Saturday, August 6, 2011

A Quickie Letter

Dear Subaru,

Your commercial for the Forester makes me feel all sorts of emotions. First, the editor in me feels that forester is a weird way to spell this word. Second, the music feels too damn catchy. Third, you do realize that my lifelong goal is that when I have children, I will have three boys. No arguments. Sooo when I realized your commercial not only showed three boys in the backseat of the Forester, but that all three were lil hockey boys....

No. I will not buy your vehicle, now. My boys will be little midget car racers, then sprint cars, then the big leagues. I will resist this future portrayed, even if the implications make me giggle all ebil-like.

Sincerely,
Me.

(I will be hell for whoever decides to tie me down, I swear...)

Friday, August 5, 2011

This Really Has No Point To It

Ugh. In my reminiscing of Nancy Drew games, I'm starting to notice random crap that I otherwise never cared to notice until now. I otherwise wasn't a big fan of the Scarlet Hand one 'cause frankly I could care less about Mayan stuff, but it has a strange place in my heart solely with the Verm reference. Trust me, it feels weird when you're dialing your own area code into a game.

The Phantom of Venice was always one I avoided playing because some of the puzzles are a serious pain in the ass. I don't know what I hate more, the filling/draining pits to find the end, the filling/draining meters to end the game, the horrible dancing shit, the damn scopa that is otherwise very fun when you're not cursing at it for screwing you over.....and yet I feel like it's by far one of the best storylines they've had in the games. Sure, I love some of the others for their locations and characters and plots, but there was something about having to cross into the dark side to get the job done that made it much more...intriguing.

Then I just had to go and reinstall White Wolf. Where it never dawned on me that oh shit, it's set in Canada. And now everything Canada-related plagues me and makes me either want to shake my head, cry, or insultingly giggle at every moment. I didn't notice with any amount of caring that there was a big maple leaf behind the desk. I didn't realize that the character from Toronto has the most stereotypical Norwegian/Canadian accent I've ever heard, now that I know no one from there actually sounds like that. I'm scared of what else I'm going to come across. D:

I knew I should've bought the cheap download version of the one in New Orleans. I've been itching to play it and its semi-creepiness just because I've been reading a couple books set there. Although I really should download Blackmoor Mansion too then...

Anyways. HCB decided to delete his grad school account, so I gave him crap for it. Now I can compliment his little bro's awesomeness around people who actually know his little bro. :3

At least he waited till I got his home account before deleting the grad one. And I was due to give him crap for something, since it's been about a week since he bothered me two days in a row. I like to think he may actually miss me just a *teeny* bit. The bastard.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

God Loves All Prayers, Dammit

In high school, a large part of my involvement on the newspaper staff was copyediting and laying out the opinion section. In college, I went from writing for the opinion section, to opinion's assistant editor, to the opinion copyeditor. Now after that much involvement, I've quickly learned that I'm not cut out for writing OpEds. I'm too moderate for it, as in I can't yell "YES THIS IS THE WAY THINGS SHOULD BE." Maybe I just prefer the devil's advocate perspective. However, I've come to appreciate the fact that other people are capable of creating a strong opinion for one side of a story....even if their opinions and the reasoning behind them just comes off as ignorant.

Such frustrating opinions have come up with the perfect prayer, given live for the very first time. AKA the NASCAR invocation given at Nashville last weekend.



(Now bear with me, because I abhor going on long-winded rants involving religion or politics. But the responses on the interwebs have been just ridiculous, and urged me to rant.)

The first time I saw it, I thought it was funny as hell. Then I had to watch it a second time. And a third time. After the tenth or so time I watched it, I fell in love. THIS is how prayers should be given. From a public speaking perspective, it was confident, heartfelt, urged his audience to listen to him and listen well, and evoked emotions from the audience--for the vast majority, that initial emotion was surprise and laughter. From a logical standpoint, his audience could tell that he was honest about what he was saying in his invocation, and it was genuine, and it made you want to yell AMEN as loud as you could when he was finished.

Yet it amazes me that there are people out there who would consider this prayer to be "in poor taste." And at an even greater irony, it seems to be the devout Christians who have taken the greatest insult to injury. Because of course, those who pray the most MUST be experts at it, and would of course be the first to say, "Ur doin it wrong!!1!"

The people I love to hate are those who then spout off what prayers really should be like, saying, "One should be respectful, reverent, and remember who they are talking to." All I'm reading is bullshit, bullshit, and WTF? Might I ask who we are praying to again? I thought we were praying to our Creator and the man who died for our sins. Died for our sins the way some people have died to protect our freedom. I thought through prayer, we were striving to have to closest possible relationship with Him, without judgement. Yet what this poor preacher has put up with is judgement from fellow Christians about whether or not his prayer was worthy of God.


Not to mention that the insignificant amount of condemnation coming from the public hasn't had a leg to stand on to explain away their reasoning. One ESPN columnist (whose credibility hinged on the fact that his father was a minister) had attempted explaining the negative aspect, but even then, his explanation included the preacher trying to "market" himself, perpetuating the "hillbilly" image of NASCAR, and taking away attention from the race winner and the race itself.


1) "Marketing" a pastor/minister is about as effective as trying to convert an atheist into a Muslim. The fact the columnist even considered this tactic feels absurd, like he was grasping for that third point in his high school English paper.


2) As one reader responded to his article, "I couldn't care less about what the people who look at NASCAR as a Hillbilly sport think. Nothing is going to change their minds." Couldn't have said it better myself. Although, I'd also add that true NASCAR fans wouldn't quit watching the sport just because they found one invocation not up to their standards.


3) Race? What race? I don't think NASCAR's had a legitimately attention-capturing race since David Ragan finally won a Sprint Cup race. Before that would be Trevor Bayne's Daytona win. And while the road race in Wisconsin was entertaining, it was more annoying to see Ron Fellows lose out on an awesome victory and Jacques Villeneuve have so many run-ins on the track. Carl Edwards won another race, wooooooo....we would have made a bigger deal if a squirrel had run onto the track.


Puh-lease. How about praising the fact that he was a minister who preferred giving an invocation that people would actually listen to, instead of a ho-hum prayer read directly from a book (or if they were really daring, memorized it). And I can't exactly blame the women who wouldn't appreciate their man telling the entire viewing audience that he thought she was smoking hot, because some are incredibly sensitive about PDA.....but other than the forever-lame debate about whether calling a woman "hot" is insulting, I'd find this preacher's public display of love to be incredibly endearing. I could only hope that the others are just hiding behind the sensitivity to hide the fact that their husbands don't publicly pray for them. Hmmmm....something to think about. 

Maybe God will forgive you for believing that there is a "wrong" way to pray, especially when it was a prayer that was honest and came from the heart. In the meantime, maybe NASCAR should be more concerned about the real reason why fans are losing interest in the sport.

(Haha, the sentence "You don't like the way the minister prayed? Well God doesn't like the way you pray, either" just came to mind. I chuckled to myself.) :3

Thursday, July 21, 2011

I Love My Friends

I love them because the day's barely half over, and they've already broken my Firefox. I had to switch to Chrome since Facebook via FF wouldn't show any birthday wishes. Screw the happy birthdays, I say congrats to the awesome people I call friends!! :p

I'm also very impressed how HCB was so quick with his birthday wish. Srsly.....first? Kinda scary.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

I Must Be Psychotic

This will most likely turn into another quickie post, but whatevs. But seriously, I'm both comforted and weirded out at the same time.

To put it simply, I've never been more thankful now than I ever have been for getting to have lunch with HCB on a friends basis. I like to think they're not weird. I like to think that the way I go about asking for lunch isn't weird, and the way we go about it in general isn't either. I'm definitely not one to claim to know how he thinks, even if he likes to say that men are easy to figure out, him included. Pfft, he's dreaming.

But somehow, I'm more comfortable with the notion that I can look but not touch and simply hope that whatever I said wasn't a totally awkward come-on, than have a kid a year younger than me flirt with me and proceed to suggest lunch...when you can so totally tell in his mind "Holy crap a date!"

And not just any kid a year younger than me, a kid who is supposed to be on the CA staff next year with me. From what I was told, even the same building. And if John and this incoming hall director is smart, they won't put me with him, either. I don't think I could work with that.

Basically, I've become more comfortable with a guy that honestly couldn't give a shit, yet I have to force a grin when this kid flirts with me. Hell, I'm more comfortable when my old neighbor (older than HCB, mind you) decides to flirt with me for shits and giggles, and he's fucking married. I want to be able to enjoy the attention, especially since I know nothing will come of it, but still...

Ugh. Time to bother the shit out of HCB to get up here and have a friends-only lunch with me. I need some fucking intelligence back in my life.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Late Night Epiphanies

I've come to the conclusion that "It's bigger on the inside!" is the worst That's What She Said that people could try to concoct. Congratulations on the Doctor Who reference, give yourself a cookie. However, this is the last thing I'd want to discover. It implies that even though it may look like you've got a massive bulge there, once your pants drop she'll realize HOLY CRAP it's a baby carrot!

That's all. Pretty decent end to Canada Day. Only 3 more days till 'Merica Day!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Breakeven

The good news? I've found the motivation to go back to my Photoshop.

The bad news? Photoshop reminded me that this this tends to be the time when my OCD kicks in. Damn you, perfectionist reflex...

I'm determined to make this Canucks banner awesome, though. Psh.