like u a mach0 wen ure pr0bablii n0t n u a n0 life dat all u d0 is b @#% ppl n h0pe u die instead 0f 0ther ppl died ure pr0bablii mahh uglii n h0w da @#% u b tellin me 2 learn english wen da 1 dat sh0uld g0 2 an ESL class iz u cause u dunt n0e h0w 2 speak english n dunt even n0e h0w 2 read mayb....n by da waii n0t every1 is like u we aint dirty like we g0t mannerz @#% head...nwaiiz ima leae ure xanga cause its so0o uglii n if u rite bak in my @#% watch cause i dunt like @#% 0ld ppl b ritin in it...o01z....

Harry Potter and the Army of Crybabies

Who's read the recent Harry Potter? I haven't, and yet I still know what happened, because some people don't know the meaning of the phrase "shut up, kid!"
If you haven't read the end of the book, don't read the rest of this post (consider this your spoiler warning). Apparently, almost the entire Harry Potter fanbase is crying their eyes out because Dumbledore is killed. For instance, this made it onto a Harry Potter Livejournal web site:

''Is anyone else in complete and utter shock about who just died and how, or am I the only one?"

''I am in shock. @#%, I can't believe what I just read. I spent like the last three chapters bawling my eyes out. I'm just in shock, pure utter shock."

Complete and utter shock about Dumbledore dying? How could he die; he never existed in the first place! To bring him back to "life" (or rather as much life as he had before) all you need to do is write the words "Dumbledore came back to life" on a piece of paper! No loss here!
According to the Boston Globe web site, 15-year-old Sara Sokolove said:

"Harry Potter is not just a book; it's an entire world that becomes very real to you. People use Harry Potter books as a distraction to their own lives. To escape."

That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. If you really need to escape from your life, you're screwing it up yourself (especially for 15 year olds, who's parents still buy them food, clothing, grooming materials, most likely an allowance, electricity, room and board, etc.). If that's the case, you have far more important things to be doing (like fixing your life) than reading Harry Potter books.
Life's awsome for you if you think about it. We have enough money that we don't starve, few of us have to worry about being mudered, medical care rocks hard, etc. Alright, so there's people who don't have these problems and can't escape them, but they're not going out and buying these Harry Potter books. Stop your crying and enjoy your life, you pansy!
This Harry Potter's a poorly written book, anyway. It reads exactly like a fanfiction, crappy editting, script-like feel and all! Don't believe me? Compare the writing quality of this and the new book (it's an old Harry Potter fanfiction I started when I was around 13, but never finished). You know what, on second thought, don't. We need more good writers, not trashy ones, and I'm afraid the book will bring down your style. The most important thing to do is shut up about Dumbledore. Nothing happened! There's no need to cry! Just, grow a spine, woud you?

One Heck of a Street Direction

Has anybody tried Google Earth? It's like Google Maps, except much more competant. Well, so I thought... up until I was given this street direction:

Just plow through the back of the house; I'm sure the owners won't mind! The insurance will cover it!
I'm just glad robots aren't driving cars yet.

Comment Rule #1 Explained

Some people thought I was stuck up adding the rule, "I'm always right, deal with it." I've been straining for a way to make people understand why I added that rule, because at the moment people think I'm just self absorbed (note: you are allowed to break that rule if you e-mail me instead of commenting). Finally, I found the following cartoon. In it, Einstein represents me, and the kid represents my commentor.

Click here to see cartoon.

See, isn't that little kid annoying? If only I could do to my commentors what Einstein did to the kid! Maybe then they'd follow the rules.

By the way, this is just a filler post to test out my new way of doing comments, as well as Atom Subscribtion commenting (which should have just been added). Please comment on this post, even if it doesn't contribute to jack (until I declare this post absolete). Thank you.

(Update: Atom comments didn't work. I'll find another way to make them.)

War of the Worlds Review

Finally, a scary movie that's actually scary. I was beginning to wonder if a movie even could scare me.
I saw War of the Worlds today. That movie was awesome! Okay, so Stephen Spielberg went on his usual bout of accuracy before awesomeness, but there was enough people frying and building crushing to suffice. By the way, don't bring kids to this movie.
The movie, for those who didn't know, is based on H G Wells' novel of the same title, except placed in the early 21st century. A divorced Dad is taking care of his children, when suddenly aliens attack. He then attempts to bring his children back to their mother. It sounds like the perfect B movie, but Stephen Spielberg did it, and he can't make crap (even though he seems to be trying).
I can't say much or I'll ruin the movie, but let's just say that there's never a dull moment. It's not quotable though. Only one line was even memorable... wait, I forgot that line too. On a scale of 1 to 10, this movie ranks about 8, just because Spielberg worries far too much on realism over filling the thing with awsome lines and butt kicking.
So go ahead and see it; just don't expect it to be your cliché alien invasion movie.

Independance Day Is Not For Passing Out!

I tricked you with the title.  I didn't pass out; my brother did.
It was the 3rd of July (for you Euros out there, that's the day before one of the biggest holidays in the USA).  I'd stayed home from church because I'd left many important parts of my church clothes back at my dorm (I was visiting my famiy for the Independance Day weekend).  So about 2 and 1/2 hours later, Lindsey comes home baring the following ill news.

Chris, Johnny just passed out and hit his head. He's in the hospital with amnesia.

Dangit!  So I rush to put on my shoes so I can go see if he's doing alright, and I go in and see him laying there all scraped up, and not even able to remember that tommorow was the 4th of flippin' July (note for the Euros: Independance Day).  I tell you, I was worried for the boy.
I waited with Grandma and my little sister in the waiting room, praying that my brother would get better, when this family who was at church when Johnny passed out and hit his head.  I forget what they said exactly, except that their daughter was going to BYU in the fall.  That's cool, because she's hot!  To get an idea, take the hottest movie star actress you can think of, and multiply by 3.  Better yet, she seemed unable to take her eyes off me.  Oh yeah, she wants me!
Okay, maybe it was because I was the only guy under the age of 50 in the room at the time, but I'm not so sure that's why she couldn't look away.  Besides, she seemed exited I'm going to BYU.  I'm going to have to look her up.
That's going to be hard, though, because I didn't get her name or anything, due to the fact that I had a brother in the friggin' hospital at the time.  It just didn't seem important.  Now that I know Johnny was fine (just a little dehydration), I wish I'd been thinking more clearly.  Man, she was hot!

My Toe!!!

Okay; here's something I never want to hear my toe surgeon say during surgery again.

You didn't want that toe, did you?

Agh. I hate it when doctors joke like that. I was already stressed out enough from the fact that he was going to be digging into my toe with a knife and burning out the nerves inside. I suppose it's better than the German toe surgeon, though.

Me: OW!

German Toe Surgeon: You can still feel that? *snip*

Me: Yes!

And the German doctor just goes on operating anyway! I felt the whole flippin' thing! And what's worse, he didn't fix it! I had to have the same procedure done again once I got back to the States!
I can only take solace in the fact that this time it was properly numbed. I just hope it worked this time.

The Scaring Game

Years ago, when I was still very young, my cousins, siblings and I invented the greatest game in the world: the scaring game. The whole point of the game is to scare the pants off of somebody wandering aimlessly around a dark room. My cousins, siblings and I play without points, but points can be awarded for each time you scare someone.
Just saturday was my 5 year old cousin's first time playing. He hasn't started kindergarten yet.
This kid was good. He found every hiding place that my siblings, other cousins and I were too big to fit into anymore. He snuck out of places we'd forgotten existed! And what's more, he was even able to slink around the basement we were playing in unseen when it was his turn to be scared, denying us many of our best hiding spot.
This was after the rest of our family insisted he was too young.
People have too little faith in small children. Small children can handle alot if given a chance. So the next time you see a child, offer to scare the pants off of said child.

The Ghandi Piñata

We interupt this blog for the following commercial message:

Is your life full of stress? Boss giving you a hard time at work? Maybe you just failed your English final? Or perhaps you're just short on people to beat with a sick?
Look no further than the "Ghandi Piñata."



This amazing product is made out of real clones of Ghandi! It comes in three amazing versions: Normal Ghandi (featured above), Fat Ghandi, and Nazi Ghandi!
When asked at gunpoint what they thought about our product, 9 out of 10 psycologists recomended it.
Read these great reviews:

"I used to be nice to old hungry people, but ever since I got the 'Ghandi Piñata' I've realized the error of my ways." - Randy Podmore, Los Angeles, CA

"This is further proof violence is fun." - Jeff Albertson, Springfield, KY

"I liked the blood!" - Some smelly hobo, New York, NY

And what's more, if you mail in your proof of purchase, we'll even throw in "Lil' Ghandi Crusher" for free, increasing your fun exponentially!



So why wait? Buy yours today at participating Wal-Marts and Honda dealers!

(Note: Not a real product.)

Online Quizes

I went to Blogthings.com today, following the lead of my friend from St. George, Nate. I found one that is supposed to tell you your political alliance (you can see my results at the bottom of this post, if you care).
I probably should have stopped when I found this question:

14. Everyone has a right to health care, even if they can't afford it

False

True

Of course it's true. Nobody with a soul believes it's not. The problem is feasability (something that many of you idiots out there can't understand). The US does not force people into a job they do not want to do, which is part of the whole "life, liberty, and pursuit of hapiness" thing the founding fathers wrote about in the declaration of independance. If everybody is given free heath care, it either has to come out of an already suffering government's pockets, the hospital's, or everybody in the whole friggin' country has to pay for that bum who doesn't want a job at all. Now personally, I don't think I should suffer just because that guy's not trying to get healthcare. And if the money comes from the hospital, they will have less money for research, and thereby end up giving us crappier service.
Online quizes are always setting traps like that, biasing you toward one point of view or another, so that whoever set up the friggin' thing's opinions ultimately come out on top.
That's not cool. Stay away from online quizes.
(I'd give more examples but I don't want to bore you any more.)

My Political Profile
Overall: 65% Conservative, 35% Liberal	Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal	Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal	Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal	Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

Veganism

I was watching Trading Spouses one night while tending to my recent surgery. On it, they decided to switch a vegan with someone who thrived on meat. It was a very educational show for me, because I did not previously know just how annoying and self righteous some vegans can be.

The most annoying thing was how the vegan thought she was morally superior to all, and needed to change the entire state of Louisiana. Let's look at the facts:

1. She's willingly participating in a show where she cheats on her husband.
2. She's doing the above for $50,000 dollars (greed).

She's not morally superior to anybody! Yet she goes on preaching veganism like anybody who's not a vegan is a great sinner. She actually called the aligator hunting establishment she was sent to "like an alligator holocaust."

Alligators kill and then eat other animals! If it were to continue living, it's natural diet would kill any animal that happened to be to close the river, which includes people. By destroying an alligators, you actually save life.

But herbivores aren't innocent either. Carnivores keep them from eating up all the vegetation and causing a painful and slow death for all the other plant eaters out there.

"But wait," you veggies and vegans say. "Chris, you don't have to hurt them. Let nature take it's course." I say, yeah. Let nature take it's course. Last time I checked, humans ( homo sapien) are part of the animal kingdom. By trying to force me to eat other than is natural for me, you are attempting to ruin the balance of nature! Some eco-freak you turned out to be!

Now, somebody's going to say, "but humans are the only animals with the power to abstain from their natural will to eat meat." Your very argument is part of the reason I eat meat. Animals are too stupid to know what's going on around them. They don't feel loss when a member of their family dies (at least, not the animals I eat). They just continue pecking seeds, chewing the grass they've puked from their third stomach, or eat the rotting disgusting leftovers of the farmer who bought him. All they know is that either they are happy or they are sad. And the fact is, most of them are sad much of the time. They don't want to be on the earth, so I am removing them from it.

"You can't possibly know what animals want," you say. Of course I can't, but neither can you. As far as you know, you are extending their agony well beyond what they can bare. At least I know I am getting protein and a friggin' good steak out of the meat.

You're all welcome to do what you want with your diet, but my diet includes meat, end of story. I don't feel guilty.
By the way, I welcome vegans' and vegetarians' comments. But you lose suckers!

Home Again... Etc.

I'm finally home!
It feels good to be back in good ol' Utah. It was even worth the 32 hour trip to get back here. Okay, so I enjoyed the trip over; the US State Department payed for a first class trip over, with handout DVD players. I wished they hadn't chosen American Airlines, though; they tried to rip us off.

Mom: Hi, I'd like to transfer my family's baggage to the flight to Salt Lake City.

American Airlines Worker (aka Satan): Sorry, you need 45 minutes to
check in baggage, and that flight leaves in 20 minutes.

Mom: But our flight from Frankfurt just got here! I'd need
to time travel to get here 45 minutes early.

Satan: Wow. That's awful.

Mom: Whatever. Can you get me new tickets?

Satan: The best I can do is tommorow morning.

Mom: Okay.

Satan: I'll just need you to pay for the tickets and hotel.

Me: WHAT?!

Fotunately it was a happy ending, because a computer error in our favor occured, causing American Airlines to buy both for us. Take that, American Airlines!
Anyway, I've been staying with my Grandma, who thinks that a Windows 98 computer with a 5 GB hard drive and no Internet connection is good enough to keep everyone sustained in the world, so I'll be having troubles updating.
Oh yeah, and I also had surgery. I'd say more on that, but my library card's about to restrict me from further net acess. So, bye for now!

Banning the Internet

Aren't web petitions fun? I found this petition looking to ban the Internet. It says the following:

To: American People

We, the members of UCAWWW, petition that the Internet (World Wide Web) creates nothing but harm in society today. The Internet is a cause for addiction and sin while taking away traditional family values. Our children are being exposed to filth that causes sexual tendencies and drug addiction. We therefore, demand that the internet be permanently banned from American homes. We MUST restore faith in God and steer clear of the devil!

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

You know what, I think you should sign it. I mean, we can't allow such awful and degrading web sites (example) to continue to exist! What is the world coming to?
I mean, what's next? I story with a monkey on drugs? Or worse; it could get get animated!

(Note for the slow, I'm involved in each of the above.)

You love me! You really do!

A church activity just ended, and I'd said my final goodbyes to everybody here in Germany. My brothers and I were walking home, which is normal... except that everybody followed me and my brothers home. My front door opened, and everybody started singing "Love One Another."
I swear, it was like the end of one of those cheesey movies with a monkey in it.
I feel so loved.

The Calm Before The Storm

Usually the day before moving is the most hectic day in you life. I mean, there's packing for the plane ride, prepping on the house for its new owners, etc. Yet everything's calm.
Too calm.
It feels like the calm before a typhoon. It's eerily pleasant, then BOOM! Stuff's flying all over the place, people are being fried by stepping in the same puddles as electrical wiring has fallen into, and a tree's about to fall on your house (all from personal experience). If I'm being completely honest, it feels like the plane's going to explode over the Atlantic ocean and I'll be stranded on an island!
I shouldn't say such things, since I might jinx it, but man does it feel weird to be calm the day before the plane ride.
It may be more predictable than that, though. Dad informed me of this terrible truth:

You guys might not get Internet acess.

So, frustrating as it may be, I may not update my blog even after landing in Utah. But hey, it beats starving on an island in the Atlantic. Except for you, my faithful readers (suckers!).

The Delights of Moving

There are many pains of moving: leaving friends, packing, can't get any more spatzi, etc. But today I sampled the pros of moving, namely "all you can eat."
You see, we have excessive amounts of food left over that we can't bring with us (customs thing). So mom ordered me to chow down on ice cream, fruit rollups, and "whatever you want from the fridge."
Score!
I'm probably going to gain like 12 pounds by tomorrow, but man do I like this! I mean, I'm staying up late tonight (helping mom clean), and I feel awake from all the food sugar in me!
I'm going to go see what's in the fridge.

I Found Area 51

I was playing around with Google Maps when I decided to see what area 51 looks like. I figured it would be blurry like the US Capitol Building. But when I went wandering around the Nevada desert (where area 51 is said to be), I found this:

(Google stopped hosting the image. Click here to see the map, though.)

(Satalite image provided by Google, who owns all copyrights on it.)

Considering the reputation Area 51 has for alien stuff, I figured a bunch of crop circles randomly in the Nevada dessert probably meant this is the place.
Is this creative censoring? Is it the real deal? No really, I'm asking. Let's see how big of a conspiracy we can start here.

If you want to look around the Nevada desert yourself, to see what you can make up figure out, click here.
And if you do, please either e-mail me or comment on this post.

(Update 7-08-2005: I recently obtained a copy of Google Earth, and they have a picture of Area 51. It has no crop circles. So the question now becomes, what's up with the crop circles?)

I've Graduated... Finally!

YEAH!
I can't express in words how good it feels to have finally graduated from high school. So instead, I present the following picture:



The procession of events started with a breakfast in the morning where our entire senior class was crowded into the cafeteria and given rolls and meat. Then we moved on to the Stadthalle to practice walking in to that dumb Kill Bill theme song.
The graduation itself was a bit longwinded. You see, after hearing a South African freedom fighter speak about our education, they handed out more awards than diplomas, it seemed.
Afterward a few friends and I went out to get something to eat, in order to celebrate our graduation.
I'd write more, but my brother who's the same age as me is waiting like a vulture to get on the computer and brag about his graduating via MSN messenger. Cìao!

Ow!

And the story of my life continues, with the following escaping the mouth of the nurse who gave me a shot.

"Whoops! Sorry!"

I never want to hear that again during a medical procedure!

The shot is a requirement for going back to the United States for college. To the seasoned shot-getter (aka me) it's known as a "TB" test. They poke the needle into you, and then inject something that makes your skin bubble up. If it doesn't disappear by the next time they check you, you have tuberculosis. My bubble's already gone, and I got the test about an hour ago, and I'm not due back for a check until monday.
But they also have to give me one more shot (I forget for what, though).
Anyway, I'm down to 6 days until I'm safely back home in the States (my clock in the sidebar was wrong for a while, go figure). I can't wait to be home again!

Playing God

I'm back! Even though they took my computer, and took all my other crap, I'm still back!
Anyway, while preparing for the move, I found a game I thought I'd lost in Korea, namely "Creatures 2." I did have time to blog once during my absence, but I decided to play Creatures instead.
What is Creatures?
Creatures is an experiment in computer programming. Basically, the creators decided to see if they could create real life using only computer code. Let me re-emphasize, real life!
It's like a gigapet, only nowhere near as annoying, and about a million times more competant. Owning creatures is like owning an aquarium where you get to talk to the fishes. That's right, you get to talk to the things. They're not fishes though, because they can drown.
They look like this in Creatures 2:

I could give you a review, but the game is very rare these days, and a pain to get to run on Windows XP (it came out years ago). So instead, I'll link to the dumbed down version of Creatures 3, called Docking Station, so you can try it yourself. It can run on either Windows or Linux, but requires you to register online.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go make sure the packers didn't pack any of my carry on luggage or anything.

Things About Germany

I've hit the 10 day mark until I move out of here. I've got 3 days until my entire house is packed out and turns into another one of those empty apartments. All of this together means I might not be able to post again until I'm back in Utah. So I'll say Tchüs to Germany, and hello America!
I can't wait until those 10 days have passed for the mostly following reasons:

I miss air conditioning. They don't have air conditioning over here in Germany, even though they have more than their share of heat in the summer.

I like the wide roads in America. All roads here in Germany feel like walking a tightrope (and parking spaces are even worse)! I hear it's worse elsewhere in Europe, but that doesn't make the roads and parking here any wider.

Customer service exists in America. Germans, you go ahead and get offended, but I noticed a café that had closed for lunch, so I'm not lying.

And on that note, goodbye!

The Missionaries

Yesterday, I got a phone call I definitely wasn't expecting:

Me: Hello?

Caller: Hi, this is Elder Hatch. I was wondering if you and Tony wanted to help us teach tomorrow?

Me: Well, Tony's not here, but I'd be happy to.

Elder Hatch: Great! Meet us at the church at 1:00!

(conversation not verbatim)

To be honest, I didn't really want to eat into my Saturday via missionary stuff, but since I said I would, I did the missionary stuff.
The bad news: today was hot! 90ºF in fact (a very rare amount of heat in Germany)! And the church we were doing missionary work in had no air-conditioning (Germans think air conditioning is ungesund, meaning cold air blowing against you is the cause of all illness).
The good news: I enjoyed it. I had fun teaching the investigator whatever I had to offer. I enjoyed feeling the divine presense in the room.
That's right... divine presence!
Some of you out there aren't used to all the Mormony stuff that I sometimes include in this blog, but here's the biggest reason I believe in God: I've felt the presense of his Holy Spirit. Most people describe it like a fire within your chest (ironic that I'd like that at 90ºF). I find it's more like a swelling of joy. Have you ever had a hug? Next time you do, pay attention to the feeling in your chest area on the inside. That's a weaker version of what it feels like.
Now I can't wait until I become a missionary. I want to share this with everybody.

(Update: The word "divine" has been altered on this post.)

I Hate Neopets

Tonight's blog post almost didn't happen... because my sister was playing "Neopets."
My sister's been playing it the whole friggin' day!
Neopets is an online Pokémon ripoff. Basically, you go online, and then try to earn enough money to feed whatever pansy creature you pick. Supposedly there is a battle game, but battle seems very softened when this is your "warrior":

It's a big waste of time! I'm going to see if I can ban it from my computer.
Later.

The Metric System

When I lived in Europe, I got a lot of guff about the Imperial system, usually in the following form:

Some European: Why don't you Americans use the metric system?

Me: Because we don't want to.

Some European: But the metric system's better than the Imperial!

Me: I'd much rather use something that I can understand than something I can't.

Some European: But the rest of the world uses metric!

Me: That doesn't make me understand it better.

Some European: uncivilized pig!

I didn't care before I came to Europe, but I've been involved in that conversation more times than I can count! It annoys the crap out of me that people will defend the metric system like it's some sort of god!
I got news for you metric worshipers about the metric system:
It's flawed!
The whole idea behind the metric system is that you work in groups of ten. That's easier because we use a decimal counting system, but easier isn't always better.
Apparently nobody noticed, but there is a machine invented in 1946 called the computer that everybody uses. It can only work in binary (ones and zeros, a base-2 counting system). Ten in binary is 1010 (one in the eights column, and one in the twos column), but the problem is when you divide by this number. Computers divide by multiplying with the number's reciprocal. In other words, to divide by 10 they multiply by 1/10.
See if you can figure out 1/10 in binary. Give up? You can't; it's continual, just like pi.
Now, I know that Imperial isn't too much more easily translated into binary... so I present case 2: Use of decimals.
The Imperial system is designed so that you have to use fraction: 1/12 feet to an inch, 1/3 yards to a foot, etc. The metric system is designed to be used with decimals: 0.1 centimeters to the millimeter, 0.01 meters to the centimeter, etc. Even though decimals are convenient, they too are flawed.
Take the theoretical value for 1/3, 0.333333333... you get the idea. I'll call it .33 for now. 3 * 1/3 = 1, right? What's 0.33 * 3? 0.99. You're a bit off from 1.
Removing fractions gives you a false sense of security, and then you biff up and send a million dollar Mars rover too strong into Mars' orbit and it goes hurtling off into space, wasting all our money.
Now, before I get a bunch of e-mails saying, well, the Imperial system isn't perfect either, I didn't say Imperial's perfect. I said the metric system is flawed. I've gone and proved that point, which has brought us to the conclusion that the two systems are even in usefulness. So now for case 3: Imperial was here first.
I've grown up learning Imperial measurements all my life. You tell me someone is doing 45 mph in a school zone, I know he should slow down. However, you tell me someone's doing 45 kph in a school zone, I get a blank look on my face while I try to figure out if that's fast or not. I realize that other people have grown up with it the other way, and that's cool for them. But I don't want to spend forever trying to learn another measurement system when the one I got is just fine for me.
Having another measuring system even exist has caused problems. For example, there was a NASA Mars exploration project where the calculations were done in metric. Then the programmers programmed the launching stuff using the same numbers assuming (naturally, since this is America) that they were imperial. Needless to say, NASA lost that project pretty fast! If nobody had created the metric system, the programmers couldn't have even made that mistake.
So do me a favor, Europe: keep your metric system for yourself. I don't want it in my home country! Imperial works just fine for me!

Writer's Block

You writers out there, don't you hate writers block?
I know I do. For instance, today I've finished my last day of highschool, and because my brain's giving out, I can't really write about it in an intereting way.
So instead I've decided to write about pandas... pandas with machine guns.
I'd love to make a movie about that, but I doubt the government would sit quietly if they learned I was training pandas in the art of warfare. So here's the plan: I train the Panda's, and then use them to take over.
I'll fool the democrats into thinking that I'm on their side, so they'll nominate me for president in 2036. I'll win that one easily because my opponent will be Sam Casey.
Anyway, how I get to be president is of mild importance. If all else fails, my pandas will take the whitehouse by force. The important thing is what I do with them.
For my first act as president, I'll pass a law that says all people have to be happy. Then everybody will be so happy, I'll get elected a second term. Then I'll impeach myself, because I'll realize that the pandas were communist all along. Then, I'll go use my commie pandas to take over Missouri. That's all I really wanted anyway.
And if any of my plan goes wrong, I'll take Southpark's advice and blame Canada. Then I'll cancel that show because I don't watch it. In fact, everything I don't watch will be canceled, and TV will be good for a change.
But then people are going to call me a bad leader, because a lot of them watch that stupid Sponge Bob Square Pants. I'll allow them to protest in a nuclear test site.
And I'll do more as I think of it. Then everyone will be happy, especially me.

Great Post Lost

I had a great post today, where I solved world hunger, but Blogger lost it and I'm too lazy to retype it.
To further put things in perspective, I have nothing else to do today.
Anyway, that's it for me today.

Movie Review: Mulan II

10 year old girls have no taste in movies.
My little sister said that she'd seen "Mulan II" and that it was good, so when it came up on the Disney Channel, I figured I should give it a shot.
BIG MISTAKE!
I've never seen a more predictable movie. I mean, you could tell that Ling, Yao, and Chien-Po would get together with the princesses almost from the moment you could see that there were three princesses. I'll admit, the scene were Shang fell off the bridge had potential to redeem the movie, but only if the guy stayed dead! Instead, his horse goes sniffing around and finds Shang in a watering hole, suddenly emmerging from the water and gasping for air. Like that's never been done in a movie before!
Now this isn't why I hated the movie so bad; every cheesy Disney sequal has been exactly the same. What made this one bad was the theme, which Mulan says in this line:

I know our duty is to the mission, but I have another duty... to my heart.

Let's say that again, except this time without Disney's crap in it:

I know I have a responsibility, but what I want is more important.

Mulan was willing to start a war because she thought what she wanted was more important. Great thing to teach the kids, morons! That's just what we need: more self-absorbed and disobedient children.
What are the Disney people thinking?

The Brownies

The end of spring means barbecues. And for some reason, Alex Julian's mother thinks that means brownies. I rolled my eyes when I saw she was bringing brownies to our youth group's barbecue, but then she said:
"The diamond in my wedding ring is missing. I think I may have dropped it in the brownies."
Sounded like she was trying to pull one over on me. This sounds like the kind of thing that happens on sitcoms, not real life. But she showed me her wedding ring with the missing diamond.
"I'll give ten bucks to whoever finds it."
Then she just walked off. So I told everyone what Alex's mom said, and they sifted through the brownies.
We heard an occasional, "I found something hard," but it always turned out to be a crusty part of the brownie.
The funny thing was, we got to the point where there was only one left, and nobody wanted to eat it. It's like they were afraid of the diamond or something.
Well, we didn't find it in the end. Though it seemed like my brother was swallowing big bites. I wonder...

Star Wars: Episode III Review

It started after a very filling dinner of Chinese food, and after the nerd induced spasm caused by people dressed as a Storm Trooper, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and about 20 Obi-Wan Kenobis and 30 Luke Skywalkers. The crowd of men living in their parents' basement cheered as the word "Star Wars" appeared on the screen. After that, there was 2 1/2 hours of people being sliced like a stick of butter.
But enough about what I did; let's get to the movie.
The movie was pretty good, but the only "jokes" were all pathetic. I think one of them was how over-hyped General Grievous was. Through the whole movie, the guy sounded like he needed an inhaler. His first line consisted of him coughing. Not talking, coughing. There was only one good "joke" in the whole movie, which was really just R2D2 lighting other robots on fire. I don't think other people found it quite as funny as I did.
It's fine, though; the movie wasn't made to be funny. It was made to be a tragedy, and fulfils that through their total destruction. Anikan burns alive, about 20 people are decapitated (many of them Jedis), General Grievous' heart is blasted into oblivion, and little children being sliced, diced, and otherwise obliterated on screen. This is not a movie for the weak, but they should get over it and see the movie anyway.
So, I guess I suggest it. Just be ready first.

(Disclaimer: That first comment was a joke; I sliced nobody. Those half corpses were already dead when I got there. *shifts eyes*)

Nintendo Revolutions

Chris Rigby (aka Nintendo and Star Wars freak) showed me that IGN released pictures of the Nintendo Revolutions system recently:



Yep, Nintedo's outdone themselves again. The new Nintendo Revolutions has the ability to make CDs float in the air. I wonder if it plays games, too?

Deaf!

Today was normal, except I woke up deaf.
Okay, so it was only in my right ear. My ear ruptured or something and filled my ear with earwax and junk. Anyway, it wasn't better today, so I had to go in and get it fixed. The problem was that the doctor's appointment wasn't unil 2:30 pm, and I had nothing really to do until time to visit the doctor's office. So, I decided to check my e-mail.
Turns out I ticked off "chillig_alla" when I blocked him from e-mailing me. He signed me up for multiple immoral and embarassing spam subscriptions. Thank goodness I have Gmail, or this could have been a serious problem. With Gmail I can automatically filter these out... and return them to "chillig_alla." *evil laugh*
Okay, so I'm not being that mean yet. I figured I ought to issue one more warning first. But if it's not cancelled by tommorow, I'm setting up that filter (consider this your official warning, "chillig_alla").
Anyway, back to my ear. I'll spare you the details because I doubt anyone cares, but they tried to fix it and failed. So now I'm jugging down Cipro until I get better. As long as I don't wake up deaf anymore, though, I don't care.

Takin' A Break

Anyone planning to read my blog today or tommorow? Yeah, not gonna happen. Now that I'm down to 24 days left until I leave the country, I gotta really get packing. So my blog's going to suffer a little over the week. I should have another post on tuesday, but I'm not making any promises.
So, until my next post, Tchüs! Bis spater!*

*translation: Bye! See ya later!

Track and Field

Never, ever, ever attend a DoDS (Department of Defence School) track and field event. DoDS have no organization skills whatsoever.
My parents asked me to support my brothers today in their track meet to see if they could qualify for the DoDS European championship. I figure, why not? Sports are interesting, right? Well, let's take the last event as an example (the times are accurate; I checked my watch):

4:00 pm - The final call for the mens 4x4 relay is made.
5:30 pm - The 4x4 relay begins.
5:35 pm - The 4x4 relay ends.

That's right; I had to wait one and a half hours doing absolutely nothing but sitting in the rain just to watch a five minute race. By the way, if anyone from Yahoo Weather is reading this, light rain my butt! It was a friggin' downpour in Kaiserslautern!
But on the optimistic side, the race was very good. It almost made up for the long wait.

First Q&A

Note: the following letter has been censored.

hey chris,

so i guess u kno all the answers to everything. ok lets see. who was nicolo machiaveli, what was the title of his most famous piece of literary work, what was its intended use, who did he write it for, and what was his most well-known piece of advice, derived from this literary work?

if u could clear these things up for me, without looking them up in some book, website, or any other source other than your huge [profanity] brain, then that would be just great.

however, if u wish to respond with sum overly-patriotic [profanity], like: "[vulgarity towards Europeans]" or "GOD BLESS AMERICA!!! [vulgarity concerning republicans]!!!" then that will just prove how extremely ignorant u relly are.

but hey, didnt mean 2 sound 2 harsh there. [vulgarity] ... jus read up a lil before u say dumb [profanity], huh

I should have been more clear when I issued that challenge. It wasn't an invitation to trivia, and from now on I'm not accepting any trivia. Trivia's boring.
I'll provide an answer for this one, though. Nicolo Machiavalli (in the letter is was spelled it with one too few l's) was a character in a novel called, "Like I Give a Crap." In this novel, he was a writer who wrote the unbelievable success, "Capatalize Or You Look Like A Moron." It was intended for the people in the city called "Why The Crap Do You Even Care?" to locals, but "It Doesn't Matter" officially. His most well known piece of advice is, "Don't make me angry."
Here's my source, just in case I'm being to subtle.

Now It's Getting Rediculous

I need to stop surfing StarWars.com. It's... wierd.

The Link Owns You

Answer Man

I think I can answer any question. Try me. Send your questions to leo.damascus@gmail.com, and I'll answer them on my blog.

The Chicken

I know I've posted too many links lately and not enough real life stuff, but my life has been boring lately. I've just been waiting for exams to finish so I could get to college in one piece. Anyway, I got another link until I have something to report.
Just one quick question: why did the chicken cross the road?

The Link Owns You

Star Wars Release

I was surfing the Star Wars web site, and discovered something nice. Apparently, Star Wars is releasing a day earlier over here in Deutschland, and figure in for the time zone, I don't think there's a single Star Wars geek I won't have ruined the movie for before its release.
Take that, losers!

The Link Owns You

Star Wars Trailer

The latest in Star Wars Trailers is available here. I know it might not look official, but don't be fooled. I mean, look at this still from it:



That's too fake to be fake, don't you think?

For those interested in seeing it right away, I'm streaming it below. It's set not to run until you click play. By the way, I'm not responsible for any offensive language/material you find in it, because I didn't make this.



(Update: Don't read this update if you know little about computers. I had to increase the size of the movie for two reasons. First, because I was using a file type only supported by Windows, and had to switch to one that multiple platforms could handle. Second, windows media player is screwed up and won't let me turn off autoplay in Firefox, so I had to switch to Quicktime to allow it. Dumb Microsoft.)

Solar Death Ray

Finally, they're doing something useful with solar power. Follow the link below to learn more. If you can find anything cooler than this, please let me know.

The Link Owns You

Tired

I'm so tired after exams. I just... want... to... *snores*

Exam Proctors: The Stupidest form of Life

I'm taking my IB exams again today, but since I'm American they don't affect my grades/college/anything. So, I decided to have a little fun, and see how well the proctors can catch cheaters.
My day started by reading the "Pocket Dictionary to Signing," and memorizing the manual alphabet, all while waiting to be let into the exam. The teachers came, so when I saw they were looking, I hurriedly put it away to arise suspicion. Once taking the exam, I started manual signing words behind me, picked up my test and flashed it in morse code... crap, pretty much the only thing I hadn't done was scream out the answers.
No teacher even considered that I might be cheating. Interesting, no?

Oh Crap, No!

So I get home from exams, and I figure I ought to check my e-mail and web site subscriptions. Then I found out from Wired News that the United States will soon have Smart Cars.
Smart cars, for those of you still safe at home in the US of A, are bred in Europe, hillariously ugly cars that look like they've been chopped in half.

I can see how they'd be popular in Europe; they have the unique ability to perpendicular park in a paralell park zone. But man oh man is that thing ugly! I hope it never, ever catches on in America.
And the weird part: I think my Dad gave the guy who's doing this his Visa.

The Link Owns You

I'm the Blog of the Day

Check it out! I knew Google and I weren't the only people who recogized my talent. I feel so empowered.
I especialy love my fake conversation included in the review:

"Hey, what have you been doing lately?"
"Oh, check out my blog, it's all on there."
"OK, I will! What's it called?"
"Just Read It."
"Well, I will do if you tell me the name of it."
"Just Read It!"
"OK, OK! I will read it, but what's it called???"
"Just Read It!"
"Sheesh, I'm not psychic you know. I mean, forget it. I'll read someone else's blog instead."

No you won't, loser!
Anyway, I'm glad my new blog title is living up to the old one (#1 Blog in the World). By the way, this blog that linked to me lives up to each of the 10 Commandments of Blogging. You might want to give them a read.

The Link Owns You

Star Wars: Episode III | A Hero Falls Music Video

I'm sick today, so I'll just leave you in the good hands of the people at Lucasfilm Ltd.
This music video is probably just like seeing the movie.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Music Video

Capatalize, people!

Pay attention to the title. I'm tired of reading crap with no grammer.
That's all for today.

Hewlett Packard is Crap, part II

I sent an e-mail in to Hewlett Packard customer support yesterday. I tried hard to keep my writing from revealing just how ticked off I was.

The screen is displaying only multi-colored lines, similar to what has happened in the past when I've run magnets over old PC monitors that I don't use anymore (too see what happens). It didn't come in contact with any magnets, but rather broke while I was carrying it in my pocket while walking my dog (it worked before then). I submitted it to neither pressure nor magnets while walking my dog.
This is not the first time I've had this problem with this product. I returned an older iPAQ to the store due to the same problem.

They sent back an e-mail today. It was chaulk full of bull!

Dear HP Customer,

Thank you for contacting HP eServices.

We understand your concern. Please note that you have reached HP eServices, North America.

Let's pretend I care.

In order to resolve the issue, we request that you perform a soft reset on the iPAQ. Procedure to perform the same is given below:

1. Locate the recessed Reset button on the bottom of the HP iPAQ.
2. Use the stylus to lightly press the Reset button. The HP iPAQ restarts and displays the Today screen.

I've tried that already! HP of all people should know that the iPAQ crashes every week (at least mine did) because of memory overload, and thus requires a reset every now and then to remain operational. They're just feeding this because they obviously didn't read my e-mail, which I re-emphasize said:

The screen is displaying only multi-colored lines, similar to what has happened in the past when I've run magnets over old PC monitors...

Great customer support, morons!
The moral of this story: HP is ripping off their customers, and couldn't care less. Don't do business with them if you know what's good for you.

Hewlett Packard is Crap

Behold, the iPAQ, now dead after just barely passing its warrany expiration date. The screen's going fruity on me, making the device inoperable. And what crime did I commit to cause it such irreprable harm? Nothing! I didn't drop it, I didn't scratch it, I didn't run a magnet over it, I didn't harm it in any way, and it just friggin' breaks on me (meaning $350 wasted on a few months of iPAQ goodness)!
I want to return the thing to the store, but the store won't take it back. I already returned one iPAQ for the same exact problem as this one, and they don't believe me that it's HP's fault these things are braking like this.
It's almost like HP designed these things to brake! In fact, I also remember our family owning a desktop by Hewlett Packard that they told us broke because something came loose when we put it on the table! Every Hewlett Packard product I've ever used has failed me in some way!
So I checked their website for their mission statement (to see if they were ripping off their customers on purpose); they didn't even have it available to read. Suspicious.

I'm doing all computer business with someone else from now on.

(Note: To add the above picture to your web site, use the following HTML:

<a href = "http://cfrahm.blogspot.com/2005/04/hewlett-packard-is-crap.html"> <img src = "http://photos1.blogger.com/img/232/2936/200/untitled.jpg"></a>

Enjoy.)

Cats are Evil

Cats scare the crap out of me. Something about them is just... unsettling.
I was watching a cat once. I held a string out, and it started batting it. I thought it was cute, but then the thing started biting it, and not just chewing on the end, but biting more up and up toward my fingers. I dropped the string to let it play with it, but it ignored the string and continued coming after me.
Cats want to hurt you. They will kill you in your sleep. My grandmother's cat, for example, tried standing on my chest to collapse my lungs while I was sleeping. My grandma doesn't believe me, but I swear it's true.
Don't let the cats win! Fight back against the cats!

Wow! This is different!

I'm testing the new look and feel today. Comments are requested after my next post.

The New Blog

That's right: I'm working on a new image for the blog (like I promised in a previous blog entry). I may not finish today... heck, I may decide to scrap the idea alltogether. But one thing's for sure, a new blog is in the oven. This new blog will tackle the more important issues, like

1. Why I should rule Missouri.
2. My fake theories about the universe.
   
3. The ethics of smoking monkeys.
4. Etc.

In other words, it won't change much. I'm just going to add more forewardable material,
and this blog will no longer be called the "#1 Blog in the World" (except by my fans, like those kids in Korea who wanted my autograph). Instead it will be officially called, "Just Read It." I figure it'll make less people fear my blog like the insecure little bloggers they are.
Also, I'm changing the background color back to black so my blog will be easier on the eyes. I'll try to keep the general style of the thing, but the blog's looking kind of cluttered anyway, so I think some cleaning is in order stylewise.
Anyway, that's my hopes for the near future. Invest in my blog!

E-mail, the New Drug

What else can I add?

The Link Owns You

When Skydiving isn't Enough...

Pathetic. These people jump out of an airplane, skydiving, which is supposed to be really thrilling on it's own, and they pull out their handheld video games.

The Link Owns You

Update

I've been doing some research on the contents of my previous post. Seems I've stumbled upon a game where you play stock market with blogs. The blog's value is based on a couple of things, like how many people the blog links to, how many people link to the blog, and probably also by how many people visit the blog, and how many people invest in it. Sounds mildly entertaining.
I may have to rework my whole blog if I start, though. I've recently begun to wonder, maybe the whole "self conceted" thing I have going isn't being recieved as funny as it is I'd hoped, and that it may be driving people away before they realize, "Holy crud, he's right! This is the best blog out there!"
Any comments about this would be appreciated, or you can even e-mail me about it. But until then, you punks will just have to get used to it.

What The... They're Selling My Blog?

The link's below. If somebody could explain this thing to me I'd appreciate it. For some reason it says my blog is worth $1,473.41 (at the time I'm writing this). I know even Google says my blog's the best out there, but wow! I wish I could see some of that money!

Fat = Healthy

I couldn't believe it when I read it either. But apparantly being fat is good for you. Guess I better bring out the Haribo!
By the way, the link to the article I'm referring to is below.

(Update: It seems you can only read the article directly from my blog if you have a subscription tothe New York Times web site. I don't have one. I got to the article by preforming this search.)

Smoking Chimpanzee

And now, I present to you a smoking monkey (thanks to CBS).
The link to the news article with the monkey is below. But if you want to go straight to the movie with said monkey, click here.

IB Exams = Free Time For Me

One week left until IB exams. Actually, I'm excited, because I get out of school to do exams that don't even matter to me. Plus on days I don't have any exams, I'm scotch free!
May 19th is one of those days, so I think I'm going to skip and go see the following movie:



The only PG-13 rated Star Wars movie. And guess what else? I can actually go to this thing at midnight on May 19th, which is six hours before midnight May 19th in the US. Since I get to see the movie early, I'm going to go to a Star Wars fansite and ruin the first PG-13 Star Wars movie for everyone, because I'm a jerk.
I love having no school.

Google Spies

The link to the article I'm referring to is below. The important part is:

But privacy rights expert Pam Dixon is worried [Google saving your search history] will make it easier for mischief makers, snoops and perhaps even the government to get their hands on a user's entire search history.

Personally, I don't think you have anything to worry about if you're not doing anything illegal anyway (especially with the government). Besides, they can already find most of that information in your cookies. And it's not like Google's forcing you to let them keep track of your search history.
Anyway, that's all from me for now. I'm too tired tonight to post anything else.

It's Just A Movie!

Ah, free periods: one of the few things I like about my school. I bet nobody in the States can watch a whole movie between classes. Me... I get to watch all of Bruce Almighty in between classes. You know, I'd never seen that whole movie before.
And I would have today... if certain athiests knew how to shut their friggin' trap!
A certain guy walks in and starts yammering about how this movie is "religious dogma" (ironically, mere minutes after Jim Carey finished flipping somebody off), and how they're trying to brainwash us.
Guess what?
IT'S A COMEDY, RETARD!
The movie is not meant to be taken seriously! I mean, for cryin' out loud, Jim Carey uses his "God powers" to make a monkey come out of somebody's butt! Just let me watch the movie for pity sakes!
Man, people are idiots!

Ad

I don't feel like posting today; I have a huge headache! Anyway, since you're here, why don't you visit the Leo and Gemini forums? It's devoted to an internet cartoon I'm working on. I already said something about Leo and Gemini on my blog. The link to the forums is below (you can find out more there).

Iranian Soap Opera

I don't usually post anti-Bush propaganda on here (because I'm a Bush fan), but I'll make an exception for this: an Iranian soap opera about the US forces in Iraq.

First Half: http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=57484&ak=null

Second Half: http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=57485&ak=null

They used French people to play the American troops. Subtle, isn't it?

(Note: Don't take this too seriously; it's propaganda. Also, if you want to keep watching for updates, the site they're from is in the link below.)

My favorite line is:
"What do I should with them, sir?" - American Soldier

Old Friend

Too busy catching up with an old friend to post today (I haven't seen her since third grade; throw me a bone here).

When Not to Air Guitar

I didn't update yesterday, and it's all because of a movie about vampires. I haven't seen a horror movie in a while, so when the oppurtunity presented itself, I had to jump on.
Anyway, yesterday Dad bought a Doobie Brothers CD and started playing it in the car. Surprisingly, the Doobie Brothers were actually a solid band (despite the name). I dare say I liked the music. That is, until it caused Dad to air guitar while driving on the Autobahn... in the fast lane... and the car started veering to the left!
So I offer this little piece of wisdom: never air guitar while driving at speeds of over 80 mph.

Leo and Gemini

I've been trying to create a new online cartoon, working with an excellent animator named Joshua Wimble. He finished a first draft of the teaser trailer, and I thought you all might enjoy. Enjoy!



Just to clarify, though, I did not really make the music. I stole it from OverClocked Remix.

(Tech Assistance: If the trailer seems stuck at the loading screen it probably is, and if so, right click on it and select "forward" to get to get past it.)

Burn, Baby Burn!

Today, my Chemistry teacher decided to break his anti-pyro rule today, and asked us to build things in class that were meant to explode, however he asked us to contain the whole thing very well, exploding it only in a contained area that would prevent fiery dust from leaping out of the test tube and into the air, burning things.
*evil laugh*
My partner and I set up the experiment, doing everything exactly as we were told to do it to start; we mixed the chemicals properly, then heated them to approximately 360 degrees Celsius. But we were told to drop the test tube with the chemicals into the contained area (a flask of water), and my partner decided to dunk it instead (even pulling the stuff out).
FWOOM!
350 degree Celsius dust flew into the air, ultimately landing and burning a hole through my notes and charring my backpack (it was worth it). Nobody got hurt, thankfully, so I'm not earning myself a trip to the psychiatrist by saying that was totally awsome!

As Promised...

... Here's the movie. I know the quality is low, and the movie itself looks like the Waterworld people made it, but you shouldn't expect a lot when the movie was made with a budjet of nothin', and completed in one day.


Notes about the movie:
I made this movie, and the copyright at the bottom of the page applies to it. Feel free to link to it, but don't go telling people you made it, or you may find an assassin in your bedroom one night.
You think I'm kidding, don't you? Well, you're right, but I'll still be ticked!
By the way, I slightly remixed a Disney song for the background (namely "you Ho, a Pirate's Life for Me"). I got the mp3 to slightly remix from Bethesda and Disney's game "Pirates of the Caribbean."
While the movie is about a real event, the opinions have been exaggerated. I'm just saying that so my friends don't get in trouble for what they say/do in the movie. I mean, one of them would have to go see a psychiatrist if this were true, but I assure you he's faking it.

Stupid Host!

I was going to post my movie up today, but the file host didn't like it. I'll try to host it myself at school tommorow.
Word of wisdom: never ever put together a whole movie in one day (mine was 1 minute and 30 seconds long, and it took me from 5:30 am to 8:00 pm to make). I'm not meant to vlog!

Successful Trial

I got some new movie editing software, and just had a succesful run with it today.
I know what you're thinking... "What the heck are you talking about Chris? It's just video editing software. Why does that need a trial run?" It doesn't. The problem is I'm trying to make the #1 Blog in the World without spending any money on it that I didn't actually spend on something else. That means I had to make sound videos without a sound video camera.
Yep, I can do that. Wanna know how? (If not, skip the next two paragraphs).
I got a cheap $29.99 digital camera from Wal-Mart (the last time I was in the United States) that does silent .mov movies. But I also have an iPAQ (Hewlett Packard Pocket PC) that takes sound memos in .wav sound format. I also have Windows XP with Windows Movie Maker.
The first thing I needed to do was convert the silent movie into something I could work with in Windows Movie Maker (it doesn't do .mov files, because they're apple files). So I found some online file conversion software, edited it for my needs, and finally converted the .mov file to a .avi file. After that, I loaded the .avi file into Windows Movie Maker and meshed the sound file over it.
The movie's really low quality, but that's fine; it just means my blog is iPAQ friendly. I'm not loading the movie file onto the blog (the movie plays like a test, meaning it's awful), but at least I know I'm capable of it for tommorow. I'll post if I get material. Anyway, my point is I rock!

I've Been Beat!

I've finally found a blog I'd consider to be better than mine... but just a little bit better. (Link below.)
Well, technically it might not count as a blog, sicne it's a vlog (video weblog), but that's not an excuse! I hereby swear to start video blogging, thus reclaiming the title google gave me!
Now if I could just remember where I put my video editing software...

Idiots!

So here I am, sitting in school; my teacher has reserved the computer lab for our class so we can use the internet for research on the characterization in One Day in the Life of Ivan Dennisovich. Of course I google it, and I'm led to this piece of bull plop:

Until proven or disproven scientifically, the concept of God is an 'individual-specific reality': if one's reality necessitates the presence of God, He exists. (source)

What the flip is that supposed to mean? Either something exists or it doesn't, no matter what you believe.
Take for instance if some guy were to suddenly believe he had gills. According to this essay, the guy should be able to breathe underwater. Bull; he drowns! Either he has gills or doesn't; and if he doesn't then he can't breathe underwater.
People keep trying to analyse the religious, but it's a waste of time.
Whether God exists or not (I believe in God), it doesn't matter. Either He exists or he doesn't. Personally, if He exists, I wouldn't want to take my chances on His bad side. The Old Testament says he torched Soddom and Gammorah for unrighteousness; He could do the same to you, or He could get more creative. On the other hand, if God exists and He likes you then you're set! All it will require is to keep righteous (not really a hard task), and rectify times you mess up. If you do that, you either get nothing or power from on high. On the other hand, if you are unrighteous, you either get nothing or pain.
Gambling is a fool's game; I'll take the first.

Napoleon Dynamite Mixup?

I think there may have been some sort of mixup in the Napoleon Dynamite script. This seems to match up even better than the song that was really played in Napoleon Dynamite. Anyway, thank's to FlashPlayer.com for airing this flash file.
Click on the link below to find it.

McDonalds, an Oppressed People

Recently, I've been getting a lot of lip from some of the people here in Germany. Seems they saw that "Super Size Me" movie, and have come to the following conclusions:
1. McDonalds has made the world fat.
2. America consists entirely of McDonalds resteraunts.
3. The world's obesity is somehow my fault.
First off, let me clear up that McDonalds food is awful (especially here in Germany). The "Chicken McNuggets" don't contain any actual chicken, the buns are all stale, the Happy Meal prizes are cheap toy imitations (but kids still make tons of noise with them), the cups tend to fall apart... the list goes on.
McDonalds' low quality aside, saying that they're making the world fat by increasing the size of food is ridiculous; McDonalds is not the only people who are increasing portion size. Take the European product Nutella (an inexpensively made chocolate spread), for example:

The Nutella on the left is last year's size, and the one on the right is this year's. The one on the right contains at least twice as least twice as large. Personally, I think upping the amount of chocolate one eats on things would tend to increase their weight by much more than a sandwich and some deep fried potatoes.
Now, some of you may be thinking, "But wait a minute; that's at home, so nobody's forcing you to eat it all," but nobody's forcing you to eat everything you order at McDonalds either. You can take it to go, eat as much as you want, and then take home what you don't want to eat right away in a convenient little bag they provide if you order "to go."
My point is that McDonalds isn't alone in their decision to make their menus bigger, and nobody's forcing anybody to overeat. Thing is, people wanted bigger meals, and lots of food companies responded. So why should McDonalds and America be picked on? They're not any different from anybody else.
At least I'll be away from most of the whining in 66 days.

Temporary Distraction

And now, I bring you back to the dark ages of Europe, when they had dancing bears.
(This picture is best viewed in Firefox.)

[image removed to lessen its bandwidth, and make it acutally available]

A friend of mine sent this to me. I have no idea where it's from, but I deemed it blog-worthy.

The 10 Commandments of Blogging

Anyone who has been around the blogosphere knows by now that a ton of the stuff out there is total garbage. It's hardly surprising, with all the rotten blogs in the blogosphere, that my blog's claimed all of the fifteen spots when Googling "#1 Blog in the World." (Note: Forum searches have been excluded. Forums are just a bunch of pimply faced highschoolers who wouldn't know a good blog if it came up and bit them.)
So, what's the key to my success? Well, they're what I like to call the 10 commandments of blogging. Follow them, and your blog will also reach the top.

Commandments:

1. Thou shalt not "lol." "LOL" gains my nomination for the most annoying Internet acronym ever. People generally use it to mean, "I am funny," but they rarely are before using it. In fact, don't use any Internet acronyms, period. They make you look like an idiot, and drive people away. If you have to express a laugh or emotion, do it like this: *laughs*.
2. Thou shalt capitalize, stupid! Never, ever leave the letter "I" in the lowercase if left on its own, and never leave the beginning of a sentence in the lower case. It gives people the impression you don't spend enough time on them to give them a good blog (and if you aren't capitalizing, chances are they are right).
3. Thou art always right! The instant you back down from anything, you lose credibility. Never retract statements, even if you are wrong (try not to be wrong). If you can't think of a way to discredit your critics, just ignore them until they go away.
   (Please note: I am not encouraging libel. I'm just saying that blogs are more interesting if people defend their opinions rather than blowing with the wind like a leaf. Leaves suck at blogging.)
4. Thou shalt make everything matter which proceedeth from thy keyboard. People read blogs in the hopes of finding out something. Never talk about everyday occurrences unless there is something unusual about them (otherwise, the fact that you did them will be pointless). For instance, the sentence, "I slept," does not belong on a blog unless immediately followed by something to the effect of, "and while sleeping, I was burned for witchcraft." Also, make sure your sentences contain some form of information on them. For example, the sentence "The weekend was ok," is a huge mistake. If you are writing about your weekend, we should be able to tell from the rest of the writing.
5. Thou shalt not swear. This one's more of a courtesy thing than a solid rule; there are some blogs out there which are really awesome, but still manage to drive religious and other moral-minded people away because they swear. You'll have a bigger audience if you keep your mouth clean.
6. Thou shalt not give too much information. Blogs are an informal form of literature. If people wanted to read huge amounts of text, they'd buy a book. For a blog, you want to get to the point as fast as possible, and then stop once you're there.
7. Thou still shalt not "lol!" I cannot stress enough how annoying Internet acronyms are! They're so annoying; I decided to devote two whole commandments to them! If you ignore every other rule, at least obey this one.
8. Thou shalt update! Blogs that are updated often get regular visits from people. You don't have to update as often as me (I update every day), but set yourself a schedule that you can give to your readers. Try your best to stick to said schedule, but don't stress if you aren't 100% faithful. People tend to understand circumstances.
9. Thou shalt be different! If your blog is just like everybody else's blog, there will be no reason to visit your blog over someone else's with the same opinions/experiences. Be careful to be sincere, though, because if you don't sound like you believe yourself you tend to come off as pathetic (in other words, don't lie).
10. Thou shalt punctuate! It's hard to read sentences that have no form of separation. Use some form of punctuation to end every sentence, so that reading your blog isn't a chore. I suggest learning as much punctuation as possible; things such as colons, semi-colons, commas, and parentheses also help to organize your writing and keep it from being a chore (nobody likes chores). But make sure to use them correctly, otherwise you make things harder on your readers who have to clean up your mess.

And, one more time, I'd like to stress the importance of never, ever using Internet acronyms, especially "lol." They're fine for instant messaging, where you have to type quickly, but blogs are a completely different story!

Update 8-7-2005: Because I was awsome enough to make this in about three minutes, you can now post the following on your blog if it is compliant with these commandments.

If you feel your blog is 10 commandments compliant, post the following code into your sidebar to gain this button (do not alter it; it's littered with my copyrights).

<a href = "http://cfrahm.blogspot.com/2005/04/10-commandments-of-blogging.html"><img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/leo_damascus/10_command2.gif" alt="My blog complies with the 10 commandments of blogging as certified by http://cfrahm.blogspot.com/!"></a>