Scattered Thoughts

I have just wanted to scream the last couple weeks and I don't know why. The only thing I can figure is that I'm under some sort of stress.

That's something strange for me. I'm the kind of person who doesn't get stressed out and who doesn't worry much about anything. I don't know what would be causing it; my classes aren't too difficult, in fact I actually enjoy them. For most people in college, class is the number one cause of stress, but I've noticed recently that by attending class, I fell better, so if this screaming feeling is stress, class seems to relieve it.

I guess I could just be flat out frustrated. I've been frustrated or aggravated by something before, but I've never felt like having to scream for hours to feel better. There shouldn't be anything going on in my life that is frustrating. Things between me and Erin have been good, I haven't had a problem with my school work, I've been able to have me time just about every day this semester.

This is truly a strange feeling, and I don't think I'm comfortable with it.

I've also been having some strange sleeping issues. Lately, there have been a few nights where I've slept for 12+ hours. I completely slept through a Psi meeting and two PM meetings; I've napped for so long that when I wake up, I realize that I've missed a discussion I wanted to go to or I've missed an optional lab that I was signed up for, etc. I'm kinda freaked out by this, I'm not going to lie. I feel like it's only a matter of time before I find myself sleeping through an exam, or what's worse, sleeping through work. Ok, so I don't know if work is worse, but whatever.

Maybe that's what's bothering me. Maybe I'm just afraid that I'm going to sleep through work or class. I mean, the first two meetings I've missed, I missed them because I set an alarm and apparently I turned it off without even waking up. I now have two alarms in my room, but one of them is gaining time so fast that each morning I wake up and it's an hour earlier than it's supposed to be. I guess I could use my iTunes Alarm widget, but that would mean I have to find a playlist that will wake me up, which I don't think is possible.

I don't think this sleeping issue is caused by not getting enough sleep. I've been getting the same amount of sleep each night since the beginning of the summer. I've been going to sleep around 11 or midnight each night, sleeping soundly until 6 or 7 each morning then getting up to get ready for work or class. I spend a little over 8 hours a day on campus each day either at work or in class. I've been working out on my hangboard every other day and every time I'm working or in class, I've been walking a good seven miles a day…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I just don't get it.

That was probably the most random spewage of crap that I've ever written in this blog. If any of you can remember a time I wrote something more random, let me know.

::sigh::

Now that I got that rant out of my system, on to something more interesting.

Tonight is BEERFEST!! Over 300 different beers to taste, only one hour to taste in and only $25 to get in! Erin and I will be visiting the Bloomington Convention Center today after she gets out of Hundred rehearsal and we both eat a modest dinner, hopefully at the expense of some freshman's meal points.

Tomorrow night, 40% Steve is playing at the Bluebird. Erin, Carrie and I are planning on going for some good music and (moderately) good beer. Saturday night is Mike and Joe at the Bluebird… Guess who's going…

…that's right, Me and Erin, and possibly Will Petersen, and I'm going to try to convince Will to go too.

Saturday is also IU vs OSU. And I think Jeremy and Ben might be coming down to hang out, which I'm looking forward to.

Anyway, this is arleady a long post because of my above vent. So here's the end.

peace

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – A Boy Named Sue – Johnny Cash

Villain of the Day – Cold rain

Hero of the Day – Whatever freshman buys me dinner.

Current Mood – – Stressed… or something…

Until the next post…

Ok, so I've been a big supporter of Mike Davis for the whole time he's been here at Indiana University. Well, my support for him is starting to decline.

Saturday was Senior day here on the campus of beautiful IU. We lost by a lot to Wisconsin (which was expected). The game was the worst officiated piece of crap that I've ever seen. But I digress…

At the end of the game, as is tradition, the senior cheerleaders, managers, band members, and basketball players are recognized, and the players get to say a few (usually a million) words. This year, George Leach, A.J. Moye and Jason Stewart (he's number 40 for those of you who might be wondering) are all leaving the team. George and A.J. lead the team as one and two in scoring during the game, which was awesome for them, but that's not the point.

The senior day festivities commence…
The cheerleaders are introduced, managers, band, then finally the team comes out of the locker room. Where was Mike Davis? Nowhere to be seen. Jason Stewart gives his little speech (shortest of them all by comparison). George Leach is called to the mic, gives his speech and sits down, then A.J. starts his speech, and guess who decides to join the crowd? None other than the Great Mike Davis…

Where was he through the first two players? Do Jason and George not mean anything to him? The contributions they made? Honestly man. I feel bad for George and Jason because you weren't even out on the floor with the team.

I've come close to losing all my respect for you, Davis. Unacceptable!

Moving on…

I'm not going to touch on the Bush 9-11 political ads. There's nothing about gay marraige here today. I'm not even going to speculate about the subpoena of Air Firce One records.

I spent some time out at the lake (Monroe) on saturday night. I was taking pictures, and otherwise reflecting. I can't wait to get back to camp. It burns inside of me, there's something that I'm missing that can only be replaced when I drive through those gates. It's addictive, and I'm hooked. The summer just won't come soon enough. That is all for tonight.

The photoblog has been updated. Check out the pictures that I took at the lake Some of them are really cool.

Ok, so I lied. I am going to rant about something else. It's not related to politics though.

Apparently in Texas, if you file a malpractice lawsuit against your doctor, the doctor "blacklists" you. There is a searchable database at http://www.doctorsknow.us. For a very nominal fee, doctors can search the database for "one person at a time or monitor any sized group of individuals for litigious conduct." That's absurd! I can't believe this is legal! It's funny when you go to the site, the first thing that smacks you in the face is a disclaimer of sorts…

NATIONAL PLAINTIFF DATABASE. THIS IS NOT A BLACKLIST. MANY PATIENTS HAVE MERITORIOUS CASES.

The real shady thing is that if you're a lawer or witness to a malpractice suit, you can also be listed. For malpractice lawyers, this is a great way to lose your family doctor.

One couple was put on the list after winning $40.9 million over a botched operation by a drug-dependent surgeon.

A lawsuit was merited here, yes? I sure hope so. I don't want a crackhead doctor performing any operations on me or my future children.

The bottom line is that this database should be removed from the internet, especially with the recent re-vamping of the HIPPA regulations! It's principle might be good, but not all principles make good, fair practices.

Sometimes I wonder if people think before implementing a technology…

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – No Rain – Blind Melon

Hero of the Day – Erin, because nobody else really did anything to make my day better… They pretty much made it worse.

Quote of the Day – "Someone has taken the handle off the pencil sharpener in the IC… Requests for pencil sharpening are at an all time high."
–Me, in my shift report because I'm a tool…

Darwin Award Recipient for the week of February 29, 2004
Li'l Steph! You win this week, only for the comments you made at dinner on Monday night. You said some pretty off the wall, crazily-retarded stuff. You could have had a quote of the day for every word that came out of your mouth. Most things cannot be repeated here, but I can assure you that the sperm is the one with the tail.

Revel in the glory of winning the coveted Darwin Award!

Beatles Trivia
Nobody answered the last one, so it's still valid. If nobody answers the question soon, I'll stop doing this. I just thought it would be fun…

Current Mood – Working
for lack of a better descriptor…

remember to check out the photoblog.
the lj will be updated sometime later today.

peace
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I hate Thursdays with a passion! Read more in the Link Below.

Yet another reason to hate Microsoft products
If you don't want to read a technical explanation about something, skip on down until I tell you to start reading again.

Ok, so while at work tonight, I found out something quite interesting about how Internet Explorer works. Here at IU, we have this new (well not really new, but that's a different story) web portal software called OneStart. Now the really cool thing about it is that you can create your own pages, view a lot of other IU related stuff, and customize almost everything. You also have what is called a role. Roles are basically what position you hold with the university i.e. I am both Staff and Student.

Anyway, I have been designing my own little blogging portal, which I'll have to show you guys at some point. The way my blogging software works is by storing certain information like login and password in a cookie and passing other information through the command line to the main engine, written in perl. Well, if you have the moveable type interface open in a frame inside an HTML document, the variable passing and cookie storage doesn't work. If you make it work in it's own window, everything is fine.

Yet another bug in a Microsoft program…

START READING HERE IF YOU DON'T LIKE TECHIE STUFF

Ok, now that that's out of the way, nothing else is really on my mind except the gay marraige debate.

OOOO OOOO OOOO!! The baseball was destroyed today. If you watched any of the NLCS this year, you know of which baseball I speak. Hopefully with the death of that damned ball, the Cubbies will make it to the Series this year. Wishful thinking, I know…

Ok, I'm almost out of here for the night, but I leave you with this.

Stole this from Erin, who stole it from her friend Erin, who probably stole it from someone else. If you know where I stand on this, you'll be able to read this the way it's intended.

12 reasons why gay people should not be allowed to get married:

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control.
2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can't legally get married because the world needs more children.
3. Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if Gay marriage is allowed, since Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
5. Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are property, blacks can't marry whites, and divorce is illegal.
6. Gay marriage should be decided by people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.
7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire counrty. That's why we have only one religion in America.
8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
10. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to things like cars or longer lifespans.
12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "seperate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Seperate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as seperate marriages for gays and lesbians will.

As you have probably guessed, this is something I feel strongly about, but I'm not going to debate it in here today, maybe sometime tomorrow… or something.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Bombs Over Baghdad – Outkast

Hero of the Day – Erin, just because.

Quote of the Day
Jeremy: Dude, this paper is weird, you should have a look at it. It's the "If you find this ream, you win a million dollars from IBM." ream.
Me: Yea, I need to take that and… um… show it to Marsha… yea…
Jeremy: I'm not worried about you stealing it, I have witnesses.
(after finding a ream of paper where every 20th sheet is narrower than all the others by a centimeter)

Beatles Trivia
The next post has the next question. Sorry for the delay, I'm thinking of a new question.

Current Mood – Geeky
Only because I figured out that Internet Explorer 6 bug.
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There is so much on my mind right now, I don't even know where to begin…

I guess I'll start with our slow and special president. How can anybody be so discriminatory? Ratify an amendment to DISCRIMINATE against an entire group of people! I'm sorry, but I thought that the Constitution of this great country was designed to stand for the COMPLETE opposite. Each and every word of that document is aimed at stamping out discrimination on the base of religion, sex, ethnic background, etc. Apparently our very own G Dubbs thinks that discrimination based on sexual orientation is ok. UNACCEPTABLE. EVERYBODY in this country should have the right to live however they please. I will not live under a government who discriminates against an entire group of people, some of whom are my closest friends! It's completely inappropriate! If this amendment is passed, I will be moving out of this country. I'm not sure to where yet, but I will not stand for this absurdity. Maybe England, Spain, Canada. If I have no money, I'll move to Mexico.

What was it that I saw on the news yesterday at lunch… it definitely made angry about something… hm… Ok, I can't remember…

Moving on to religious leaders. I was watching the news this morning and something occurred to me. NBC's morning program was interviewing some religious leader (I would have his name, but the Today Show doesn't believe in putting their interviews online until the day after the interview… blah). He was one of the religious folks to watch the premiere of The Passion with Mel Gibson, so naturally, they were asking him some questions about how he initially reacted and such. Here's how the questions played out:

Katie Couric: Do you feel that this movie is anti-Semitic?
Religious Dude: When the movie ended, I wrote a letter to (insert name of a civil rights leader here). I told him that in now way should anyone take the movie as offensive. There is no way this movie could be anti-Semitic because the Jews were the ones who wrote the new testament, the Jews were the ones who witnessed these events, even Jesus Christ was a Jew.
Katie Couric: Do you see a discrepancy between the events portrayed in the movie, the ones portrayed in the bible and the actual historical events?
Religious Dude: Katie, I am a firm believer that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, and for your sins, and for everyone's sins.
Katie Couric: But what about the difference between the bible and history?
Religious Dude: Katie, I view the bible as the absolute historical truth. Ues Mel took some "Hollywood liberties" while making the film, but I feel that is very accurately represents the truth.

NOT ACTUAL QUOTES

Katie Couric could have kept pushing the issue of differences between biblical accounts of the events and actual historical accounts, but she didn't, which to me shows a sign of a good journalist, but that's not why I'm writing this in here. (there's a run-on sentence for ya )

My point here is simple. I am sick and tired of religious leaders who, when asked questions that criticize their religious beliefs, shutter and default to the whole "Jesus didn't die just for my sins, He died for your’s too." defense. Everyone in this country (Christian or not) should know by now that Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross for everybody, not just Christians. If a religious leader is going to put himself in a position to receive public criticism about the belief system that he leads, he should be willing and able to defend it. The above-mentioned defense isn't cutting it anymore. In fact, I don’t' think it ever cut it, but whatever. I'm getting off this topic…

Moving on…
I really enjoy reading everyone's blogs, I really do, but when you don't update, I get annoyed. Every blog that is listed on the side of mine, plus a couple more, are my nightly reading before I got to bed. It usually takes me a good hour to an hour and a half to get caught up with everyone. That being said, if I don't comment on your blog, don't think that I don't read. Sometimes I don't comment just because I'm tired and want to go to bed, but rest assured, I will comment when I get the chance, as long as you say something earth shattering (for some of you, that's not that hard ).

I think that's all for today. Check back for more later.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Anarchy in the UK – The Sex Pistols

Hero of the Day – Nathan for buying me lunch every Wednesday for the past couple semesters.

Quote of the Day courtesy of my I300 professor.
Blevis: This is lumberjack chic.
Student: You mean Canadian?

(later in class when talking about tow truck operators)
Blevis: I think they are the type that eat their cousins.

Beatles Trivia
None today, I'm too lazy. Answers coming in the next post as well as a new question.

Current Mood – Hungry
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I'm sorry for all of you who are trying to read this blog at school, come to think of it, I don't think it's ever been appropriate to be read at school.

This is something that has been sitting in the back of my head recently for a couple reasons. I did have a very long entry written to address my views on this topic, but then I came upon this site.

I don't understand what is wrong with marriage. There are couples today who are getting married and their commitment is lasting a lifetime. There are also couples who should never have been married in the first place; couples who, on the whim of a dream, eloped to some drive through marriage establishment in Nevada and realized upon leaving the state that they should never have made that promise, taken that pledge.

If the Christians want to make a fuss about how marriage has lost it's "luster" and how it doesn't have the same meaning as it once did, maybe they should actually protest in forums that matter. Granted, I'm tired of hearing about their protests in general. Marriage should be something that has a meaning specific to the two individuals engaged in the union. This internal meaning should not be determined by some body of dogma, nor should it be determined by a law, it should be determined by the promises made between lovers.

For this reason, my opinion on homosexual marriages is this:
If two individuals feel that they are in love with one another and they are willing to make a commitment to each other that will last a lifetime, then they should be permitted to wed. It should not make any difference whether they are a heterosexual or homosexual couple, if they believe that happiness comes from being joined in a legal union, then so be it. If a certain religious group has a problem with homosexual marriages, then they should bite their tongue. The individuals who believe that homosexuals should have the option to be wed are most likely not the individuals who have super strong foundations in their religious sect.

There it is, flame the comments box. Check out the link below for the weekend update.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

I am going to be adding a new award to the End-of-the-Blog Rundown. It is the Darwin Award of the Week. this award goes to the one individual who was caught being stupid. This week will be the first awarding. Keep reading to find out who the first recipient is.

Song of the Day – Amen Omen – Ben Harper

Hero of the Day – Lindz for IMing me drunk last night, making me smile.

The Darwin Award – For the week of February 14, 2004, The first weekly Darwin Award goes to Tariq Kahn. I don't think any explanation is needed on this one…

Quote of the Day – "All truth goes through three steps: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident." -One of my philosophies in life.

Beatles Trivia, Question 4
The answer to question three is in the previous post. This question is the same as the last.

Today's Question:
Please Please Me was the first album produced by The Beatles. There are some unique things about this album that everyone should know. Here are the questions:

1. How long did it take to record the album? (1pt.)
2. In what order were the songs recorded? (1pt. total)
3. John Lennon's voice was almost completely gone during the recording of which track? (1pt.)

• BONUS QUESTION: Which tracks were one take recordings? (1pt. ea.)

Current Mood: – Exhausted

Take it easy yo!
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