Dart Through Your Liver

Merry Christmas scumbags.

Apoptosis Machine

I've decided to stop humor writing, because I guess it's not too funny anymore. It had a good run though.

I hate it when my wife is gone to work. More than anything. I've always hated it, but never realized quite how much I do until right now for some reason.

I'm sitting here with the doggies. They're both passed out next to me after an evening of wackiness and running around and Juno sneakily stealing my last bit of Hot Pocket when I set it down for a second to watch a Jazz game. I was mad. But for what? She's a dog. I think it's funny how we always get mad at dogs for acting like dogs. We want them to act as human-like as possible, which is why we teach them tricks. I guess it makes us feel better though, to have something close to human to talk to when we're alone.

I miss my wife terribly.

I suddenly realize that there is nothing to see in the past.

Where's My Xylophone?!

So I see that some of you who view this blog are from various locales around the earth, namely, Russia, Spain, South Korea, Lebanon, and Malta (where the heck is Malta? I thought that was some sort of beverage). I would appreciate it if you international folk would leave comments or something, so I know what's going on, and so I can understand why my blog has some sort of international appeal. Or unappeal (is that a word?) if you actually hate it. Come on. Let's be friends. And we'll beat this enemy called "college football" together.

I'm sitting at the Dixie College library right now. I just had a great lesson in human anatomy about scrotums, testicles, penises, spermatic cords, spermatic fascia, cryptorchism, and testicular torsion (yeowch!). I'm glad I just listed that for all of you to read. In case no one knows, I think the human body is the most fascinating and complex thing in the universe, and I plan to have a career, somewhere down the road, where I work with the human body, in some fashion. Perhaps I will study the immune system, which is the greatest buttkicker in the history of mankind, even greater than all of your fictional childhood heroes like Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Michael Jordan.

KILLER T-CELL- What exactly is happening in this picture, I'm not sure. He's either chowing down Mike and Ikes, or else he's being overrun by bacteria, which is kind of a sad thought. Some killer. Geez.

Those killer T-cells in your immune system? Awesome. They pinpoint the enemy, poke HOLES in it, and then inject deadly toxin into it. The United States Army should make that its killing method. I guess shooting people is pretty much the same as poking holes in people, so maybe it's already similar. But they should try it the killer T-cell way too. And they should be more blobular, and have little pokey-looking spine things all over them. And they shouldn't have any sort of face, because I am always more intimidated by a being whose face I can't see. Hello? Why do Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and that guy from Scream all wear a mask? Because the face expresses emotion. Mike, Jason, and Bill McScream (is that his name?) have no emotions, except the emotions of unquenchable anger and thirst to kill. I personally think this is the key to demoralizing our enemies abroad: wearing scary masks. There you have it. This whole fascination with the immune system has turned me into a warmongering jerk, because the only thing my heroic T-cells live for, is killing. Pretty twisted, man. Pretty...twisted. They're probably not good role-models for your kids. Just forget you ever read this.

Through the Loop

A pass into non-existence.
Through a loop and out the other end.
This abyss we speak of, this nothing,
    is fraught with words shared,
    words forgot,
    words of meaning.
   Yet the mind creates what it will.

FOOTBALL!

Just kidding! I'm not going to talk about football! Had you going there, huh! Heh! No seriously, the latest BCS standings, they're uhhh...they're great. Just great. Ok, for real, that's all I'm saying about football. Because, as we know, the real Holden, who you all know and love (most of you), really actually doesn't care about football, and this is all pretend. Or is it that I simply have a well-defined sense of justice, and whenever I smell abuse thereof, it makes me bark. Madly. And then I snarl, as mad barking dogs are prone to do. Will there ever be justice? In anything?

I've come to the conclusion that there cannot be justice. Which I find disheartening, as I pledged a thousand times during my elementary and high school years that the ideals of the American flag would bring justice to all. And when I say justice, I mean...Justice. Justice Dirickson.

I've made plans to create a story entitled, 'Justice: An American Hero," as well as a quirkier sequel entitled, "Hot Tubbing with Justice: An Unlikely Story,' which is based on Beau Stucki's personal account of actually hot-tubbing with the man himself.

There you have it. That was the whole point of this blog. Is that crazy or what? You thought this was all about football? Get out of here. I don't even like football. I've been putting on a show with all of you.

The Superior Thoracic Aperture Band Rides Again

So I only just realized that I can check the stats on my blog, and apparently (and most randomly), the Philippines is the second most visiting country of my blog next to the United States. Do people from the Philippines like me? Because I certainly like them. Not as much as I like Tennesseans though. They're so cute and cuddly and they get the cutest little scrunched up faces when they're angry about dang Mormons. Aw.

In other news...I've decided to get into model airplane building. And I want to be some sort of dessert connoisseur. Cupcakes, maybe. I think I'm going to make some specialty cupcakes tonight. And I held a lung today in my anatomy lab. It was kinda gross. It was basically just a slimy bag. Oh yeah, and I poked a liver. A real liver. Sitting in a cadaver's abdomen. And I poked his brachial artery too. Speaking of brachial artery, I am reminded of the movie "Cellular" which I watched just last week with my dear wife. There was a part where a kidnapped woman stabbed a bad guy in his brachial artery, and then she escaped as he fell down and bled to death. And as she ran away, he muttered these infamous last words: "YOU BIH!" Excellent dialogue right there. Top notch. I've considered making those my last words as well, no matter what circumstance I may be in when I die.

Jason Statham, from the side-splitting romantic comedy Cellular. If you imagine it just right, you can picture him in this shot actually about to break out into uproarious laughter over something, rather than wanting to shoot somebody in the head 50 times.

Also in other news, I heard, for the very first time, the song "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" by Pink Floyd, and I think it's the most wonderful song ever. I highly recommend it. It's about a guy eating breakfast, and it has three separate instrumental parts, separated by segments of hearing Alan talking about breakfast foods he likes, cooking eggs, pouring cereal, eating the food, and then leaving the kitchen. I don't think I could've ever come up with something so creative. I'm dead serious. You think I'm not, but I am.


THE END

We All Want to be Loved

I don't think anyone gets addicted to TEXTING.

I think people have a desire to communicate. I think that's a basic human desire. It's funny how I was so against cell phone 4-5 years ago, and always judging my friends for all their cell-phone worshipping, but I now I realize that "texting" is simply a symbol of our desire to talk with others and feel important. Is texting really eradicating peoples' abilities to have face-to-face conversations? I doubt it. How could anybody measure that? Do they strap kids that are "addicted" to texting down in a lab chair, and then shoot conversational questions at them and measure how well they're able to carry on a conversation?
Of course, sometimes, teenagers run up the bill when they text a lot. That probably isn't so good. Cell phone companies, of course, are simply exploiting peoples' desires to communicate, with fancy sounding text plans that sound cheap, but add up eventually. In this regard, I can see the negativity of texting. But isn't that ALL that people, especially teenagers, want to do? Talk? Feel loved?

Pretty weird when you think of it that way. Oh well. The end.

Dixie College Police

I don't mean to be a complainer, since I know that when you argue against some sort of policy with no real solution of your own, it's complaining. So I guess I do mean to be a complainer. There you go.
I got a parking ticket last week for parking in the Udvar-Hazy Business Building parking lot, without a parking permit. Why did this happen, you might say? Well, let's just say that I've been parking in this parking lot for over a year, thinking that it was the institute parking lot, which I figured was totally separate from the college. Even though people parking to go to the business building technically still park in the same parking lot, I figured there was some sort of dividing line that I couldn't see. Which sounds silly, I know, but that's how I really felt. It would make sense to have a separate parking lot for the Institute. But more often than not, the parking lot for a building is in the FRONT of the building. Therefore, I assumed, logically, that I was parking in a totally separate parking lot.
Now let's analyze this situation. I don't want to buy a parking permit. They're $25. That's too much money for a stupid little sticker. About this subject, Dixie College police have stated that this is a "safety issue." My beef with it all is that there is no SAFETY involved with placing a parking ticket on someone's car, a ticket which gives a person 10 days to pay the fine. And in my case, I parked in that parking lot for over a year. So if a van full of Libyan terrorists pulls up in a permit-required parking lot, and they all decide to go in the Gardner student center and detonate a bomb, or if somebody decides they want to inflict some sort of harm to Dixie College students or faculty, a PARKING TICKET is supposed to make them go away? "Uh oh guys, there's a parking ticket on our car! We only have 10 days to pay a 20 dollar fine! Let's GET OUTTA HERE!"
Please.
The only reason they hand out parking tickets is to 1) Make money, and 2) Piss students off and make them hate the police more than they already do. Which I know is the least of the police department's worries. But I hate hate hate them masking this all with their talk of "safety" and "protecting the students."
If you're going to make it a safety issue in ANY way, you should be more diligent about dishing out parking tickets. I got away with it for a year apparently. Either be more consistent with handing out parking tickets, or drop the stupid permit price altogether, because everyone knows it's a bunch of bullcrap, and all you want is money.
Idiots.

Blood

“Welcome to the blood drive!”
Thus came the voice of Rebecca, a fair-skinned maiden sitting behind the table at the Gas City, Indiana Annual Blood Drive. And thus came me, Steve, who had never before given blood. I got dragged into this garbage by my wife, Tasha. What a joke.

“Have you given blood before?” Rebecca asked.

“No, I have not,” I responded. I didn’t want to give blood. I loved my blood. It was my own. I wasn’t afraid of needles or anything, but I felt like my blood was the most personal part of me. My wife always found this strange, but then I would, more often than not, slap her.

“Come on honey, it’ll be fine,” Tasha said, struggling to console me. She put her arm around me and looked me in the eye. “Just think honey. Your blood will save one person’s life. Doesn’t that just make you happy?”

I rolled my eyes. Happiness…what IS happiness anyways? I’ll tell you one thing, it is NOT saving the lives of others. That is not happiness. Nobody would ever save me if I was in trouble. Maybe my wife Tasha. Maybe my dog Fred. Johnny Cash said happiness was about being comfortable, and being with friends. I read it on his tombstone. And I happen to agree with that. None of this altruistic mumbo jumbo.

“Humbug!” I grumbled. Yet I desired to appease my wife, who wearied me with her teasing. I don’t know why I ever got married anyway. Marriage…what IS marriage anyways? I’ll you one thing, it is NOT…

“HONEY!” said my wife. I snapped out of my ponderous reverie. “You have to sign your name.”

Thus I signed my name.

The whole process took forever. I had to read a handbook all about how I couldn’t give blood if I’d had sex with anyone in the past week, or if I’d traveled to the nation of Trinidad and Tobago anytime between March and June of 1985, or if I had ever drank my own blood, or if I had ever operated a forklift that was manufactured in Johnsonville, Tennessee before 1968. Of course, I had done all these things, but I didn’t want to let my wife know. She would kill me if she knew that I had gone on a secret trip to Trinidad and Tobago to exchange black market goods with terrorists.

They pricked my finger, which was nothing new, since I had done the same thing many times during my weekly blood-oath ceremonies with my “World of Warcraft” clan. They did a little test on my blood, which ended up being okay for some reason. Then they strapped me down, and the fiasco of draining my essential life-giving fluid began.

“Is it all right if I stick it in this vein?” asked the girl performing the operation, pointing at a particularly attractive vein in my ripped left arm. Wait, was she serious?

“Uh, you can put it wherever you want,” I responded. Wasn’t she an expert?

“All right, let’s go with that,” she said, and stuck the needle in. It didn’t even hurt. I didn’t feel emotion.

After several minutes, she yanked it out, and I was good to go.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Tasha said to me later as we exited the Gas City Community Center.

“Let’s get pizza,” I said.

Then we smooched for three hours.

                                                                                             ***

Several weeks later, things took a turn for the worse. My relationship with my wife started going downhill, and she moved out for what she called a “temporary” amount of time.

On one particular day, I sat in my living room, watching an old re-run of MacGyver. As much as my relationship with Tasha had gone sour, I longed for her. I longed for her face, for her nose, her perfect fair skin, for her flowing black hair, for her rugged cowboy boots. These thoughts took up much of my time when I wasn’t working at Jack in the Box, or doing Zumba down at the community center.

I needed to escape. And I knew just the place. The old duck pond. Perhaps the old warehouse. In all actuality, I didn’t care. I just needed an escape. I decided on the old duck pond.

The duck pond was a good distance from my apartment, roughly 25 minutes taking the Old Gary Turnpike out of town. But I had nothing else going on for me.

I took some of my music with me to listen to as well. Good Charlotte, my favorite band, would be accompanying me on this life-changing trip, I decided. How I loved them and their sweet tender melodies, their innocent emo voices always dotting the air with their cries and their pleas and their whineries. How I truly loved them.

It was a lovely fall day, a perfect day for a drive. The air was crisp. Crisp with potato chips that is, as I accidentally spilled them all over my front seat. I swore several times, my most relaxing “cool-down” technique, taught to me by my grandfather.

When I had been driving for about 10 minutes, I came to the intersection of the Old Gary Turnpike and Highway 82. So many memories of this intersection. So many. I stopped, but was so engrossed in my reverie of memories pertaining to this intersection, that I didn’t even check left or right as I proceeded through the intersection.

What happened next was…crazy. A Nissan truck, perhaps an X-Terra, or something of the like, came out of nowhere and slammed into my left side. Whatever truck it was, it was a manly truck, and I imagine there was a gentleman inside, wearing jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat, and he probably had some sort of loyal dog next to him. I imagined all this as the accident happened. Really.

As you can understand, I was also sitting on the left side. As I had never before been in an accident, I couldn’t come up with enough imagery and descriptive creative words to really explain how the accident felt to me. But, surely, oh surely, as the sky is blue, and as John Amaechi is a former NBA superstar, there was a lot of destruction, debris flying everywhere, and my blood splattering all over my car, all in the span of a couple seconds. Oh yeah, and I was knocked unconscious too, which is no surprise, considering all the bones on my left side were instantly broken, and I had deep bloody gashes in several parts of my body. Therefore, I will leave it at that.

I woke up, somewhat, several minutes later, as paramedics and firemen were extracting what was left of my body from my car, now a twisted pile of wreckage. I had never seen anything so twisted, and so pile-like. I couldn’t feel anything, I’m pretty sure I was completely paralyzed. I remember seeing blood everywhere. Everywhere.

They threw me (literally) onto a stretcher, and then threw me again into the back of an ambulance.

“This man needs blood!” one of the EMTs yelled. Everything was happening so fast, it was all so dream-like. I remember them shoving a needle in my arm, and then some sort of blood transfusion was occurring. Gross, I thought. Somebody else’s blood inside me. I felt so dirty.

“Wait a minute!” cried one of the EMTs. Uh oh. Had they screwed something up? I remember her looking me in the eye, and yelling, as though I couldn’t hear. “ARE YOU STEVE MCWIGGINS?!”

I weakly muttered yes, and then suddenly realized who she was. It was my old middle school bus driver, Mrs. Perkins. MRS. PERKINS. Who knew that she was also a paramedic?

“Dear gosh!” she cried, holding the bag of blood in her hands. “This bag has your name on it Steve!”

What in the name of sweet Georgia Brown…? Why would a bag of blood have my name on it?

“STEVE!” she yelled at me again. “THIS IS YOUR BLOOD!”

And then it was total and utter pandemonium. Had I really reluctantly given blood several weeks ago, only to have the favor returned to me? By MY OWN BLOOD?

Somehow, I was saved that day. The experience taught me a lot, namely, I should give blood as often as I can. They had a rule that I couldn’t give blood more than once in a six-week period. Well, I’ll show them who’s boss!

“Sir, you just came in here yesterday!” said Rebecca, the girl at the Blood Center.

“I don’t care! I want to give more blood!” I cried.

“You can’t! Do you even know how dangerous that is?” she asked. “Your blood hasn’t even been replenished yet!”

“I DON’T CARE!” I cried. “I WANT TO GIVE BLOOD!”

And then I kind of had an episode, where I grabbed the table she was sitting at, and I tipped it over.

“ARGGGH!!!” I cried, like a wolf, hunting for its prey, for that is the very sound a hungry wolf makes.

“Sir, you’ve lost your mind!” cried Rebecca, as I ran into the blood-giving area, grabbed a bag of someone’s blood, and threw it on the floor. Blood splattered everywhere. Then I grabbed another bag in the process of being filled with someone’s blood, and threw it at the person’s face. Now they had their own blood…all over the face. Just like I did, on that fateful day of The Accident.

Within minutes, a team of animal control specialists entered the room and attempted to subdue me with over 50 tranquilizer darts. I roared, like the wolf that I was, but soon went down as a net was draped over me, and someone tackled me to the floor, which was covered in blood. All I wanted to do was help, but that wasn’t to be the case today. Today, I was a wolf. A raging wolf, simply trying to look out for the other wolves in my wolf clan, simply wanting to donate my own blood to my wolf brothers, for the sake of the pack. Also, I was banned for life from any sort of Red Cross blood-donating event. Yeah, I kinda “blew that one,” as my old dad would often joke years later around the dinner table.

THE END

Questions for discussion as a loving family unit---

1)     Would the blood being transfused ACTUALLY have the name of its owner right on it? I doubt it. Shut up.

2)     What is symbolically significant about Steve watching an episode of MacGyver during his time of loneliness?

3)     How can we apply Steve’s heroic example to our own lives?

Preserved

Sitting, unmoved, useless
Glass bottles, shrouded in dust
Shrouded in warped time.

Deep within a memory,
Shadows dance on a wall,
But they make no sound.

And nothing can hide them,
only vapour of darkness.

The Utah Clean Air Act

The Utah Clean Air Act prohibits smoking in the passenger terminal, except in designated smoking areas. Your cooperation in extinguishing all smoking materials, or going to a designated smoking area, would be greatly appreciated.

Memorized Scripts

We're all good at trying to impress people.

Living in Black and White

What if the world hasn't always been in color?

I'm sitting at the business building right now, doing business, waiting for Emilyface to get out of her communication class, and I also happen to be doing lots of business.

Oh business...where is thy sting? Oh business, WHERE IS THY VICTORY?

THE END.

Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin (Jeff Buckley)

Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin
translation- I Do Not Know the End


i used to know a little square
so long ago, when i was small
all summer long it had a fair
wonderful fair with swings and all
i used to love my little fair
and at the close of every day
i could be found, dancing around
a merry-go that used to play

ah, mon amour
a toi toujours
dans tes grands yeux
rien que nous deux

all summer long my little fair
made everyday seen like a holiday
night after night it used to play
and people came there from so far away
and everyone sang that little tune
all around town you heard it played
even Pepi from Napoli
he sang to Marie
this serenade

ah, mon amour
a toi toujours
dans tes grands yeux
rien que nous deux

I can't forget my little square
Even though I'm so far away
I can't forget my little fair
Maybe it's still there, still there today
I sometimes hear that little tune
playing in a dream of long ago

And in my brain runs the refrain
That old French refrain I used to know...

"Ah, mon amour
A toi toujours
Dans tes grands yeux
Rien que nous deux"

Blasphemy

I don't consider myself an especially righteous person, but something seems wrong with the popular logic that Mormons are not Christians, but anybody, especially celebrities, rap stars, and worldly people who are obviously indulging in drugs and gross immorality, ARE Christians, if they make sure to display their fancy and shiny little crosses around their necks.

And then again, I don't know that somebody might look at somebody like 50 Cent and say, "Hey! That guy is TOTALLY a follower of Christ!" But he sure seems to be a lot more liked and respected than the Mormon church.

 I disapprove 50 Cent. And so does Jesus.

GARAGE SAILING

Do you ever go to garage sales, and realize that the stuff is not even REMOTELY interesting to you, but you keep looking around like you're interested, because you're afraid that you'll somehow offend the "proprietor" of the garage sale if you just leave? Or when the "proprietor" notices you looking at something that you don't plan on buying, and says "I'll sell it to for FIVE!" and you pretend to act interested and say, "Ahh, hmm…yeah! Not a bad deal!" even though you have no idea what the value is and you don't care?

I watched the movie "The Invention of Lying" last night. It was pretty weird, but relatively funny. Nobody in the movie, except for Ricky Gervais, knew how to lie. Everybody was completely and brutally honest, everyone in the entire world. It made me realize how much we all really ARE dishonest, how much we always hide our true intentions. I'm not saying all this to judge anyone. I'm saying it because IT'S FUNNY. We're all such liars. HEH! The end.

Holden's Disapprovals

I do not like Hollywood.

I do not like Katy Perry or Lady Gaga. They are skanks.

I do not approve of homosexuality. Why? Because Hollywood approves of it.

I do not like the Christian Satellite Network. They are hypocrites.

I do not like Miley Cyrus. She is a skank and a Disney puppet.

I do not like celery. Why? Because people in Hollywood eat celery. Sometimes. I think.

I do not like the angry old man who came into my work yesterday.

I do not like Nickelback. 

I do not like many things.

I think most of all, I just really do not like people who are full of themselves. Or who sing bad. Or who are skanks.

Or celery. Die.

Emily's Quirks

So uh, I really really approve of my wife. A lot. And I know I haven't really written any blogs about her, and that makes me a fat jerk. So, in lieu of the great anniversary, here's several things about Emily that I think are just special-

1) She is, hands down, the HOTTEST babe in the universe. Her hair is cute, she has really pretty blue eyes, she has a little nose, little ears, little fingers, and little cute toes that bend in all sorts of crazy directions.
2) She is the best cook I know. She doesn't have a lot of confidence in what she makes, but man, she makes some mean egg rolls, stir fry, and lasagna, and she makes these really tasty turkey sandwiches and sends them with me in a lunchbox when I go to work.
3) She gets scared really really easily, like when I hide in the dark and then jump at her and scream, and it's so cute. I'm sorry, that one was mean. But it's true.
4) The little squealy sound she does when I poke her or tickle her.
5) She's extremely talented when it comes to training dogs and grooming them. She can point to any dog and tell you what kind it is.
6) Her laugh. Because it's funny.
7) She's a fantastic wife, and is always doing the laundry, and making food, and making me lunches, and working at Diamond Ranch all the time trying to make us money. She doesn't think she's a good wife, but I think she is, and I love her and am grateful for her.
8) She's really smart, and is in expert in several subjects that I know nothing about, for example, business, economics, genetics, real estate (because she watches so much HGTV), and Judge Judy.
9) She looks really really cute when she's asleep, and if you try to talk to her while she's sleeping, she makes cute little mumbly noises.
10) She throws temper tantrums if I don't let her pop my toes, or zits on my face.
11) She thinks songs are "funny." I still don't know exactly what this means, but she seems to have this ability to know what every song is about, and can somehow recognize the subtle humor in them. And she starts laughing at a song, and I have no idea why. And I will never know why.
12) She looks cute in her thick rimmed red glasses.
13) When she says "NOM NOM!" to Juno after she serves up her dinner.
14) I'm glad she's made up her mind about what she's going into, and I'm especially glad it's business, because now she'll get to carry around a briefcase and watch C-SPAN and dress in a business outfit. Because that is AWESOME.
15) She's the biggest sweetiepie in the world, and I'm forever grateful that Lucas, Eric, Brandon, and David became friends with her at EFY six years ago. Because if that wouldn't have happened, we would've never met. Awww.

Bush

(As read in front of Mrs. Madden's AP English class, May 2005. The idea came from the hit blockbuster novel "The Scarlet Letter" in which there is some sort of important symbolic bush.)

Fleeting,
sighing,
loving...
     BUSH [pronounced almost like "boosh" in a deep seductive lusty voice]

Laughing,
growing,
sinning...
    BUSH

Time glides by,
the velvet sky,
caressing in its tender touch...
    BUSH

P'raps that rose
so long forgot
through life's reveries,
and loving sought,
would wilt, would fade
from this mortal coil...
    BUSH

Or p'raps illusion sleeps in you...

Maybe there is no bush?

Isaiah 3

I see the exalted being humbled, and the humble being exalted.

Oh yeah, and all you girls should probably get rid of your round tires and your mufflers.

Jerks.

The end.

Biff Johnson Rides Again

Nobody reads these posts. I don't really understand what the point of this blog is. Nobody will ever stumble on to this. I haven't even told my friends about this. What the heck am I doing. . .?

Coming from a time when Holden didn't understand anything or what in the name of Sam Hill was going on.

I started a new job at the Washington Community Center a few weeks ago! Hoorah. I basically get to sit around and do nothing while getting paid a quarter more than my last job and working almost twice as many hours. It's a nice facility. The staff are like, all total best friends, so I'm pretty out of the loop.

I start school next month. I still don't know what to do. 

I don't know what else to say. My wife is a hottie, but I'm pretty sure everyone knows that.

I figure everyone has already viewed Portraits of Johnny, but here it is again, remastered in HD. Just kidding. I don't even know what that means. Shut up.

The Mirror

How's this for a creepy dream (and this may have even been a dream within a dream but I don't remember)--

You walk into your bedroom. Inside your room, there is some sort of killer mirror that has attached itself to one of your walls or bookshelves, but you just think it's another mirror (or else you don't notice it). This mirror has attached two smaller mirrors elsewhere in the room as "eyes," so that when your reflection shows in the smaller mirrors, a trap is triggered, wherein the door to the room locks so you can't get out, the walls begin to close in, and a face appears in the mirror that is not your own. The last part has nothing to really do with killing you, but the face is grotesque. You try to open the door, but it's locked. The walls are moving in toward you to crush you. What do you do?

You smash the mirrors. WITH YOUR FIST. LIKE I DID.

As silly as it sounds, this dream left an impression on me. Maybe because I'm pretty sure I've dreamed it twice now. I figure nobody really cares, but once I figure out the symbolism, I'll let everyone know. Maybe.

Oh yeah, and apparently, the mirror's name was Udo (pronounced oo-doh).

The end.

Yesterday, the Lakers beat the Celtics 83-79 and closed out the Finals.

I hated the game. I hated that the Lakers still managed to win despite the fact that Kobe Bryant did absolutely nothing for the team except make free throws, and then snagged Finals MVP for it. I've complained on so many comment threads about it, but for what purpose...? I don't know. It ate me up all night, it did. For some reason. And then this morning I got a call from my dad saying that my grandpa, my last living dear grandparent, passed away.

I think some things in life matter a lot more than others.

MIKE PILKINTON: THE MAN AND THE LEGEND

WARNING: THIS MAN WAS SPOTTED PROWLING AROUND YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, LOOKING FOR A BASH. HE IS ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. WE ASK ALL WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO STAY INDOORS, WITH ALL DOORS LOCKED AND WINDOWS BARRED. WE FURTHER ASK THAT ALL MEN WHO ARE ABLE TO WIELD WEAPONS STAND GUARD ON THEIR FRONT LAWNS, READY TO DO BATTLE SHOULD THE NEED ARISE. THE CITY WILL PROVIDE TANKS, ARTILLERY CANNONS, AND RPG LAUNCHERS TO THOSE WHO CAN USE THEM, BUT WE FEAR THAT NOT EVEN THESE WILL BE ENOUGH TO BRING HIM DOWN.

BE AWARE. HE IS VERY SNEAKY, AND CAN GET RIGHT BEHIND YOU WITHOUT YOU EVEN KNOWING. 

THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE HE WILL BE REALLY NICE TO YOU AT FIRST, AND POSSIBLY OFFER TO BUY YOU A LEMONADE.




 Why all this tomfoolery?

If anyone remembers from my missionary emails, I ran into this guy on three separate occasions in Lawrenceburg, and his whole desire in life was to bash. If I ever make a video game, he'll be a boss in it. A boss with over 500,000 HP. And multiple forms. And he'll do one of those annoying attacks that cause status ailments to everyone in your party. Yeah, that's right. And you won't be able to beat him without consulting several game walkthroughs on "GAME FAQS." You know why? Because you STINK at video games. STINK.

If you find this blog post uninteresting, offensive, or extreme, leave now and never return.

If you are a stranger to RPGs, stop reading. Now.

If you are the actual Mike Pilkinton, we love you. We also wish you luck for that time, sometime in the future, when the Four Warriors of Dawn will stumble upon your secret lair and proceed to have an epic battle with you, a battle in which the fate of the entire world will be decided. A battle in which you will fight Paul (Black Mage), Stacy (White Mage), Larry (Ninja), and Croft (Swordsman). A battle in which Stacy will cast "Haste" on everyone to increase their battle speed, but you will annoyingly cast "dispel" on them. A battle in which Stacy will cast "shell" on Paul, the weakest member of the party, but then you will do "Pilkinton Punch" on him, which is the most powerful physical attack in the game, so his shell doesn't really matter, obviously. A battle in which Croft will slash you with his legendary sword over and over again, and you will do a counterattack called "Life Shaver," which will reduce Croft's HP to 1. A battle in which Paul will cast "Lightning" on you, and it will do enormous damage, and then they will come to the realization that your weakness is INDEED lightning, and then you're screwed. Screwed, Mike. They are gonna let you HAVE it.

 The Final Battle

And how can you even hope to beat enemies who just keep re-appearing in their most recent save point after you destroy them? How Mike?

How?

I AM CAKE

Definition of cake:   2a- A block of compacted or congealed matter (Merriam Webster)


I

AM

CAKE!    

 Heh heh!

Where The Streets Have No Gluten

HOLDEN'S CONFESSION

Ok, you know what? I NEVER wanted to be senior class president anyway, okay? GOSH! I must admit though, that my posters were pretty funny. I must admit that I was pretty funny in my Exec Council interview, as much as they all hated me and gave me an extremely crappy score. I must admit that "Gender Segregation Day" was an extremely good idea for my hypothetical "Senior Week," and that "Fatal Attraction" would've made a great date night movie. But, your loss Snow Canyon. Your loss. And forever you shall regret not picking me. Even though I didn't want to win.

Hey Bret Voran Gates! Hey! Are you reading this? I'm talking to you! LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU! I never wanted to win ANYWAY! There, are you happy? Does that put a little damper on your triumphant "I Beat the Coolest Guy In School in the Senior Class Election" story that you tell at every one of your social gatherings? Well...I LOST ON PURPOSE.

   "I voted for Holden!"

Besides, you don't really get to run the senior class anyway, right? I mean...seriously.

Sorry

Ok sorry! GOSH! I didn't know that the whole homeopathy thing could be so boring to everyone. Forget I said anything. Ever. In my whole life. Just forget it. Jerks.

I'll probably end up getting fired from work one of these days, I seem to kinda be in a Dixie Nutrition rebellion mode right now. Seriously. My conclusion, after two whole years of working there now, is that most everything is a scam. I think I've said enough about it.

The end.

The Scams of Homeopathy and Oscillococcinum

I figure most people I know don't really care about any of this, but I find this pretty interesting, as these products are huge sellers where I work. It's a lot to read, so don't be turned off right away.



(From Quackwatch.com: Homeopathy, The Ultimate Fake)

"At best, the 'remedies' are placebos"'

Homeopathic products are made from minerals, botanical substances, and several other sources. If the original substance is soluble, one part is diluted with either nine or ninety-nine parts of distilled water and/or alcohol and shaken vigorously (succussed); if insoluble, it is finely ground and pulverized in similar proportions with powdered lactose (milk sugar). One part of the diluted medicine is then further diluted, and the process is repeated until the desired concentration is reached. Dilutions of 1 to 10 are designated by the Roman numeral X (1X = 1/10, 3X = 1/1,000, 6X = 1/1,000,000). Similarly, dilutions of 1 to 100 are designated by the Roman numeral C (1C = 1/100, 3C = 1/1,000,000, and so on). Most remedies today range from 6X to 30X, but products of 30C or more are marketed.

A 30X dilution means that the original substance has been diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming that a cubic centimeter of water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the number of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times the size of the Earth. Imagine placing a drop of red dye into such a container so that it disperses evenly. Homeopathy's "law of infinitesimals" is the equivalent of saying that any drop of water subsequently removed from that container will possess an essence of redness. Robert L. Park, Ph.D., a prominent physicist who is executive director of The American Physical Society, has noted that since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth.



Oscillococcinum, a 200C product "for the relief of colds and flu-like symptoms," involves "dilutions" that are even more far-fetched. Its "active ingredient" is prepared by incubating small amounts of a freshly killed duck's liver and heart for 40 days. The resultant solution is then filtered, freeze-dried, rehydrated, repeatedly diluted, and impregnated into sugar granules. If a single molecule of the duck's heart or liver were to survive the dilution, its concentration would be 1 in 100 raised to the 200th power. This huge number, which has 400 zeroes, is vastly greater than the estimated number of molecules in the universe (about one googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes). In its February 17, 1997, issue, U.S. News & World Report noted that only one duck per year is needed to manufacture the product, which had total sales of $20 million in 1996. The magazine dubbed that unlucky bird "the $20-million duck."

Actually, the laws of chemistry state that there is a limit to the dilution that can be made without losing the original substance altogether. This limit, which is related to Avogadro's number, corresponds to homeopathic potencies of 12C or 24X (1 part in 1024). Hahnemann (homeopathy's founder) himself realized that there is virtually no chance that even one molecule of original substance would remain after extreme dilutions. But he believed that the vigorous shaking or pulverizing with each step of dilution leaves behind a "spirit-like" essence—"no longer perceptible to the senses"—which cures by reviving the body's "vital force." Modern proponents assert that even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the substance is retained. This notion is unsubstantiated. Moreover, if it were true, every substance encountered by a molecule of water might imprint an "essence" that could exert powerful (and unpredictable) medicinal effects when ingested by a person.

This part is by me:

An explanation of the "dilution" thing: Homeopaths use a method called serial dilution. A drop of the original substance, whether it's snake venom or sulphuric acid, is added to 99 drops of water or alcohol. Then the mixture is violently shaken by hitting the tube against a hard surface. It is believed by homeopaths this is a vital stage. It somehow transfers the healing powers from the original substance into the water itself! The result is a mixture diluted 100 times, so called 1C solution. You then take that 1C solution and dissolve it in another 99 parts and now you end up with a 2C solution, and so on. And this is where the conflict with science begins. For example, 6C solution is equivalent to one drop of original substance in 20 swimming pools, and 12C is equivalent to one drop in the Atlantic Ocean. The typical dilution is 30C, a truly astronomical level of dilution. The fact that the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, leads to a conclusion that in 24C or more solutions we don't have any molecules of substance left.


Hmm. Sounds like a pretty strange product.

I guess it'll work if you really believe it will, eh? The mind is great like that.

The Noodles

“Hey Dad.”
“Hey son.”
It was here, in a lowly hospital room, somewhere in the slums of Chicago, where Tony Stephenson came to see his dying father, Frank.
“Son,” came the weak voice of Frank, surely upon his deathbed.
“Yes father?”
“At the end of your life son, it won’t matter how many good deeds you did in your life.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, son. It won’t matter that you raised your family in love and righteousness.”
“Really dad? That’s odd,” replied Tony.
“Yes, son. It won’t matter how many people’s lives you saved, whether by untying them from railroad tracks, or taking bullets for them, or doing something truly heroic and selfless.”
“Really? That seems weird. That seems like it would be important—“
“SHADDAP WHEN I’M TALKIN TO YOU!” yelled Frank. It wasn’t really a yell though. It was more of a yell-whisper, since he was dying, you know.
“Sorry Dad,” said Tony.
“It won’t matter that you loved your wife to the very end of your life, and were completely faithful to her, and that you kept your promises,” Frank said.
“Gee,” replied Tony.
“Only one thing matters in a person’s life, Tony. One thing. Do you know what that one thing is Tony?”
“Uhh,” said Tony. “I can’t think of it. What is it?”
Frank looked his son right in the eye.
“Tony,” he said. “The only thing that matters is whether you eat enough of the noodles.”
“What noodles?” asked Tony.
“Son, the only regret in life I have is when I went to that one party when I was like, 22 years old. They had these really great noodles. I mean, really great. And this delectable sauce that you got to pour on top. Sauce, Tony! You got to pour the sauce on there yourself! If you wanted just a little sauce, you could choose to just put a little sauce on there. If you wanted more, well, you could have more. It was your choice. I ate one plate of these noodles.”
“Wow, sounds like some great noodles,” said Tony.
“Yeah, they were. Well, even though they were great, I still only ate one plate of noodles. I forgot to eat more of them. We got to dancin’ and havin’ a good time, and I just plum forgot to eat another plate of those noodles. When that party was over, I was taking your old mom home, you know we was datin’ then. And about halfway to her place, I realized something—I had forgot to eat more of the noodles!”
“Geez,” said Tony. “That’s uh…way bad. Bad? Is that bad?”
“You have no idea, Tony. I mean…usually when you like something, you eat more of it, but that was the first time I can remember where I actually didn’t eat more of something I really liked. Does that sound crazy to you son? Does it? It does to me.”
“Wow Dad, that is pretty crazy,” said Tony.
“Darn right, son. So crazy that I’ve never forgot about it all these years. It haunts me every night.”
“It haunts you every night? That’s weird. I thought that you’d be haunted every night because you killed Mom 15 years ago. “
“SHADDAP WHEN I’M TALKIN TO YOU!” Frank snapped. Even in his frail, dying condition, he was still Tony’s father, and Tony had to respect that.
“Son?”
“Yes father?”
“Go grab me some hospital noodles. Do it. Do it now! I think I’m about to pass on son. I can see the angels coming son! I can see them! They’re in this room! They’re coming son! Hurry!”
“No problem Dad!” said Tony, and he bolted out of the room to grab some hospital noodles, unable and unwilling to disappoint his old dad in his final minutes.
Tony ran down the hall.
Noodles, he thought. Gotta find noodles. Gotta do it for Dad.
Time was winding down.
He turned a corner.
No noodles. “Dang!” he swore. So he went around another corner. Yes! The food court! And a vendor, with a giant obnoxious sign across the front: NOODLES AND MORE! He ran up to the counter, where a young teenager was standing behind a cash register.
“Gimme some noodles!” yelled Tony.
“What kind of noodles?” asked the teenager.
“I dunno! Good ones! What kind of noodles do people like?”
“Well,” she replied. “The bowtie noodles have been pretty popular today.”
“All right, gimme those,” replied Tony.
“We’re out of the bowtie noodles,” she responded.
“WHAT THE CUSS?!” yelled Tony. “Then why did you tell me they were so popular?”
“I dunno,” said the young man. “I don’t know why I say a lot of things.”
“Gimme the next best thing!”
“Sir,” said the young man. “You’ll have to let me know what kind of noodles you want.”
“JUST GIVE ME THE GOSH DANG NOODLES!!!” screamed Tony, pulling a gun on the kid. Tony was an angry angry fellow.
“Geez! Ok ok, put the gun down. Here, take these noodles,” he said, scooping some noodles into a to-go box. Tony threw down a twenty-dollar bill, grabbed the box, then bolted back towards the hospital room.
Only seconds now.
Must get him the noodles, Tony thought.
Must not disappoint Dad.
He threw open the hospital door at last. “DAD!” he cried. “I got them! I got the—what the?”
The hospital bed was empty.
Empty? Impossible. It was as though no one had even been in the bed. The sheets were folded nicely, there were no wrinkles.
“But,” said Tony. “Dad. He was just right here.”
Just then, a nurse walked by.
“Nurse,” said Tony. “What happened to the man who was in this room? Just a few minutes ago?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Now you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got important business to take care of.”
“But there was a gentleman in this bed just a few minutes ago! Frank Stephenson! Do you remember?”
“Ahh yes,” she said. “Frank Stephenson. One of my favorite patients. Too bad he died last week.”
“Huh?” asked Tony, stunned. What in the name of Sam Hill…?
“Yeah. He died. Real interesting fellow. Too bad his kids never came to visit him.”
“Then...who was I talking to???” asked Tony.
“I don’t know, there hasn’t been anybody in this bed all day,” replied the nurse.
Then Tony stood there with a big wide-eyed look on his face, and some really mysterious twilighty zoney music started playing, and everybody was just like, way weirded out. And then Tony ate the noodles because he hadn’t had anything to eat all day.

"Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them."
                                       Dion Boucecault

Fish Tacos of Death: The Epic Poem

I ate a crumbly taco once,
it was full of fish.
I don't remember it being that crumbly,
as it crumbled in my dish.
And many a man, who likes his fish,
is often heard to say:
What happened to my favorite taco,
I loved in a former day?
For it is gross, and tastes like death,
I think I'll go be gay.

Stains of Gluten

 

Chapter 1

 

          Growing up, I’ve been taught, numerous times, that my soul is gluten free. My parents made sure to let me know, day after day, week after week. The conversations went something like this: we’d be sitting around the dinner table, and Dad would say to me, “So son…how was school?” “Eh,” I would reply, because I hated my dad and didn’t like talking to him. “You know son, your soul is gluten free,” he would say. “Wow, that’s great,” I would mumble, rolling my eyes. On another occasion, I was out on an oil rig, rigging some oil, and whatever other oil-drenched activities take place on an oil rig. On this particular day, I was so dreadfully covered in oil that I retired to my bedroom on the 3^rd floor of the oil rig, so that I might change my clothes. Upon opening my closet, I discovered my mom sitting there. “Mom, what are you doing here?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

         “That’s what I’ve been meaning to ask you, son!” she exclaimed, visibly upset. “It was only five years ago that you ran away from home. Won’t you come home, son? Won’t you?”

          I turned my back. How could I go home? How could I? How could I go back to that life I once knew, a life of drugs, alcohol, and stand-up comedy? How could I repair the damage done to all my family, my friends, and my pet iguana? And how on earth did my mom get inside my oil-rig bedroom closet?

          How?

          “I don’t know, Mom,” I said, the emotions swirling deep within me, whatever the crap that meant. My father, Jeremiah, was a very stern man. He rarely smiled. His only method of communication with me was shaking his head in disappointment, because that’s all I had ever been to him. Oh, and that time at the dinner table where he told me about my gluten-stained soul. That was an exception. Was it really time for me to go back? Was it really time for me to reconcile with my father, the only father I had ever known, the only father to have ever fathered me like a true father? Was it? I turned and looked at my mom. I stared into her eyes, those penetrating blue eyes.

          Do it for mom, a voice said inside of me. Do it for dad.

         “I’ll do it!” I yelled, triumphantly, lighting up my favorite cigar. My mom shed a tear.

          “I knew you’d come home, son,” she said, a smile on her face.

          “Whadda ya say you and I get outta here?” I said, putting my arm around her, drenching her in oil. Somehow though, the cigar lit all the oil on fire, and from there it was just a really really bad day, to say the least.

 

Chapter 2

 

          It’s almost 60 years later. I’ve grown old. Most of my face is gone from the day the oil-rig fire tore it all off. But I still look back upon that day and laugh. Old Mom sitting in that closet. How did she get in there? She always had a way of getting into your closet. I laugh again. “My mom,” I say to myself, smiling. It doesn’t really look like a smile, because, like I said, most of my face is burned off.

          I live in a rest home now. It’s hell. I hate the food, I hate the people, I hate the smell. The only thing that keeps me company is my television set, old favorites like “The Lawrence Welk Show” and “Matlock.” I push the “call” button every 10 minutes, but nobody ever comes to visit me. I haven’t had a visitor in at least seven months. You might think that crazy.

          This is my curse. And this is why when I get out of this place, I’m going to form a band called “Stains of Gluten”. Because all my life I’ve been deceived into thinking that there were no traces of gluten on my soul. But there are, my friend. There are! You know how I know? BECAUSE SOME CRAZY BEARDED HOMELESS GUY TOLD ME. Yeah! What do you think of that?! And this guy has already agreed to be the drummer in my band. Welp, I’ve got to go now. See ya.

Actual Story

Here's a real-life story and dialogue involving Holden Green that is sure to bring a "Oh Holden, you've done it again" smile to your face. This takes place in 7th grade, in the shop room of Mr. Gubler's shop class at Snow Canyon Middle School, at a time in life when I didn't know what certain body parts were called.

 

              Holden is stopped by Matt Miller and the always hilarious crackhead Travis Audia

 

Travis: Hey kid, do ya know what testicles are?

 

Holden: Ummm...yes.

 

Matt: What are they?

 

Holden: Uhhhh...(because he doesn't really know)

 

Travis: (laughing like skater druggies do) Ha ha! A ha ha! What a dumba**!

 

Holden: Heh heh! Yeah, I guess I am!

 

                                    The End

Quote of the Week?

 "Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second." 

Maurice Ravel

PAU!

HE'S SO UGLY AND SO HAIRY, OH MY GOSH. SOMEBODY PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE TO DEATH. DO IT. DO IT NOW. PREFERABLY FESENKO SO HE GETS SUSPENDED FOR THE REST OF THE PLAYOFFS. PLEASE. DO IT.

What Makes Us Human

Smart people could elaborate better than me, with all of their fancy scientific terms and such. Such is not me. I'm not as smart as smart people.

In the midst of my pondering this question, I've come up with a few possible keys to our uniqueness:

1) Agency?
           - Making conscious decisions. Do animals make conscious decisions? I don't know. From my standpoint, it seems like they're just...there. They have no goals to their decision making besides basic survival. Food. Sleep. Of course, this sounds like a lot of humans too.

2) Potential?
            - What we can become, through the sheer power of not only human will, but divine providence. A baby puppy grows up to be a dog. A bear cub grows up and matures into a bear. Nothing more is expected. A newborn child can grow up to be a Beethoven, an Einstein, maybe a Winston Churchhill, maybe a Michael Jordan. Some sort of individual with incredible physical, spiritual, or intellectual capacity.

3) Experience?

           - Not experience simply from operant or classical conditioning, but actually using our powers of judgment and decision to learn what we need to from an experience, and apply it to later similar situations.

4) Life-Span Perspective?

            - Perhaps this goes with experience. The ability to look at our past, present, and future, and to understand it all, what it means, who we are, why we are, what we've done with life, what we've learned, our place in the universe.



My biology professor probably wouldn't accept it as a valid rebuttal for "evolution by natural selection," but I think we're more than animals.

Comments are welcome.



    

Holden Unleashes His Rage

 

Herein lies the greatest tragedy of our times…

Many so-called gluten free products have been found to have been contaminated with gluten such as chicken bouillon, corn cereal, and caramel ice cream topping. For example, in a investigation reported by the Chicago Tribune on November 21, 2008, Wellshire Farms chicken nuggets labeled "gluten-free" were purchased and samples were sent to a food allergy lab at the University of Nebraska. Results of the testing indicated gluten was present in levels exceeding 2,000 ppm. After the article was published, the products were continued to be sold. However, after receiving customer inquiries, Whole Foods Market removed the product from their shelves over a month later. Wellshire Farms has since replaced the batter used in their chicken nuggets.   (Wikipedia)

WHY WELLSHIRE FARMS?! WHY?!

CURSE YOU ALL!!!

CURSE YOU WELLSHIRE FARMS CEO!

CURSE YOU WELLSHIRE FARMS VICE PRESIDENT!

CURSE YOU WELLSHIRE FARMS ACCOUNTS PAYABLE DEPARTMENT!

CURSE YOU WELLSHIRE FARMS ADVERTISING MANAGER!

CURSE YOU WELLSHIRE FARMS CUSTODIAL STAFF!

CURSE YOU GLUTEN, SUBSTANCE OF LUCIFER!

 

 

CURSE YOU JOHN AMAECHI!

 

CURSE YOU SCOTT PADGETT!

 

CURSE YOU ZIMMERMAN AND YOUR FILTHY TELEGRAMS!

 

Whew. Glad I could get that all off my chest.

Gloating over Gluten

Sometimes, your bundle of humor gets all wrapped up in ooey gooey spider-webbey stuff, and you wonder where your inner self went.

The Bolas Spider

CRAZIEST SPIDER EVER.




It's basically a monster.

ABSOLUTE BEST LYRICS EVER

The following lyrics are taken from the hit song "Water Night," a choral song by Eric Whitakre, which our Snow Canyon Madrigals sang in 11th grade at a choral competition. Hit it Whitakre!

(Italics have been added to emphasize those lines which are ESPECIALLY DEEP)



Water Night


Night with the eyes of a horse that trembles in the night,
Night with eyes of water in the field asleep
Is in your eyes, a horse that trembles is in
Your eyes of secret water.

Eyes of shadow-water,
Eyes of well-water,
Eyes of dream-water.

Silence and solitude,
Two little animals moon-led,
Drink in your eyes,
Drink in those waters.

If you open your eyes, night opens doors of musk,
The secret kingdom of the water opens
Flowing from the center of the night.

And if you close your eyes,
A river, a silent and beautiful current, fills you from within,
Flows forward, darkens you:
Night brings its wetness to beaches in your soul.

The end





HUH? A horse? That trembles? In the night? Two little animals dancing? In your EYES? WATER? IN YOUR EYES?! DRINKING WATER?!?! COMING OUT OF YOUR EYES?!?!?! WHAT IN THE NAME OF SAM HILL...?! And we sang this in front of judges?

The Maestro: Former WCW wrestler who would enter the ring via a descending platform, upon which would be him playing a piano. Then, from what I usually remember, he was assaulted by multiple wrestlers as soon as he got into the ring, and usually got the crap beat out of him. My favorite.

Holden's Rare Serious Reflections

I find it odd that critics of the church are so harsh and vicious in their accusations, that Mormonism and its precepts are all the product of "Joseph Smith's wild imagination," yet I would think, that to any non-Christian, Christianity itself seems pretty out there. Try to imagine that you're not a Christian, and altogether not too familiar with it. Somebody comes up to you and tells you to go get dunked underneath water (or have water sprinkled upon you, for that matter), because a god sent his son to earth 2000 years ago to suffer a horrendous cruel death and thus "save us from our sins."

As much as I believe it, it sounds pretty twisted.

Thus, I have the same kind of faith in the truthfulness of the church that I do in the fact that Jesus Christ died and was resurrected. Pretty sure those are two things that will ALWAYS have to be taken in faith.

I think that's what boils down to. Why it's boiling, I'm not sure, maybe somebody should take that pot off the stove.

Weapons at the Ready

Don’t be afraid to do battle.

The Johnny Chronicles: Episode III

Johnny, his wife Martha, and their lovable grandson Chucky were at Dixie Nutrition one day to pick up some supplements for Martha. Martha had come to that point in her life where her body had stopped producing all the things required to make it survive. She had also stopped putting into her body all those things necessary for survival, i.e. food. Martha approached one of the young teenagers at the checkout counter, obviously extremely versed in the ways of health food and supplements, judging by the wise ever-inquisitive look on his face.

"Can I help you?" the young man asked. He was so wise. How could he not be?

"WHERE'S YOUR PROSTATE PILLS?!" she shouted, not necessarily because she was mad, but because she was just old.

'Why, let me show you," replied the young man as he came out of the checkout area to locate the prostate pills.

"I NEED SOME PROSTATE PILLS!" she shouted.

"Honey, stop embarassing me," said her husband, the ever wise, ever-drunk Johnny. He had been so faithful to her all of these years, so loyal, so tender.

"Here are the prostate pills right here," said the young man, pointing to a particular product on the shelf.

"I NEED YOUR PROSTATE PILLS!" Martha yelled again.

"Um..." said the young man. "Right here?" He pointed again at the product, labeled in huge letters across the front "PROSTAMAX."

"ARE THEY GLUTEN FREE?!' she asked.

"Yes," said the young man. "Completely gluten free. Not a trace of gluten. You can rest assured that they are completely devoid of any gluten."

"I CAN'T HAVE ANY GLUTEN!" she yelled.

"Yes honey," said Johnny. "I think he understands that."

"HOW COULD HE UNDERSTAND ANYTHING? HE'S JUST A STUPID KID!" she shouted, oblivious to the young man's feelings. He bowed his head in shame. Tears began to well up in his eyes.

"Grandmammy, what's a 'Super Horny Goat Weed'?" asked Chucky, pointing to a particular product on the shelf.

"CHUCKY, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" yelled Martha.

"Martha, I don't understand why you need this product. You don't even have a prostate," said Johnny.

"I CAN'T HAVE ANY GLUTEN!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

They walked back up the checkout counter, where the young man stood patiently and lovingly waiting. "Will this be all for you today?" he asked, as there was a sparkle in his eye. "Yeah, that'll do it," replied Johnny.

"Oh, by the way, it's Senior Day today!" said the young man, so loving and so caring of them as customers. "You save three dollars on this product!"

Yay, thought Johnny. Privileges because I'm old. What a joke.

"GIMME SOME OATS 'N CREAM," shouted Martha, eyeing the yogurt flavors on the wall.

"We don't have Oats 'N Cream today, maam," replied the young man. Martha didn't say another word.

As soon as the transaction was completed, and Johnny had forked over 60 dollars, Martha, without warning, tore open the "PROSTAMAX" supplement and dumped the whole box in her mouth.

"Whoa!" said the young man, wide-eyed. "That's a lot of prostate pills!'

"HONEY! NO!" cried Johnny, as Martha swallowed the pills. Every last one of them. "What have you done Martha? What...have...you...done???" He looked more alarmed than ever.

Suddenly, the young man broke out laughing. Evilly laughing. This young man, who only minutes before had personified love, innocence, youth, and exceptional customer service, now only personified the very epitome of evil himself: Satan.

"Wha...what are you laughing about?" asked Johnny.

"I LIED!" yelled the young man. "I lied! Those pills were NOT gluten free! Now your wife will suffer a slow painful death, the kind of painful death that comes with eating gluten! Ha ha ha!"

Then he just kinda stood there and didn't really do anything. It was pretty awkward.

20 minutes later, Martha had some vomiting issues, some stomach cramps, a pounding headache, and a funny tingling in her left earlobe, but she ended up being just fine. In fact, that night, they ate a cake.

The Johnny Chronicles: Episode II

Johnny was out mowing his lawn.

It was a hot summer day. The sun was shining, it was hot, and it was most definitely summer. A typical hot, summer day. Believe it or not!

“JOHNNY!” cried Johnny’s wife from the patio, in her shrill womanly voice.

“UH, YEAH!” he replied. Distracted by his wife, he accidentally ran over a sprinkler head, hidden in the grass. There was a lot of noise, not pretty noise, that other writers would love to describe to you in a really lovely poetic descriptive fashion. You can go ask them if you want.

“EH, GARBAGE!!!” Johnny shouted in awesome fury as he turned the mower off.

Johnny’s neighbor, Jimbo, peeked over the fence.

“A HEH HEH HEH!” he laughed.

A man, wielding a briefcase and wearing a nice suit, came walking up the sidewalk. “HELLO THERE! I’M A BUSINESSMAN!” he said, coming towards Johnny. “HAVE YOU ANY NEED OF BUSINESS?”

“Why, yes. I do,” said Johnny, sticking out his hand to shake the businessman’s hand.

“JOHNNY!!!” cried his wife again.

“SHADDAP MARTHA!” yelled Johnny. “WE’VE GOT COMPANY!”

“It’s all right,” said the businessman. He was well groomed, well shaven. But in a way, he wasn’t. He had a cheery air about him. But in a way, he didn’t. He smelled like Cuban cigars. But he didn’t really. Johnny couldn’t quite put his finger on him. But he tried.

“Come here son,” said Johnny, sticking his index finger out to touch him. “Come here.”

“Sir,” said the businessman. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t put your finger on me.”

“Come here son,” said Johnny again, his finger inching closer to the man’s face.

“Sir, what are you doing?” asked the businessman, becoming quite alarmed. “What are you doing?! STOP! RIGHT NOW!”

“Come here son!” said Johnny, his voice becoming raspy and more vicious. His finger made contact with the businessman’s forehead, and immediately, the point of contact on the skin started to sizzle.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY HEAD?” cried the businessman, as Johnny’s finger began to burn a hole into the man’s head. “OUCH! MY HEAD!”

“JOHNNY!!!” cried his wife again. She sounded like a vulture.

“SHADDAP MARTHA!” yelled Johnny. “I’M BURNING A HOLE IN THIS NICE MAN’S HEAD!”

“JOHNNY, THE TELEVISION SET WON’T WORK!” she cried again.

“OUCH, MY FREAKIN HEAD!” cried the businessman in agony. At some point, he left, disgusted, not only because of the repulsive disgusting hole in his head, but because he was just plain mad. It was just another bad day.

 

                                                                          The End…?

 

The Johnny Chronicles: Episode I

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Johnny. Johnny loved beer. He loved it so much that he drank it at every meal. By little boy, I mean “45-year-old man,” and by loved beer, I mean “loved it so much he was a crazy drunk alcoholic guy that always beat his wife.” By “beat his wife” I actually mean “beats his wife at video games.” What, you thought this was a story about physical abuse? Impossible! As you can deduce, his wife was terrible at video games. Not just some video games. ALL of them. Every one.
Finally, one day, she snapped.
“I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!” she cried, throwing the paddle to the floor. Her drunken, yet loving husband, tried to console her.
“Honey,” he said.” It’s ok. Not everyone is good at Double Dragon: Rise of the Dragon Lord.”
“But I’m not good at ANY OF THEM!” she sobbed.
She was right.

                                                                            The End?

Flaw in the Logic

Many a broken-hearted teenage girl has heard the old proverbial saying, “No boy is worth crying over, and the boy who is won’t make you cry.” No one knows where or who this statement came from, but it’s hailed as one of the most wise profound quotations of our modern era.

Well guess what? I DISAPPROVE.

Why? Let me show you! Because if NO boy is worth crying over (so stated in the first segment), then why is the “boy who won’t make you cry” worth crying over? It doesn’t make any sense. Obviously no boy is worth crying over, but the boy (who is worth crying over?) won’t make you cry. No! No no no! TEENAGERS, STOP HEEDING THE FLAWED ADVICE OF THIS STATEMENT. STOP. THIS QUOTATION CAME FROM SOMEONE WHO DIDN’T REALLY KNOW YOU, DIDN’T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOU, AND FROM SOMEONE THAT HAS NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE GOING THROUGH!

I know what you’re going through! I know! Trust me! I have your best welfare in mind! You know I do! You KNOW I do! Teenagers, let’s reconcile our differences and be friends. How about it? Huh? Come on. You know you want to. Put down your drugs. Put down your video games. Put down your broken dreams and broken hearts, your shattered love and shattered knees, and be my friend. Laugh with me. Laugh at every joke I tell. EVERY ONE. Because every joke I tell is absolutely hilarious. Absolutely and unequivocally hilarious. So hilarious you will cry. And thus, the boy who IS worth crying over (me) WILL actually make you cry. With laughter. It’ll be great.

Here’s the joke of the day: My dentist got arrested last week for trying to pick up prostitutes! WAHAHAHA! Excuse me while I struggle to contain a bout of helpless laughter! Oh wait, that actually happened. What in the name of Sam Hill…?

UNTIL NEXT WEEK KIDS!

Beer

I used to find beer commercials hilarious, as many of us do, but then realized they're all exactly the same. The premise: Men are idiots, and prefer beer over women. I feel shamed that my gender is represented in such a distasteful way. Booo. Booo I say.

 

 

Ham

This page is such a waste.

Autobiography (Written in Adult Roles class, 2005)

It has often been argued that I was born on the 6^th of June, 1987. I came into existence on a cold summer day, not BREATHING for fetch sakes, so as you may be able to understand, I almost died. Be thankful that I am here writing this autobiography today. So I survived that ordeal for some reason. Sucker.

I was born into a family of three doofus brothers. The oldest is Ben. He’s married to a Japanese woman. She hates me with a passion, holy crap. But everybody else thinks she’s the biggest angel. Sheridan is after Ben. He’s arrogant and chews food really really loud. He also likes Bruce Lee, a deceased kung fu master who starred in many movies and made noises like chickens being slaughtered whenever he punched and kicked people. Nick is also included in the family. He grunts like a water buffalo and listens to EFY cd’s. My parents are silly, in the sense that my dad, a Skywest pilot, often goofs around with the other pilots when he’s supposed to be flying. This goofing around also includes taking pictures of themselves with KKK masks on. My mom is fun, my grandpa hates gay people and communists, and we are one big wacky family.

When I was in kindergarten, I had four girlfriends. FOUR!!! Nobody, looking at me today, can even believe this. It does make sense though, because after first grade, my girlfriend output just kind of went KAPOONK (that noise exactly) right down the crapper. These days, I hang out with hilarious friends wherein Person A is in love with Person B, but Person B is actually in love with Person C, so Person A, being the vengeful sort, often runs off with Person D, making Person E quite upset since Person A held her hand, but Person B actually just held hands with Person F, making Person C want to kill Person F, who recently made out with Person G a night after snuggling with Person H, in which Person I was made pretty upset. Pretty simple, you know?

The real purpose of life, though, is not friends, but goals. Future plans, if you will. The only plan I have in the future is going on a mission next June, and I pretty much CANNOT see what the crap will happen after that. Frankly, I don’t want to, because girls are evil and that’s pretty much what happens in life after a mission. However, I DO want to become a journalist of some sort in life, even though I am really really bad at journalism and everybody thinks I am such a good writer, while in fact I am scared to death of talking to people I’ve never seen before. Maybe I shouldn’t go into that field. Maybe I should just stick with my old goal of trying to win a million bucks somehow so I don’t have to worry about a future. Ha ha ha. Yeah, I tell you what.

Of course, life is not complete without influences. I have been influenced by the smell of gasoline, the smell of old people, the smell of airports…yeah, smell is a big influence in my life. If the school hallway smells like an airport, I can tell you exactly what airport it is. This can include St. George, Cedar City, Denver, Salt Lake, Pocatello…I know them all. Oh, and I’ve also been influenced by humans, such as church leaders. They teach me to follow principles and such that will ultimately make me happier in life. I have ALSO been influenced by my friends…for the WORSE that is! HA HA HA! They have taught me how to be a jerk and how to treat girls like objects. Of course, I don’t follow them. I’m not a sheep. I’m a mountain goat. Baaaa. Baaaa. This is Holden Green, signing off. You have a nice day.

July (2006)

       

   July is light...it’s a wholly illuminated glorious world, the days lazily going by under an unusually refreshing sun. July is an immaculate child...the comical, yet rebellious son of a very abusive alcoholic of a father named winter. July’s a month that’s always managed to pour some sunshine into my soul, so often darkened by gloomy steel-gray winters. There’s always been such an innocent grandeur about it, the way it lies halfway in between hell and hell again.

   It’s beautiful.  Swimming pools, full of hundreds of screaming hyper stinky children, including myself, don the pages of memories. Rain falls from a lightning-scarred sky and warms the bones, because, hey, it’s already hot out. In winter, the rain merely stabs and freezes.

   In July, there are trips north to the Idaho motherland, where countless good smells abound, crazy relatives are plenty, and every sight, every sound, and every angle of the sunlight is awash with memory. Memories of the birthplace I call home, where I’d like to return to for good someday. July is the annual Idaho Falls 4^th of July Parade, where my brother and I once watched in amusement the news reporters who, off camera, would frown and scowl like they wanted to blow somebody up. But as soon as the on-the-air button clicked, their faces would light up and the hatred would be gone. July is going down that same street and around the corner to Scotty’s, home of the world’s best burgers and shakes, or heading out on the freeway to Roberts to visit a very ancient grandmother at her farm. That place is home. July is home.

   Several summers ago there, I spent a good July with the aunt and grandpa. It was a summer of change, of sorts. My birthday landed me a new stereo, I became a Led Zeppelin fan, Sheridan graduated, facial hair sprouted, the “I Want to Get Away” and “Graduation” songs were popular, and I developed feelings for a female named Suzie.

   One particular scorching day, I wandered off down the street, in search of answers. Answers to questions I didn’t know. Therefore, they were not answers. They weren’t anything. A Rottweiler barked from behind a gate. Across the street, a bearded woman mowed her lawn. It may have been a man. Who knows these days. I can always recall that luscious stench of freshly mowed grass, a particular recurring thread for many of my summers in life. In another yard, underneath the cool shade of a cypress, an old couple held hands. They also smoked, which took away any beauty the hand-holding might’ve given the impression of. It was that summer, that July, that day, that I reached the canal at the end of the street, peering down into the rushing cooling darkness of the great waters. As a face, seemingly from another dimension, peered back up at me, I came to a conclusion about that July, and was inspired with an eerie foreknowledge of Julys to come...that summer, I realized that I was not a woman.

RAINBOW’S END (written circa 2005 A.D.)

BOOK ONE: THE RAINBOW COVENANT

1

"Rough first day, eh?"
The gruff, fearsome, yet gentle, voice of Chief Swift brought Joe to his senses. He’d been sitting at his desk, lost in thought, contemplating the day’s events.
"Have a smoke," said Chief, pulling out a Cuban Montecristo. Chief wasn’t young. His 18 years here at the station had taken a weathering toll on him, not to mention five Cubans a day. If you weren’t smokin, you weren’t livin, he always used to say. It was evident that he was slowing down.
"Thanks," said Joe, taking the stogie. He then proceeded to eat it, confused at what to do.
"Nah, nah, like this," said Swift, pulling out a lighter and igniting the end of it as it dangled in Joe’s mouth. He inhaled his own smoke, then puffed it out with satisfying vigor. Joe had much to learn. The first day being a cop was never an easy job. Joe’s first partner, Rex Snider, had gotten a few shots taken at him as they tried to bust up some Columbian druglords. Snider assured him, after, that the job would only get tougher. He then offered him a smoke.
Chief Swift plopped down on a couch by the door of the office, letting out a deep breath. He reeked of breath. "So uh..." said Chief, looking around the office. "Got any kids?"
Joe shook his head. “Yeah, a couple a little buggers. What about you?”
“I don’t talk about them,” he replied coldly, catching Joe off guard. He pulled at his collar and gulped. “Yeah, pretty funny,” said Chief Swift. “New funny guy at the station, eh?” He laughed.
“Heh…heh,” laughed Joe hesitantly. Adjusting to Chief Swift’s zany humor was going to be a whole new adventure in itself. If not, he would end up like the other five cops who didn’t adjust. They had been fired…literally. This station was not for the weak.
Chief Swift pulled himself off the couch. “Here,” he said, tossing another Montecristo onto Joe’s desk. “It’ll help you sleep.” With that, he headed for the door. He opened it, then stopped and turned around, noticing the name-plaque on Joe’s desk. “Joe Rainbow, eh? I like it,” he said. Then he turned and vanished out the door.
Joe lit up the cigar and shoved it in his mouth.
“Joe Rainbow…” he said, studying the plaque. “I like it.” After several puffs, his eyelids grew heavy, and sleep came upon the rookie cop within a matter of seconds.

2

COCKADOODLEDOO!!!
The cock crewed.
The execution was about to begin.
In the early evening sunlight, a raucous crowd gathered in the town square of Beaver Dam.They'd all had several drinks, and the party was beginning.
"BURN HIM!" came the shrill cry of a woman. Her face was twisted, her body contorted...an ideal woman. "BURN HIM!"
Seconds later, the prisoner appeared, being dragged along by two gruff men. They led him forth through the mob. "SCUM!" cried a four-year-old child, throwing a toilet at him. The prisoner grimaced as the bidet pelted him. Another object flew through the air and hit his face. He wasn't sure what, as he was now numb to the pain. Probably just a Buick, he supposed.
Then it was a ham sandwich. The mob roared in triumph. The prisoner, humiliated, pulled a grenade out of his pocket. "Take this FAGS!" he yelled, yanking out the pin and hucking it into the crowd. An explosion rocked the town square, body parts and ligaments flying every which way. The rest of the crowd roared with laughter. The guards strengthened their grips on him and dragged him to the platform in the middle of the square, and threw him down. He spit out some grass.
"BUMBLING FOOL!" cried a Hell's Angel, chucking a Harley motorcycle at him.
Right then, the executioner appeared. He was nicely dressed, with a speedo complimenting his soft midsection and a lunch sack on his head. In his hands, he carried a stout ax. It gleamed in all its glory. The executioner marched up to the platform. He was slightly menacing.
"BURN HIM!" cried a man in a business suit, shaking his briefcase. "BURRRRRN!"
This thoroughly confused the executioner, as he was holding an ax. As he pondered this turn of events, somebody started playing the triumphant theme song to the hit film Independence Day.
"WHAAA?!" cried the executioner.
"Look up there!" yelled a child in a sexy evening gown, pointing to the sky.
"Annnd...CUT!" cried the director from behind the crowd. "That was just total crap!"
There was silence from the angry mob for several seconds. Then, a shout rang out.
"BURN HIM!" came the cry. The crowd roared in triumph as the director of the movie they were supposed to be filming was brought forward and burned.
Joe Rainbow had been watching the scene from his office window, not a block down the street. He grimaced, pained for his town. The lawlessness of Beaver Dam was just out of control. He vowed, then and there, to clean up this crime dump.

3

“HELL!”
The kids froze in silent shock as their Sunday School teacher answered their question…Where is Lyndon B. Johnson now?
As they pondered this turn of events, the door to the room burst open, and in came Joe Rainbow, everybody’s favorite deputy sheriff. He stopped, pulled out his .44 Colt, and fired several shots into the air. The children screamed and plugged their ears, and the Sunday School teacher (his name was Corporal Brown) dived to the floor.
“HELL!” he cried again. It was the only word he knew how to say.
“Yeah, well,” said Joe Rainbow, lowering the smoking gun. “I’m looking for my wife.”
“HELL!” cried Corporal Brown.
Joe Rainbow, discouraged, exited the room.
It was a beautiful spring day outside, but no one cared. There weren’t any happy people out wandering around saying, “Golly it’s a beautiful spring day!” No sir. Everybody was suffering from clinical depression. Not even the most beautiful butterfly, which was the very epitome of springtime itself, or a bowing daffodil, could raise anybody’s spirits. Only methamphetamine. And that was enough for Joe Rainbow.
Just as he had promised on that fateful day so long ago, Joe began to clean up the crime dump of Beaver Dam. He built schools. He washed the graffiti off the orphanage and then painted pretty pictures of sunshine, little children, and little happy frogs. He had every prison inmate executed, and went around to schools, lecturing them on the importance of going to college.
Through non-violent resistance, the most effective method, Joe Rainbow achieved a rank among all those historical figures who fought to protect even the most basic of human liberties. However, one day, he was showing his friends how cool it was that he could choke himself until he passed out, and then he died, and everyone was way confused. Thus…was Rainbow’s End.

The End