J-Bird’s Rants o’ the Week
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Word document form at:
http://members.fortunecity.com/justjavi/rants.doc
Hey All You Out There Somewhere.......
I thought
I'd write an email to all of you. Why? Just because I felt like
it. Do I really need a reason? Maybe I'm bored on Thursday night
and figured you would all appreciate a nice J-Bird email. I don't write
emails that often so you should feel privileged. Actually you probably
shouldn't because it's a mass mailing so I'm not really writing to anyone in
particular. And by now, some of you are thinking that reading the rest of
this is probably not worth your time. Well you are wrong. Stay
tuned because there actually is some important information in this email.
You'll just have to read awhile to find out what it is. And this
email is one big paragraph, you can't really just skip down to it cause
you don't know where it is. You have to read all of this. Not that
that's all bad. I hope it's fairly entertaining. I like to ramble
on and on about nothing most of the time. Or tell stories. Like
that one time last year when I got bored of studying and decided to go out
behind sutherland. I saw a tree and thought to myself,
"hmmm...wouldn't it be cool if that tree wasn't there anymore?"
So I went back to my room and got some C4 explosives. There just happened
to be a hallow spot in the trunk, so I stuck some in, lit the fuse, and ran
away really fast. I remember hearing a big bang and being thrown to the
ground. I must've hit my head cause when I came to I was in Dr. Harms
office and he was telling me that I was going to get thrown out of the dorms
for my actions (I'm still trying to figure out why I came to there and not in a
hospital...). Anyways, I officially got thrown out of the dorms.
However, I just stayed with Trav and Matt for the rest of the year, and when it
came to sign up for living spots for this year, they apparently forgot that I
wasn't supposed to live on campus anymore, and now I have my own room.
Who's laughing now? ME. Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Okay, you're probably now like, when is he going to get to the point of this
email? Very soon, I promise you. Actually right now. Many of
you are probably considering what you are going to do this Friday night.
Some of you are probably going to go to that cafe place to hear those people (I
forget their names and what they're doing). Some of you are probably
thinking, "Wow, I wish I could watch Simpsons this Friday
night." Others of you are probably thinking exactly the opposite of
that. Well, there is a brewing opportunity where those of you who want to
watch Simpsons for about FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT can do that. We are going to
have a genuine Simpsons Marathon. It will start this Friday night (
All right, that's all for the announcements...and now, the story I promised earlier:
Once upon a time, there was a man with a fence. This man lived next to another man who also had a fence. (It is very possible that the two fences were in fact the same fence...however, that little bit of knowledge is very irrelevant to our story.) One fine day, these two neighbors were together in their yards talking about the weather and such when the first man (we'll call him Walnut) said, "I like your fence." The second man (we'll call him Butter) then replied, "Thanks. I hate your fence." At this, Walnut got very angry and questioned Butter, "What's wrong with my fence??" Right then, Butter spit on Walnut's fence and said, "There's spit on your fence." Walnut looked, and sure enough, there was a nice drop of saliva on his fence. Walnut then calmed down. He decided that in order to fix this problem, he would tear down the fence and build a new one. So he did that. After the new fence was properly erected, Walnut asked Butter, "Do you like my fence now?" Butter said, "Yes, now I do like your fence. It is very nifty."
Story:
One Sunday in the 6th grade, I was in church with my family. Deacon Bud Heiser was reading from the Gospel according to Mark (okay, I just made that up...I don't really remember which gospel it was). We were all standing cause that's what you do during the Gospel reading (they're just that cool...). Anyways, I remember suddenly feeling really dizzy and lightheaded. Then the next thing I knew, I was up in the clouds. There was a dull pink sun (but very beautiful), standing out in the pale blue sky. I was floating through the clouds and it was all so calm, serene, and beautiful. The next memory I have is of my eyes opening looking up at about 7 different faces with the church ceiling above them. My lower lip also hurt kinda bad. I then realized I was tasting blood. So I laid there for a short while, then got up and sat in the pew. The people around me returned to listening to Deacon Bud, who hadn't stopped reading the whole time. I remember so many people looking at me and I was very embarrassed, so I decided to leave. I then left. When I got home, I ate eggs. They tasted good.
J-BIRD'S RANTING O' THE WEEK:
Wow.
Sometimes I'm overwhelmed with things. Such as the fact
that it is
JAVI's RANT O' THE WEEK:
Okay, I kinda gotta keep this one shorter cause I gotta be at work 15 minutes ago. Suffice it to say that if you've never tried licking frosting off a carpet, you gotta try it....
Anyways, I promise a story next week for all you story-lovers out there.
MY RANT:
Okay, I promised a story. I, however, am braindead from working on c.s. stuff all night long. So I'll leave with a poem that I wrote once (some of you have heard this before). Enjoy!
Oh dear cow
cup,
How i remember you fondly.
I think of thee all day and night
And how you used to hold milk so strongly.
Please
forgive me cup,
For i let you into a stranger's hands.
You did not last long in the pretzel fight,
And now only half of you stands.
But you've
gone to a better place now,
At the top of my desk,
On display for the whole world to see,
That they might think of you when they take that next risk.
Oh cow cup,
You martyr!
People will sing songs and tell stories of you,
Until there are no more tragedies to tell.
One more thing, just to help you all find the meeting next week, I went on yahoo and found some directions from my house to CVTC. Here they are:
|
|
Directions |
Miles |
|
1. |
Start out going East on DERONDA ST towards WI-46 by turning left. |
0.3 |
|
2. |
Turn SHARP RIGHT onto WI-46. |
11.9 |
|
3. |
WI-46 becomes US-63. |
11.2 |
|
4. |
US-63 becomes US-63/US-12. |
0.6 |
|
5. |
Stay straight to go onto US-63. |
2.3 |
|
6. |
Turn LEFT to take the I-94 EAST ramp. |
0.3 |
|
7. |
Merge onto I-94 E. |
44.9 |
|
8. |
Take the WI-37/WI-85 exit, exit number 65, towards EAU CLAIRE/MONDOVI. |
0.2 |
|
9. |
Turn RIGHT onto WI-37 N/WI-85 E. |
1.5 |
|
10. |
Turn RIGHT onto US-12 E. |
1.0 |
|
11. |
Turn LEFT onto |
0.0 |
|
12. |
Turn LEFT onto US-12 W. |
0.5 |
STORYTIME:
Have you ever opened a pop can and not had it open correctly? Well that happened to me this past week. It was weird. I lifted the tab and instead of the front part of the opening opening up and receding into the can, the back part of the opening popped open. I was really confused and I think I just stared at it for about five minutes. I then proceded to manually push the opening down into the can so I could actually drink the pop. (If you don't understand what I mean, I'll draw you a picture someday.) And that wasn't the only weird thing to happen to me this week! Yesterday, it started raining in the shower...
Here's a great story for you (semi-based a semi-true story...):
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Fakey. One day, Fakey was making pudding in the basement of her dorm. She had just finished a great big batch of pudding that she was going to bring up and share with all of her wingmates. She was walking up the stairs (she lives on 3rd floor) when this really cute guy that she liked just happened to be walking down to the basement. She turned one of the corners in the staircase and saw him and got really startled. As a result of this startledness, Fakey tripped on one of the steps and fell straight forward into the stairs above her. The pudding flew up and landed upside down on the guy's head. Fakey was very embarrassed and ran upstairs to her room as fast as she could and shut the door behind her. Fakey immediately fell asleep and started dreaming. She dreamt of mutant mushrooms that had grown to be the size of humans and could exist without being attached to soil. These mushrooms waged a war against humans and took over the world and made humans their slaves. Then she woke up.
Wow that story really sucked. I'll try better next week :-)
Take it easy and rejoice in the Lord always!
5/3/2001:
STORY:
One day an Eskimo was traveling in Florida when he realized that it was warm outside. He decided to take off his parka and enjoy the sunshine. So he stopped walking and laid down in the grass. He just happened to be right next to a road. Now this road wasn't just any road, this road was the entrance to Disneyland (or Disneyworld, I forget which one is in Florida). After about an hour, a car was traveling down this road. The driver had his wife in the passenger seat, and two kids in the backseat named Todd and Todd2. Todd2 decided to push Todd, and Todd pushed back, spilling Todd2's drink on the floor. Well, the mother of these kids decided to turn around to deal with this situation. In the process of turning around, she somehow bumped heads with her husband (the driver). This collision caused a concussion to occur in her husband's head and he passed out. She was shocked at this turn of events, and kind of just sat there for awhile, not sure what to do. Eventually, she realized that the car was still going without a driver. She quickly took control of the wheel from the passenger seat, but at this point, the car had veered off the road and was extremely close to the Eskimo lying in the grass, who was now sound asleep.
To be continued.........
5/29/2001:
So I bet a lot of you have been thinking, where the heck is the summer address list?? Well I've had it, and I have a good explanation why I haven't sent it out sooner (since it was finished on Friday of finals week). See, I was going to do it on Saturday the 19th, but I forgot. And then I took a trip the next day to Iowa because I heard that Iowa was a great place. Unfortunately, as I was passing through Rochester I was struck broadside by a semi-truck. I immediately died. As luck would have it, the doctors somehow stitched me back together and brought me back to life. The wonders of modern medicine... Unfortunately, I had amnesia. For the next 5 days, I had no idea who I was or what had happened to me. So without the burden of having any responsibilities (since I didn't recall them), I took a road trip to Texas, where I visited with an old lady that lives on the corner of 9th and Maple in Hightown, TX. She told me her life story, which took 3 sleepless days. The second that the last word of the story had left her mouth, she passed away and I regained my memory (kind of a weird coincidence how that happened). I immediately remembered that I had to send out the Summer Address List to all of you folk out there, so I jumped in my car and hightailed it back to Amery, Wisconsin, and just arrived here a half hour ago. So that's why you haven't gotten the list yet.
9/1/2001:
RANT:
So I've got a doosy of a story for y'all. And it's actually true!! See, last year, I lived in Sutherland Hall and had a carpet that fit the room that I lived in (the room was a titch bigger than a normal sized room, so it fit only that room). And this year, I'm not in that room anymore, so I figured I'd give the carpet to the people who would be living in that room this year. So I did that and gave the carpet to them last spring. Well, the carpet sat in someone's garage all summer and he brought it back to campus today to be put in the room. Unfortunately, the room tenants got a little bit more than they barganed for. When they unrolled the carpet, they found one dead mouse and three live mice. It's true! But fortunately, they must've found a way to get rid of them, because I was just in their room and the mice were gone and they were living very peacefully. And I thought that rolling those sunflower seeds up in the carpet last spring was so harmless...
9/9/2001:
RANT:
I had a dream the other night about how I was on the moon. Actually I had this dream when I was three years old. For some reason, it's just stuck with me, and I'm not really sure why. But I was on the moon with a bunch of other kids. Also, there was this giant bug between us and the Earth. Now this bug was huge and it was emitting electrical bolts of energy outward (kinda in the form of a spider web), so that we had no chance of getting back to the Earth. After a short time, though, the bug left! We were free to go back to the Earth again! But, strangely enough, no one was leaving. Everyone seemed to think that the danger was now all over and we could just relax and have some fun on the moon before we went back to the Earth (and no, we didn't have a spaceship or anything to go back...for some reason in this dream you could just jump back and forth between the Earth and the moon...don't ask me why). Well, accepting passivity, I decided to follow the group and stay on the moon (after a brief objection to the fact that we were staying). Of course, after another short period of time, the bug came back and we were trapped there forever. Then I woke up. And for some reason, I still remember this dream 17 years later. Weird...
9/20/2001:
RANT and/or STORY o' the week:
Once upon a time, there was a dog named Hungry. Hungry was a fat dog because his owners fed him lots and he was always happy to eat food (hence the name Hungry). One day, Hungry was playing outside in one of his few moments of energy. He was chasing after a ball that his owner threw when he suddenly stopped. A thought came to Hungry's mind. This was very strange, because thoughts don't usually go through Hungry's mind. However, a thought did go through his mind, and it was profound enough to cause him to stop in his tracks. Hungry knew that his owners owned him, and he knew that they were his master. But the thought that came to his mind was, who was the master of his owners? He contemplated for a long time (well at least what was a long time for Hungry...which turned out to be two seconds), and then decided that the question wasn't worth the time and energy needed to find an answer (or he remembered that the ball was still rolling...not quite sure which one). Hungry then raced after the ball, grabbed it in his teeth, and raced back to his master. Life was good...
9/27/2001:
RANT and/or STORY o' the week:
So we were playing euchre last week, and we had a great game going. It was fairly close if I remember, like 8-7 or something like that. And then the dealer dealt the next hand. We were short a card. We called a misdeal and tried to figure out what card was missing. We figured out that it was the King of Hearts. So we started searching around us. And then we searched some more. And pretty soon ten minutes had gone by without us finding the card. How do you lose the King of Hearts?? It just boggles the mind that you can lose a card like that and not find it. Nonetheless, we did, and it is still missing. There is a deck of cards sitting in my desk drawer without a King of Hearts. And probably somewhere else within the confines of 133 Bridgman Hall resides the King of Hearts. When will He appear? Only time will tell....
10/5/2001:
Rant/Story/Etc.
I was walking along, and I heard a voice. At first I couldn't quite make it out, but as I sat there and listen intently for awhile, I realized that it was me that was talking. Now this totally confused me, as I didn't actually think that I was talking, but nonetheless, I was. So I listened for a bit longer. And then I realized what I was actually talking about. I was talking about a bowl. It was really weird, cause I remember the bowl that I was talking about. It was a bowl that I got at about the age of 8. It has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logo on the bottom. But as I listened to myself talk, I realized that the bowl had broken. At this point I started to cry. This bowl meant a lot to me, as I had eaten countless bowls of Super Golden Crisp in that bowl. I didn't know what to do anymore. How could I live without the bowl? And then I woke up. I immediately dashed to the storage unit in my dorm room and opened it up. And there it was, whole as a great white shark, my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bowl. God is good.
10/12/2001:
Rant and/or Story o' the week:
Ya know, I just don't have anything this week. I'm drawing a blank. I don't know what to say at all. There's no story to tell, nothing to really rant about. Well, I guess I could rant about how I've had this cold for forever minus a day, but that would be boring for all of you, and above all, I try not to bore. So I won't go on about that. Maybe I should just send this email without any rant, and go to bed right now. Yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get my eight hours of sleep tonight. Woo hoo. Hmmm, that means I'm gonna wake up at 4:10am. Well, maybe I won't go to bed yet. I know, I'll brag about how I got five (5) packages in the mail today (4 UPS, 1 FedEx). It's true! And after that I wrote a book and made millions of dollars. What a day. I guess I do need some sleep after that. Good night!
10/18/2001:
RANT and/or STORY o' the WEEK:
So I had this great story written up and then my computer locked up on me. Luckily I saved the email before I started the story, so I didn't have to retype any of the announcements. But I don't feel like retyping the story again, so you'll have to wait until next week for the story. Hahaha. Later!
10/25/2001:
Remember this week at the Impact Meeting when Scott Nemec said he was never going to tell a joke again? Well, in the same sense, I vow to never tell any strange stories or put any random comments in the announcements. The SI Email from now on will consist of announcements and annoucements only.
RANT and/or STORY o' the week:
Back when I was a wee little lad growing up in Amery, we always played football in the street. Usually it was 3-on-3 two-hand touch football, and usually the game ended with someone walking off really mad. Well, one day we were playing, and I was on defense, when the ball was thrown my direction. I ran towards the ball, somehow taking out the intended receiver on the way. Everyone seemed to agree that it was pass interference on me. However, I did not agree. So I walked in a huff up to the other team's quarterback (his name was Ryan), and I threw a punch. Didn't really connect with anything, though. I bet I looked like an idiot when I missed him by a good three feet. Maybe that's why everyone laughed. Hmmm...yeah probably. Well I got mad when they started laughing. Really mad. So I took the nearest stone and chucked it at Ryan's head. I missed, but not by a whole lot. Obviously, he got a little bit mad after that one. So he took the football and chucked it at me as hard as he could. It hit me smack in the face. My glasses flew off in one direction, and my head flew off in another. It was unbelievable. I never realized you could decapitate someone with a football.
11/1/2001:
RANT and/or STORY O' THE WEEK:
Honestly, I can't come up with a good rant this week. And it's pretty much for lack of trying. Yeah I fooled ya on that one, didn't I? So instead of a good rant, I'm just gonna try to relay portions of a phone conversation I just had. Here goes...
"Super chunks."
"What?"
"Super chunks."
"What are you talking about?"
"That's what Chris told me to say."
"Oh."
"Chunky."
"Calibration process."
"Calibration process."
"Denied."
"Hmmm...I don't know what you say to that. What do you say to that?"
"Hmmm."
"Chris just busted a move outta me."
"Out of you?"
"Yeah out of me."
"Well, don't just let it sit there, pick it up and put it back in."
"I can't find it. It's really small."
"How small?"
"Kind of like dust particles."
"Do you need a magnifying glass?"
"Nah, I lost my groove."
"You lost your groove too? When'd you lose your groove?"
"I don't know. Chris, when did I lose my groove? Oh yeah, about two and a half blocks over."
"Okay."
"Ahh, I got another call."
"Okay."
"Can you hold on?"
"Actually I think I'm gonna hang up now."
"Oh okay."
"Bye."
"Bye."
11/8/2001:
So anyways, I've heard that there are people out there who aren't reading the announcements (some are even skipping straight to the rant). Well that's just disturbing. This email is not meant to entertain you, it is meant to inform you. Please use it as such. And if you don't, I will have to resort to extreme consequences (hmmm...no rant?). Thank you for your cooperation. :-)
(For those of you getting this email for the first time, kindly disregard the above sentences. You have done nothing wrong yet...)
RANT O' THE
WEEK:
My roommate
and I have talked about this, and we've had it. No more. We're
taking a stand. It's gone on long enough. We can't tolerate this
insubordination any longer. We have to do something. And we have to
do something drastic. This rant will involve some of you out there
reading this (and you know who you are). Be assured, however, that your
identities will be protected (I'm such a nice guy...). Many of you live
in the dorms. The dorms have rules. These rules are to be followed.
Some of you haven't followed these rules. Shame. And even
though candle burning continues to be a rule violated quite often, I'm not
talking about that one. I'm talking about Escort Hours. In Bridgman
(and I think in every dorm), Escort Hours start at 11pm. That's plenty
late. You don't need to be going around on a wing of the opposite sex
after 11pm. It's absolutely ludicrous! And the rule is there for
your protection. Be assured, there have been times when you just
don't want to be walking around on our wing after 11pm. It's a good rule,
and you should abide by it. It doesn't take a whole lot of time to call
someone up to get them to escort you to their room (house phones are located in
all of the lobbies of all of the dorms (at least as far as I know)). Quit
being lazy and just call for cryin' in the night. Okay, I'm done
ranting. Time for the drastic action. I have a super soaker in my
room. It is always loaded. Only my roommate and I know where this
super soaker is. The next time we see someone violating Escort Hours
on our floor, we will open fire. It's that simple. We're taking our
wing back and we mean it. May God have mercy on all of us.
11/15/2001:
Hi. Welcome to The Price Is Right. I'm Bob Barker.
Whoa...where'd that one come from? I must be tired...let's get to it...
(Hmmm...now I feel like I'm that guy that does the announcing for You Don't Know Jack...I need sleep)
RANT O' THE WEEK:
So this past summer when I was taking care of some cute little staff toddlers, I met a little boy named Zach. I loved this guy to death (and it actually happened once...but that's another story). Anyways, a little background on Zach for those of you not in the know. Zach is an interesting guy. He's very fond of the little girls. So fond in fact, that he enjoys taking away their blankets and then returning them just to see the girl smile when she gets her blanket back (I tried that once two weeks ago...it worked pretty well). He also enjoys hugs with the girls and smushing the girls' faces into the ground (I tried that last week...I finally am off the crutches now, thanks). So anyways, one day Zach was playing with one of those little toy popper vacuums with the colorful little balls inside of it. Now, I'm not sure how the heck he did this, but he took that toy popper thing and held the handle of it in both of his hands, and broke it in two. I seriously didn't think that toddlers were that strong... Well, obviously, as any little boy would, he loved the fact that he just destroyed something. So he found another toy popper in our room and then snapped that one in two. My co-workers and I were staring at the first one while he took out the second one. When we heard that one go, we finally snapped to our senses and grabbed the final remaining popper before he got a chance to bust that one. It was pretty insane for awhile there...we had a bunch of people in our room just kinda confused as to what had just happened. We finally just chalked it up to God and went back to our normal routine of changing diapers.
BREADSTICKS (it didn't really fit anywhere else...)
11/29/2001:
RANT O' THE WEEK:
Once upon a time, there were two turtles. These two turtles were named Fluffy and Hop-Hop. Fluffy and Hop-Hop followed each other around quite a bit, and were pretty good friends. Well one day they were playing in the street (you should never play in the street unless you happen to be in Amery, in which case it is perfectly acceptable to play in the street...so I guess that means that they were in Amery...). This street just happened to have a manhole on it. Hop-Hop was slightly curious and decided to check out the manhole. Somehow, by pure turtle luck, he managed to remove the cover. So he went down inside into the sewers. Fluffy followed him down, but wasn't too sure of what was happening...she was kinda scared. They wandered around the sewers for a little bit, and while they were wandering, Hop-Hop happened upon a broken canister that had the letters "TGRI" on it. The canister seemed to be leaking some glowing green ooze. Hop-Hop was about to touch the ooze to figure out what it was, but Fluffy stopped him. She didn't want to be playing with something as dangerous as the ooze unless they knew what they were doing. Hop-Hop realized that Fluffy was right, and they climbed out of the sewers and back into the grass where they belonged. Yup.
12/6/2001:
RANT O' THE WEEK:
I actually have two stories for you all this week. And they're both absolutely TRUE! I honestly haven't altered these stories one bit from their original occurences (except whatever holes my memory failed to keep...which I filled with whatever seemed to be right...hehehe). So here they are (sorry if you've heard them before):
So this past weekend, I went to go visit my baby niece in Minneapolis. She's still in the hospital, and to be able to see her, I had to check in at the desk. So I was going to sign my name to the sheet, but there were four people in the way (one of them was a nurse). So I said, "Excuse me," and got the attention of the nurse. She realized they were in the way, so she said to the others, "Let's move over this way so Dad can get in to see his child."
And here's a story that might get you in the Christmas mood...
Last year for Christmas, my family and I went to my Aunt and Uncle's farm. It was Christmas Day, and we had just finished eating a wonderful Christmas Dinner, and were sitting ourselves down in the living room to open presents. Well we started opening gifts and stuff when someone pointed out the window. So we all got up to look outside, and what do ya know...all the cows were loose in the front yard. Apparently, Uncle Steve forgot to shut the gate. So we all put on our coats and boots and went outside to corral them back into the field they were supposed to be in. It was a blast. A genuine blast. :-)
12/14/2001:
RANT O' THE WEEK:
So I really can't think of anything for this week's rant. So I'm just gonna type random thoughts until I figure there's enough here for a rant. And really, this is the purest form of ranting. I mean, if a rant is structured at all, is it really a rant? I think not. So really, I should change the title of this section to something other than "Rant O' The Week." I have no idea what I'd call it other than "Rant O' The Week" though, so I guess it stays. If someone really wants to think for awhile on a good new title for this section, send me an email and I'll consider changing the title. After considering changing the title to the new suggested title, I'll realize that there really is no better title for this section than "Rant O' The Week," and it'll stay the same anyway. And you thought you could manipulate the title, did ya? Just remember who has the super soaker, okay? Good. So I'm curious, have any of you questioned the new milk containers like I have? I remember coming back from Colorado this fall, and suddenly milk came in these solid white jugs instead of the semi-see-through things they used to come in (and the cheap stuff still comes in...). It seemed like a bad idea at first, because how are you supposed to tell how much milk is left in the jug?? I distinctly remember being at home once this past August and lifting a milk jug out of the fridge thinking it was full, when in reality, it was almost empty. Well, of course the milk jug went flying upwards at a velocity much too high, and it struck the ceiling of the refridgerator. This sudden impact shocked me and I lost my grip on the milk container, and it fell downward onto the floor. Of course, the cap wasn't really screwed on too tightly by the last person to use it, and so the cap came flying off in the process. Luckily, there wasn't a whole lot of milk left, so there wasn't a huge mess to clean up. (Editor's Note: The part about the cap flying off the milk container never really happened. The author thought that the story sounded better with that part added onto the story, so he concatenated that part to the first part of the story, the first part of the story being the part that is actually true.) So, after that experience, my thought was, "What a horrible idea." And then my mom explained to me that they found that milk holds it's nutrients (or something) better when it's in the dark and not exposed to light. So I realized that maybe they did have a point in the solid-white containers. I mean, I like thinking that (whole) milk is a fairly healthy drink, so I drink a lot of it. If it's losing a good chunk of the stuff that makes it healthy, then what good is it?? I might as well go back to Mountain Dew! So then I figured it was a good idea and I could live with not knowing how much milk is left in the container. A couple weeks later, somehow this whole solid-white milk container thing came back to my mind. And I was thinking about it more and more, and finally I came to the realization that milk is almost ALWAYS in the refridgerator. I mean, it can't be outside of the refridgerator for more than five minutes a day (at least that's the case with my family). And supposedly, it's DARK inside of a refridgerator. I mean, my dad works for an appliance store, and that's what they tell everybody who comes in to buy a refridgerator from them. They say, "It's dark inside of a refridgerator when the door is closed. It's dark because when the door closes, it pushes a button that turns off the light. When the door reopens, the button is unpushed, which turns the light back on." So if the natural environment of a milk jug is a DARK refridgerator, what is the point of the solid-white milk containers??? They're not really doing a whole lot to keep the light out, cause there is no light! I think it's a ploy to get people to drop their milk containers more often so that people spill their milk more often, which causes them to buy more milk. It's a conspiracy, I tell you. Hmmm, I just remembered that my neighbor in Amery works for Land O' Lakes. Maybe that 5 minutes of light per day affects the milk a lot more than we'd think. Maybe it only needs 5 minutes of light to lose a significant portion of nutrients. Maybe it is a good idea after all. Yes, I like the solid-white milk containers. I'm gonna buy them every single time I go to the grocery store to buy (whole) milk. Wow, seriously, I don't think I have enough here to consider this a rant. I'll have to write more. But what to write about? My mind has had enough thinking for one night. I don't think I can come up with any more. So I guess I'll close up the rant. Yup. Oh wait, this is probably the last rant of the semester, isn't it? Well, dang, I gotta say goodbye. I won't see you all until next semester! (Except those going to Christmas Conference!) Since we're leaving next week for Christmas break, I say let's pledge to each other to have an awesome break! And more than that, let's each have an awesome break with God! Breaks can be tough, cause we're not around all of our awesome Christian friends, and it's easy to slip into old habits and whatnot, but it doesn't have to be that way. Find a way to break that break-drought (I thought that was a good pun). Meet with God every day, keep in contact with someone from school, pray for each other and the campus, and do what you have to do to stay true to the One who formed you before you were born. And then come back to campus, not in a low spot in your walk, but feeling refreshed by God and ready for a new set of classes and new opportunities to witness to those who do not know the awesomeness of a relationship with the God of the Universe. God Bless you during finals and throughout the break, and I'll see ya next semester!
12/19/2001:
RANT:
I'm gonna
steal from someone else this time around. Why? Cause I don't feel
like typing forever. And it's so easy to just copy and paste. Isn't
that feature really nice? Whoever came up with that oughtta
be...ummm...promoted. Hmmm...maybe I'll actually type out the words that
I'm stealing though, cause then it's got a more personal touch to it.
Hey, I have an idea that could give the SI announcements a real personal
touch that they don't have right now. I could write out on paper all the
announcements for everybody on the email list and then send them via campus and
U.S. mail. That'd be great! That would be so much more personal
than just emailing all of you. I mean, it can't be that much work, can
it? Let me see how many copies I'd have to write out...hold on while I
count the email addresses this goes to. .........................
So yeah, I'm thinking that I can type up a copy, and then I can have some new
random person for each week that is on this mailing list write
out all the copies. That way, it'll be a personal touch from someone new
each week. Makes sense to me...and they'll only have to write it out,
oh...403 times. That's not bad. I've done worse. Actually, no
I haven't. But I think it'd be fun. Here, let me quick pick a
random person that can do it for the first edition of the
announcements for next semester....................congratulations to
So my roommate just informed me (did everyone see that he shaved??) that they discontinued the pizza fries at the front desk. I'm officially in mourning. How could they do such a thing? See, pizza fries are so much cheaper as compared to a regular 12" pizza. I have an idea. Let's sign a petition. I bet we could collect a ton of signatures. Ummm...I think I'll go with the random assignment of tasks again...so therefore the person in charge of the petition is...Nate Siefert. Congratulations. Go for it. You have my thanks.
Oh yeah, I was gonna steal my rant from someone else this week, wasn't I? Drat...that didn't really happen. Well, I'll still steal from someone else anyway. The following is an Irish prayer that I heard in church this week. I really liked it, and I hope you do as well. (I recommend reading through it once slowly, and then a second time praying through it.)
As the rain hides the stars,
as the autumn hides the ills,
as the clouds hide the blue of the sky,
so the dark happenings of my life hide
the shining of thy face from me.
Yet if I may hold thy hand in the darkness,
it is enough.
Even though I may stumble in my going,
thou will not, thou will not.
1/21/2002:
Rant:
I don’t have much for you this week. All I can say is that I forgot my pillows at home, and I’m really sad about it. I love my pillows, so it’s gonna be a rough week and a half before I get them back…but it’s my fault for forgetting them, so I’ll suffer the consequences.
1/24/2002:
RANT O’ THE
WEEK:
I like to eat cereal. It’s my breakfast food. I have one bowl of cereal every morning (or most mornings at least). It’s part of a complete breakfast. I guess I never have complete breakfasts, because I only eat one bowl of cereal. Anyway, when I pour my cereal into the bowl, I like to have the front of the cereal box facing me. I’m kinda wondering if other people are like that too, or if I’m just really weird. Cause if the back of the cereal box is facing me, it just feels wrong. So, for that reason, I make sure that when I open up a box of cereal for the first time, I’ll open up the bag on the end that will cause the front of the box to face me when I’m pouring it (since it’s just plain foolish to open up the bag fully when you only need to open it up about halfway). But whenever I’m at home (like this past month), the boxes of cereal that are at home have the bag opened so that when I pour it, the back of the box is facing me. And I’m always wondering what’s wrong with my family members that they always open up the cereal bags on the wrong end. Well I finally figured it out this past month, after many years of wondering about this. The people that eat cereal in my family are my dad and my brother. They are both right handed, and I’m left handed, so they open the bags so that they can see the front of the box as they’re pouring the cereal with their right hand, and I open the bags so that I can see the front of the box as I’m pouring the cereal with my left hand. So there’s nothing wrong with my family at all! They’re just right-handed, that’s all. What a relief.
1/31/2002:
Here I am a substitute emailer. Everyone wants a rant, they expect a rant, but I am not J-Bird. He is witty and good-looking and somewhat Amish, with knowing this how can I compete. So I won't compete with left-handed milk rants and well-crafted and skilled mastery of word usage to persuade others into a frenzied state for one's own personal gain. So I throw up my white flag. I surrender J-Bird, you have won, you have won the grand prize of Supreme Rantress! I give you my props. And to all your fans out there I say, "you are blessed to have such a man as J-Bird to rant to you." It is not everyday that a man comes along who can stare at a computer for 15 hours straight and not grow weary. This man is special, so don't forget it.
Oh one more thing, don't forget that as we experience snow and slide around, maybe fall down the hill (I pray that you won't), even experience our dreaded Friday classes, rest assured that your fearless and Supreme Rantress is warm and well appreciated in an environment much different than ours. He is shacked up in a nice Hotel in Florida, Where's the loyalty? And the beauty is J-Bird not even in Wisconsin to defend himself, a pity.
Peace in God's love
By the way his real name is Justin, not J-Bird. Childish really.
2/8/2002:
RANT O' THE WEEK:
First off,
I loved my substitute's rant last week so much that I decided to give that
person their own section in the Rant. So here it is:
My Gripe by Substitution eMAILER
Today as I
was walking past the WOMEN bathroom in Hibbard. The door opened there was
a line of WOMEN to the door. Sigh
Okay that was kinda weird. Anyway, as most of you probably noticed, I was gone last week. And as my substitute told all of you, I was in Florida. Well, you might ask, where in Florida were you? To which I'd answer, Orlando. And then you might ask, what were you doing in Orlando. And then I'd answer, I was at the Campus Crusade for Christ World Headquarters seeing what they do down there. And let me just tell you, it was pretty awesome down there. But I really don't have time to talk about every detail that happened last weekend, so I'll just mention the thing that stuck out to me the most. We got to hear from Steve Sellers (the national director of campus ministries), and he talked mostly about discerning God's will for your life. Often, we try to find God's will on things such as our future, like what we'll do after college, what we'll do this summer, whether we'll go into full-time ministry or out into the secular workplace, among other things... But really, we don't have to worry about finding God's will, because He never lost it. He knows the plan for each of our lives that will give us the greatest joy, satisfaction, meaning, and purpose. And all we have to do is trust Him for that, and it'll fall into place. Seek out God above all things, and He'll put you exactly where He wants you to be.
I also wanted to mention something my substitute emailer said last week that I've been thinking about a lot lately. Last week, you saw this in the email, "By the way his real name is Justin, not J-Bird. Childish really." And I like I said, I thought about that, and you know what? It is pretty childish. I can just imagine myself being 33 years old and having everybody still call me J-Bird. That'd be pretty sad, I mean, who can respect someone who calls himself "J-Bird" at the age of 33? It'd be pretty childish. So I realized that sometime, I'm going to have to ditch the name J-Bird. And why not sooner rather than later? So I put my foot down. Starting right now, and hereafter, I shall no longer be known as J-Bird. My name is Justin. My parents gave that name to me when I was a baby, and they're probably really hurt that I don't ever use it. So I'm going to honor my parents, and be known as Justin from now on.
2/14/2002:
My Gripe by Substitution eMAILER:
My Gripe this week is valentine's day. I think that when people show each other they care, it is a good thing, but I wonder about hopes. What happens when people hope so much in someone else, only to set themselves up for a terrible heartbreak or disappointment. I am not against hope, I love hope, I live by hope, but I choose to place my hope in Jesus. This valentine's day I had a wonderful valentine in Jesus. He did not give me candy, flowers, or even cute corporate cards, but rather something very personal and uplifting. He gave me salvation a sweet gift of love. More loving than anything that can be bought. If you have a person that you think is very special to you, why not show them Jesus's love. I have wonderfully been hoping in Jesus for almost 2 years now, and when I see people hurting and crying (it happens) because they don't have a valentine, I know that a short prayer can bring them more love than a wrapped box of chocolates. I am not totally against valentine's day and because of that I wish you a great one. And by the way the candy hearts with the phrase "E MAIL" on it is pretty lame.
RANT o' the week by J-Bird:
I think this is "link" email of the semester, because I'm including THREE internet links in this email. Crazy. Anyway, you should definitely check this out to see a familiar person in the local spotlight. And the last link I got for ya is a video that highlights my weekend in Florida from a couple weeks ago. If you want to catch a glimpse of the Crusade World Headquarters, check it out! I really was gonna forego the Rant this week because I'm really tired and I should go to bed instead of sit here and type away in order to entain all of you, but then two things occured to me. One, writing the email just isn't any fun unless I can just go off about something. And two, honestly, the reason I write a rant every is NOT to entain you, but the reason is very selfish actually. See, I'm a pretty quiet guy, but I kinda like being in the spotlight too (although off to the side a bit), and those two things typically don't go together at all, because to be in the spotlight, you have to be noisy. But since the beginning of the Rant, I've been able to have both without difficulty. So if I don't write a Rant this week, I don't get to take up my little section of the spotlight this week, and then I wouldn't be living up to my potential. I hope you understood my reasoning there, cause I just read over it, and I really don't get it myself. I decided to not split the Rant up into neatly organized sections anymore either, because if the Rant is neatly organized, I don't think it really qualifies as a rant. So from now on, it'll be just one big paragraph of nonsense instead of little organized paragraphs of nonsense. And I don't think I'll proofread anymore either, cause that kinda goes further away from the definition of rant as well. Not that you all really needed to know what I decided about the Rant, but I figured it was good filler material. I had something very weird happen to me today... See, I took a Soc 101 test this morning, and after I finished and handed it in, I went back to my seat to put on my coat and backpack so I could leave. Well, as I put on my coat, I was looking at my desk, and I suddenly "saw" what appeared to be about a hundred fireflies darting all over my peripheral vision. I was sort of "stunned" for a few seconds as I tried to figure out if anyone else could see these fileflies or if they were unique to me. Turns out they were unique to me, because no one had any weird looks on their face. So I waited another few seconds, and then they were gone. It was a little strange, to be honest with you, and I have a feeling that someone or something is telling me to get more sleep. So I intend to do that tonight whenever I finish this email. I'm also slightly confused because I remember getting a really cool hacky sack from work which I was going to place on my desk so I could toss it around whenever I get bored (or throw at my roommate whenever he says something stupid), but I somehow must've lost it between work and my room, because it's not here. Sad. Extremely sad. I'll have to retrace my steps tomorrow and figure out where it is. You know what, I feel like up to this point in the Rant this week, you're probably a little bit bored. So how about I spice it up a bit? Alright. So there was a bear named Hugo. Hugo was yellow. Hugo wasn't born yellow, he was born brown like most bears are (well, except for the white and black ones). But when Hugo was three, he had something very traumatic happen to him so that he turned yellow. See, one day during his fourth year of life, Hugo was out in the river fishing. He was looking into the water to see if he could spot any fish, and lo and behold, he spotted one! So he casted his line in that direction. Well, the fish had other plans and decided that instead of biting on the bait, jumping out of the water and biting Hugo's nose would be more fun. So the fish did that. Unfortunately, the fish didn't let go when it bit Hugo on the nose. So there was Hugo, in the middle of the river, roaring in agony due to this fish that had attached itself to his nose. Hugo did the natural thing to do, which was to grab at the fish to try and remove it from his nose. Unfortunately, the fish had attached itself so that Hugo could not get it off, no matter how hard he pulled on the fish. So eventually, after trying to remove the fish himself for about 3 hours with no success, Hugo decided to go back to his family for help. Well, everyone in his family tried to forcefully get the fish off, but no one was able to remove the fish. By this time, Hugo's nose was numb (thankfully, for the pain before the numbness was fairly unbearable for Hugo) (that was a really really bad and overused pun...sorry). So Hugo was down to last resort efforts in order to try to get the fish off. He tried laying down on the ground on his side so that the fish was laid out next to him and then he had his cousin drop an anvil on the fish. Well surprisingly enough, it didn't work, and it didn't even kill the fish, which was still flopping around after all this time. He also tried freezing the fish by going inside the stand up freezer at Hugo's local IGA grocery store. That didn't work either. Hugo went around with that live fish on his nose for a week. Then something really weird happened. Hugo was walking by a construction site when one of the workers accidently tipped a bucket of yellow paint off the top of the scaffolding. Well, needless to say, Hugo got drenched in yellow paint. Amazingly, the fish let go after the yellow paint fell on Hugo! Hugo was extatic! He ran home not realizing that he was still covered in yellow paint. Of course when he got home, he was told to go wash in the river, so he did. But the yellow stayed on his fur. He couldn't get it off. So from that day on, Hugo has been yellow. Yup.
2/22/2002:
My Gripe by
Substitution eMAILER
Foreign
Language is an amazing thing. I know of people who can speak German,
Spanish, Korean, French and Taiwanese. I am fascinated by the difficulty
it takes to learn a foreign language. Then it struck me that some people
I know are trying to learn English. I find it fitting that I take knowing
a language well enough to make complex thesis statements for a Victorian Period
Literature class for granted. Striving toward realizing my blessings is a
hard task when I take them for granted. I challenge you all, as I am
challenged myself, to not forget the things that really matter. Send your
parents a card telling them you love them, share with a friend how you
appreciate them, and share the gospel with and love your hurting friends.
Some people don't have the opportunity to experience these amazing blessings
from God, so be that amazing blessing to them.
RANT o' the
week by J-Bird:
I was
strolling through 2nd floor Phillips this morning between classes and I passed
by one of the Physics labs only to have my freshman year Physics 100 professor
walk out of the room just when I was walking by. For some reason he still
remembers me (I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that I stole
his Diet Coke once in lab......), so he decided that instead of making sure
that his class was doing what they were supposed to be doing, he'd talk to me
for awhile. Well, he didn't really talk to me as much as totally rip on
my beard. He said everything short of calling it ugly. I was
hurt. I love my beard. I really do. I think I now understand
why girls like to play with their hair, cause I like to play with my
beard. And no, I have no idea when I'm going to shave it off (or even
trim it for that matter). But anyway, he really made fun of me this
morning. And then he started talking about how he used to have a beard every
winter before coming to teach here. He even had a webpage called
"Matt's Beard Page" which contained pictures of all the beards he
ever had. I asked him what happened to that webpage, but he didn't really
say...I'm wondering if I can find it... I thought the funniest part,
however, was when he started teaching me how I should shave my beard so that on
St. Patrick's Day I can get free beer because of the way my beard looks.
Yeah, something tells me I won't be doing that...the least reason being that
I'm still underage...oh yeah and the whole Ephesians 5:18 thing. I
thought I'd end the rant this week with something very unusual. The
following is a listing of everything that is currently contained in my right
back pocket (I hope you enjoy): my Blugold card, a police report, an
address of someone I met in Orlando, an IM name of someone I met in Orlando, my
current schedule with Todd Matthew's phone number on the back, and old copy of
my current schedule, a bookmark with the Prayer of the Hurried Student written
on it, an alcohol poisoning card, a signed drawing of me titled "Stinky
Cheese Head," my blood pressure diary from 1/24/01, an itinerary of a trip
to Chicago in January, a Fall Getaway brochure, multiple copies of directions
to 411 Galloway St., a not-filled-out direct deposit form, a list of computer
components, a Spirit-Filled Life booklet, a tuition receipt, the Millenial
Pledge, a Would You Like to Know God Personally? booklet, notes of some kind, a
copy of a drivers license verification form for one of my professors,
directions to my sister's place, a church worship aid/bulliten, directions to
the Christmas Conference parking garage, my driving record, a set list from a
gig I had last semester, a note saying that I was the 2nd user of a certain
pan, Jake's phone number, directions to a house in the cities where I was
supposed to go after Christmas Conference, a list of things I was supposed to
accomplish over winter break, my August 2001 phone list, and last but not
least, a prayer that is attributed to St. Polycarp just before his martyrdom
(reprinted below for your convenience). Supposedly, he said this knowing
he was about to die, which in my opinion, shows an awesome faith....
Lord,
almighty God, Father of your beloved
and blessed
Son, Jesus Christ
through
whom we have come to the knowledge of yourself.
God of
angels, of powers, of all creation,
of all the
race of saints who live in your sight.
I bless you
for judging me worthy of this day, this hour,
so that I
may share the cup of Christ, your annointed one,
and so rise
again to eternal life in soul and body,
immortal
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
3/1/2002:
RANT o' the week by JaBird:
I think by postponing the email by a day, I messed up the timing of the Substitute Emailer, so there's no Gripe this week. Sorry. But I really couldn't write the email last night because I did absolutely no work yesterday whatsoever. It was great. And while I'm on the subject, can I say that I've had a total of three classes this week? Yeah, it's been a rough week. But I get to make up for it in the quantity of homework that I need to get done this weekend, so don't get too jealous. I guess I really only have a couple things to say this week, so it'll probably be a shorter rant than normal. Firstly, I want to just say that I was flabergasted to learn that this year at Wrestlemania, it's the Rock vs. Hulk Hogan. Not that I'm advocating pro wrestling at all, but seriously, Hulk Hogan doesn't have a chance, he's too old. I just can't believe that guy is still wrestling. Nonetheless, I found the fact that those two are having a match pretty hilarious. Most of you probably didn't share in my laughter there, but oh well. And secondly, I want to complain about that fact that due to the mess-up in the state budget, the CS majors no longer get free paper. Okay I'm done. One more request, though... From the bottom of my heart, please read the verses below and reflect on them carefully. I think as Christians, we sometimes get self-righteous, myself included, and tend to think of ourselves as better than non-Christians or even other Christians. Remember that there is nothing we can do on our own power to become righteous, but only God can make us righteous by His grace.
"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment one someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass the judgement do the same things."
~Romans 2:1
"If anyone of you is without sin, let him be first to throw a stone at her."
~John 8:7
"Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation."
~Romans 12:16
"Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor."
~Romans 12:10
"See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness."
~Luke 11:35
3/8/2002:
My Gripe by Substitution
eMAILER:
I know a lot of people missed
me last week and Justin apologizes. What I have to say this week is more
informal than anything else. Today I decided to go to the Christian Forum in
Haas Fine Arts. This is a time when the Christian faculty get together and have
fellowship. The reason I bring this up is because I think it is a great idea to
get to know the Christian faculty on campus. So if you get the chance to stop
by HFA 135 on Thursday at 12:05. It lasts for less than an hour.
RANT o' the
week by J-Bird (with help from a mysterious person who decided to come into my
room and start typing on my computer while I was in the middle of a
paper...thanks):
And I think
the last time I ever saw him was when we were at the edge of the world and that
bear tried to rip off my pocket watch. He should have helped me but he just ran
for his life and I had to take on the thing myself. I wish I could find him now
so that I can tell him how I felt about that. I don’t know where he is though.
Maybe Seattle or Wisconsin, but he also tends to be a recluse sometimes. If I
were to write his name in the sky around the world with an address for our
meeting site then we could meet once again.
3/15/2002:
My Gripe by Substitution eMAILER
Well spring break is on its way now and I have to say that I am looking forward to it. So you may be asking what is our favorite substitution emailer doing over break? I could be lying out on the beaches of Florida or taking a road trip with some friends or maybe I could even work. Negatory to all the above, I am maybe having my wisdom teeth pulled. I know I will be getting some good R&R and lots o pudding. So I wish you all well to those who will be going to Florida or anywhere else. Please floss and brush and take care of the teeth that you have before they all fall out.
RANT o' the week by J-Bird:
Now
typically, I'm not one to complain too much, but sometimes I just don't like to
take responsibility for things that are mostly my fault, so right now I'm going
to try and pawn my problem off on our fine
4/4/2002 (UNSENT EMAIL):
OTHER
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
**
All right so this one is in the early stages of development at the moment and
might not even happen altogether, but I thought that I'd give homage to the
event that probably is a good chunk of the reason that I'm writing you this
email today (and every week). And I can't really announce this event
without putting it in the middle of a huge paragraph of nonsensical writings
that's only purpose is to make you annoyed that I didn't just come out and
announce the event to begin with. Some of you might be getting the idea
of what this event is already by that fact alone. Others of you
(especially those of you who weren't here last year) are just getting really
confused right now. If that's the case, then I humbly send you my
apologies. Did I mention that I'm writing this email from the lovely city
of Amery? I didn't? Oh, well shame on me. Okay, I'm
running out of ideas to delay this, so I'll just come out and say it. Now
you'll want to check this section of the email on Thursday to get details on
where and when and stuff, but thanks to my brother Aaron, I'm going to try to put
together the 2nd Annual Simpsons Marathon. I'm hoping that it'll happen
this coming weekend (a late night activity...probably starting at about 10pm on
Friday or something...and running until everyone leaves or 4am...whichever
comes sooner, because I have a 6 hour tape full of Simpsons episodes).
And I've also heard that some people really want to play Nertz (or however you
spell that). So I figure we could do both that and watch Simpsons at the
same time, because I'm pretty sure that not everyone is a Simpsons fan.
All right, so check back in the "Other Announcements" section next
week for the details on the 2nd Annual Simpsons Marathon/Nertz thing. And
if it's anything like last year, there'll be IBC root beer to those who
arrive first.ssss
RANT o' the
week by J-bird:
Well I hope
everyone's spring break has been enjoyable. Mine has been pretty good,
except for the fact that my mom finally said the dreaded phrase, "Clean
out your room." I think she's trying to get rid of me. Oh
well. I guess the fact that my room has stayed mine for three years of
college is better than I'd hoped for. I guess it had to come sooner or
later. So I started cleaning out my room this week. (I didn't
finish though...hehe...which I think means that the room is still mine!)
In the course of cleaning out my room, I found some interesting junk. I
think the most enjoyable part for me was finding some of my writings from my
College Prep English class that I had as a senior in high school. Now first
let me give you a little background on this class. Our teacher was Lorna
Coleman. I didn't really like her back then, but as I look back
through my writings, I do see that she had some good points. At the time
though, I thought she had it out for me and a few others in the class.
Not that we didn't deserve it or anything. We had block scheduling at the
time, so it was an hour and a half class. And it was during our last
semester of our senior year of high school, our first class of the day starting
at 8:15. So every day at about
Well, I guess I put this off long enough.
There's really no excuse to wait this long, I've had almost a week and a half
to get going on this, but no, I have to start writing at 10:49, the day before
a page of this is due. Well, I'm almost a third of the way there.
Also, I forgot my nice black pen out in the living room, but I'm too lazy to go
back out and get it. Speaking of pens, at school I have probably 5 blue
pens, but only one black pen, and that one doesn't have a cap. Lets see
here... nope, this pen doesn't work too
well. If I had my nice pen here, I'd be fine. But I'm stuck here
with pens that leave white spots in the middle of lines. Just give me a
nice felt tip pen, those are nice for writing, even though you can only write
on one side of a page with them because they soak through. Oh well, you
give a little, you get a little. Let me try another pen here... isn't this one nice? Hey, actually, it isn't too
bad. Not as much white deposits as the other two. Plus, I'm
enjoying writing with it, which is a compliment for a blue pen. For your
information, this is a BIC pen, while the other two were Papermate. I'll
have my black pen next time, so just look below to see the writing quality of
my favorite pen.
(I still
write with BIC pens to this day.)
Dear Mr.
Desk Light,
I am writing to you because I noticed how much we have in common, and thought
that it might be beneficial for us to work together in the future. First
I want to point out our similarities. One of the first things I noticed
about you was your clamp. I see that it holds you to that desk very
well. You have not moved from that spot for going on five years
now. I resemble your clamp because I don't enjoy change. I like a
routine, which I'm guessing you do as well, since you haven't moved for so
long. I also admire your flexible headpiece, as my head also may move
around, although not quite a full 360 degrees as I've seen you do before.
Your on/off switch also impresses me as it resembles what I call sleep,
although I can't sleep for days at a time as you do. The one thing I
would like to learn from you deals with your power cord. I would like to
learn how to suck energy off of others like you do, as I seem to always run
out.
Again, in the future I would like to work with you as I believe you may help
put a new light on various things I may be working on.
Sincerely,
Justin
4/4/2002 (PARTIAL SENT VERSION):
Sorry that
there's no substitute emailer gripe this week again. I'm sending the
email out sooner than normal and the gripe just wasn't ready for publication.
So all you get this week is a rant. I hope it'll suffice :-). Over
spring break, I wrote out this nice long rant about how my mom forced
me to clean my room over break. But then I read it again just now, and I
didn't really like it that much so I deleted it and started anew. But now
that I'm typing this out, I don't really feel like ranting that much. I
actually feel pretty hungry (which is really weird since I haven't had anything
to eat all day...). So I think my hunger precedes any desire of mine to
continue ranting, so I'll just leave you with a snippet of something I found in
a folder from my high school College Prep English class. Enjoy!
4/12/2002:
I gotta remember to wear my shoes that don't have holes in them on days that it rains... I mean wet feet are fine and dandy when you're swimming, but they're not exactly great in class... Anyway, enough of my complaining. The email is lengthy this week, but please read everything!
My GRIPE by Substitution eMAILER
For the over a month now I have been silenced by Justin and his excessive control over this rant section. Even at this moment I am being pressured to come up with something extremely witty and outstanding. Well I have a ton of pressure on me right now. I hope that I don't fold. Hmm. I hope that you guys missed me because I missed you. Um... Have a great day then. Remember Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
RANT o' the week by J-Bird
I've been looking forward to writing this rant since Monday night. Why you ask? Good question. I don't know either. Actually about that time every week I start to look forward to writing the rant. It's usually a huge process every week. Starting on Sunday or Monday I start to gather ideas on what I should write about. However, most of the time when I sit down to write the rant, I totally forget any ideas that I had during the week and just write whatever comes to mind. So the ideas that I come up during the week are pretty much pointless. For instance, I've had some ideas this week that probably won't be used at all. Like the poetry thing. Wait, maybe I should try to do some poetry... Oh wow I just thought of a great conclusion to this rant. It's gonna be wonderful. But first I have to discuss something. Tuesday, it was sunny and warm. It was a beautiful day. And I got warm. Really warm. And it wasn't even that hot out...barely close to sixty. And I realized something. When it gets to be ninety degrees out, it's going to be uncomfortable. Especially on my face because I have this really large beard. Now don't get me wrong. I love my beard. Even though it's fairly ugly. But I love it. It's unique. I haven't shaved since October. That's six months. My beard definitely beat the odds. My mom always said that she didn't think I could grow one because she said it wouldn't be thick enough. Ha! Showed her. (Don't worry, I love my mom and she admits she was wrong...so it's all good...hehe). And there was the one night that my beard was blue. That was fun too. Ah, such memories. By now, I think you all know where I'm going, so I might as well say it. I'm going to shave. And it's not going to be just a trim either. The whole beard is coming off. It'll be gone. And I have no idea if it's going to come back either. This is going to happen Saturday night after I get back from V-Ball. There will be a small ceremony consisting of myself, a trimmer, an electric shaver, my beard, and a mirror. No one else is invited seeing as how I might get a little emotional. So if you want to see or take pictures of my beard before it gets shaved off, stop by sometime tomorrow or Saturday. I guess that's all I got. A bunch of sentences ago I decided I would write a poem to close out this rant. I will write that now.
Ode to My Beard
I once wondered how I would look with a beard.
I had chanced it once or twice to not shave for awhile,
But I always chickened out and shaved it off into a pile (of hairs).
Then one fine glorious day I did it.
I made the decision to no longer shave.
I tossed my razor into the grave.
My parents were supportive throughout.
Especially at Christmas when an electric shaver and trimmer I got.
But those both ended up in the corner with the pot.
Oh beard, how I adore thee.
Thou art the best beard I have ever grown.
And thou art mine and mine alone to own.
It will soon be the time to say goodbye.
It was a wonderful time while you were here.
But the appointed time soon draws near.
Adios beard.
Thou art gone.
It is now time to play ping pong.
4/18/2002:
My Gripe by
Substitution eMAILER
The future
can be a scary place and as summer is coming up there are most likely a lot of
uncertainties in our lives. I know as a substitute I am very unsure if I will
be with you all next year vigorously typing away. Overall though there are
things in each of our lives that we must learn how to trust in God with. In
your own substitution emailer's life, there are uncertainties that will be
coming with the Summer. But with all of the uncertainties there is one certain
that I must learn to trust with all my heart and depend on with all my mind and
that is God. God is a solid rock and foundation that never changes. Some of you
will be going home, summer projects, or staying here and taking courses. My
plea to you is that whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. Never forget
your first love with Jesus, hold onto these moments and cherish them deeply in
your heart. Be wise with your time my brothers and sisters.
RANT O' THE
WEEK by J-Bird:
Wow.
Quality.
Hmmm...what
to say.... Do I start out begging saying "Please forgive
me!!!"? Or do I just walk away nonchalantly? I think I'll just
walk away and let what comes to me come. I've already had threats against
my life because I deceived all of you and didn't shave off my beard.
Somehow I just don't feel any guilt or remorse though. I feel like I
should feel bad about it, but I don't really feel bad. There's absolutely
no conviction at all. Oh well. I'm sure I'll get whatever's coming
to me because of it. Anyway, on to bigger and better things (that may or
may not be absolute fabrications). I had a class this week where the
professor just went absolutely nuts and started doing jujitsu (or however you
spell that) moves in the middle of class. It was pretty scary there
for a little while. Until I kung fu'd him. Then we all left class
early because the instructor was unconscious. Yup, that was a lie
too. But seriously, I was playing ping pong against my sociology
professor last Thursday, and he spiked the ball so hard that the ball vaporized
in midair.
So now that
I've lost all credibility whatsoever, I think I'll quit ranting forever.
This'll be my last rant because none of you will read my writings anymore cause
all they are are a bunch of lies. So why write anymore? It was only
fun when I actually had a chance at deceiving you. Now that that
opportunity is gone due to my absolute disregard for the art of skillful lying,
it's just pointless. So yeah. Done.
But I would
like to close out my last rant with just an awesome praise to the God of the
Universe. He gave me this opportunity to fill your hearts with joy week
after week, and it's been awesome (except for those weeks where I just snapped
and lied and deceived...I know that those rants probably didn't bring too much
joy). I beg your forgiveness for any misgivings that may have been had
between us, and I hope and pray that your walks with the Lord will continue to
grow without me. Trust in God always, for He is good.
4/25/2002:
RANT o’ THE
WEEK:
I think
there’s something living in my ear. No
really! For like the last month, my
right inner ear has been twitching at random times. It’s kinda disconcerting. Maybe I should have it looked at. I guess it reminds me of the time a kid at
school shoved this toy down my brother’s ear and my brother had to go to the
hospital and stuff. Which reminds me, my
brother’s coming this weekend for lil sibs weekend. And my room is a mess. I really need to clean up my room. So I’m gonna cut the rant short this week and
do that. Wooo! Have a good one!
5/3/2002:
My Gripe by Substitution eMAILER
It has been an awesome semester and I have
thoroughly enjoyed the
freedom to basically say whatever has been on
my mind. I thank
everyone who has been a part of student
impact. You guys are great.
I pray that everyone will seek after Jesus
this summer, wherever they
might be going.
With having all of that said, "I
resign"
RANT of the
WEEK by J-Bird:
I got
pulled over last night. First time I’ve
ever gotten pulled over (well there was that one time out in Colorado…but that
was because I caused an accident and they had to come…they didn’t really pull
me over for that). So now I can’t say
that I’ve never gotten pulled over anymore.
That’s really sad. Although I
think I definitely deserved to be pulled over that one time that I went 80 mph
right past that state trooper on I-94 a couple Fridays ago…but for some reason
I didn’t get pulled over then. So I
guess the fact that I got pulled over last night makes up for that one. I definitely deserved it last night too. I was going about 3 in a 25 which is way over
the speed limit. The police car pulled
out of a parking lot and the lights went on and the car headed straight toward
me so I jumped back (did I mention I was on foot?) and then it pulled over to
the side and the officer motioned me toward the car. So I walked toward the squad car and the
officer started talking to me about wrestling.
I kid you not. Anyway, after
about 15 minutes he let me go with just a warning. I was relieved. And so I kept walking. Now I noticed something on my walk. You know that campus map sign that’s over by
McPhee on the corner of University Drive?
Well the sign is wrinkled. Once
again, I kid you not. Take a look at it
sometime when you’re over thataway. My
roommate just sent me 22 emails in 7 minutes.
Did you know that 22/7 is the fractional approximation of Pi? That’s right, you don’t care. Well maybe you should. Someday it could save your life. I mean, what if a guy comes at you with a
tissue box and says, “Tell me the fractional approximation of Pi or I’ll blow
your nose!”? Then what are you gonna do? You’ll think back to this email and say to
yourself, “Man, I wish I woulda remembered what J-Bird said about the
fractional approximation of Pi cause then I would live a lot longer than I’m
going to now.” So I sincerely hope none
of you find yourselves in that situation.
How about a round of applause for the Substitute eMAILER for filling in
for me this semester and basically adding to the quality of the SI email
(hmmm…did I just put the words “quality” and “SI email” in the same
sentence?). I’ve really enjoyed his/her
additions to the email because they’ve given the email a bit of a rant that’s
more serious than my rant and typically has at least some spiritual content
whereas my rants are just random thoughts added to the end of the
announcements. Yeah…the semester’s
almost over though, so you’ll only have to endure TWO more rants and then
you’re free. Free as the bird that tried
to fly across the Pacific Ocean but ended up in Guam or something. You know the story. Anyway, it’s getting to be the end stretch
which means finals and stress. Give your
anxieties to God and run the race as best you can. God Bless!
5/9/2002:
And really
that’s about it. I’m not going to write
a rant this week cause I have a paper to write.
Although maybe I should write a rant and then put the rant in my paper. How fun would that be? Ha.
Okay, have yourselves a good finals week. Get set for next week’s email, it should be
good one. (Yeah, right.) What do you mean, “Yeah, right?” (Well you said that next week’s email would
be good, but you’re writing it.) Now
what does that mean? (You write a good
email? And I’ve seen cows place bets on
grasshopper long jumping competitions…)
Ouch, that kinda hurts. (Yeah,
but what will really hurt is when someone points out that you’re talking to a
pair of parenthesis.) Yeah, that
probably will—aw, crud.
5/16/2002:
RANT O’ THE WEEK:
How about I write a rant next week? It’s kinda difficult to write a rant with all
this moving out and stuff. It’s very
distracting. I mean, I know I said that
you should look forward to this email this week, but next week I’ll send one
out that has a genuine rant in it. I
mean, I’ll have tons of time next week to write a rant. Although, I say that now, and I’ll probably
blow the whole week on computer games and stuff and not have time to write a
rant. That’d be pretty sad. But there’s a good possibility of it
happening. Maybe if you guys would pray
for me that I won’t waste the whole week on computer games. Sure.
That’ll work. (No, that wasn’t
sarcasm.) Have fun moving out if you’re
still moving out! May God bless your
summers wherever you are!
5/25/2002:
RANT O’ THE WEEK:
So I had this dream last night about a cow. The cow just stood there for awhile and then went in the house. It had some corn flakes and then went upstairs and fell asleep in the bed. The cow then started dreaming about me. I’m not really sure what the cow’s dream was about, but I remember something about regurgitation and I was a little freaked out. Then we both woke up and it was all good. So awhile ago I realized that I was attached to my car. I love my car. It’s the most wonderful piece of junk around. I wouldn’t know what to do if it would cease to be my car. Let me just take you on a virtual tour of my car for a moment. It’s a red 87 Pontiac Grand Am four door with rust on the sides (although on one side it’s just a Grand). I didn’t realize how rusty the sides were getting until I saw someone else drive my car a couple weeks ago. I was a little astonished at how ugly it was getting. Anyway, it still runs decently, although something is wrong with the exhaust system because it runs really loud and exhaust comes out from underneath the sides of the car (it’s a pretty cool effect actually). The best parts of the car are the parts that don’t quite work right. For instance, the power steering doesn’t work until the car is warm. It’s not too big of a deal except for right away after I start it up and I’m pulling out of the parking spot (the time where I need the power steering the most). Also, the power windows are as slow as molasses in January (but only in January…in May the windows are fine…which probably makes you to wonder why I’m rolling down the windows in January…I don’t really have a good answer for that, so I’m just going to go on to the radio). The radio rocks. There will never be a better radio than the radio in my Grand Am. It likes to skip through stations a lot. Just randomly flips through different stations. It would actually be a cool feature if it stayed on one station for more than a couple milliseconds. However, as it is, it just sounds like snow (not quite as cold, though). So it’s fairly annoying when it decides to do that. There is a remedy, however. All you have to do it kick it. Then it’s all good until you hit the pothole down the road. How many things can you kick and have it work better after you kick it than before you kicked it? It’s so cool. I love going 75 miles an hour on I-94 and taking my foot off the gas to kick the radio. There’s nothing better. So after thinking about all this for awhile, I realized something. The things I love the most about the car are its imperfections. Would I love the car less if it was perfect? Maybe, maybe not, but I know I’d be kinda sad if I never got to kick the radio anymore. However dumb this thought may seem, I tried to apply it to people and never actually came up with a conclusion. Actually I just got confused. But it might be the beginnings of something good…who knows? Nonetheless, all of it is pretty much moot anyway because I found out this week that I’m really not as attached to my car as I thought I was. After five years of driving the Grand Am, no more. It’s now my younger brother’s car. I never thought I’d actually give it up. I thought it would be mine until it died, but I guess not. So you ask, what am I going to drive now? Well, I’m inheriting my family’s former primary car, a blue 94 Plymouth Voyager. Yeah, a mini-van. I’m actually kinda excited about it, which makes me question two things. One, it makes me question any attachment I thought I had to the Grand Am. And two, it makes me question my masculinity. Mini-vans are typically for soccer moms and stuff. Real men don’t drive mini-vans, right? How can I be excited about driving a mini-van? Well after thinking about it, I guess some guys drive mini-vans… (Yeah, they’re called drummers.) Oh not you again. (What, you don’t like talking to me?) Not really, cause it means I’m just talking to myself. (Maybe you have multiple personality disorder.) It’s called dissociative identity disorder…I did a paper on it in high school. (You mean I did a paper on it in high school.) Uh….right. So why’d you call it multiple personality disorder if you knew that’s not what it was called? (Just making sure everyone else knew what it was.) What?? Who else is there? (Them.) Oh right….them. Isn’t my face red? (It’s actually kinda brown.) Oh shush you.
9/5/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
It being the first rant of the year, please allow me to introduce myself. It would be much easier to introduce myself if there wasn’t any conflict over my name, but alas there is, so you’ll just have to deal with it. My name is either Justin or J-Bird or anything else that I might sign the bottom of this email with. I’m a senior (whoo hoo!) computer science major (ack) from Amery, WI. If you’re trying to spot me at an Impact meeting, you can recognize me as the guy with the huge beard. I’ve been writing the Impact emails for about a year and a half now, and I’ve developed a few ground rules that I’d like to go over now. First and most important: You may NOT read the rant before you read the announcements. If you skipped down to this part, you must now go back and read the announcements or else I will come to your room, apartment, or home and cover your door with Gak. And if you’re thinking to yourself right now that I couldn’t possibly know whether you skipped the announcements or not, just remember that I have a relationship with God. Speaking of God, did you hear that lightning struck Horan Hall today? (I’m not sure if you can connect those two or not, but whatever…). Alright, anyway, this section of the email is known as the rant, and you may read it after you read the announcements. But this section is definitely optional reading, as you may get confused, confounded, or just plain dumbfounded while reading this. So don’t read this if you don’t want to. That’s your only warning. Good luck. Whew. Glad that’s over with. Didn’t want to get too serious now…hehe. It’s been a weird year so far for me, and I think it’s the food. Sodhexho has just really thrown me off my rhythm and I don’t know what to do anymore. I won’t go so far as to badmouth it, but I will say this: In my first three years here, I never ate at Taco Bell in Hilltop. Not a once. I was proud of that. I’m not really sure why I was proud of that, but I was. Needless to say, so far this year I’ve eaten there three times. That’s like an infinity percent increase! I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but it just is. Enough on food. Or wait, I have this story from the other day about food that I think I could share. I think you’ll enjoy it. So I was eating at the caf in Hilltop on one of those evenings where the line was pretty much backed up all the way to Chancellors, and I had a thought. I was sitting in the caf near a wall looking out towards the middle so that I could see all the people in the caf. There was a lot of people. And I noticed that everyone was talking in their little groups, but there was really nothing collective going on that involved the whole cafeteria. (Well, unless you count the whole eating thing…) But I thought to myself, “My, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did something together as a whole group involving everyone in the cafeteria?” My next thought was, “Yes, that would be wonderful.” So I decided that it would be really cool if someday we could get the whole cafeteria singing the song “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” together. But I’m just way too chicken to start up something like that, so I trashed the idea. Speaking of chicken, the other day I was walking by a dumpster near Chancellors Hall when a chicken with a knife jumped out of the dumpster and stabbed me in the hand! Don’t they have any respect anymore?? I tell ya, these chickens are just out of control.
9/12/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
My roommate and I went to Target this past weekend and bought ourselves a flower vase in joyful anticipation of people coming to our room bringing us flowers. The vase is currently empty and sitting on top of our bookshelf. Our vision is that the vase will soon be full of bright, colorful, aromatic flowers. We hope to see this vision come to fruition soon.
9/19/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I had an interesting day this past Tuesday. It was one of those days that I just have no desire to relive. Not that I really ever have a desire to relive a certain day, but if I did, it wouldn’t be this past Tuesday. Like first of all, I had an 8am class. That’s just a bad thing no matter what. But putting that aside for the moment, I was walking down the hill on my way to class, and I tripped. Now this wasn’t just a small trip. It was a mega trip. I fell down to the ground and rolled down the sidewalk a bit. Not only that, but I tore my jeans in the process and bumped a couple other people in the process of falling down. I heard snickers from people behind me that had seen it and I just felt so embarrassed. I really wanted to be anywhere but on that sidewalk at that moment in time. So anyway, getting back to the 8am class, I fell asleep in that class. I woke up and everyone was staring at me (I found out later that the professor had mentioned the fact that I was sleeping just before I woke up). Then as I lifted my head, a string of drool extended from my mouth down to the desk that my head was laying upon. Once again, just really embarrassing. I still haven’t heard the end of that one. Six straight hours of class later, I decided that I would visit one of my professors to ask a question about something we went over in class that day. I told my professor I just didn’t like the way designed a program that we were going through in class, and he basically blew me off and said too bad, that’s the way we’re supposed to do it. I asked him why, but he didn’t really answer that either. So tired and frustrated, I made my way up the hill without incident. I got to my room and promptly received a headache which was made worse by the fact that my neighbors were blasting rap through the hallway. I somehow got some studying done for a couple hours until it was time to move some sound equipment for the SI meeting (we could use more people to help with that, by the way…contact Mindy Foley at 552-0669). Anyway, I was carrying this blue tub when my belt broke. My $17 belt. And I don’t have another belt either. And of course my pants really weren’t too keen on staying up without the belt. I eventually made it back to my room and tied some string around my waist which seemed to work until I realized later in the night that I couldn’t really untie the string and be able to use it again. So I went about six hours without using a restroom facility. Not fun. That’s about it, except for one last thing that happened. While I was driving my van back to its parking spot after the SI meeting, I was stopped at a traffic light on Clairemont. At that moment, a three-headed monster came dashing out into the road and just clawed my vehicle to shreds. As this was happening, I quickly made my way to the back and cowered in the fetal position on the backseat. The monster eventually ripped the door off and found me. It mauled and then ate me. So yeah, just an all around horrible day. Okay, so maybe parts of this story were exaggerated and just completely made up. But at least one thing in this story was true. And for sure my day on Tuesday wasn’t that great. But I realized something at the end of the day. I realized that my day wouldn’t have been bad at all had I been filled with the Holy Spirit. However, I was definitely not filled with the Spirit at all and that was my fault because I just wasn’t attentive to God at all that day. Had I been, I’m sure Tuesday wouldn’t have seemed nearly as bad as it was. It might even have seemed like a good day.
9/27/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I’d write a rant, but I think I’d rather get this email sent out sooner, so I’m not going to. I mean, writing a rant could take a half hour at least, and it’s already 12:30pm and there’s announcements in this email that deal with activities that are happening at 3pm. So I really should hit the send button as soon as possible. But really, when you think about it, how many people actually check their email between 12:30 and 3pm on Friday afternoons? Okay, I’ve thought about it, and realized that I have no way to answer that question. I mean, I check my email during that time, but I’m not really attuned to the habits of others, so really I can’t answer the question. Maybe I should do a poll. Or better yet, my roommate can do a poll. Please send your email checking schedule to [email protected]. (Oh boy my roommate is going to love me for this one…hehehe). Alright, have a great weekend! I know I will, because I have NO HOMEWORK! Whoo hoo!
10/3/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
So Brian went all creative on us this past week at the Impact meeting and wrote a poem! For those of you that missed it, here it is in its fullness:
Autumn, My Favorite Time of Year
By Brian Barganz
It is autumn, my favorite time of year.
The leaves are turning, to many shades of oranges and reds.
The black bears are gorging themselves and looking for their winter beds.
There is a new, kind of crisp smell in the air as the prevailing winds shift to a more northerly flow. The squirrels are busily storing nuts, preparing for the winter cold and snow.
Many birds are flocking together and preparing to fly south. The little chipmunk scurries around, seeing how much he can stuff in his mouth.
The Vikings are 0-4, oh what sweet derision (derision: noun: an object of ridicule or scorn – laughingstock). And the Pack, that’s right, is leading the Division.
Yes, hear it is again finally, autumn, my favorite time year.
That’s a pretty good poem! I had no clue Brian had it in him. In fact, it’s so good that he’s inspired me to write some poetry of my own! Take a look:
Bird Poop
By J-Bird
Have you ever seen a bird flying and suddenly it poops?
I never have.
It makes me sad.
Would it be a big deal if I could see that just once?
Just once to see
A bird pooping on a lad.
Although I suppose it is too much to ask
That I see a bird poop on someone.
I guess it really would be kinda bad.
Now that I’ve offered this request, however,
Fate may give me a twist of irony,
Which sees the bird pooping not on another,
But on me.
I suppose then I would be a little mad.
Yeah, that really wasn’t as good as Brian’s. Oh well. Maybe next time.
10/10/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I woke up this morning and realized that I didn’t have any milk for my usual bowl of cereal that I partake in every morning (probably because I got up in the middle of the night and downed the last of my gallon of whole milk (which was in a semi-see-through milk container in case you were curious)). So I thought to myself, “Gee, that sucks. Now I’m going to have to go all the way down to the front desk and buy myself some milk that won’t even be whole.” Actually I’m not sure what I thought, but that sounds about right. So then I went all the way down to the lobby and the front desk and asked the front desk worker if I could get two cartons of 2% milk. Now has anyone besides me ever noticed that the milk prices at the front desk of the dorms are really strange? Like you can buy an 8 ounce carton for $0.35, but a 16 ounce bottle doesn’t cost $0.70 like you think it would. Nope, it costs $0.90. Doesn’t price go down as quantity increases? I mean, that what Sam’s Club is all about! If it was the other way around, Sam’s Club wouldn’t exist! (or maybe it would sell ketchup in those little packets that you get at Hardees…whatever) So anyway, I did the obvious and asked for two cartons of milk instead of a bottle. And then I looked back at the refrigerator and realized that they were out of 2% milk. In fact, they were out of everything except chocolate and strawberry milk, and you obviously can’t use either of those in your cereal (although I did know one person that tried to use chocolate milk with his cereal…he died). So I was very disappointed that I couldn’t have my bowl of cereal this morning. So disappointed was I, in fact, that I almost skipped class. But I thought better of that and went to my class anyway. I figured I could stop in Davies on my way to class and buy a bottle of milk. So I did just that. It cost $1. Ouch. What a way to start off the day. But to make things better, I was going to my 8am class. Now in my 8am class, I think it’s almost impossible NOT to fall asleep. Our professor turns off all the lights except one (because he uses the projector), and the subject material is almost always boring (except when he talks about jujitsu). To make matters worse, he recently switched from paper notes, which he displayed on the overhead projector, to PowerPoint slides. And you might think that’s a good thing, except for the fact that now he yells at us if we take notes. At least once a class period, he says, “Don’t copy this! You can download it from the webpage!” And that’s fine, except that the reason I took notes at all in that class was so I could stay awake. So now my form of staying awake is sipping on milk all class period. Well, at least for 15 minutes. Then I’ll fall asleep for the next hour. Although I noticed that the date on the milk bottle I purchased this morning said “Oct 21 1921.” I got kinda weirded out when I saw that, but kept drinking it anyway. I haven’t died yet! My roommate just informed me that sleeping in class is the best way to learn the material. Sounds good to me! He also wants everyone to know that our vase is still empty and we feel extremely loved because of that. Good. I’m done now.
10/18/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Yikes, it’s after noon on Friday and I still haven’t written a rant? That’s not cool, because I don’t have any more time to write a rant! And I even had a plethora of ideas this week. Sad. Well, I guess I’ll have to go with the shortest of the ideas. That being, I have a job opportunity for anyone that’s interested. I can’t seem to bring myself to wash my dishes at all this year, so I have this huge pile of dishes that just keeps growing by the week. If anyone wants to do them, I’ll give you two cans of corn! What a deal, huh? Just send me an email indicating your interest…(or lack of it…).
10/23/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Yup.
10/31/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
This past Monday night, I had this very strong desire to acquire some Mountain Dew. Usually this isn’t difficult. I reach into my fridge, pull out a Mountain Dew, and feed my addiction. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in my room. I was at the Best Western Inn on the Park in Madison. And this Best Western had decided that it would be a Coke based hotel, so no Pepsi pop machines to help me out. So I went down to the lobby and stopped at the front desk and asked the workers there where I could acquire some Mt. Dew. They hemmed and hawed for awhile before suggesting the pop machines. I kindly informed them that the pop machines probably wouldn’t be of much value to me. Then they suggested that I take a walk on State St. to find a store that would sell Mt. Dew. So I did just that. Once I got to State St, I headed away from the capitol and soon saw a sign that said “State Street Arcade.” I then thought to myself, “That looks promising…arcades would have pop machines, right? And it’s even open!” So I headed for that. I got close to the building and was going to look inside the windows to see if I could spot a pop machine when I realized that the windows were all covered so that no one could see in. I thought, “My, that’s curious.” So I walked closer and realized that even the glass door was covered up so that you couldn’t see inside. Then I read the label on the door. It said “State Street Arcade” on the first line and below it in a smaller font, “Adult Entertainment Center.” I immediately sprinted across the street to the coffee shop which had Pepsi products available, but sadly no Mt. Dew. So I bought a $2 hot chocolate and went back to the hotel to play hearts. Speaking of hot goodness, *WARNING, SHAMELESS PLUG AHEAD* there just happens to be a concert this Sunday involving the University Symphony Orchestra under the direction of this guy named Nobu. It’s at 2pm in Gantner Concert Hall (in the Fine Arts Building), and it costs only $1.50 for UWEC students. *END SHAMELESS PLUG* So anyway, I think that’s about all I got except for the fact that I gotta give props to God for an awesome Fall Getaway (if you weren’t there, don’t fret…TCX is coming soon…).
11/8/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I get Instant Messages:
[08:57] JCLifeguardFreak: Dr. Mr. Sabelko. I am writing to you with a concern I have about your rants. Though I enjoy them immensely, they are lacking something I feel is very near and dear to all of our hearts. Namely ninjas. Ninjas are a great and wonderful thing, they make any story or movie better if they are involved. Ninjas protect our country, bake our bread, work in our factories, teach our children, and fix our blenders when they no longer work from making too many smoothies. Ninjas are responsible for many good things; such as the results of the 1984 presidential election, the microwave oven, the jumbo tubs of popcorn at the movies, the spork, the internet, Beany Babies, the Aurora Borealis, the Hale Bop comet, and the squirt gun. Ninjas are an integral part of our lives, behind the scenes and disappearing quickly as they do, and I would ask you, kind sir, to please include some of these valuable people in your forthcoming rant.
[08:57] *** Auto-response sent to JCLifeguardFreak: I am currently away from the computer.
[09:03] JCLifeguardFreak: I also have it on good authority that a ninja named Pablo once saved your life; even though you never knew about it. Thank you for your time.
[09:37] JustJavi: WOW
[09:37] *** Auto-response from JCLifeguardFreak: Somewhere around campus:-P
[10:02] JCLifeguardFreak: It has also come to my attention that some people may be unhappy or even angry at ninjas for them launching Michael Bolton's career and the creation of the Teletubbies. Yes ninjas did launch Micheal Bolton's career, and they did help put the Teletubbies on TV; but they were only attempting to give the world a good male singer and create quality kids' programming. Yes, those were bad mistakes, but the ninjas responsible were disemboweled
[10:04] JCLifeguardFreak: But please remember, ninjas did give us cool stuff like the 1970's 15 minute guitar and drum solo in classic rock, aerosol cheese in cans, and the 4th, 5th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
[10:04] JCLifeguardFreak: you home, J-Bird?
[10:05] JCLifeguardFreak: guess not. but please take my considerations on ninjas to heart, for the sake of the children.:-D
[12:54] JustJavi: Yes, for the children, it must be done.
[14:18] *** JCLifeguardFreak signed off at Thu Nov 07 14:18:37 2002.
[14:19] *** JCLifeguardFreak signed on at Thu Nov 07 14:19:38 2002.
[16:14] JCLifeguardFreak: Ninjas also invented Iowa, Oregon, and the 3-day weekend
[16:14] *** Auto-response sent to JCLifeguardFreak: I am currently away from the computer.
I totally agree with JCLifeguardFreak. I haven’t given enough credit to ninjas. Ninjas are great. I mean, just last week, a ninja named Michelle finally brought us flowers that we could put in our vase. Whoo hoo! (BTW, we are now accepting flowers, plants, and/or shrubs.) Anyway, have a great week!
11/15/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Does anyone else besides me have really strange dreams? I mean, I never remember my dreams, but when I do, they’re just really really strange. For example, a few weeks ago I dreamt that I was watching the Huxtibles from the original Cosby show sing about hair for a half hour. They just sang about hair. How can you sing about hair for a half hour? Whatever. The clincher is that I was trying to listen to a Veggie Tales song…I had no intention of watching TV at all. Anyway, after the Huxtibles were done I decided to do my laundry. I think I was too lazy to go into the basement to use the washers and dryers down there or something, cause I decided to do my laundry in my room. So I soaked my clothes in some water and proceeded to eat them. They tasted a lot like plain, watery lettuce leaves. This actually took quite awhile because after an hour I was only halfway done with the load (to be fair, I had a lot of laundry to do). The problem that I realized at the halfway point of putting my clothes in the pseudo-washer (as we’ll call it), was that I was going to have a heck of a time getting the clothes out of this pseudo-washer. So I did what every respectable CS major does when confronted with a problem. I wrote a for loop (a programming construct) to get the clothes out. And then back in August I had a dream about the Packers. I was watching them on the television and they were behind by 7 points late in the 4th quarter. But they were driving and were down on their opponent’s twenty yard line with a little over a minute to go. Favre dropped back to pass and threw a bullet towards the receiver. However, the NFL had recently added a new rule to the game that is football. You know how when you tie your shoes in a bow know that when you’re done there’s two loops and two straight ends? Well, according to this rule, if one of the quarterback’s shoes had one of the straight ends of the shoelace pulled through the middle of one of the loops while he was passing the football, it was an automatic interception. Of course, this happened in my dream and the Packers lost the game. I was just a tad miffed. I’m not even sure how you can have automatic interceptions (oh wait…I saw a Vikings game a few weeks ago…I think I know now…). So if you’ve ever had any really strange dreams, let me know so that I know that I’m not alone. Thanks.
11/21/2002:
We regret to inform you that the regular writer of the rant is swamped with homework. Stay tuned for a substitute rant writer.........
***So, after nearly 3 and a half years here at UWEC, it falls upon me to bequeath you all with a rant. That and the fact that our normal, illustrious, bearded, looks-like-one-of-the-Taliban, rant writer is out with a severe case of Computer Science homework. So my little brother is allergic to milk. Or was, as the case may be. See, he went on this weird, chemical treatment to get rid of his allergies, and it looks like they took care of it. So now they think he can eat a ice cream sundae. He can hopefully now put his face smack into a lovely bowl of ice cream and whipped cream with some Hershey syrup and bananas. Which reminds me that I haven't done that in a while. I mean, when was the last time that I ate a big, honkin' sundae? When was the last time that me and some buddies sat down with a massive carton of frozen dairy delight to just stuff our faces? Which reminded me that I think the last time that I did that was during a sleep-over in high school. Now, we all know that a high school student would not be caught dead having a "sleep over." We asked our parents if we could "Stay over" at so-in-so's house. And in high school, my parents usually said yes, if it wasn't a school night of course. So, when was the last time that any of us had a good-ol' fashion sleep-over? You know, the kind where you'd get all your friends over to eat mass amounts of pizza and consume gallons of caffeinated, carbonated, sugar loaded, 12 oz. beverages, watch movies, build kick-butt forts out of couch cushions, sleeping bags and our pillows and play with the most awesome toys we had, like Legos and the action figures with "Real Punching Action". I remember a good sleep-over I had once. My friend Seth and I went over to church while his parents did some work there, and we proceeded to eat A WHOLE BAG OF CHEETOS BY OURSELVES!! and watch "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and play GI Joes. Then we went back to his house and watched "The Empire Strikes Back." I remember the good ol' days of that kind of thing. Back when you were awesome to stay up all night giggling and playing GI Joes. But then there’s always that one kid who wanted to sleep at the big sleep-overs. Or the kid who was bound and determined to be funny and obnoxious and stay up as late as possible. See, back then the kid who wanted to be funny was funny, doing his arm-pit noises or telling dumb jokes. But then there was the poor looser kid who wanted to sleep or would wake up early. That kid was me a lot of the time. I wanted to pig out on Cheetos and Mt. Dew and get some Z's. But the other kids wouldn't LET me! No, they wouldn't let me SLEEP! WHY OH WHY WOULDN'T THEY LET ME SLEEP!! I WAS FULL OF CHEESY GOODNESS AND YELLOW, FIZZY BEVERAGE! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO BE HAPPY?!?! WHY WON'Y YOU ALL GO TO SLEEP SO WE CAN PLAY MORE GI JOES IN THE MORNING?! WHY WAS I THE NERD?! WHY WAS IT THAT I WAS CURSED WITH ONLY WANTING TO SEE MIDNIGHT AND ONLY PART OF THE CONAN SHOW INSTEAD OF 1 AM? WHY DID I ALWAYS HAVE A HARD TIME BEING LET INTO THE PILLOW FORT UNLESS IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY PARTY?!?! WHY COULDN'T WE PLAY WITH SUPERMAN, SPIDERMAN AND BATMAN INSTEAD OF GI JOES?!?! So yeah.........I think that I need to host a good ol' fashion sleep over complete with movies like "3 Ninjas", GI Joe, Spiderman, Batman, building monster Lego building forts, and the biggest pizza you can order. So all y'all, Friday night we're gonna get together with our sleeping bags, pillows (to build a fort of course), and our Ninja Turtles action figures (and the Turtle Van if anyone still owns it) to goof off until late into the night, at which time we will collapse as the caffeine that is in our blood stream is overwhelmed by the lack of sleep experienced at 4am.......so long as I can sleep on the couch. What was it with the kid who would claim the couch right away too for sleep overs? I mean, he'd never leave the couch for anything as soon as he got there besides the fact his bladder would burst from 5 cans of Coke if he didn't go to the bathroom. Is it so much to let a fellow boy of 9 years old sit on the couch too while we watch cool stuff like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"? Peace, love, and Jesus Christ.
~Natedogg
11/30/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Two summers ago, I was in Colorado on the CSU Summer Project (Don’t know what a summer project is? Click here!). Now, the CSU Summer Project is a very unique project in that for the last two weeks of the project, almost all of the Campus Crusade staff from across the country converge on Colorado State University (i.e. CSU) for the National Staff Conference. Which means that there are tons of staff people all around Fort Collins (where CSU is located). Not a bad thing. Anywho, one late July afternoon (while the National Staff Conference was being held), one of my friends (Jonathan) and I decided to go out sharing our faith in the city park. We got to the park and started talking with the first person we met (he was out for a run) and asked him if he’d help us out by taking the time to answer some questions for this survey we were doing about spiritual topics. He said sure, he’d be glad to help, and introduced himself as Bob Francis, national director for the staff campus ministry for Campus Crusade for Christ. Jonathan and I were a bit embarrassed for not recognizing him considering that he spoke at one of our weekly meetings about a week before that. But it was all good as Bob encouraged us and even put his arm around Jonathan in joy. Now, if you hadn’t made the connection yet, Bob Francis is one of our speakers at TCX this year! How cool is that? So sign up and go! It’s one of the highlights of my year every year, and I encourage you all to check it out!
12/4/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Hmmm, I could either rant for a bit right now, or be late for Bible Study. That’s a real tough one. Let me think on this one a bit….
12/13/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Well, I made it into the Spectator’s Police Blotter for the second time ever today. Of course, the first time was back on September 18th, 2000. It’s really sad that I know that date without even having to look it up. Why is that? I remember some dates really well and others I couldn’t remember for the life of me. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to live with that. It’s not the end of the world. Not yet anyway. Or is it? Where was I going with this? I’m not sure either. I think this is one of those rants that just doesn’t have a topic at all. Which is good. Pure rants, in my opinion, should not have a set topic. Although I usually stick with a certain topic whenever I write these things. But not today. No…today is special. Alright, so between this sentence and the last sentence was a total of three hours. During those three hours I got to see our floor in Towers South get covered with “snow” and then have us make a “snowman” out of the “snow” and then put the “snowman” in the elevator and leave him there. (Alright, so don’t tell anyone that I said this, but the “snow” was actually four huge rolls of toilet paper and the “snowman” was one of our wingmates that got rolled up in it all…) Did I mention that I fell out of my bed Monday night? (No.) Hit my head on the lamp? (No.) Hey, who are you? I don’t usually have someone answer my questions when I’m ranting… (You don’t remember me?) Oh wait, you showed up in a rant awhile back, didn’t you? (That’s right, I pretty much only show up when you’re floundering.) What!? I’m not floundering! I’m ranting! (Hahaha…whatever dude, you’re floundering. I mean, c’mon, “snowmen” in the elevator, you falling out of bed and hitting your head on the lamp…who’s gonna believe this stuff? You do have a tendency for exaggeration…) Yeah, true…but I’m telling the truth here! (Uh huh) I am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.) Am! (not.)
12/20/2002:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
It’s amazing how lazy I’m getting now that school’s done for the semester. Lazy enough to not write anything of substance here. It’s a bad trend, this laziness…
1/16/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I had a couple disturbing things happen to me over break. They were so disturbing, in fact, that I am compelled to share them with you. Firstly, last week, I was reading a book. It wasn’t too bad a book either, and I was getting into it. Well I got to page 960, and was a bit shocked to find that the next page after 960 was 929. I figured it was just a simple little mistake, but just to make sure, I turned the page and looked ahead to see what came next. I was then quite disturbed to find pages 930-960 repeated. But I figured it wasn’t all bad, for the book would probably continue on with page 961 to follow the sequence, right? Nope. Next was page 993. So I scoured the book trying to find pages 961-992, but to no avail. They evidently didn’t exist in my copy of the book, and I was quite distraught. I mean, you can’t really skip 32 pages of a book, can you? A lot can happen in 32 pages. I decided that I needed to find those 32 pages. So I went on a quest. To make a long story short (have I ever done that before??), I called the publisher and they said my version of the book was out of print (I had a 3-novels-in-1 book), so they couldn’t help me. So then I called around town describing my problem, to no avail, until I called Waldenbooks. The guy there told me to bring the book in and he’d see what he could do. So I brought it in, he looked at it, mumbled something about that being really strange, and then went over to the shelf, pulled off the paperback version of the novel I was missing pages from, handed it to me, and said “Have a nice day.” I was surprised and joyful at the generosity of the store owner, and it definitely made my day. So I ended up able to read the 32 missing pages, and that story ended well. The other disturbing thing, though, does not have such a happy ending. I was at home in Amery on Tuesday night, and I got my hair cut by the lady that lives across the street from us (she’s cut my hair since the 3rd grade). She has commented in the past about how thick my hair always is. But not this time. On Tuesday night, she said that she was absolutely amazed at how thin my hair has gotten since she last cut it. So obviously I must be losing hair. Dratted CS major is too stressful or something. Either that, or it’s all going to my beard. Might have to do something about that. Oh well. If I go bald, it’s not the end of the world. Worse things have happened. Not that I can think of any worse things offhand, but I sure there’s gotta be at least a few things that have happened that would be worse then me going bald, right?
1/23/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I don’t think I’ve quite gotten accustomed to being back at school yet. See, I haven’t quite realized that there’s actually a weekend coming up in a couple days. My mind thinks that I’ll just have classes every day from now until the end. I’m not quite sure where it got that from. Maybe it just figured that since break was like one big huge long weekend, I don’t really need a weekend for a few months. I’ll probably start to argue with my mind on that one come tomorrow. Yeah, that would be fun to watch I think. My mind and I get in this huge fight. Duke it out. What if I won though? Would my mind leave? Would it give me the cold shoulder and say that it’s not gonna do any thinking for me anymore? That could be scary. I like thinking. Maybe I won’t fight with my mind. When Saturday comes along, I guess I’ll just, uhhh… hmmm… I guess I’ll just go to class. Wow, that’s probably gonna suck. Oh well. Mind over matter I guess. And what about this cold weather? I’m seriously on the verge of shaving my mustache because it keeps collecting moisture and forming icicles. (I’m not sure how seriously you should take the word “seriously” in the previous sentence considering my past record when it comes to my rants about shaving…). Oh yeah, and I suppose I should mention something about my euchre winning streak coming to an end. It was fun while it lasted, but alas, a euchre winning streak is not one of those things that is everlasting. On that note, may God’s blessings be with each of you and have a great weekend!
1/30/2003:
LINK o’ THE WEEK:
This isn’t a new weekly section…I just couldn’t figure out any other place to put it. http://www.msnbc.com/news/861758.asp?0bl=-0
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Oh what the heck, read about the dangers of backpacks while you’re at it: http://www.msnbc.com/news/855520.asp?0cv=CB10.
Tuesday morning I was getting ready for class when I realized that my religions 100 textbook wasn’t up on my bookshelf. I had been reading it in bed one night before I went to sleep, so I checked the spot that I usually throw books to when I’m done with them. My textbook wasn’t there either. So I went back and checked the bookshelf again. Ever notice that when you lose something, you always come back and check the same spots over and over and over even though you know it’s not there? But just in case it somehow appears there, you gotta go check it again. So yeah, after 5 checks to the bookshelf and 3 checks by my bed, I realized that I wasn’t going to find it and not be late for class. So I went to class without my textbook. It worked out okay since the person next to me let me look on with her book for the brief minute that we needed our books. Then in the afternoon, I came back to my room after classes and started looking for the textbook again. Another 2 glances to the bookshelf, a couple to the bed, a check around the couch, and other searches revealed nothing. So I resigned in defeat and decided to go onto the Blugold system in order to drop a couple classes. As I was doing that, I casually glanced up at my bookshelf (which is right above my computer) and saw my religions 100 textbook right next to all my other textbooks. The sad thing is that at the instant that I noticed it was there, I realized it had been there the whole time. During my previous searches, I somehow hadn’t seen it at all. So then I laughed at myself. It was a good laugh too. Not one of those wimpy giggles. Full laughter. It was fun. But yeah, that day, as I was on the Blugold system, I went from taking 17 credits this semester to 13 credits in a matter of 30 seconds. I thought about that a little bit, and was just struck with awe at how easy and quick that was. I thought some more, and I realized just how easy it could have been to drop the wrong class so that I wouldn’t be able to graduate in May. It’s amazing how easily and quickly we can go from a great situation to one that would cause hardship for myself and/or others. As an example, back in the summer of ’99, I had just graduated and was having a fun summer doing pretty much nothing. I also wasn’t really walking the Lord either, as this story illustrates. I had a pretty good friend that summer, but for some reason her brother really annoyed me by doing something (I can’t remember what). So in order to get back at him in a non-lethal way, I decided to take about 10 minutes and browse the internet and sign his email address up for about 25 different email newsletters ranging from cooking to weather to games to news, and yes, to even pornography (my bad). He ditched that email address after about a week. Now don’t go and use that idea, alright? Cause I’m sure he didn’t enjoy it at all. Luckily he didn’t hold a grudge against me or anything, but I’m sure we both could’ve done without the spam. Or a hypothetical example is that I could get up in the middle of the night at like 3am and grab my roommate and toss him out the window. That wouldn’t be very good at all. So yeah, we’re all just about one step away from disaster. Satan doesn’t need much time to lie to us and convince us to do something we normally wouldn’t do. God’s grasp is strong, though, and I pray that each of you would stay right there in His grip. And if Satan pulls you away for even a few seconds, that you’d leap right back into God’s waiting arms.
2/6/2003:
DESPOTRIQUE O’ LA SEMANA:
Este fin de semana pasado, yo tuve el privilegio de conducir a mis padres al aeropuerto en las ciudades para que ellos pudieran volar a la Florida y tener una toda la semana vacación abajo allí. No sólo hizo tengo el privilegio de este deber, pero incluido en ese deber era el honor de despertar en 4:45am el sábado mañana. No que yo’quejar M. Amo despertar en 4:45am. Especialmente acerca del hecho que apagué accidentalmente el alarma en 12:30am. (Vea que obtuve esta llamada de teléfono en 12:30am y era un número injusto, pero durante el sonar, yo debo haber apagado inconscientemente mi alarma. Oops.) Pero eso permitió que Dios hiciera una cosa impresionante y me despierta arriba en 4:30am para que pueda darme cuenta que el alarma estaba apagado, entonces gira la espalda del alarma en, y en el sueño por 15 más minutos. ¿ (Yo’M Dios seguro me pensó para obtener esos extras 15 minutos del sueño…el derecho?) De todos modos, cuando manejaba de Eau Claire a Baldwin (el lugar designado que reúne), marqué esta furgoneta pequeña en el camino que miró exactamente como mi furgoneta pequeña. Significo, era exactamente como mina. Puedo’T leyó el plato entero de la licencia desde que era tan oscuro, pero por lo menos el primer de dos dígitos emparejó el plato de la licencia de mi furgoneta pequeña. (Alright, yo interrupción de gotta y califica cualquier declaración que leyó “mi furgoneta pequeña,” como ellos deben leer verdaderamente “mis padres’ furgoneta pequeña.” Mi malo.) De todos modos, yo seguí esta furgoneta pequeña de pícaro hasta que saliera en la salida de Woodville (cualquiera sale jamás en la salida de Woodville? ?). Era un pedacito adelante de horario, así que decidí seguirlo. Prendió Carretera 12 hacia Baldwin, así que seguí (desde que iba esa dirección de todos modos). Después acerca de una milla, sin embargo, estiró sobre a la orilla del camino. Decidí a rápido se vuelve un camino de entrada, apaga mis luces, y observa distintamente lo que el otro vehículo haría. Vi un a hombre pesadamente con barba sale de la furgoneta pequeña y anda alrededor a la puerta del lado. El estiró una caja grande fuera del vehículo y el conjunto en el lado del camino. El entonces volvió a entrar la furgoneta pequeña y manejó lejos hacia Baldwin. Mi curiosidad obtuvo el mejor de mí, así que decidí subir a esta caja y lo verifica fuera. Salí y subí a. La caja de madera estaba acerca de tan alto como la cintura y acerca de que ancho y largo también. No dijo nada en lo. Como cepillé suavemente la caja con mis puntas de los dedos, yo sentía este chorro repentino del terror bien arriba interior de mí. Salté rápidamente espalda y traté de resolver lo que era la fuente del terror que sentía. Yo no tuve la menor idea obviamente, de otra manera que el hecho que lo tuvo que venir de la caja. Decidí era la idea buena de salir. Tan salté a mi furgoneta pequeña y se marchó. Algo hizo’T se siente el derecho, aunque, y actualmente yo me dí cuenta lo que estaba equivocado, una voz atrás mí confirmó mis sospechas. “Usted’vehículo re equivocado, el hijo.” dí la vuelta para ver un destello de cuchillo enfrente de mi cara. “Mantiene impulsor,” el hombre con barba expresado. Yo wasn’T acerca de discutir con él. Cuando yo neared Baldwin, yo marqué una pelota amarilla diminuta en en aire que fue dirigido hacia la furgoneta pequeña (no seguro si se dirigió hacia nosotros ni fuimos dirigidos hacia lo). Obtuvo más cerca y más cerca a la frente del vehículo, y cuando obtuvimos acerca de 100 yardas lejos de lo, saltamos repentinamente hacia nosotros y chocamos por la parabrisas directamente al intestino del hombre con barba. Azoté en los frenos y dí la vuelta para obtener un mejor panorama de lo que acontecía atrás mí. La pelota amarilla, que sobre inspección más cerca tuvo armamentos y piernas diminutos y una cabeza y una capa roja pequeña, habían wrenched el cuchillo de la mano del hombre con barba y lo tenía contra su garganta. Oí algunos chirridos diminutos de la pelota amarilla, y entonces el hombre con barba abrió la puerta del lado y salió la furgoneta pequeña junto con la pelota amarilla que tuvo todavía el cuchillo contra el hombre con barba’garganta de s. El cerró la puerta, y yo wasn’la espera de gonna T alrededor para algo acontecer más. En cinco minutos, yo estaba en el lugar de la reunión amontonando a mis padres’ equipaje en “mi” furgoneta pequeña. ¿ “Dice a Papá?” “Sí, Justin?” “usted recuerda esa tira humorística Ratón Poderoso?” ?
2/7/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
This past weekend, I had the privilege of chauffeuring my parents to the airport in the cities so that they could fly to Florida and have a weeklong vacation down there. Not only did I have the privilege of this duty, but included in that duty was the honor of waking up at 4:45am on Saturday morning. Not that I’m complaining. I love waking up at 4:45am. Especially considering the fact that I accidentally turned off the alarm at 12:30am. (See I got this phone call at 12:30am and it was a wrong number, but during the ringing, I must have unconsciously turned off my alarm. Oops.) But that allowed God to do an awesome thing and wake me up at 4:30am so that I could realize that the alarm was off, then turn the alarm back on, and sleep for 15 more minutes. (I’m sure God intended me to get those extra 15 minutes of sleep…right?) Anyway, as I was driving from Eau Claire to Baldwin (the designated meeting spot), I spotted this minivan on the road that looked exactly like my minivan. I mean, it was exactly like mine. I couldn’t read the whole license plate since it was so dark, but at least the first two digits matched the license plate of my minivan. (Alright, I gotta interrupt and qualify any statements that read “my minivan,” as they should actually read “my parents’ minivan.” My bad.) Anyway, I followed this rogue minivan until it exited at the Woodville exit (does anyone ever exit at the Woodville exit??). I was a bit ahead of schedule, so I decided to follow it. It turned on Highway 12 towards Baldwin, so I followed (since I was going that direction anyway). After about a mile, however, it pulled over to the edge of the road. I decided to quick turn into a driveway, turn off my lights, and discretely observe what the other vehicle was going to do. I saw a heavily bearded man get out of the minivan and go around to the side door. He pulled a large box out of the vehicle and set it on the side of the road. He then reentered the minivan and drove away towards Baldwin. My curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to drive up to this box and check it out. I got out and walked up to it. The wooden box was about as tall as my waist and about that wide and long too. It said nothing on it. As I gently brushed the box with my fingertips, I felt this sudden gush of terror well up inside of me. I quickly jumped back and tried to figure out what was the source of the terror that I felt. I obviously had no idea, other than the fact that it had to come from the box. I decided it was good idea to leave. So I jumped in my minivan and drove off. Something didn’t feel right, though, and at the moment I realized what was wrong, a voice behind me confirmed my suspicions. “You’re in the wrong vehicle, son.” I turned around to see a knife flash in front of my face. “Keep driving,” the bearded man stated. I wasn’t about to argue with him. As I neared Baldwin, I spotted a tiny yellow ball in midair that was headed toward the minivan (not sure if it was headed towards us or we were headed toward it). It got closer and closer to the front of the vehicle, and when we got about 100 yards away from it, it suddenly jumped toward us and crashed through the windshield right into the gut of the bearded man. I slammed on the brakes and turned around to get a better view of what was happening behind me. The yellow ball, which upon closer inspection had tiny arms and legs and a head and a small red cape, had wrenched the knife from the hand of the bearded man and was holding it against his throat. I heard some tiny squeaks from the yellow ball, and then the bearded man opened the side door and exited the minivan along with the yellow ball which still had the knife against the bearded man’s throat. He shut the door, and I wasn’t gonna wait around for anything else to happen. In five minutes, I was at the meeting spot piling my parents’ luggage into “my” minivan. “Say Dad?” “Yeah, Justin?” “Do you remember that cartoon Mighty Mouse?”
2/14/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
It being Valentine’s Day, I figured that I should write something about Valentine’s Day. Yup, so last Friday I had a homework assignment due for my programming languages class. Unfortunately when I got to class, I realized that I had forgotten to print it out. So I quick asked my professor if I could just bring it by his office after class and turn it in. He said that was fine and so I printed it off after class and turned it in. So this week, we again had a homework assignment due for my programming languages class, and when I got to class, I realized with dread that once again, I had forgotten to print it off. So again I had to go and ask my professor if it was alright to bring it by his office after class, to which he asked me if I was losing my memory. And I’ve been pondering that for the last few hours. I think the answer is yes. I mean, maybe if had a legitimate excuse, like my dog died, or that my roommate snores all night long, or that someone is slipping me some memory loss pills, or that I was attacked and killed last night by a three-headed monster while I was on my way home from the grocery store or something, then I could say I’m not losing my memory. But in fact, my memory is going. And I think it’s going to Florida. So I hereby pledge to chase after my memory until I find and regain it. And if that means going to Florida, so shall I go.
2/20/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I get Instant Messages:
[13:11] Mateo: ha ha
[13:11] Justin: hehe
[13:11] Justin: wow
[13:12] Mateo: what
[13:12] Justin: just a random "wow"
[13:12] Mateo: or do you just like to put a random WOW in your
[13:12] Mateo: conversation
[13:12] Mateo: GREAT
[13:12] Justin: yeah, i do it constantly
[13:12] Mateo: GREAT
[13:12] Mateo: GREAT
[13:12] Mateo: GREAT
[13:12] Mateo: GREAT
[13:12] Mateo: GREAT
[13:13] Mateo: those were actually intentional GREATs
[13:13] Justin: oh they were?
[13:13] Mateo: yes
[13:13] Mateo: as apposed to random
[13:13] Justin: wow
[13:13] Mateo: so I hate to be a bump on a log
[13:13] Mateo: so I think I wont
[13:13] Mateo: but regardless
[13:14] Mateo: if I am a bump or not
[13:14] Justin: i can't believe you
[13:14] Mateo: what?
[13:14] Justin: being a bump on a log is my life dream
[13:14] Mateo: Well it does have its perks
[13:14] Mateo: I mean your not just part of the log
[13:14] Mateo: you get to be a whole bump
[13:14] Mateo: GO FOR IT
[13:14] Mateo: you can do it
[13:15] Justin: i'm gonna do it
[13:15] Mateo: Are you done yet?
[13:15] Justin: right after i graduate
[13:15] Mateo: What type of wood do you think you want to be
[13:15] Mateo: You know being a bump on a log requires a lot of decisions
[13:15] Mateo: Do you want to grow fungus
[13:15] Mateo: or molds
[13:15] Justin: shoot...you're right it does
[13:16] Mateo: maybe it is just better for you to be a regular log
[13:16] Justin: okay, never mind, i'm way too passive to be a bump on a log
[13:16] Mateo: lol
[13:16] Justin: :)
[13:16] Mateo: that was actually an embarrasing lol someone turned and looked at me.
Adios!
2/27/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I really can’t believe that Mr. Rogers is gone. I loved that guy so much when I was a kid, I even played him for an Odyssey of the Mind skit back in 3rd grade (yeah, that videotape is buried in a drawer somewhere…). I’m so struck with this, that I can’t bring myself to write a rant this week. Therefore, Natedogg has kindly offered to fill the void that would otherwise plague this space. Here’s to you, Mr. Rogers.
SUBSTITUTE RANT o’ THE WEEK:
So I made this awesome chilli the other night. I mixed venison sausage (I thought it was just hamburger when I grabbed the package out of the freezer), tomato chunks, spices and kidney beans in my crockpot and let it simmer all day. Then I came home to my apartment, smelling like wonderful chilli, and my roommate and I ate a lot of the chilli. But before we ate the chilli, my other roommate came home and said, "Smells like a stinky cheese." Of course I was a bit hurt, and I asked him if my cooking of chilli really smelled like a stinky cheese. He said no, not really, but that he had just had lunch, so any food kind of did not smell so good, even my chilli. But we ate chilli anyways for dinner and had to eat it with bread and lots of liquid on hand because the chilli was so spicy since I put the sausage in by accident. Anyways, it was pretty manly chilli. I saved some chilli until last night in the fridge, then had chilli for dinner again with lots of liquid on hand. So today, the chilli finally caught up to me. I was running on the treadmill in Crest, and my insides felt like a basketball. Just bouncing up and down, like my entire digestive tract wanted to rearrange itself. Its like when your stomach growls, and it feels really good, or when you have bad gas or something and you can feel it move inside to a more comfortable position. Only this is going on for a long time. My insides have been run over by a truck. So lets recap: sausage chilli, stinky cheese, basketball, gas, rearranged, truck. So for all you kids out there who love your chilli like I love my chilli, be careful when making chilli; don't just dump the spices in the chilli like I accidentally did so I had to skim off the top layer of chilli because it was solid spices. And make sure that you know you are putting hamburger into your chilli and not some sausage that is spicy enough in the first place for chilli. So for all y'all who want to have some man-chilli, just give me a jingle, and I will let you know when I am gonna make chilli again. To recap again, sausage chilli, stinky cheese, basketball, rearranged, gas, truck, call me if you have a iron gut and want to eat some of my chilli.
3/6/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I accidentally told a few people what I was going to rant about this week. I never do that. The topic of the rant is never really known beforehand, even if I think I know the topic. So anyway, my whole point is that I can’t rant about what I was originally going to rant about (even though that might not have been the real topic anyway) because someone else thinks they already know what I’m going to rant about. Heck, one of the people even said that they were going to make bets on the topic of my rant. So obviously I can’t rant about what I told them I’d rant about, cause otherwise that person is bound to make money on my rant, and if anyone should make money on my rant, it should be Nobu. Yup. Sorry for the poor grammar a few sentences back. It was intentional. Alright, so one day, there was this duck. Ya know, before I go any further, I just want to say that I’m thinking that this rant is going to be kind of boring. Just a warning. It might turn out fine, but yeah, I really have no hopes or aspirations for this rant. Thought you should know. Okay, back to the rabbit. The rabbit was hopping along when it suddenly hopped right into a large wooden telephone pole. Oh wait, I missed a part. Yeah, back at the beginning of the story this bratty 13-year-old kid took a saw and sawed through the telephone pole except for a little bit on the end. Sorry about that. So when the rabbit suddenly hit the pole, nothing happened. You see, the rabbit did not have near enough velocity or force to knock down the telephone pole. So really, all that happened was that the rabbit became this flat little pancake of a rabbit that was sorta wrapped around the telephone pole. After about two months, a bear came wandering along and spotted the pancake rabbit on the telephone pole. The bear had just eaten a few peanut-butter jelly sandwiches out of some picnic baskets that were in the nearby canyon, and wasn’t very hungry. So instead of eating the pancake rabbit, the bear decided to talk to it instead. “Hello?” said the bear. “Hi there,” responded the pancake rabbit. And now comes a really exciting part in this story. It’s something that’s never ever happened before in the history of my rants. I’m so excited I can barely keep myself from reading multiple chapters from my Oceanography textbook. And here it is: To be continued…
3/29/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
So I’ve been trying to write a rant since Thursday, and I just don’t have anything. It must be writers block or something. Maybe I’m losing my touch (not that I really had a touch, and if so, a touch of what?). But yeah, to borrow a line from my good friend Seth, “I got nothin.” J
4/2/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
I really like pockets. I’m not too sure that I could live without pockets. Well I could live, seeing as how God is our provider and stuff, but yeah, life would be so much different without pockets. My pockets are always full of stuff. I think that if I crammed anymore stuff into my pockets than I do, they would start overflowing and stuff would start falling out and…wait, that already happens…pens keep falling out (maybe that’s why I have four of them in my pocket). Coat pockets are even better though. It’s so cool looking (I think) to be able to pull something out of a pocket that’s inside your coat. So I keep a ton of stuff in those pockets too. I think there’s stuff in my winter coat inside breast pocket that’s been there for two years. Sports coats pockets are good for that too. My absolute favorite pockets, though, are the pockets that are on the outer sides of a coat or jacket that you can just stuff your hands into and for all I’m concerned, they could just stay there forever. I’ve noticed that I do this a lot more than other people I think. Like I think most people walk with their arms swaying back and forth with their feet like normal. I, however, just walk with my hands stuffed in my coat pockets. I think I’m in the minority with that one. It’s just cause I like pockets so much. They’re the greatest thing since sliced bread (if sliced bread came before pockets…otherwise sliced bread is probably the greatest thing since pockets…or something like that).
4/11/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Too much work, too little time. Kinda sad…
4/24/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
This is the fifth time I’ve started this rant over again. I’ve previous written four openings and they’re all gone. It’s kinda sad in a way, but they weren’t really good, so I’m glad they’re gone. The real problem is that I have no idea what to write about. But I’ve already written about not knowing what to write about once or twice before! You probably don’t want to hear about that again. So then, I think we’ll go south and see what we find…
Okay, so I got to Clairemont before I decided that I really didn’t want to go any further south and all I was doing was just wasting time. However, it was a nice little walk, and I did have a weird thought. Well this thought was actually based off of something a friend and I had discussed in Skylight yesterday. Nonetheless, God is a really good creator. I mean, think of all the man-made things that screw up all the time. Like computers. They’re always mixing things up. So, what if our minds were like that? Like, one day, your mind suddenly just decided to not work right. For instance, it could forget what being hungry meant. You wouldn’t know that you should eat. Or like every time you heard something, your mind could think that meant you were sick, so you would go and lie down for the rest of the day until you stopped hearing things. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, too. What if your mind just decided to screw up the whole English language and give new meanings to every word? You’d probably say some incredibly humorous things (and lose communication with the whole world). It could also decide that clothes are a good source of food. (I think that happened to me one time in a dream…). Anyway, good thing God created our minds, cause there’d probably be some major problems otherwise…
5/1/2003:
RANT o’ THE WEEK:
Brain: You don’t have time to write a rant, you’ve got too much stuff to do.
Heart: But I really want to write a rant.
Brain: Too bad.
Heart: Yeah, but what would Jesus do?
Brain: What does that mean?
Heart: I think it’s more important to write a rant than to do my schoolwork in the eyes of God.
Brain: That’s nonsense.
Heart: How so?
Brain: I can prove it…I have a great theological argument.
Heart: Okay, let me hear it.
Brain: Alright, here goes…
(Brain starts talking…)
Heart (to you, while Brain is talking): Little does my Brain know that while it’s spewing out this grand argument, I have time to write a mini-rant. So yeah. All I think I’ve got to say is to tune in next time, cause there’ll be a big announcement or something regarding the email. Oh, I think my Brain is about done. Have a great week!
Brain: …and so that’s why you shouldn’t write a rant.
Heart: You’re right; I won’t write a rant this week.
Brain: Good.
5/8/2003:
MY FINAL
RANT:
Well, I’m
graduating next week, which means that this is the final time that I get the
privilege of writing the SI email. Now
it’s not often that one gets to make a farewell address when they graduate from
college, much less be able to send it to about 450 people, so I feel kind of
honored to be able to write this today.
For those that don’t know already, I’m getting out in four years with a
degree in Computer Science, and starting this September, I’m planning on doing
a one-year internship with Campus Crusade for Christ at their world
headquarters in Orlando, Florida (http://www.lakehart.org/
and http://home.ccci.org/headquarters),
where I’ll get to do a bunch of computer stuff for them. (As a side note, if
you’re interested or know someone that would be interested in supporting me
through prayer or finances during my internship, drop me an email at [email protected]). Anyway, it’s tough to believe that I’m
already graduating. It seems like just
last week that I first arrived at
So this
whole rant o’ the week business, it’s kinda crazy if you think about it. Makes one wonder where it all started and how
I got started on writing these things. I
mean, who would’ve thought that you could combine announcements and a rant and
put them together in the same email? I
guess it all started about two and half years ago when I organized a Simpson’s
marathon where we watched some of the greatest episodes of the Simpson’s
ever. Well, to get the word out on this
event, I sent an email to just about everyone that I knew at the time, which
turned out to be the first ever rant.
Unfortunately (for some), the announcement for the Simpson’s marathon
was buried in the rant. Well, some
people really liked that rant and saw some potential (I guess), and so when
Paul and Melissa Scholten left Eau Claire (they used to be on staff for SI) and
the weekly email writer position opened up, someone suggested that I take
over. In the initial pitch, I was told
to incorporate humor in the email if I felt so inspired, and so I agreed to the
email writer position on those conditions.
The first few weeks were a bit of a struggle, with announcements and
rants getting mixed together, but soon after, the rants got totally separated
from the announcements and acquired its own section in the email. And that’s how the rant o’ the week was born
and how it has existed for the last two and a third years or so. As a celebration of the rant, I’ve put
together a compilation of all the rants ever written and plopped it down on the
net. You can grab your own copy here if
you like: http://members.fortunecity.com/justjavi.
Well, in my
parting words, I figure that I should dispense a little advice. Or at least something that I’ve learned and
am continuing to learn. So here goes… In whatever you do and become involved in and
in whatever decisions you make in the future, make sure you’ve got the right
perspective. Specifically, take a look
at the lasting effects of what you may be planning on doing. Is it going to last and affect others in a
positive way? Or is it something that
will only be temporary and won’t affect others much at all? What’s God’s perspective? I mean, you’d hate to spend a whole lot of
time and effort working on something that isn’t going to last. On the other hand, what joy it would be to
have a hand in something that will last forever…
Honestly,
I’m quite sad to leave
Maybe now
and then,
And by and
by,
And God
knows where and when,
Horse and
chariot,
Fire and
wind,
Even so,
we’ll meet again…
Take care
all, and God Bless!
Adios.
In Jesus’
name,
~Justin
Sabelko
a.k.a.
Javier, J-Bird, Jabiru, and all the variations…
[email protected] (New Email Address!)