So tonight I decided to reconnect with some old friends from the good old days at LPHS and seeing as I lack a set of wheels, I made my way to their houses on my one and only bad ass bicycle from the old Tulios Big Dog Cyclerey. First house I went to was my good friend Steph. I propped my bike against her house (since $300 seems to not include a kickstand) and went up to her porch and rang her doorbell. No answer. Now this is not unusual. Many a times in high school I went to Steph's house and no one answered the door even though all the cars were in the driveway. So I rang again and again until finally her nephew answered the door and told me "stef's no home" so i thanked him and got back onto my bike and headed down Creve Coeur to see my good friend Nikki. I got to Nikki's house and all of her dogs came running to the door when they saw me and her mom screamed at her sister to see who was there and she proceeded to tell me that Nikki had moved!! to Ottawa!!! This came as a huge disappointment. Nikki Wessman was always supposed to live in that small house on that brick road, and I was always supposed to come visit her on my bike when I was bored. (sadface) After that, I was too bummed out to see if anyone else was home so I rode my bike home and played some Rock Band with my brother.

Also, someone invited me to a facebook (why do I facebook still?) group remembering this kid from high school who died suddenly from meningitis. Everyone joins this group and writes their memories of this person and I had my own from when we went to junior high together. During lunch, we would always have to sit alphabetical on a long table with those colored benches that were prominent in every junior high cafeteria in 1999. This was intimidating to me because I was surrounded by boys on ALL sides and they would always gang up and tease me simply because I was the only girl in the line of fire. Anyway, the seventh graders and eighth graders ate lunch at separate times, but the 8th grade BAND kids would eat lunch with us and the three kids that were in band were all boys and they all sat across from me at my table. Now, some would think this would be disheartening for a girl who was already surrounded by boys, but this kid always made me laugh. The other boys teased me as a group activity, but this boy teased me as a friend to make me laugh. I'll always remember that. <3 He was a really good person and the world is a worse place without him. If there is a heaven, I'm sure he's there.
There was a link to follow to read some of his writing (and he was a Communications major like me) so I decided to check it out and found something interesting:

ok, so heres the deal, i've been drinkin tonite, and i've also been thinkin. i usually don't get all deep thinkin and sentimental in my life, but this is one night where i will.

so after i got off of work i went to my pal bens'. and we started talkin. and i want to address something that not a single person on this earth can grasp. it has to do with both space and death.

concerning both of this, we as a human race cannot grasp the fact that something is forever and its kind of nuts. think about it, experts say that space goes on forever. can you really think about the fact that something doesn't end. you could just keep on moving in a straight line forever, and what will you find, much more. since we've been born, we've been told that everything ends, but space doesn't, and neither does death, and it literally just boggles the mind to think about it. this is probably the time where i start talking circles, but what the hell happens after death. i've known many people who have died, some very close, and although it sucks that they died, i'm envious because they know the answer to the ultimate riddle of what happens after death.

so, as you sleep tonite, lay in bed and maybe just think about the notion of infinity and how incredible it is, maybe it'll do somethin for ya, maybe you'll think im a dueschbag, whatever suits ya.

it really sux, cuz im so drunk that i can't really put into words exactly what im trying to convey right now. but in the imortal words of bruce weber "who cares."

oh yea, i got this christmas card from some family that i kno. their is a kid on it, and his face really sux...boo him.

drew

Often, I find myself missing the people I've lost touch with. One thing's for sure, I have a wicked memory for remembering old friends.

I'm great at being cute, but I'm terrible at being sexy.

Here's an interesting (and short) banned Warner Brothers cartoon from the 1940s featuring Nazi ducks and a Hitler duck. Check it out here. There are also some about "negro" children who live in the jungle and one titled, I kid you not, "Red Hot Riding Hood." People are so ignorant. I'm sure in 50 years, we will look back and say we were ignorant about the rights of gays.

Biggest goal: stop giving a damn what people think.

Everyone who's anyone knows I don't like pork chops, so what do they make...pork chops. Then they claim it's my fault that I am a picky eater. I didn't realize we lived in Russia.

Welcome to the first installment of what I like to call:

If I Ran the World (shouted by Laurence Fishburne)

In today's piece, I would like to discuss the state of our American political system and the decrease in our personal liberties. The United States government has become too involved in the personal freedoms of private citizens and businesses. We are being told what we can't do, not what we can. We have cameras on us all the time and our daily activities online are being monitored (please don't lock me up for expressing my opinions!) We are subject to fear mongering by the people who we elect into power through clever use of the media and emotions. The very people who are supposed to keep a check on the government are instead easily influenced to lead the public toward certain ideas that benefit those in power. Using fear to rally support has been used since the times of the Cicero. Our own nation used this tactic to gain support for the Spanish-American War in 1898. Yellow journalism and sensationalism on the part of William Randolph Hearst, owner of several prominent newspapers, lead to the spread of rumors as fact and the blind belief in the hearts and minds of millions of American citizens. What we need is a media that asks the hard questions and is not operated by those who wish to control for their own personal gain. We also need a complete remodeling of the political parties. Very few American citizens ever have a chance to become President if anything because they lack the money necessary to run a campaign. Our choices are limited, usually to bad or worse. There is a true lack of proper representation in American government and multiple parties should be allowed a stronger voice to express their viewpoints. No democracy lasts forever and it is up to the citizens of this country to question our leaders and speak up when we think things are going wrong. If I ran the world, the media would be an outlet of unbiased truth-telling that would encourage us to fight for the protection of our civil liberties. After all, that's what we wanted in the first place.

I love Larry David! He has cute shoes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl9akLLPDEQ&feature=related
I wish he would follow me around and narrate my life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnFMrNdj1yY&feature=related

How could we possibly be alone? Are we so egotistical to think that we are the only life in the entire universe? Scientifically, there are probably millions of planets that have the perfect conditions for the maintenance of life. Collectively, we really only know .00000000000000000001% of anything. I want to know more than that.


If this doesn't make you even consider believing in something, I don't know if you ever will.

The more I know, the less I understand

For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm onto something big. I'll let you know when I find it. (What a wonderful summer.)


"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being." Albert Einstein

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God." Albert Einstein

"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud (30 July 1932)

"Against overwhelming logic, some atheists continue to claim that the universe and human life were created by chance. A reply to this argument has been developed by the philosopher, William Lane Craig. The atheist's argument states that since we're here, we know this must have all happened by material forces. Craig's counter-argument states,

'Suppose a dozen sharp-shooters are sent to execute a prisoner by firing squad. They all shoot a number of rounds in that direction, but the prisoner escapes unharmed. The prisoner could conclude, since he is alive, that all the sharp-shooters missed by some extremely unlikely chance. He may wish to attribute his survival to some remarkable piece of good luck. But he would be far more rational to conclude that the guns were loaded with blanks or that the sharp-shooters had deliberately missed. Not only is life itself overwhelmingly improbable, but its appearance, almost immediately, perhaps in as short a period as 10 million years following the solidification and cooling of our once molten planet, defies explanation by conventional physical and chemical laws.'"


My thinking stems from a blend of my knowledge and beliefs in the systems of cosmology, psychology, spirituality, science, and personal experience. Everyday is a reformation of the ability to think for myself.

<3

Why we should always question those in power:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE5/index.html?q=ARTICLE5/

I know you little, I love you lots,

my love for you could fill ten pots,

fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,

three teacups, and four dishpans.

I wish I'd known you all when we were little.

We wouldn't understand what it was like to not have fun.

Disappointment is a feeling I am rather familiar with. Let me tell you why, oh sweet blog of my pitiful self-analysis. People tend to let me down because I have such high expectations for them. I flit between two different worlds; the dreamy, wonderful world in my head and the harsh real world. I hate being bothered with what I deem as unnecessary wastes of time such as doing the dishes, shopping for groceries, and other mindless activities. I hope it’s not something that will be a detriment in my future. If I could be great at something I’m not actually all too good at, it would be music. I’d love to just sing and play instruments and write songs and perform in front of people. That’s got to be one of the biggest highs ever. That and being a professional athlete who has just won a big event. I live for feelings like that. My emotions are right on the surface and normally I do a good job at controlling them, but I always feel things very deeply. TOO deeply sometimes. I just want excitement and adventure and an ability to do profound things with my life. Monotony absolutely kills me. Every single day I come up with tons of these romantic ideas about what I want to do with my life and they usually remain just that and I get discouraged. And to top it off, most of the people I know are stupid left brain thinkers who only see in black and white and like to solve equations for fun and have no idea what I mean when I say the things I am thinking. Why was I cursed to be so idealistic and romantic??

Goddamn, I miss living in the city.

Blasphemy at its finest: http://www.nbc.com/Late_Night_with_Conan_O%27Brien/video/clips/good-priest-bad-priest-72808/280744/

Kim Jung Il has pancreatic cancer? My theory is that the original Kim Jung Il is long gone and that North Korea has picked up several look-alikes doing theater in Seoul. This is just an excuse to switch out the old Kim Jung Il decoy who has been disobeying the government.

After listening to these two guys hurl sarcastic comments on the bus all the way back from the Cubs game, I started to think about the art of sarcasm.
It's a form of comedy that takes years to perfect and intelligence to maintain, but the most important kind of intelligence behind sarcasm is not social or factual, but emotional. Here's why:
MANY people I know use sarcasm daily. Several of them use it to mask insecurity and aggressiveness. Though their comments appear funny on the surface, they lack the emotional connection with those around them. Good comedy includes; bad sarcasm does not.
Sarcasm abuses wit. Those who truly use wit don't use other people as the fuel for their humor. They use the absurdities of events and actions instead. Self deprecation, satire, and camp connect with the audience instead of isolating them in the way that unintelligent sarcasm does. In conclusion, good comedy and humor comes not from the smart yet biting use of sarcasm but the intelligent emotional connection that a person makes with another.
That is why all good comedy stems from sadness. Sadness allows for the ability to understand people.

To those who continue to use biting sarcasm as a display of your intelligence, maybe I'm on to something??

Road to Perdition is SO much better than Public Enemies for five reasons:
One. Paul Newman is not in Public Enemies and Johnny Depp is. Johnny Depp is WAY overrated. I enjoyed him in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Edward Scissorhands, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but after Willy Wonka and three films of Jack Sparrow, I think he's too mainstream.
Two. The musical score in Perdition is perfect. It flows through every scene like it's a character along for the ride.
Three. Tom Hanks is a bad ass.
Four. In Perdition, Daniel Craig is a wimp and Jude Law is a mouse; the only interesting character in Public Enemies was Baby Face Nelson, and he was stereotyped.
Five. The "love story" in Public Enemies was a terrible distraction from what could have been a movie about why Dillinger was the way he was.

Just saying.