A penguin and a polar bear are sitting on an iceberg. The penguin yells, "No Soap Radio!" They both jump in the water.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Those crazy Indians

After much anticipation, they finally released the names of the full moons of 2007. That's right, they name full moons. Apparently it stems from a Native American tradition, which makes me feel a little better about taking their land. Or, as they refer to it, "George." Some examples:

March 3, 6:17 p.m. EST - The Full Worm Moon
May 2, 6:09 a.m. EDT - The Full Flower Moon
June 30, 9:49 a.m. EDT - The Full Strawberry Moon
Aug. 28, 6:35 a.m. EDT - The Full Sturgeon Moon

The Sturgeon, as in the big fish. I might be laying on the couch doing nothing, but at least I'm not doing something stupid AND useless.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

It's all about the remix


Funniest thing I've seen all break.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Well that's nice

Those nice prison guards in Iraq gave Saddamn Hussein a swing set for Christmas. How sweet of them.

Oh...he WILL be swinging. Ah. Merry Christmas to me then.

It's so...I just....sigh...

The Charlotte Observer -- Robin Hayes is an heir to a textile fortune and a former GOP candidate for N.C. governor. Since 1999, he has represented part of the Charlotte area in Congress. Next up: missionary to the Middle East?

A weekly newspaper in Concord, Hayes' hometown, quoted the congressman this week as saying that stability in Iraq ultimately depends on "spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men." Hayes was speaking to the Concord Rotary Club.

"Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the savior," Hayes added, according to the Concord Standard and Mount Pleasant Times.


I just wanted to use this opportunity to remind everyone that Jesus is the reason for the season. I also want to wish you all a happy New Year, which, if Hayes has his way, will be just like the past year: bloody, yet satisfying in that "God wants us to do this" kind of way.

Friday, December 22, 2006

My thoughts exactly

Monday, December 11, 2006

Luke is a dissapointed atheist

First, watch this video. It's hilarious. Second, that video made me realize something that I honestly cannot believe I didn't know. The Bible has unicorns in it.

Job 39:9-10 (King James Version) -- Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?

There's no string of curse words I could put together that would express the amount of angry dissapointment I have in myself right now. Not only that, it happens in EIGHT MORE PLACES!

Numbers 23:22 (King James Version) -- God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Numbers 24:8 (King James Version) -- God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.

Deuteronomy 33:17 (King James Version)-- His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.

Psalm 22:21 (King James Version) -- Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

Psalm 29:6 (King James Version) -- He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.

Psalm 92:10 (King James Version) -- But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

Isaiah 34:7 (King James Version) -- And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.


From an early age, I knew this religion thing wasn't for me. Except for that year-long stint where I desperately tried, and subsequently failed, to be Baptist, it just wasn't going to happen. I ask too many questions and I take too much pleasure in proving things wrong. I remember at 10 years old asking my preacher uncle why there were no dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible and getting an answer back that didn't even satisfy a 10-year-old.

But, at no point did I ever stand up on my pew on Sunday and yell to the congregation "DO YOU PEOPLE REALIZE THERE ARE UNICORNS IN THIS GODDAMN THING?!?" How could I not have noticed? How does no one notice this? I can only assume that people routinely skip over these passages. If not...my god. There aren't words.

If you're flipping through your holy book, and you see a mention of "unicorns," how does your faith not shatter around you? You do a double take, you ask your neighbor if he sees the same thing you do, and then you realize you're worshipping something that isn't there. That has to be how it works. It has to be. Because before today there was only one thing I knew of that actually mentioned unicorns. Fairy tales.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

People worry me

ANDREWS- Nathan Vogler is your typical 15-year-old boy, his mom likes to say.

The only difference is that when his friends are learning Spanish, he's learning Braille. And while they're taking driver's education, he has to sit out.

Vogler, of Andrews, started losing his eyesight when he was 5. Now, with no color or peripheral vision and very little tunnel vision, he is legally blind.

But his lack of vision doesn't slow him down, he says. And in mid-November, he went on a special hunting trip with the Pisgah chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, part of a national initiative to take disabled hunters into the woods.


Full article

While North Carolinians are making it illegal to ride a lawn mower while drunk we should have made another new law: if you're blind, you don't get a gun. People with perfect vision miss shots all the time. Sending a blind kid into the woods with a gun is like a deadly game of pinata. You remember the kid that would pretend to not know where the board was in "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," and he'd kind of stagger around with his pin and scare the other kids? Well imagine he actually didn't know, and imagine he had a sword. Or better yet, he had something that shot swords at you. Like a gun.

How does it work? The kid points his shotgun in a random direction for three hours, waits patiently for a deer to come into his sights, and then his dad shouts "NOW!" It's the only way I can possibly imagine that playing out. How is it fun for the kid? Let's say he actually takes a shot, and let's just assume that, for whatever reason, he doesn't get within a mile of his target. Wouldn't a good father just lie to him?

"Good shot Billy, hit it right in the face."
"I hear screaming dad."
"Give me the rifle son."

And if a father could do that, why not just dress the kid up in camoflauge (or something that feels like camoflauge, doesn't really matter), drive around for an hour, pull into the backyard and have him hunt there. Give him blanks and let him pop a few rounds off at the neighbor's kids. Your son has fun, no one gets shot because he thought they were a deer, and those kids stay out of your yard from now on. Everybody wins.

Friday, December 08, 2006

I wish it would snow

From Joey Comeau's blog -- It snowed. I don't have any snow boots. With snow boots, you can't run and slide in the slush. I like to run as fast as I can and slide on my feet. I like to see cars spin and crumple against lamp posts. I hope nobody gets hurt. I hope nobody ever gets hurt. Everybody's going to die anyway. I like to watch metal crumple and I like to see it after it has. I've been in car accidents in the snow. You spin and spin and crunch - you hit. Afterwards, you're glad to be alive. The cost doesn't matter, not in those few wonderful moments. You're glad to be alive, and if there was a man taking money and selling tickets, you would go again and again.

EDIT: Great new comic at A Softer World.

These are the kind of entries that blogs are made for. Short thoughts, tiny little essays that couldn't belong anywhere else. It's one of the things I like about blogging, but more one of the things I like about reading other people's blogs. The story the above entry reminded me of was going to be one of those short thoughts. Instead it spun into a much longer yarn, and it's going in the novel. That's another thing I like about blogging. It gives me another excuse to write. And sometimes with writing, you never know what's going to happen.

Short aside: So NaNoWriMo came and went, and I'm left without a complete novel. I did start, but didn't come close to finishing on time. Writing a novel right before exams was a masochistic goal anyway.

Time management, or the simple lack of time, isn't the reason I stopped. It's the reason I would have failed anyway, but I stopped sometime in mid-November much before the actual deadline. A very odd moment came up during an argument between two of my characters that I can't fully explain without giving away the story (don't you just hate that). In a fury of typing, one person asked my main character a question about himself for which I had no answer. My mind drew a blank; I had nothing. I saved my Word file and closed my laptop, and I haven't looked at it since.

I've never written fiction to that degree, and it was some of the most fun I've had writing. The novel will be completed in some form.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Should we go with with a comparison to Vietnam, or something more Orwellian?

Scary: WASHINGTON - U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said.

Scarier: The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said.

Scariest: Bush continues to deny Iraq is in civil war.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Last Carolinian of the semester

Hat trick for me in this week's Carolinian, the final issue of the semester. It's also the last one with Kitty Campbell as Managing editor. Kitty, whose column this week you should read, is moving head on into the real world, a move I plan on never making. She'll be fine; Kitty seems to have that whole "responsibility" thing down pretty well.

I'm taking over as Managing editor, at least for the mean time. I'm staying on as Life editor as well, so we'll see how that works out at the beginning of next semester. Luke will be a busy little bastard.

Tomorrow at our last editorial board meeting I'm sure there will be goodbyes to be said, though no one is actually leaving. So maybe no goodbyes are neccesary. BUT, there will be drinks. I promise you that. Anyway, my stories for the week:

AIDS weeks hits home for black community
The crowd in the EUC Auditorium Wednesday was lively and responsive, until Jason Robertson dropped a bombshell.

"One in 250 people in the United States have HIV. One in three people who have it don't know it."

The crowd's sudden silence revealed how serious the issue being discussed was: AIDS in the black community. As part of World AIDS Week, which culminated on Dec. 1 with World AIDS Day, the Wellness Center and the National Pan-Hellenic Council co-sponsored a presentation on HIV and AIDS awareness, emphasizing the diseases' outbreak in the black community in past years. The presentation was given by Robertson, Wellness Coordinator for the Wellness Center at UNCG.

"[AIDS] went from a gay, white male disease in the 1980s," said Robertson, "to something more affecting the African-American community.

"African-Americans make up 13 percent of the population, but they're 48 percent of the AIDS population."Full article

Failure to Communicate: Laugh at Borat? Congratulations, you're racist
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the first movie in a while that had me in tears laughing. It has constant jokes, very few dull moments, and the one gross scene everyone warns you about isn't really that bad. But there's something many viewers may have missed while watching. I hate to break it to you, but if you're like me and laughed hysterically at "Borat," you're racist. Full column

WEB JUNKIE: What your dad didn't tell you, and your mom doesn't want to know
Male advice websites answer the questions that guys hate asking

In a young man's life, advice about life often comes along like pornography. You find a bit here and there: a Playboy in the garage, a video in your older brother's closet, the sudden discovery of what happens late night on Cinemax. Most male conversation is restricted to sports and cars. Talking about our emotions is about as welcome as farting at Thanksgiving dinner - which, if we men had our way, would be not only welcome but expected - so rarely does it happen that one of our dads sat us down and told us everything we need to know.

It just so happens that the Internet has given men two of those very things we spent our youths looking for. The porn you can find on your own, but the talking-to your father never gave you comes in the form of male advice websites. Full article

Saturday, December 02, 2006

PSA for Jacksonville residents

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- You need to know about several state laws that take effect today in North Carolina.

Teenage drivers can no longer talk on a cell phone behind the wheel. The law effects teens under the age of 18. There are a few exceptions to the law. Teens will be able to use their cell phone for an emergency or to call their parents or guardians.

A second new law going into effect today, helps state law enforcement agents track violent sexual predators. Beginning today, agents will use new GPS devices to track habitual and violent sex offenders. Its a lifelong tracking system for offenders.

A new seatbelt law now requires passengers in the back seat of a vehicle to wear a seatbelt. Until now, only people in the front seats and children under 16 had to buckle up. Troopers will hand out warnings beginning today.

Finally, it's now against to law to drive or operate a bicycle or lawn mower if you are legally drunk.

The last one kind of cuts into our Christmas activites back home. The biking, that is. Not so much with the mowing. What can I say? Jacksonville is a boring place.

Also, the government has no reason or right to require people in the backseat to wear a seatbelt. My libertarian rage almost makes me want to stop wearing them in the backseat on principle. Almost, because I also don't want to die just yet.