This is what happens when you get rid of cable

You miss the amazing metamorphosis of pop punk princesses!














When did this happen, America?! When?!??

"Who the TRUCK hit me?!"

Exacatly!!!

Alright as a throw back to days of yore when I blogged because our appointment caledar was devoid of...uh appointments, I'd like to introduce you to a little blog called:

YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!

You may or may not know this, but last week I wrapped up my last "road warrior" experience ever (well, as an admissions counselor). While touring back and forth across America, trading rental cars every other week and filling my belly with endless supplies of Hampton Inn sludge-coffee I've learned a thing or two about how to stereotype people by the type of car that they drive. I know that some people will poo-poo stereotypes under the rally cry that not every similar person fits into the same self-imaginied cubby hole. Those people are stupid...all of them. So throwing caution to the wind, I want to share with you about what I've leared about people simply by looking at their cars!!!!

Our first car specimen...THE HUGE TRUCK!!!!

I was driving around with Carly once and saw someone driving this massive hunk of steel which is apparantly supposed to have some utilitarian purpose like towing boats, cranes, other cars, whathaveyou. I remarked on how completely unnecessary it was to have a Huge Truck, to which Carly responded "Maybe they need it for something useful". After spending hours times hours on the road, and seeing hundreds of these Huge Trucks, I've debunked Carly's hypothesis that they are actually useful for something. These cars are useless wastes of space on the road. There are really 3 main people who drive a Huge Truck:

1) Well off, but confused retirees who have something to prove to other road-dwellers
2) Not well off, but-as-equally-obsessed-with-something-to-prove middle aged men
3) Morons (can also include 1 and 2).

The Huge Truck is completely unnecessary. If I had a nickel for every time I was cut off by one of these Trucks with the sticker of a Calvin and Hobbes-esque character peeing on Osama Bin Laden, or a rival high school, or a whatever I'd have about $8.35. The only people who drive these cars are people who have bought into the ever present consumer lie that the bigger your car is, the better you are as a person! Is it any cooincindence that the opposite tends to be true? The Huger the Truck, the smaller the person (in character usually...not in stature). The Huge Truck serves no purpose save to eat gas, be shiny, and take up two parking spaces at 'The Derr'. It's so effing stupid. No one uses these trucks to do work! The only people who actually use their trucks to do work are people who have trucks that look like this: Yeah, now there's a truck!

NEXT UP...THE SATNEOVALIER!!!!
The what?!!?! you are asking? If you are as perceptive as I think you are, you've already picked up on my lampoon and are laughing to yourself. If you are still confused, let's do some simple addition...add all 3 of these cars together and what do you get?!?!


The SATNEOVALIER!!!!!

I combine all of these cars into one for a number of reasons. First of all, when you were a kid in 10th grade remember that guy/gal who turned 16 and their parents immediately bought them a car? They went around bragging about how sweet their new ride was. When you finally went to see their car after school, remember how you about doubled over laughing because they were driving a saturn/neon/cavalier?! HA! I do! This is the stereotypical first car. After my travels on the road I am 100% convinced that the ONLY people in America who drive these cars are people between the age of 16-22. The upper end of the spectrum only have their car because they've carried it on through college. Young kids own these cars, and they drive like they are freaking invincible...which is odd because if you look at a Saturn wrong it breaks apart. Another reason why I'm sure that only 16-22 year olds drive these cars are because they are arguably the most oft 'customizable' car on the road! Look!
They look ridiculous hahahah!!! Picture this familiar scene: You've been stopped at a red light and you hear the echo of a whistle-tip come screeching down the lane. You whip your head around to see what amazing machine could make such a mellifluous purr. As your eyes search in vain for a Ferrari or Mercedes AMG, up rolls a Cavalier with the actual word "Cavalier" stenciled on the top of the windshield. Of course there's some teenager sitting in the driver's bucket seat, Marlboro blazing, giving your car the most condescending look ever: "Psshhh whatchyou got? A Honda Accord Coupe? Psshhhhhman I've got a Saturn/Neon/Cavalier with a body kit. I'm rollin' in stylee". You stare blankly at the kid until they screech off, giving you a eat-my-dust view of an oversized tailpipe and Calvin flicking you off (and peeing on a 'Ford' emblem). If you drive a Satneovalier, you are 1) too young to know anything about life and 2) a moron.

NEXT UP!!! THE MINIVAN!! (yay it opens!)

The mini van. I think those Americans who do NOT own a mini van have an inherent aversion to owning or operating a mini van...and for good reason. The only people I've ever seen driving mini vans are (oddly enough) old people or moms. Either way, if you're cruising around town and get stuck behind a mini van, you can bet your sweet cheeks that you're going to be slowed down. I still can't figure out if mini vans are assembled with a governor on the throttle, or if owning a mini van makes you a less competent driver. But regardless I've never been driving around a mini van doing at least the speed limit. The people driving mini vans are always distracted, always lost, always hanging around high schools, and always giving me a hard time. I've seen a countless frustrated mother tossing her head two and fro in the mini-van. It's like you can see the words "Look at the kids! Look at that car! Look at that speed limit sign! Look at that street sign! Look for gas! Look at the kids!!" etched all over her panicked face. Maybe driving a mini van is just more stressful than driving a regular car. Who knows. To the credit of the mini-van driver, I would guess is if you've got this or that in the back seat it might be a bit harder to concentrate.

Finally, as a throwback yet again to WHY I started blogging, let me tell you about the bane of the road, the hellion of the highways...

THE SEMI TRUCK!!!!!

Yeah, real freaking classic. If you see a semi truck approaching your car you can automatically take two things as a given: 1-the semi truck driver has little concern for your safety and well being and consequently 2-whoever is driving the truck has no soul whatsoever. Semi trucks, and semi truck drivers (the two are often inseparably linked. The heretofor mentioned 'semi truck' and 'driver' will now only be referred to as the 'semi truck') are a staple of the open highway, and also an ever present reminder about the wickedness and degeneration of mortal man. Semi trucks hog the road, slow down traffic, tear up the streets and sidewalks of little towns, and then act all indignant whenever you try to pass or go around them. In all of my travels throughout the United States of America, I've never been in a state where semi trucks were cordial, shared the road well, or were easy to drive around. Semi trucks everywhere are awful. I could go on and on about how much I hate these metal death harbingers but my blood pressure is rising, and I know that I'm preaching to the choir. Semi trucks are hellspawn.

And there you have it ladies and gents! In sweeping brush strokes I have endeavored to tell you a little bit more about the sociological breakdown between Americans based on their automobiles. I know some of you will disagree with me but I just want you to remember this: I'm probably right and you know it! Minotaur!!!!

an addendum to communication

From a man far more intelligent than I will ever be:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horor and a corruption such as you now meet, it at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all of dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilazations-these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry and snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and is in fact the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner-no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him Christ was vere latiat-the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."


excerpt from C.S. Lewis's essay, "The Weight of Glory".

Just so things are in perspective for us.

sometimes it's ok to kill people

Look at this, people of America. This is an exceprt from the mother of Zaccharias Moussaoui in regards to how she feels her son is being treated:

Aicha El Wafi, who returned to France earlier this week, said the trial was a masquerade that did not prove her son's guilt, and she accused the French government of not fighting hard enough for him, saying it did not want to oppose the United States.

El Wafi, dressed in black, was emotional and nervous as she spoke with reporters a day after the jury in Alexandria, Va., decided to send him to prison for life without a chance of parole, and she repeated over and over, "This is terrible."

"I share the suffering and the pain of the parents of the victims. I'm with them," she said.

"I feel like a part of myself is dead, buried with my son, who is going to be buried all of his life at 37 years old for things that he didn't do. Because he spoke too much," El Wafi said.

She called her son a scapegoat, adding that the life sentence imposed for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was worse than the death penalty.

"Now he is going to die in little doses," she said. "He is going to live like a rat in a hole. What for? They are so cruel, they were wrong to want his head. They should have gone all the way to the end if they were capable"


You know what Aicha? I completely agree with you. A jury found Zaccharias Moussaoui guilty on accounts of conspiring to injure/kill Americans, found that he was involved in the terrorist plot of September 11, 2001, that he sought entrance into this nation in order to gain knowledge to kill citizens of this nation, and that he has never showed an ounce or remorse for his particiaption in said plot's success. For involvement in arguably the most heinous crime committed against America during peace time, this man will get to live out the rest of his life...just like you and me. In fact, we're going to pay an estimated $100,000 a year to keep him well fed, well read, well exercised, and well protected from prisoners that might (for some odd reason) want to harm him.

And now his mother is going to complain about his sentence? His mother is going to go to bat for him despite that he himself acknowledges his involvement in 9-11, and despite the fact that a grand jury found him guilty of such crimes? She's going to cry that he's going to be treated like a rat? She's going to go so far as to say that she "is with" the families of those whose deaths her son relishes...that he grief is comparable? I vomit on this woman and I vomit on Zaccharias Moussaoui.

For my tax dollar's worth, I'd kick in a couple of bucks to fund the expediture on ammo that a firing squad may need to do its work.