"Many are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the time of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the disappointed, the spring-tide of their hopes." — Caleb Bingham

1. better pictures
2. the Sunset Limited to L.A and back again
3. a nap every once in a while
4. my textbooks to someone who'll give me more than 20% for them
5. a trip to New Zealand
6. the stereo away from my nextdoor neighbor
7. everything that isn't marshmallow out of Lucky Charms
8. time-management lessons
9. the chalk away from certain teachers
10. it easy

Trucks hits bridge, bridge collapses.

My friend Evie's brother Elias has a lead role in a movie directed by Gus Van Sant, the guy that did Good Will Hunting and Psycho.

'Then Melkor lusted for the Silmarils, and the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart. From that time forth, inflamed by this desire, he sought ever more eagerly how he should destroy Feanor and end the friendship of the Valar and the Elves; but he dissembled his purposes with cunning, and nothing of his malice could yet be seen in the semblance that he wore. Long was he at work, and slow at first and barren was his labour. But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. Ever Melkor found some ears that would heed him, and some tongues that would enlarge what they had heard; and his lies passed from friend to friend, as secrets of which the knowledge proves the teller wise. Bitterly did the Noldor atone for the folly of their open ears in the days that followed after.'

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Quinta Silmarillion

Just heard it. While not their best (kinda hard to match their self-titled first CD), this one is pretty darn good, musically speaking. With only a little less sexual innuendo and more cussing, it's not exactly as pleasant as the last two CDs 3EB's put out, but the words are well-crafted and do a good job of provoking the imagination to forceful reflection — if only to thoughts of bad relationships, death of loved ones and depression. There are a couple songs on here that aren't complete downers — as is the case with Misfits and Good Man — but this album is not for the emotionally squeamish. Still, if you liked "Third Eye Blind" and "Blue," I would recommend that you give "Out of the Vein" a listen, if only to see how far the band's come along.

but Jon Barlow had a link posted on his blog that I happened to click (I do that with most of the links he posts, and they're usually really good). Why does this cost $6,230? It's made out of fiberglass and I can only think of two ways to sit on it....with both feet in front of you or with your left leg propped up on the side. Very uncomfortable-looking.

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use? Crest Whitening + Scope

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer? Charmin Ultra

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear? Rainbows, payless/walmart brands

4. What brand of soda do you drink? Try not to drink soda....iced tea is my current drink of choice.

5. What brand of gum do you chew? Don't chew gum.

Sounds good to me.

I need to come up with a final project for my OB class. It's due in 2 weeks. Basically we're supposed to take OB concepts and present them in some kind of childish creative way. For example, last semester one guy made a drink recipe book, but the ingredients were concepts. Some girl wrote a fictional story, and a buncha people made board games. I've got a couple ideas for mine, like either architectural graphs or classified ads. I'd like to come up with some other ideas tho. Anybody got any?

Led Zeppelin is releasing new 2-DVD and 3-CD sets of rare and live performances.

I wonder which bands will be remembered 30 years from now. My vote goes to Metallica — and maybe the Goo Goo Dolls.

According to Ain't It Cool News, well....read for yourself:

"Btw… watch the TV monitors, when the Architect is talking about the foulest most evil people of man’s past, they flash from Hitler to George Bush – I’M NOT *****ING."

Well hot dog... I can't wait to drop $7 on that! Seriously, this sounds like a stinker.

Jon: They want you to sign here and here.
Andrea: I feel like I'm signing divorce papers.
Jon: Well we did meet halfway.

Read the comments.

and I pass this silver Z-28 with 2 girls from my Policy class sittin' in it. They're 2 thirds of a group my team is competing with in our CapStone game. The third girl I left studying her capsim manual at the computer lab. She's frustrated because she's doing all the work, and the other girls don't seem to care. Right now their team is finishing dead last, and there's no way she or either of the other two are going to get a passing grade if they don't shape up. There's really nothing this girl can do about it, though, because in these teams, the majority rules. I pass the other two, and I just know they're justifying to each other their laziness, talking about how shocked they were that this girl would accuse them of putting social life ahead of academics, how even if they are somehow remotely responsible for this mess, they certainly didn't deserve the way the other girl mouthed off to them. But it won't help things any, and the other girl is going to keep working, and when final grades come in, she'll probably fail along with the other two. One team down, 10 to go! 5891 ANDREWS R0X0RZ.

I found out how to make those cheese rolls Red Lobster serves.

He posted something yesterday by the Iraqi blogger known as "Salam Pax." I read this guy's blog back as the war was starting, but he stopped posting for a while, so I stopped going. Apparently he's been able to get a lot more written and published, and it all makes a really great read. Here's an excerpt:

"They are like that in most of the cases, they sit looking a bit bored watching the looting. Sometimes, if it is not too troublesome, they will go check on what is happening if you jump in front of their tanks shouting 'Ali Baba, Ali Baba!!'. Cute, isn’t it? We have found common ground in the stories of 1001 nights. Everybody knows the story of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, but not everybody speaks English. So if you are lucky the Americans will come to check what Ali Baba is doing, sometimes they care sometimes they don’t."

Rick's got a new e-zine and web services company.

Guy performs self-amputation to escape fallen boulder.

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like.
    "Too Close" - Next

2. Name two songs that always make you cry.
    "Posession" - Sarah McLachlan
    "Motorcycle Driveby" - Third Eye Blind

3. Name three songs that turn you on.
    "I Wanna Be With You" - Mandy Moore
    "What Would Happen" - Meredith Brooks
    "Strawberry Wine" - Deana Carter

4. Name four songs that always make you feel good.
    "That Don't Impress Me Much" - Shania Twain
    "Fishin' In The Dark" - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
    "Les Wirth" - TwoThirtyEight
    "Name" - Goo Goo Dolls

5. Name five songs you couldn't ever do without.
    "How's It Gonna Be" - Third Eye Blind
    "Desperately Wanting" - Better Than Ezra
    "Bigger Than The Beatles" - Joe Diffie
    "Heads Carolina, Tails California" - Jo Dee Messina
    "Wish You Were Here" - Pink Floyd

I actually promised to blog about this back in January, but never got around to it. It was the post about revenge and unforeseen consequences. I think everything's pretty much over, but there's this feeling I have that something may happen soon. It just doesn't feel over.

Anyway. I was living with my aunt and uncle, but I couldn't take too much more of that....not for a whole other year. John had graduated OWCC, and Michael, his old roommate Dan the Atheist, and Josiah Alldredge (a member of Forest Lake Bible Church in Niceville [IE., he's very dispensational] ) were returning for another year at UWF. So the five of us found a really nice 3-bedroom apartment near the school with reasonable rent, and moved in mid-August. Arch came along, and we picked up our keys, checked for scratches and marks on the walls, spots in the carpet, that sort of thing so that we couldn't be blamed for 'em when we moved out. Josiah and Mike left to buy books, so John, Arch, and myself sat down in one of the rooms as the A/C started to kick in, and got to talking.

John broke the silence by asking if we remembered what happened to his car. Arch and I were like, "Yeah, I think I remember hearin' something like that, what exactly happened again?" trying not to sound to curious. Apparently the first night he got the phone calls, he thought it was just some joke. It wasn't until the following morning that he found his car. We hadn't done any damage, so all he did was wipe the paper of his car and toss it in the garbage before driving to work. (Mike and I had driven by that morning after he had left just to see if he was still there....didn't see any paper or anything - was kinda dissappointing =D). He told us that the next friday night, he and Si Nelson had just got back from the beach (I think it was around midnight) and had been in bed not 10 minutes before the phone rang. So he and Si raced to the front door with John's pellet gun, looked out the window and waited. After a few minutes had passed, John saw something on his car. It clicked. His car had already been hit. It was pretty rewarding to hear from John how smoothly our job went, so we just kept quiet, asking the occasional obligatory question just to keep him talking.

John told us that they were immediately sure they knew who was responsible, and that he and Si took care of it that night.

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES?
white with blue trim.

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Axis & Allies!

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE (S)?
Um, probably Credenda Agenda.

6. FAVORITE SMELL
the beach.

9. FAVORITE COLOR?
Blue.

12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
I like Tolkien's names, but that would be kinda cheesy.

15. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
Yeah, but I try not to.

20. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE?
Red Stripe.

21. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN & YOUR BIRTHDAY?
Virgo / September 18, 1982

23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
If they're raw and dipped in ranch.

24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE?
CIO of some company in Niceville! (I don't think there are any of those in Niceville, but that would be nice)

28. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS?
yep.

29. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
nothing right now, used to keep a couple reference books there.

30. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
238

32. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR?
never getting married

33. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS
TO YOU?
just one?! Lis is a sweetheart and a good friend.

36. FAVORITE CD?
Deana Carter's "Just A Girl"

41. THE BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN?
Okaloosa County! (the whole county)

Take my Quiz on QuizYourFriends.com!

and I'm wondering what's going to happen this summer, and if it'll be anything like last year. Last May I was staying with my aunt and uncle in Pensacola, bored out of my mind and sick of hearing my uncle's liberal bullcrap. I get enough of that from school and the news. I took a couple classes, hung out with Michael at his apartment on campus, but that was about it. Except for one saturday around 1 in the morning in June or July (can't really remember exactly when it happened), when Michael, myself, and our buddy Arch made a spur-of-the-moment decision to paper somebody's car (nothing good ever happens after 10PM, as someone once told me). After mulling over our options, we decided that John needed it the most, because his parents were out of town for 2 weeks and he was home alone.

So we picked up a few rolls of toilet paper and headed over to John's house, but his volvo wasn't there, so we left and waited half an hour or so, then went back. His car was in his driveway, so we parked down the street a ways and walked up to his house and got his car covered in paper. We drew the initials of this girl John knew in toothpaste on the hubcaps, along with hearts and smilies (I had nothing to do with the hearts and smilies), went back to Michael's car, and called John on a cellphone. He'd pick up, and we'd hang up. We did it 3 or 4 times, and then drove off.

Sunday came, and we heard about it in church, but didn't tell him it was us. The following friday, his parents were still gone, and we decided it would be kinda cool to hit him again, a week later (hehe). Michael and I went alone this time, and like before, he wasn't home. We drove everywhere looking for him....we went by the Nelsons, the Mosleys, but couldn't find his car. So we went back to Mike's house and waited a while, and then headed back over to John's house one last time. Lo and behold, he was home, so we got his car with paper inside and out, along with his surfboards. We did the call-and-hang-up bit again, and left. We heard about it Sunday, but we didn't find out much, and it wasn't like we could press the issue without seeming obvious, so we dropped it and it never came up all summer - until August when we moved into the apartment, but I'll blog about that later.