There are many things I enjoy about attending Weber State University.  I think it's a nice, big campus, with relatively easy access to all the essential classes.  I like some of the new buildings they've built in the last few years to compensate for the old nasties that had been there since the fifties.  I especially like the fact that every single one of my classes in my major has been taught by a professor with an accredited PhD, giving me opportunities to associate with peop...

I'll admit it; I'm the kind of person who can talk my way around (and out of) anything. I'll gab your ear off until you'll just drop whatever issue you have or you've completely forgotten what you were asking or confronting me about. And no, I'm not saying I'm going to stop doing that. I mean, that's just me - that's like asking Shakira to stop being sexy or telling Ricky Gervais he can't be awkward and funny anymore. It just isn't happening. However, there is a lot of crap I ...

It was a bright and breezy morning, with just the right kind of chill that seeps into your bones and makes you long for warmer weather or at least a thicker coat. I was stepping out of the Smith's grocery store, pleased to have just purchased the obligatory vegetable tray that my branch wanted me to bring for our New Year's Eve festival at the bank this afternoon. (I'm tired of always being assigned the relish tray, simply because they like the dip that Momma Jones - and, due to her tutelag...

Here's another cross-poster from my other website.  Only because I'm bored this morning. Two weeks ago (it was a Monday night), I finally got the book I had ordered from Amazon.com three weeks previous - Bone by Jeff Smith. I was ecstatic. I had wanted to read the large, 1400-plus page epic for months, but hadn't been able to purchase it as I was living in Spain, and upon returning I couldn't justify purchasing it until all my school expenses were in order. But having all of my duc...

  Maybeshewill:  Not for Want of Trying     Year: 2007     Click here for the artist's site       Maybeshewill is a band that I was introduced to only a few weeks ago, through a recommendation of my last.fm software. The thirty-second clip it gave me was very reminiscent of the impeccable post-industrial band 65daysofstatic (even the name - words run together - seemed to suggest serious ties). So after a bit of sear...

  Made Out of Babies, The Ruiner     Year:  2008     Click here for the artist's site       When I first got my hands on Made Out of Babies' sophomore effort, Coward , I couldn't say enough good about it. I loved (and continue to love) that album. I still think it's one of the most frightening records I've ever heard. It's brutal, it's ugly, it's engaging, and it's scary. I can remember thinking to myself, There's...

It's been heartening to see the response on my last Spain post, ' Does anyone even care '.  It's made me smile.  Really it has. Thanks to sister Cedarbird, brother BlueDev, ForeverSerenity, DynaMaso, CharlesCS, little-whip, RoyLevosh, uDigItTheMost, InBloom, momijiki, mikeb1954, skybright, Ockham'sRazor, asaxygirl, and everyone else who's trudged through those wordy, fat, ugly posts.  I enjoyed posting them, and it was always a pleasure to read the comments. But I'm tire...

NASCAR is a Yankee invention to keep the South placated; they will never rise again. -- Here's an idea - if you're going to sing along in an ugly voice to a crappy song, why don't you at least make sure you know the words, stupid? Your mom called, Pervy.  She hates you as much as I do and hopes you get robbed when you're in Morocco. -- Sometimes I wish I could make people understand The Mars Volta, because no one seems to.  Yes, they're overwhelming, and they m...

Just non-thinking (posting without reading, editing, etc. first), since it's almost more fun that way - ---- A god (small "g") who would automatically damn his children without any hope of redemption is an asshole. (Thus the small "g".) A God who truly loves his children would provide a way for EVERY. SINGLE. ONE of them to come back to him. Whether they do or not is up to them, but it doesn't change the fact that the opportunity is there for everyone. Thoughts to the contrary ...

Friday and that. Sitting at work, listening to the incomparable voice of Maria Christensen, thinking about the homework that's due this weekend that I have yet to start. I'm gonna play my guitar when I get home. I'm actually going to eat lunch today; I'm thinking an Arby's sub is in my future. Friday and that. I want a seven-string guitar. I want a mandolin. But I have to save my money for Spain. So . . . no new instruments. (Besides, I have eight stringed things. You'...

Ya que estoy en la escuela otra vez, no he tenido tiempo de pensar sobre nada. Así es la vida, por supuesta, pero no quiere decir que me gusta esta situación . . . Pero, tengo algunas noticias que quiero compartir con vosotros. A todos los que dicen que el bachillerato en español no sirve de nada: Largaos. Id al diablo, y jodeos. Y NO ME IMPORTAN UN PITO. A todos los que tratan de forzar su supuesta “cristianismo” en los demás: Callaos. Quitad la madera de vuestro fregado ojo a...

Back from Hawai'i. What a miserable thing, coming back to civilization after more than a week of pleasurable playtime, a whole nine days of not having to think about work, the looming school semester . . . ANYTHING AT ALL. A week to enjoy a totally new and unexplored (for me at least) place, a tropical paradise filled with green valleys, majestic mountains, painfully clear blue waters, and plenty to see, hear, eat, try, and experience. And now we present . . . the drudgery. Welcome ...

So I'm sitting here at work, and my phone buzzes, "Message for you, sir!" (Yeah, it's from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when the guy gets shot in the chest with the arrow.) I pick it up. It's from this girl. A girl that's, sure, my friend, but it's not like I see her (or that I want to see her) as anything else. She's nice, but I'm just not into her like that. I like girls a little more . . . erudite? . . . than that. But so it says, "I'm free!" I answer, "From what?" "...

I heard this story earlier today on the radio show I listen to, and was absolutely disgusted by it. I can't believe that people still think that we should loosen our gun laws. SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Three men, including a small-town police chief, were indicted Thursday on involuntary manslaughter counts in the gun-fair death of an 8-year-old who accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi that a prosecutor said he never should have been allowed to handle. The club where...