application to be my girlfriend
(note: i'm not actually looking for a girlfriend. really. i was just thinking about how you have to fill out applications for all sorts of stuff, so i decided to make one up. and here it is. and if you fill it out and send it in to me, i'll laugh out loud and make fun of you, because this is all in jest. really)1. Name:
2. Position applying for:
3. Do you have any previous experience being a girlfriend?
3. If so, please list three most recent boyfriends, along with start and termination dates for each relationship, as well as reasons for leaving (if no prior relationships, please list name and phone number of sibling closest in age to yourself)
4. What is the earliest date you would be available to begin?
5. Do you meet all federal and state age requirements?
6. Please respond in short essay form (1-2 paragraphs) on a separate piece of paper to the following questions:
- Listen (or read the lyrics) to the song "Wizard Needs Food, Badly" by Five Iron Frenzy. What implications does this song have on any potential relationship, and what actions would you take to make sure that the basic tenets of the song are carried out? (lyrics available here)
- Please state your opinions on baseball, and the Red Sox in particular
- Describe your ideal vacation
- Cooking and cleaning: privilege or responsibility, and why?
- Riding on the back of a motorcycle: foolish and risky means of transportation, or incredibly romantic way to travel?
7. Please list any pertinent skills or experience you have that would qualify you for this position
8. Describe your mother in 30 words or less
9. List your education, work experience, and current financial status
10. List three things you would change about myself, and three things you would change about yourself, in order to increase the chances of the relationship being successful (can be anything: appearance, job, character, etc)
the end.
(let me remind you again, this is a spoof. nothing should be taken terribly seriously. and if you're thinking, "gee, he didn't mention anything about God in there," let me remind you again that this is for entertainment's sake only. plus, the God stuff is assumed if you're applying)
i'm bored, so this is what you get
top five things that make me cry
- onions. never fails
- where the red fern grows. i love dogs, and i love dog stories. and, this book is a bona-fide tearjerker
- the dentist. and it has nothing to do with what they're doing in my mouth... it's that dang bright light they shine at full strength right into your eyeballs. it kills me every time
- banging my shins. i swear, there's almost nothing as painful as getting wacked in the shins. a sure-fire eye-watering affair
- life. not that it's overly depressing or anything like that, but if you can't have a good cry every once in a great while over just how hard and unfair life is, then you're missing out. it's hard to explain, but it's true
top five benefits about working in a warehouse
- low risk of skin cancer (from limited exposure to sun)
- excellent cardiovascular activity
- driving heavy machinery: if it requires steel toes, you know it's manly
- making good money is always a nice thing
- you can eat as much as you want, whenever you want, and still lose weight
top five ice cream flavors
- it's not a flavor, really... but peanut buster parfait's at DQ are unreal
- pretty much anything with peanut butter and chocolate combined in it (i.e., moose tracks)
- strawberry. especially the good kind with actual chunks of strawberry in it
- chocolate fudge brownie (ben and jerry's). so rich... so good
- coffee
top five things i'm addicted to
- mt. dew
- the red sox. enough said
- starbucks mocha frappuccino's (the kind you buy in a bottle from the supermarket)
- granola bars and yogurt. seriously, they make up the perfect snack/lunch combo. plenty of carbs, and plenty of tasty goodness
- nhl 2004. i just bought it last week for ten dollars, and it's a pretty sweet game, even though i still suck at it. i think the computer cheats, though. it can't compare to the ultimate hockey game, the classic sega genesis nhl game, of swingers fame. a classic
top five reactions by the guys at work when they heard i was leaving for the summer to go work at a camp
- we're so screwed
- girl counselors are hot. you should try and date one
- lucky!
- wow, someone's actually leaving without getting fired
- we're so screwed
top five links you should check out
- there's stupidity, and there's insanity, and then there's this combination
- some people hate the french. others hate their vegetables. this guy hates dimes
- ok, it's a huge file, and unless you have broadband it's not even worth trying to downlaod it... but if you think canadians making dinner with power tools and beer is funny, then this is your kind of film
- note to self: don't steal purses from japanes women in elevators. you'll get body-slammed
- umm... i forgot what i was going to put here. so click over to some random person's blog instead (top-right corner). guaranteed to be more interesting than this crapola
this was a looong week. but, today it was sunny with a high of seventy five (yes! finally!), and tomorrow i get to sleep in. so, things are looking up. and i'm still trying to figure out how to get to australia without having to sell a kidney... no luck yet
the end
it's official!
AUGUSTA — With the potential economic blow of military base closings pending, Gov. John Baldacci said Friday that Maine needs all of the Moxie it can muster.
Baldacci took time for a lighthearted legislative boost as he signed a bill to make Moxie, a distinctively flavored beverage closely associated with Maine, the official state soft drink.
Baldacci said the legislation shows the rest of the nation that Maine has Moxie.
"It comes at a good time for the state. The state needed a boost," said Baldacci.
The bill says the former patent medicine, which was concocted by a Mainer in the 1870s, symbolizes spirit and courage.
(story courtesy of mainetoday.com)
it's about time. moxie has been a maine thing for awhile, but now it's officially linked with the state forevermore. which, i think, is pretty cool.
this week is insane. we have nowhere near enough help at work, and it's the week before memorial day, so it's been crazy-busy. i've worked over 25 hours already, and it's supposed to only get busier for the next three days. oh gosh. but... only two weeks and three days left of work, then a week off, then camp! woot. must... survive... until... then...
in my time not consumed by work, i've been reading this great book about australia. and, i want to go there. really, really bad. but i looked up ticket prices, and it's insanely expensive to fly out there. like, in the thousands of dollars. nevertheless, i plan on doing it sometime, so i guess i better start saving. or.... you could donate to the "send patrick to australia for a vacation" fund
and, in other news, it's been raining since last week somtime, and it's supposed to keep it up until next monday or so. how rediculous is that. it's the end of may, and it's 45 degrees out, and raining all the time. sheesh. you'd think we live in russia by the looks of it, except that we drink moxie instead of vodka
mmm, moxie.....
mountain pies, muppets, and the dentist
saturday: went down to visit my sister in york after work (york and work look like they rhyme, but they really don't), where she was housesitting for some relatives. main objective: watch
muppets wizard of oz, which she had tivo'd from the previous night. her friend robin was down visiting too, as were two of her friends, whose names i can't quite recall (mike and michelle? i think? hmm). i ate pretty much all of the food that liz had made for supper, because it was so good and i was so hungry. and then we watched
muppets, which i must admit was a minor disappointment. i mean, it had its funny moments, but it was nowhere near the caliber of
muppet treasure island or
muppets from space. the funniest thing was that toto was a shrimp instead of a dog, so it was of course played by pepe. and when dorothy (played by ashanti, of all people) was running into the tornado shelter, she's like "oh no, i forgot toto!" and aunt mae says, "get in here, don't go back! after all, he's only a shrimp," to which dorothy replies "he's not a shrimp, he's a
king prawn!!!" and the rest of the movie was pretty much forgettable. but, it was worth the trip down there because of the...
mountain pies. what are mountain pies, you may ask? "freakin' awesome!" (that's the answer i got when i asked that question). and it's true, because they are. evidently, robins friend's (from pennsylvania, i do know that much) saw this random fireplace utensil and recognized it as being a mountain pie maker, so they decided to introduce mountain pies to the rest of us. you take some pie filling (cherry, blueberry, etc) and put it between two buttered pieces of bread, which you then place in this:
and then hold in the fire for a few minutes. and they're wicked good... but wicked hot, too. which resulted in a slightly singed mouth, but it was so worth it. mmmm, mountain pies...
yesterday was the last day of sunday school for the year. so, i had a party over at the house after church for my class. it was some rockin' good times. we ate pizza and ice cream sundaes and played balderdash and pictionary and a card game with toothpicks and some legos. and i made a really cool space ship, but i left it on the floor and dad kicked it/stepped on it by accident, so it got demolished. such is the usual demise of lego structures. but yeah, we had a great time, and it was a fitting end to the year. it'll be nice in some ways not to have that pressure every sunday to put a lesson together, but on the other hand, i'll miss those kids. they've been tons o' fun to hang out with every week and learn about God with. good times.
today, i went to
the dentist. i hate going. but, i went today for my six-month cleaning, because dental hygeine is important to me. although, i don't think it's important enough to go every six months, so i'm going to back it off to once a year for a while, because it's a
hundred and thirty freakin' dollars just for a routine visit. no x-rays, no flouride treatment, just lots of medieval torture implements being plied upon your tender gums. our old dentist retired, so i saw the new guy for the first time today. he's really nice, but he looks
alot like jimmy fallon. i mean... alot. would you trust a snl character look-alike to examine your teeth? maybe, but the more important question is, would you pay him over
fifty dollars to do so (for less than five minutes)? um... no. i'm not so keen about that. that translates into a wage of $600/hr, which generates a salary of 1.2
million dollars. granted, i'm sure he doesn't make that much, but still... that's just re-dic-u-lous. and my hygeinist likes to floss in a similar fashion to how a machine press works:
down, up, move over,
down, up, move over, etc. my gums are still tender. and all of that for them to tell me, "oh, you're doing a good job brushing, but you should probably floss more often." gee, thanks. my mom could have told me that.
it's just me and lucy hangin' around the house today. it's a happenin' place
my star-wars saga
i got to the theater a little after 11 last night, and the lines were already crazy-long. took me a little while to find the guy who had all the tickets (major thanks go out to skip for treating everyone in the company), and then figure out which line was going to which screen and so forth. i saw several lightsaber-wielding jedi, jango fett, princess leia, and even darth vader. the nerds were in their glory. then, we finally make our way into the theater about quarter of, find a seat, sit down, wait for the previews... and they come one right on schedule, but with
no sound. uh-oh. and there were even some good ones, like for the chronicles of narnia (which, by the way, looks to be a-ma-zing). then they were trying to fix the problem before the movie started, so they stopped the projector for like half an hour to work on it. not cool. it was already going to be a wicked late night, and that was the last thing anyone needed.
but, once they finally got it fixed around twelve-thirty, they passed out free movie passes to everyone to make up for the inconvenience... so i got a free movie pass while at a movie that i didn't even have to pay for. how cool is that
speaking of the movie...
it was great. as i told someone earlier, if the latest two films were necessary for this one to be made, it was so worth it. the dialogue was alot better, and there were even a couple of borderline convincing heartfelt moments between padme and anakin. you actually felt attached to some of the characters for the first time since the original trilogy. it was exciting, thrilling, beautiful, and very, very, very sad. really emotional ending, mostly because it ties up all the loose ends so well and the stage is all set for episode IV. you get the feeling that the only reason lucas decided to do the prequels is so that he could make this movie (and, a couple more billion dollars in revenue for his own 'empire' doesn't hurt, either). definitely deserving of it's pg-13 rating... not for kids by any means. some pretty graphic injuries coupled with it's deep, dark and sad storyline make it a little bit too much to handle for most kids, i'd think. but boy, was it great
so, my thoughts in a nutshell: it stands by itself as a really good movie, but when you fit it into the framework of the original trilogy, it transcends into "epic" status. whoa, that sounds good... almost like i know what i'm talking about. even though we all know i don't
the only sucky part about the movie was that it didn't get out until a little after three a.m... which, by the time i got home, wound down for a little bit, got to sleep, and woke up for work today, translated into about three and a half hours of sleep. so, i was a zombie at work today, but still... it was so worth it. and now for an early bedtime
summer can't come soon enough
lepidoptera
girls are like butterflies. - they like to sit out in the sun and look pretty
- they migrate in large numbers
guys are like moths
and, that's as far as i got with that. but there's probably more and better comparisons that can be made. feel free to add on if you're so inclined
is it a day off if you end up going in to work? sure doesn't seem like it to me
3 days
bittersweet paradox
i came up with that term the other day when i was e-mailing luke, and for whatever reason i like it. if i ever start a band, i'll name it that. it's a brilliantly succinct description of my life
how many people can say that they got a phone call from iraq? i mean, besides me... cause dave called earlier this evening. gosh, was it great to hear from him. my mom at first thought he was a telemarketer, but fortunatelt didn't hang up on him until she figured out who he was. he's only got a few months left overseas before he gets back, and then he should have enough leave time saved up so we can hit the road for the grand all-american road trip. he's been plotting and scheming and planning out the ultimate road-trip vehicle, and it's gonna be so incredible. as much as i'm excited for camp this summer, i'm even more stoked for the road trip next fall, just cause i've been looking forward to and planning for it for so long. you all will wish you were lucky enough to come along... but you're not. sorry. but anyhow, was so good to hear from dave, and laugh at stupid stuff and share some stories and all that jazz. good times
they're dropping like flies... we had a guy get fired this week for showing up drunk to work. at nine in the morning. i don't know whether to be impressed, or saddened.... probably somewhere between the two. impressively sad. we're trying to staff up for the summer, but it's difficult when people keep doing stupid stuff and getting fired
listening to weezer's new album
make believe right now... and i like it. alot. a little softer and melodic than i expected, but really good nonetheless
i got together with pastor mark earlier this week for dinner and chat time, which just served to further confirm that he's the best. pastor. ever. or, at least, the best one i could have right now. what a man of God... it's been so great to be under his teaching, and see his infectious love for the Lord have an impact on the congregation. anyhow, he lent me this book which is really great. it's called
epic, by john eldredge (yeah, the wild at heart guy). i haven't read any of his other stuff, but this book is really fantastic. it's short and sweet and pretty to-the-point, and it places life in the perspective of the ageless saga that we're a part of. rather than spoil all it's great points, i'll just say that you should read it. really. that's all there is to it
my sister is leaving this weekend 4-ev-r. aahh! what will i do without you around?!? lucky!
random stat of the night: songs by five iron frenzy (with a grand total of 140) make up 12.5% of my total song playlist. songs by any and all country musicians: 0.0%
the end
eight days
who's going to see episode three on opening night (or, i should say, morning)?
oh yeah... me. boo-yah
now all i need is a boba fett costume, and i'm good to go
who died and made you king of the zombies?
kids are hilarious. i was giving matt and stephen a ride to church today, when out of the blue, stephen asks me, "patrick, why is your head so big?" i replied that it's because i have to store my massive amount of brains somewhere. then he asked, "so why is your nose big, too?" got me there, kiddo. then in sunday school, we were talking about bodyguards (like the ones king david had in 1 chronicles 11), and coming up with ideas with who we'd want for our bodyguards, when jenny decided that since i didn't actually have any bodyguards with me right there, i was open to an attack from the paparazzi, so she held a pretend microphone in my face and started asking my all sorts of randomly funny questions. it's hard to keep a class full of 4-6th graders under control when you're laughing pretty much non-stop. such are my sunday mornings... love it
just finished watching
shaun of the dead... i've said it before, and i'll say it again, that movie is simply hilarious. comedy of the highest caliber, albeit with a slightly elevated gross-out factor. but i was thinking afterwards, i wonder where it'd rank in my all-time favorite movies? so i decided to find out. first, i'm making a list of all the movies i can ever remember seeing. then, i'll prune it down a little and rank the top hundred or so. i've only listed up through the M's so far, and it's just shy of two hundred movies... which is slightly sickening. i've watched this much film in my life?? and many of them i've seen more than once (and some, like muppets from space, are well into double digits). so it's turning out to be a grander undertaking that what i first envisioned, but that's ok, cause i don't have anything else pressing going on in my life right now
my sister is moving out of the house this week. which is a giant thumbs-up for her, but a time of sober sadness for me. even though she's not really leaving (i mean, she still goes to college in the area and all that jazz), she won't be around the house with as much regularity. which means no more surprise attacks on her with the kazoo, waking her up on easter morning by bouncing around and throwing jelly beans in the air, watching movies at obscenely late hours just cause we feel like it, or spur of the moment trips to wendy's. sigh. but it's all good... just weird. life's like that. won't be the same around here without ya, liz. and don't be upset if i move into your room :)
summer can't come soon enough. only five more weeks of work... i've been there full-time for just about exactly a year now (which is hard to believe), and i've worked there for just a little over four years, off and on while in school. after the road trip this fall, i'll hopefully be moving on to phase 2 of my post-college existence, which is looking like it will exclude a career in the warehouse, thank goodness. but as for now, the daily grind is getting old mighty fast, so i'm looking forward to camp this summer in a major way. woot
the song itself isn't spectacular to listen to, but i love the lyrics...
i don't know if it's just me
but it seems that things aren't changing
every day is pretty much the same
with a little rearranging
if i do nothing i can't fail
no blistered hands, no broken nails
killing time, i'm paralyzed
with bitter dreams and hollow eyes
i've been waiting for a revelation
for a moment of clarity
conflicts and convolutions
ricochet inside of me
there comes a time for throwing caution to the wind
and so my life begins...
(fif)
happy mothers day!
tell your mom you love her,
mr. t stylefrickin' hilarious
this week sucked
but, it's finally over. thank goodness.
three cheers for the weekend. woot
the end
one of those days
not cool:spilling nasty, fermented, rotten apple juice all over yourself at work. i smelled so disgusting for the rest of the day, that i had to drive home with all the windows down while choking back waves of nausea. and whoever is responsible for shipping a bottle without a cap, and letting it sit there long enough to get all thick and orange-yellowish until i picked up the box and it cascaded all over me... they will die
cool:my sister got me a new chair for my room, just like the one she has. i think it's a subtle hint that i need to stop hanging out in her room all the time, but it's a wicked sweet gift nonetheless
not cool:whoever decided to paint the crosswalk lines in downtown westbrook this morning, right during the morning rush. brilliant. way to back up traffic everywhere, fellas.
cool:i'm going to camp this summer. sayonara to steel toes, goodbye to the good ol' warehouse for at least a couple months, cause i'll be a counselor
here. it would be a drastic understatement to say that i'm excited. but, for a lack of better words... i'm excited
not cool:
waking up half an hour before your alarm goes off. not enough time to fall back asleep, really, but not really worth getting up early for anything, either. so you lay there and think about how great sleep is
cool:
the movie
criminal. i always love a good scam/heist film, and this one was sweet. one of those great endings that leaves you scratching your head at first, then a long slow "oooohhhhhh.....,"
and then nodding your head and grinning in admiration
the end
a bank robber and a movie star
some businesses lose employees when they move, switch jobs, or retire. we lose them when they try to rob banks...
SOUTH PORTLAND — A Portland man landed in jail Tuesday after a robbery attempt at the Norway Savings Bank.
(name withheld), 24, drove up to the bank branch at Mill Creek just before noon, police said. He sent a note to a teller through the pneumatic tube system, demanding money. Tellers alerted police and wrote down the number from his license plate.
(name withheld) drove out of the bank empty-handed, and was stopped by a police officer just two minutes later at the Casco Bay Bridge.
-story courtesy of mainetoday.com-
i can only guess that he wanted to get brought in, for whatever reason. either that or he was hoping to have a high-adrenaline chase. or who knows. gosh. he's been with a.w.s. almost as long as i have, but it sounds like he'll be taking an extended leave of absence, with a lengthy stay in the big house. such is life in the warehouse... you just never know when someone is going to do something insanely stupid
in other news, there was a film crew at the warehouse today. i have no idea what they were there for... maybe a commercial, or a training video, or maybe a documentary. or maybe a new hollywood blockbuster action film about... nevermind. there's nothing movie-worthy that goes on there. but anyhow, for whatever reason they decided to follow me around for a while, so i had this guy with a camera tracking my every move, and then they put him on this rig on a forklift, so then he was hovering over me shooting film for a while. slightly unnerving and also quite hilarious at the same time. and i had to sign a bunch of release forms afterwards, but i might score a free t-shirt out of the deal for being helpful and letting them capture my ugly mug on film. woo-hoo. i'm a movie star now. i was singing "hollywood" by p.o.d. to myself for the rest of the day.
i also got a nifty "safety always" travel coffee mug today for being on the job hazard analysis focus group. so volunteering ain't all bad, cause i'm making out like a bandit (every time i say that, i laugh, because i think how funny it would be if i said "i'm making out with a bandit." and, does anybody even call themselves a bandit anymore, or is that too old-school? i think i should be a bandit).
i want a ninja for my roommate. hilarious. and who ever knew that grapefruit juice could kill someone? (note... don't even bother trying to view the video unless you have broadband)
finis
this is a worthless post
really. don't even bother reading it.
so i played racquetball today, for the first time in over a year. and, predictably, i didn't do so hot. part of it probably had to do with the fact that i went right after work, when i was already tired and ready for a shower and supper. plus, i was just plain rusty. but it was fun nonetheless. i enjoyed running around like a madman, crashing into walls and jumping out of the way and whaling on the poor little blue racquetball. the guys were duly impressed with my competitive drive, if not with my backhandand. i could barely walk up the stairs when i got home, i was so tired and sore, but a hot shower eased my aches significantly. now i'll need to play again soon to regain my honor, otherwise i won't be able to spend a day at work without hearing derrogatory comments about my skills.
and, not a single other exciting thing has happened to me. i did buy this hilairous comic book yesterday,
the return of the suicide bunnies, which is very twisted but also insanely funny. and now i'm going to eat some (freshly made! thanks to my sis) chocolate chip cookies, then go to bed. and i hope this entry lived down to it's advance billing
g'night.
were the whole realm of nature mine
that were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine
demands my soul, my life, my all
speech ain't free...
but it should be
pardon me while i rant momentarily...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday signed legislation aimed at helping parents keep their children from seeing sex scenes, violence and foul language in movie DVDs.
The bill gives legal protections to the fledgling filtering technology that helps parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movie DVDs. Bush signed it privately and without comment, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
The legislation came about because Hollywood studios and directors had sued to stop the manufacture and distribution of such electronic devices for DVD players. The movies' creators had argued that changing the content -- even when it is considered offensive -- would violate their copyrights.
(you can read the rest of the article
here)i know that it borders on heresy to disagree with anything that our current champion of christian conservativism, President Bush, approves of, but so be it. this is a prototypical knee-jerk reaction that fails to take into account the broader implications in an attempt to provide a quick fix for a touchy situation.
do movies today have too much sex, violence, and profanity? of course they do. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. and it's a fairly straightforward no-brainer that hollywood's morally corrupt state has influenced our culture in a negative fashion, to at least some degree. but dooes that mean that the answer is to provide a filtering device for the content that hollywood produces? i'd say emphatically no, for three major reasons.
first, this doesn't even begin to address the real problem, which is that the content is still there to begin with. is our society going to improve one iota by allowing consumers of this new technology (the majority of which are most likely going to be conservative christians) to filter out offensive material? of course not. and what sort of a message is this going to be sending to hollywood, when christians start buying movies that were previously on their black list? once they realize that their market base for this material has actually expanded, they'll continue to produce and develop media that stoops to the lowest common denominator, as long as they know it will sell. if you really want to see a change in the content of the media put out by hollywood, you have to go to the movies. how does that help? by showing them that good, family-friendly, quality, redemptive movies have a market. people give the film industry too much credit by assuming they have this grand plan to morally bankrupt america. sorry to inform you otherwise, but america is perfectly capable of corrupting itself... hollywood is just looking to make a few bucks along the way. they listen far more to how loudly the almighty dollar talks than they ever will to any boycott or demonstration. you think nobody noticed how much money
the passion, the incredibles, or the
lord of the rings made, and made the connection between their draw for the whole family (conservatives included) and their payday at the box office? if we support quality media, it will be made and produced, no question about it
second, this is another example of wal-mart using their brute marketing force to shoehorn something into the public market. they are able to dictate the content of the various media they sell to such a degree that popular artists are
forced to produce a "family-friendly, red state appeasing, wal-mart approved" version of their music. does this really change the message that is being sent out by the artists, though? of course not. it's simply a PG-rated view of life, instead of R. do we really want our kids to be able to listen to an artist simply because he doesn't drop the f-bomb in the wal-mart album, regardless of his worldview and overall message that he's promoting on the album? that's just a
rediculous idea. you wouldn't edit out ethinic slurs from a hitler speech and call it "clean" and sell it at wal-mart, so why do we think we can do it with music? and this doesn't even touch on the copyright and free speech implications.
in a
related article, wal-mart is listed as the first major retailer to offer this product. you can bet that their lobbyists played no small part in prodding the bill which was recently signed into law through congress. the legal issues were cleverly avoided by circumventing the courts and heading straight to capitol hill. as much as i love the low prices, i have a serious problem with the way wal-mart uses their massive leverage to further their goals and agendas
finally, the
clearplay tehcnology appears to me to be a blatant first amendment violation. when you start imposing public opinion upon an artist's work, you interfere and obstruct the intended effect they wished for the film to have. there will always be material that is objectionable to someone, but that's not the point. the point is that the artists (the screenwriters, directors, actors, etc) had a vision and an idea for how their film would come across, and when you tamper with that you taint their original vision and impose your will upon it. would you walk into a museum and sitck post-it notes onto paintings with objectionable material to cover up all or part of them? of course not. we should be equally hesitant to tamper with content in the medium of film as well. if you don't agree with what someone has to say, or with the material in a movie, then it's quite simple:
don't watch it. novel idea, i know. but that simple act of not viewing it will have a far more profound impact than any other act you can think of. it's a matter of christian liberty, personal freedom, and the power to choose. you know better than anyone what you can or can't, should or shouldn't see. so don't go rushing to support some new device that allows you to watch movies that, even without swearingsexviolence, you probably still shouldn't be watching. ideas and dreams are far more powerful than images or words ever have been or will be, so be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that just because something is "clean" that it's ok. not always so. and who says that this technology is going to stop there... how long until you can filter out any "objectionable" material from anything? and who defines what's really "objectionable" and what's not? it doesn't take more than a cursory examination of history to reveal that the gospel message has been deemed offensive more often than not... who's to say that with these new limits imposed on the freedom of speech that the message of christianity won't one day be filtered out of society? it's already happening/happened in our schools, courtrooms, workplaces, and community. the media is one of the last places where any voice can be heard, and where any message can be sent unfiltered and unfettered, and yet here is conservativism rearing up to support a device that could very well be a harbringer of their downfall.
john milton wrote a seminal defence of the necessity for the freedom of speech in his 1644 work,
Areopagetica. he argued, among other things, that by imposing restrictions on speech that we belittle the power and value of truth, and thus weaken our ability to discern. i'll close with a quote from his essay:
"And though all the winds of doctring were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do her injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth to be put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"don't ever limit the power of Truth. it's strong, it's powerful, it cuts to the quick like a two edged sword, and all the lies that this world has ever produced will never overcome or even cloud it. don't taint it's potency by trying to help it... Truth doesn't need our aid. all it needs is for people who know what it is to seek it.
the end.
tisq
good weekend... so far, anyhow
went and saw
millions with mi hermana friday evening. i really liked it, but she's not sure yet what she thought of it. it's a little bit weird at times, and the theology isn't exactly spot-on, but it's still an excellent, sweet, and funny film. well worth a watch. we went to kfc afterwards and chowed down on some chicken. i hadn't been there in forever, so it was a nice change from the usual burger-joint fast food routine.
"don't worry, dad. everybody gets burgled at christmas"
then last night, i went down to n.h. with the family to see the turtle island string quartet. third time i've seen them, first for the folks and sis. they were pretty blown away, and i was just soaking it up. they are just so amazing... they blow away whatever preconceived notions you may have of what a string quartet is. they're heavily influenced by jazz, folk, classical, indian, and all sorts of other genres of music. tisq is truly a one-of-a-kind group. i can't even begin to describe how amazing they are, so i won't, except to say that mark summer is like a jimi hendrix on the cello. wow. he played julie-o, a cello solo piece that he wrote, and just brought the house down. i've never heard it live before... man. a-ma-zing. great concert
it was raining really hard yesterday, so we got a little wet walking between the parking garage and the concert hall. i was waiting to cross the street at one intersection, when a car swerved real close to me (on purpose), nailed the puddle which was collecting right by the curb, and absolutely
drenched me from the waist down. i was dripping wet. but what can you do except laugh it off? i mean, i'm not about to go chase the car down or anything, and i'm sure i provided them with a good laugh. another guy waiting to cross the street was so shocked by what happened, he kept saying, "that was absolutely horrid. i can't believe those people just did that." so, i walked into the hall looking like i had just emptied my entire bladder on myself, but it was all good cause the concert rocked. and i was even fairly dry by the time it was over
mothers day is next weekend. i can never keep track of all these hallmark holidays, which is why i have a sister to remind me. thank goodness for that
i heard the worst excuse ever for leaving early from work last week. the conversation went somehting like this:
"where's curt?"
"he had to leave. his girlfriends grandparents just passed away."
"i didn't know he had a girlfriend"
"he doesn't"
"ahhhhh"
i wish i had the chance to ask him how they passed away. that would have made for an entertaining story
thend
