Last night I had a weird dream guest starring Bernie Mac. It was a little bizarre. Cool, but bizarre.

I almost made a horrible mistake last night. Some friends of mine asked me if I wanted to go and see Spider-Man 2 last night at 12:01am. I did, but then I remembered what happened the last time I went to the movies on a work night, I decided not to go. I didn't feel like I wanted to stay up until after 2 am just to get up at 6 am so I could be at work by 7 am work until 3:30 pm then go to school from 4 pm until 7 pm. Even worse, the class that I have today is my ethics class. I'd hate to go on less than 4 hours of sleep. I hate going to it even when I've had 6+ hours of sleep.

Also, part 2 of the unofficial Fahrenheit 9/11 transcript is now available.

Normally I wouldn't post two times in one day, but I read this on AndrewSullivan.com and thought it was hilarious (we're talking about Fahrenheit 9/11, still):

FAHRENHEIT TEDIUM: Well, I broke down and went to see the Michael Moore movie. I was expecting to be outraged, offended, maddened, etc etc. No one told me I'd be bored*. The devices were so tired, the analysis worthy of something by an intern in the Nation online, the sad attempts to blame everything on Bush so strained and over-wrought even the most credulous of conspiracists would have a hard time giving them the time of day. (read the rest)

If you're interested, I found a transcript of the first half of the "documentary". The second half should be posted later today or tomorrow.

* I added bold to emphasize what I thought was funny.

I know that it's stereotypical for men not to listen. My wife is constantly telling me she's told me things, but I don't know if she has because I may not have heard her say them. I know that she repeats things that she's already told me because she didn't remember whether she's told me or not. Most of the things she says that she's told me I don't remember hearing, but because I don't listen all the time I don't really know what she's told me and what she hasn't. For all I know she's already told me that she's going to play mind games and tell me that she going to tell me that she tells me things that she hasn't. The problem is I probably wasn't listening when she told me.

About something important: I AM THE TACO EATTING CHAMPION!

Last night I managed to beat a co-worker of mine in a taco eatting contest. While he stopped at 12 tacos, I was able to eat 14. Thankfully, I didn't get as stuffed as I did the last time. The last time we had to stop at 12. My co-worker says he could have eatten more and that he LET me win. I guess we'll never know. We'll more than likely have a rematch because he can't just lose because he lost. I don't believe that he lost because he wanted to, he lost because he COULDN'T win. Next time I'll remember to bring the camera so you can see me stuffing my face with tacos.

Now about Michael Moore again...

Thanks to MooreWatch.com I've got some moore recommended articles for you to read about America's (apparently) favorite movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. These are quite interesting:

Andrew Ferguson's article at Bloomberg.com

Mark Steyn's article at The Telegraph

Thomas Frank's article as published in Newsday

Then when your done, check out this article from The Boston Herald. I liked this one, too.

I'm a fan of MooreWatch.com. I was disappointed yesterday when I couldn't get on the web site. Apparently, the website was attacked by "Moore-ons" (Please be aware of possibly offensive language).

What a weekend. It was my wife's birthday on Friday. I cooked her a nice dinner. It was fun. Now about something that's really irritating me right now...

Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 opened up this weekend and ended up being #1 at the box office. I must personally thank the good people of the U.S. for blowing up Mr. Moore's ego. It's already larger that it should be. We gave him an Oscar. The French gave him the Palm d'Or. He's had a few #1 bestsellers. Why? I don't know. The man is a liar and a hypocrite. As far as I'm concerned, he's no more of a liar than those who run the country. He accuses President Bush of lying to America, then he turns around and does the very same thing. He can put his spin on anything better than any politician. Sounds like he should run for office. If he's as persuasive as he says he is, he'd be a shoe-in.

Even Moore obnoxious, before the film's release, Mr. Moore supposedly had non-partisan fact checkers check and recheck all the facts shown and presented in the "documentary". Though he's presented a lot of facts in this movie, he's also left a ton of facts out (I suggest that you read Christopher Hitchens' article as posted on The Slate. It's pretty interesting). Along with the fact checkers, he's hired a team of lawyers so that he can sue those who accuse him of lying, stretching the truth, etc. Does this not seem wrong to anyone else? If Michael Moore is so pro-free speech, why is he trying to shut up his critics by threatening them with law suits? If he has the right to his opinon, why is no one else entitled to theirs? It doesn't make any sense to me at all. Mr. Moore has even stated that this is an Op-Ed film with a clear agenda: to inspire people to vote Bush out of office. This movie is HIS opinion. It just seems funny that we're not supposed to dispute his opinion. We're just supposed to take it in and believe it. I thought he was against that? Hmmm...

If anyone who has seen this film has any sense of what the truth is, they'd realize that this film is not the whole truth.

Also, doesn't anyone else find it funny that this "man for the people" is donating a penny to the families of 9/11? For someone who hates it when people are exploited...

It's nearly noon and I'm still half asleep. It's also my wife's birthday today. I'm still trying to decide what to do for her today. Thankfully I have all day to think about it.

I have to drop my car off at the dealership so they can look at car. The check engine light won't turn off. I don't really want to leave it there all day, but I guess I'll have to.

Work has been relatively boring today with some excitement. I don't really care to go into the exciting part of work today because it only pertains to my job.

A guy at work and I have been discussing music for the last hour or so. It's been interesting.

I have to go to class tonight. I hope I get out early because I still have a few errands to run.

I bought Wilco's A Ghost Is Born yesterday. I'm not sure what to think about it yet. I'll decided what I think when I listen to it all the way through.

Yesterday was full of surprises.

I found out that a friend of mine is getting married. Trouble is, the potential family really doesn't know what to think of her. Right now, it seems that their opinion borders more on dislike than anything else right now. This could be a potentially crazy situation. The family is in disbelief. The father doesn't even know yet. He doesn't really like her, so the potential groom is the one that's going to have to tell him. Even crazier, no one saw this coming at all! They didn't even act like they were really dating. I'm still in shock. They won't be getting married for a while, so we'll see what's going to happen. Will it last? To be continued...

My car is driving me nuts. Last week I had them check out my car because my engine light came on. After doing a full diagnostic, they determined that the reason the light was on was because the gas cap wasn't on tight enough. They tightened it and the light went off. The problem was gone... or so I thought. On my way to class yesterday, I looked down and noticed that the engine light had come back on. When I got to my school's parking lot I took of my gas cap and put it back on and made sure it was on tight... several times. The light was still coming on when I turned on my car. I tried several times to tighten my gas cap but the light still wouldn't turn off. Maybe it's the gas I put in it? Who knows? To be continued...

I failed to report yesterday that my wife finally named her guinea pig: Pigwigeon. It's named after Ron's owl in the Harry Potter series.

I got my ethics quiz back from the other day. I didn't do as badly as I had anticipated. My grade still wasn't great, however. Thankfully the quiz we had yesterday on Utilitarianism was pretty easy. I'll be surprised if I missed any of the questions on it. He also included 10 points extra credit. I'm pleased that I at least had the chance to redeem myself.

Tomorrow we'll be having a quiz on Kantianism in my ethics class. We talked about Kantianism yesterday, but I was so tired that I just wrote down a few notes and page numbers. Everything else just kind of went in one ear and out the other. I'll be studying for a bit tonight.

If all goes to plan, I should be heading over to Best Buy after work to pick up Wilco's new album A Ghost Is Born (click link to preview). I've heard that it's good (I haven't had the chance to preview it myself, unfortunately), but weird. I think I'll like it. This will be my first Wilco album. I only own certain songs that I bought off of iTunes. I love those songs, so wy won't I enjoy this new album? We'll see...

I left work three hours early the other day in order to take a nap. I wish I could say that my nap help me to recover from my late night, but it didn't. Though a few days have passed since my late night, I still haven't fully recovered. I'm still dead tired. Even worse, I have a quiz today in my ethics class. I just can't get a break.

Yesterday was father's day. I got my dad the soundtrack for A Mighty Wind. He seemed to be happy about that. Unfortunately, my wife & I spent $20 on that CD. We had to buy it at Borders (which is always overpriced) because they didn't have the disc at Best Buy. It should be against the law to sell CDs for more than $15.

Wow, I'm even more tired today. I went to the drive-in last night with my wife and another couple. It seemed like a great idea yesterday. I didn't get to sleep until after 4 am. I had to be at work at 8:30 am. I should give myself a pat on the back.

I'm tired today. I couldn't sleep last night. Also, there was a pretty loud thunder storm last night. Thankfully, I didn't have to be at work until 8 am this morning (I usually go to work at 7 am). The crappy thing about going to work so late is that I have to stay until 4:30 pm. I don't really want to be here at work today. I have to work tomorrow. I don't want to go. On the bright side, I should be able to get some studying done. It'll be slow tomorrow at work. I can't wait.

I had to write a paper for my intro to short story class today about "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. If you haven't read it, you should. It's strange, but good (plus, you need to understand why I think I'm so clever). It start of my paper, I decided to use a lyric from Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women": "Everybody must get stoned." Read the story, then you'll understand why I chose that quote. I found it amusing anyway.

I was talking about the peacock this morning at work and somone else said they had seen it too. I'm glad someone else has seen it too. Now I can confirm that I'm not crazy.

My car didn't blow up while I was driving it to school yesterday. I took it to the shop this morning. Everything is fine now. My car shouldn't blow up any time soon (if it's not provoked).

My day seemed pretty normal, but then something bizarre happened...

As I was drving home from running a few errands earlier today, I saw a peacock on the side of the road. Yes, I said a PEACOCK, as in the bird with the huge tail of feathers. I wish I had had my camera with me. It was weird. I guess someone lost it or it had escaped from someone's backyard. That would not surprise me, because I was driving in the nice part of town. Even so, you don't drive through the city of Wichita and expect to see a peacock outside of the zoo wandering along the side of the road like a lost dog. It just doesn't happen. I'm still trying to figure out why someone would have a peacock.


Archive Photo: Sr. Benicio's peacock, not the one I saw today. Benicio was a guy I met in Brazil. His family had a peacock (Don't ask me why they had one, because I don't know). 

For the few of you who do read this, I did stop my car and try to do something about it. I was going to try to return it to its owner(s) but when it saw me it ran into the bushes and trees on the side road and disappeared. I must have looked like an idiot searching for that elusive peacock. I didn't see it again. When I realized that I probably wouldn't find it, I got back into my car and drove away. The end.

I'm driving to work this morning and I notice that my "check engine" light is on. After I got to work, I called the Saturn service department. I told him what the problem was and the guy on the phone asked me if I had checked my gas cap. I said no. He said "9 time out of 10 a loose gas cap is the reason that light comes on." I checked my gas cap. It wasn't loose. I unscrewed my gas cap anyway and tightened it again. It didn't change anything. It's just my luck that it wasn't the gas cap. I will be taking it into the shop tomorrow. Luckily my car is still under warranty so I won't have to pay for anything. They told me the problem isn't serious, so I'm hoping my car doesn't blow up while I'm driving to school.

I took my ethics quiz yesterday. I don't believe I did very well. I thought I was prepared... but I wasn't. I really loathe that class...

Ending on a good note, I got my Gmail account. It only cost me a Ben Folds Five single.

This here is my desk at my office. Cubicles are great. 

This is my wife's guinea pig: She-Who-Has-Not-Been-Named. 

I have an ethics quiz today (which I forgot that I had today). For some reason I was thinking that I didn't have my ethics class until tomorrow. I don't know why I was thinking that! I'm freaking out about my quiz for some reason. I'm sure everything will be okay in the end.

I'm pretty excited that I will (if all goes according to plan) get a Gmail account (thanks to GmailSwap.com). Gmail is an awesome free service that offers 1gig of space. It is currently by invitation only. Thanks to GmailSwap.com, you can offer stuff (or to do stuff) for people looking to give away their invitations. I'm offering someone a Ben Folds Five single.

My wife and I bought a guinea for my wife's birthday (which isn't unitl the end of the month, by the way). I've never had a guinea pig. She's pretty fun and has crazy fur. My wife hasn't named her yet.

Until later.

We were supposed to have had a moment of silence for Ronald Reagan at work today, but that didn't happen (by accident). The moment of silence was supposed to be at 10:30am cst and nobody told us. Calls stopped coming in at about 10:30am and everyone was confused. Was there a problem? No one knew. It wasn't until 10:37am that we received an e-mail telling us about the moment of silence.

Apparently, the person who sent out the e-mail was told that the moment was supposed to be at 11:30am. She didn't realize that whoever sent the e-mail meant eastern standard time, not central.

"Stoß mich baby noch ein mal!"

I got paid today. It should be Friday. It's not. Sometimes I don't like working in an office. It's boring. I sit in a cubicle. I talk on the phone. I fax stuff. Fun.

Word.

What was my problem yesterday? I have no idea...

(I really wonder if anyone actually reads this blog. Probably not. This is more for myself anyway.)

I went to my short story class yesterday. It was pretty cool. The class gets to choose its own short stories to read. I have to pick 2. I haven't decided what we'll read yet. I need to find something cool. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's class, because we'll be watching Tim Burton's Big Fish.

I read the assignment for my ethics class today: I have no idea what I read. I didn't understand any of it. Hopefully the teacher will be able to interpret it. From what I hear, our professor hates the book, so his interpretation should be interesting.

Word.

Our team at work was awarded Team of the Month. Awesome. We now get to park in the choice parking spots. Other than that, work has been, well, work.

My summer semester of school began yesterday. I get to take eight weeks of ethics and intro to short story. If all goes according to plan, I'll be a sophomore by the end of the summer. I'm very excited about that.

The downside to all of this is that I have to be at work by 7am everyday (except Friday). I'll be very tired by the end of the week. Who am I kidding? I'm very tired now!

Not about school, but about church. On Sunday, someone got up and announced to the congregation that his wife has lung cancer. He was very casual about it. He shared with everyone how he was dealing with it (I would hope that he discussed this with his wife first!). It didn't really add anything to the meeting. I'm not trying to be insensitive or anything by saying this, but I am in no way close to this family and I felt that it was inappropriate for him to do that.

People, sometimes, tend to tell you too much information. This is especially true at church where everyone is considered family. That doesn't mean you should share information that's meant for your family and close friends. This is a pet peeve of mine. A couple weeks ago, someone told me that they had been having a hard time that week and had tried to kill themselves. Wow. Did I really need to know that? I had just barely met that person. Maybe I needed to know about someone's ongoing family feud, their dead mother and why they don't have anything nice (except their Palm Pilot)? Or maybe I needed to know that someone else is going to have a vasectomy? I think people, before they speak, need to, first, try and determine if they know me well, then determine what I should know (if I should be told anything). Sometimes, they should just keep certain things to themselves.

Based on experience, some people (especially those at church) don't know how to handle tragic news. A while ago, a missionary from another ward (congregation) passed away while on his mission. This is the way it was announced (I kid you not): "...We will be playing volleyball this Friday night at 7:00pm... by the way [John Doe] from the [other ward] died on his mission. We'll be having a ward activity next Saturday..." A friend of ours, who was close to the young man who had passed away, had somehow not heard the news directly from anyone. She left the meeting in tears.

Word.

I purchased The Cardigans' most recent album Long Gone Before Daylight on Friday and I saw Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban on Saturday.

I highly recommend Long Gone Before Daylight. It is an amazing album (much better than the last two, First Band on the Moon and Gran Turismo). If you decide not to buy the whole album (which comes with a bonus DVD, by the way) and go the iTunes route, I highly recommend the songs "Communication," "Live & Learn," "For What It's Worth," and "You're The Storm." Honestly, I recommend buying the whole album. It's worth it.

I thought that Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban was the best Harry Potter movie thus far. I really enjoyed the direction of Alfonso Cuaron, though I wish he didn't have to condense certain things and leave out others. Cedric and Cho were not introduced in this film (as they should have been), but I'm sure they will be in the next film as they play very important parts in the book. In spite of that, I really enjoyed the film. It's too bad that Alfonso is not going to be directing the next film.

Word.

I watched the last two episodes of The Office yesterday. I was frustrated by the because there was no closure. Everything was left unresolved. I have to wait until October (the 25th to be exact) when the Christmas specials are released on DVD to see the end of The Office.

Tomorrow I'm going to see the new Harry Potter movie Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban. I've been reading about how great it is. I hope it's not a let down.

In other Harry Potter news, I stumbled upon J. K. Rowling's web site. It's got a lot of cool Harry Potter updates on it.

As reported by CNN, John Kerry made a visit to the Vietnam memorial on Memorial Day.

In more important news...

I was surprised to learn about what really happened on Memorial Day when John Kerry went to give a speech for a bunch of school age children at the Vietnam Memorial in D.C.. The whole story, to my dismay, was not aggresively reported by the media as it should have been.

To summarize the story, John Kerry became upset when Ted Sampley, a Vietnam veteran and head of the Vietnam Veteran's Against John Kerry, was heckling the Massachusetts senator as he was speaking to some school children. Rather than handle the situation like an adult, he gave the middle finger to the vet. If you don't believe it, you can also check out the report in The Washington Times. There are also confirmed news sources that were present.

To be fair, though, you can check out the history of Ted Sampely as viewed by some Kerry supporters here.

Another surprising article that I read was also about Kerry, but it was also about his
connection to 9/11. This is very plausible. Afterall, he is the senator of Massachusetts.

I'm not really surprised that none of this was reported by any of the larger news outlets. I'm disappointed, really.

I think it's going to be a while before I can sit down and watch the first season of The Office again. I sat down and watched the first season for the third time yesterday. I still think it's very good, but I'm subconsciously memorizing all the words. That doesn't make too much sense, because I am very aware that I am memorizing all the words.

I am very, very tired today. It's only 9 a.m. and I'm bored out of my mind. Work isn't very exciting.

I bought the Shrek 2 soundtrack and Ryan Adams' Love Is Hell the other day. Both are very good. I especially like his version of Oasis' "Wonderwall". It's probably even better than the original.

I was reading the Wichita Eagle's opinion line and became annoyed. Why? Let me quote it for you:

"It's official: Shrek is more popular than Jesus Christ."

I want to make it clear that I hate the opinion line. It is the most useless and irritating feature in the Wichita Eagle. It's function is to allow people to get their opinions published in the paper. Unfortunately, hardly any of the opinions that get published are rational or well thought out. Most of the opinions are ignorant or, to be blunt, stupid.

Now about the above opinion: obviously this reader is upset that Shrek 2 is making more money than Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ. I don't think the remiter of this opinion took much time to try to understand why that might be.

At the time The Passion was released, someone said that they saw it "being a devout Christian." That really annoyed me. Why? Because I am a devout Christian and I don't think I'm less of one just because I didn't see Gibson's film adaption of Christ's crucifixion. I am literate (that's not why I didn't see the film) and I can read it for myself in The Bible.

I saw Shrek 2, but not The Passion. Just because I saw Shrek 2 and I didn't see The Passion doesn't mean I worship Shrek. He didn't pay for my sins.

It should be noted that the Shrek movie was made for a much broader audience. It's movie for everyone. Though Christ's love is for everyone, I'm sure the film is not. It's bloody violent and deep. For a powerful movie that is short, moving and to the point, watch The Lamb of God. It is amazing and, more importantly, truly family friendly.

Word.

It 's official! The world's greatest rapper, Ma$e is back! My world was left pretty cold when he left the rap industry to become a preacher. I'm glad that I can get on with my life now. Whatever.

*** SUMMERLAND SPOILERS BELOW ***

My wife and I sat down last night and watched a new show on The WB called Summerland. My verdict? Mediocre at best. Plot: Kids from Kansas lose their parents in a flooding accident while trying to save people who live in "the valley". I live in Kansas and, last time I checked, there are no real valleys. Apparently, the "experts" agree. Regardless, the parents die and they die as heroes.

My question: why do the kids have to be from Kansas? Why not Nebraska or Oklahoma? I can only assess that the reason they are from Kansas is because the creators of the show believe Kansas to be a stark contrast to California. Or maybe it's because, stereotypically, Kansans live in the world, but they don't have a clue about it. That's unfair and untrue.

The children's parents willed the kids out to their fashion designer aunt rather than to their uncle. The aunt lives in California near the beach with three other people (2 men, 1 woman). The aunt is obviously single and her life is unstable. She just quit her job and was about leave for Paris with her best friend when she heard the tragic news of her sister's death. She doesn't understand why she was chosen to have custody of her sister's children (see plot for Raising Helen).

The three kids, the 16 year-old boy, 13 year-old girl and 9(?) year-old boy are all having a hard time dealing with their parent's death. The oldest boy, with some coersion and a hot female instructor, takes up surfing. Inevitably, the kid developes a crush on her and when he sees her with another guy (one of his aunt's housemates) he goes into a drunken stupor. I didn't quite understand this, considering the values his parents supposedly instilled in him(Then again, he was making out with some girl pretty heavily in his room earlier in the episode and his mom didn't even notice). Obviously, we can see that problems are begining to develope.

The girl is a brat from the begining and she stays as such until the end of the episode when she (unrealistically) decides to stop being one. The youngest child spends most of the episode trying to commit suicide, so he can give himself to his deceased mother for her birthday. The kid doesn't understand the whole death thing and no one bothered to explain it to him (until the end, that is).

I wouldn't really recommend this show to anyone. The writing is not very good, the acting is questionable and the story is cliche. I wouldn't consider this one a hit and it will be lucky if it can survive until the next month. I know I'm already saying goodbye to it.

Previews for upcoming episodes show situations that are reminicent of The OC. That bothers me. I like The OC, but it's the fact they're blatantly copying the show in order to emulate its success. There is a lack of originality on television.

Really what it boils down to is that I need to quit watching T.V. and get a real life. Not like this one.

Word.

I hate Rod Stewart. Why do people think he can sing? He can't. Luckily, I don't hate all things from the United Kingdom (Rod is Scottish). I like Monty Python. I especially like The Office. Very funny. I not only like it because it's British, but because I work in an office.

I had a really good Memorial Day. I went to a picnic, ran errands, painted a wall in our room, went to Wal-mart a few times, watched The Office, visited my wife's grandmother, cleaned the apartment and ate pizza.

Like I said, we visited my wife's grandmother yesterday. I didn't really want to, because I knew she'd find something for me to do. That's what she does. If you visit her, she finds a chore for you to do.

Because we were in the area, we went and visited my wife's grandmother. We were there for about 10 minutes then she said, "I know what you can do for me..." as if she had been searching for chores that she wanted done. The special chore that she found for me to do was to put a table crafts together for her. Luckily for us, the table was in the trunk of her friend's car and her friend was nowhere to be found. Because I'm nice, I told her I'd put it together for her today after work.

I didn't go straight over to her house after work. I was exhausted and stressed from work today. I wanted to let mullet man (that's my mother in-law's cousin) put it together, but his elbow is broken and I wasn't going to go back on my word.

I went over to her apartment this evening and put the table together. It was too exciting. I had all the parts stewn out all over the living room floor. She sat and watched me. I couldn't help but feel like someone had conned her into buying this table. I think there's a group of men who meet in a secret room somewhere who invent crappy products for the elderly. To make the buyer feel patriotic, they slap an American flag on the box, call their company, for example, AmeriCo, but the product is made in China. Sad.

Anyway, I put the table together in about 30 minutes. She let me take the box back to my place so I could throw it in my apartment complex's dumpster.

I really like my wife's grandmother. She is really nice, seriously. I'm not being sarcastic. Really.

Word.