Chips

This is just the appetizer. I'm too tired to write a post. However, there is a post coming tomorrow. This post just exists to let everyone know what I'm back from scout camp, and that scout camp was crazy crazy good. Big post detailing that tomorrow and all.

So, yeah, it's been a good week. How's all your weeks been? I leave the valley for 6 days and things go crazy. Oh well, it's all good.

Anywhom, this is Christopher Thatcher, all tired and all. I'm the canoeing king of the world, that's pretty cool. Tomorrow is Sunday, Sundays are good. I've got a few good ideas for the blog, I'll roll them out sometime this week.

So, this next week I really gotta work on that homework. I gotta get some frisbee propaganda worked out as well. It's gonna be an adventure. There's a very loud duck/goose somewhere around my house quacking at us all. It's 12:16 AM, go to bed you crazy feathered animal.

Yeah, alright, g'night all. See you tomorrow. Maybe some paint for you if I feel like it, maybe some more story. Tell me what you want to hear, I'm a man of the masses. G'night.

cigam eonaC

Hey guys. I'm at scout camp. But I'm posting through the magic of canoes. More on that later.

As for now, some quotes that I really really like, with analysis.

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."
- Edward R. Murrow

Perhaps my favorite of the quotes I've discovered recently, I really agree with this. The truth is, no matter how respected you are, how many people hang on to every word you say, you're just a person in the end, apt to make mistakes like the rest of us. Just because people listen to you doesn't make you smarter than them. Just because you wrote a book about war doesn't make you the authority on warcraft mr. sun tzu. In the end, you're a dude, even if people listen to you. Remember that, don't let power go to your head.


"Anybody who wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office."
- David Broder

Why would anyone want to be president? That much responsibility? Not for me, no thanks. I am a pretty confident person, I'll be the first to admit. I'm an egotistical windbag, it's true. But really, I don't think I'm qualified to run this country. It'd take a seriously confident person to be willing to compete for that responsibility. Anyone who thinks they're that good is probably a little crazy anyways. However, I do have loads of respect for all the presidents that we've had. I'm sure they're all brilliant and whatnot. Yeah.

"Many would be cowards if they had courage enough."
- Thomas Fuller

You said it Thomas. This struck me. Sometimes, there's absolutely no shame in running away. Running away is a valid strategy that's been in use for thousands of years. There's running away in The Bible, there's running away in France, there's running away everywhere we go. The truth is, sometimes it's smarter to run away than it is to stay. In situations like this, there's no shame in running like a little girl. However, some people are way too afraid of being cowards to do it. They're too afraid to be considered afraid. C'mon guys, being a coward is a valiant choice sometimes, at least the way I see it. Therefore, don't be afraid to be a coward. Go Thomas go.

"All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance."
- Edward Gibbon

Everything in life can be likened unto running. As long as you're getting better and practicing, things are great. As soon as you stop working hard, you begin to degrade. If you're not constantly practicing and pushing the bar, you're going to start declining, even if it is ever so slowly. You can't stay the same. If you stop practicing, you go down hill very fast. Don't stop running. Take that and apply it to the rest of life. Don't stop math. Don't stop science, don't stop thinking and dreaming. Keep up the good work.

"The truth is more important than the facts."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Take that one as it is. Think about it.

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
- Anatole France

Thank you Anatole. It goes back to the first quote. Dumb things are still dumb. Dumb people are still dumb. It doesn't matter if it's widely accepted, it doesn't matter if everyone is doing it. Dumb things are still dumb. Getting your tongue pierced is a stupid idea. Even if everybody does it.

"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them."
- Mark Twain

Easy one, very true.

"Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before."
- Edith Wharton

Edith got me on this one. I'm afraid of what's been done before, I hate the unoriginal. But this gives me hope that there's a brighter future out there. It's ok to like someone else's idea. It's ok to use it, just don't plagiarize it. Build on it, grow with it. They keep improving the airplane, but the wright brothers are dead. Way to steal their idea boeing, nice one.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
- Soren Kierkegaard

ecivda doog.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
- Richard Feynman

Perfect example: The legacy highway. Delayed forever for some wetlands, some environmentalists. Now, I'm all for preserving our environment, that's very important. But c'mon, I think this thing is necessary, it's gonna make everyone's life easier. So where does the trade off become fair? Where do we stop and say "ok, it's time to go for public relations and ax the improved coat rack." When do we get to say "See you later Castro, i can hang 40% more coats on this thing."

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."
- Mahatma Gandhi

You've got to appreciate Gandhi. He's just so pimp. He's oldschool, genuinely valiant. Never one to fight, never one to be the bad guy. He got things done old school, the classics. Gandhi is amazing. He speaks the truth in this one. No single raindrop is responsible for the storm. Whether it fell or not wouldn't change the outcome of the flood, my basement is still filled with mud. But then again, if no raindrops are responsible, where does the flood come from? oh right, the raindrops.

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities."
- Aldous Huxley

Well stated Aldous. Couldn't have put it better myself.

"Go big or go home."
- oldschool (I don't know)

We didn't come here to lose. We didn't come to be a bunch of pansies. We didn't come to go home without giving our all out there. Really, there's no reason to give anything but our best. I really believe that. If you're going to do it, give it 100%. You can't get away with only 90%. If you're gonna do it, you better do it. Go big or go home. No halfways. No almost's. No sorta's. It's go time.

"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion."
- Abraham Lincoln

Brilliant man that Abraham Lincoln was. What is it that makes this statement so universally applicable to us all? Why is it that we truly do feel good when we do good? That one's up to you to decide, but either way, Honest Abe knew what he was talking about. Guaranteed, when you do good, you feel good. When you do bad, you feel bad. Guaranteed.

"It's not what you look like when you're doing what you're doing, it's what you're doing when you look like you're doing what you're doing."
- Express Yourself - Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band

A winding sentence. My second favorite quote on here, it came from a song. What you look like doesn't matter, what they think doesn't matter. What matters is what you're doing. Are you doing what's right, or what's wrong? That's the important question. Anything else is trivial really.

So there you have it. I hope everything is well back in the valley. Chances are scout camp is going well. Things are crazy, but good. Good luck everybody, I'll see you all later.

Blogaday day 8: Life Theory part I

Day 8. Score it.

It's 1:31, terribly late. Why am I writing? Because I like it.

So, this one won't be too terribly long for you guys, but I think it's going to be quality. I'm going to start a new segment on this here blog, and it's going to be called life theory. The plan is to document and talk about the philosophies that are really big and important in my life. The ones that affect the way I make decisions. Hopefully they'll be deep, it'll be interesting to write about them for me at least. I'll add more as life goes on, it'll come every once in a while. Because of the way I am, they'll have alot of religious ideas behind them. You're just gonna have to live with it.

First off, I make no apologies for this stuff. The reason that the philosoblog is no longer in use is because I hated how arrogant I sounded on it. Like I was so certain of everything. Well, I know now that I don't know everything, I'm trying to be a little more "this is what I think..." instead of "this is how it is." However, this stuff is reverting back to the way things are, not how I think they are. So, keep that in mind, I'm not trying to be a dictator, it's just easier to write that way.

You guys are free to disagree with any and everything I write. Just know that this stuff goes deep in me. It's not just something that I sorta think, it's what governs alot of choices that I make. So, without further ado, I give you Life Theory number one: The right choice.

I think life is all about choices. That's the one thing we've always got, choices. In the end, choices are the one thing nobody can take away. When you're 60, you might have a great car, or you might have a crappy car cause your boss laid you off. You might have a great set of teeth, or you might have been poisoned by a spy. In the end though, it's not your teeth that are going to matter, or you car. It's your choices. Why? Because choices are fair.

To make things easier, I'm going to classify two types of choices in our lives. One is going to be direction choices; choices that change the direction of our lives. The choice for me to run cross country definitely changed the direction of my life. The choice to join the swim team, had I taken it, would have changed my life as well. Both of those choices are great choices to make. I'd suggest them to anyone.

The second type of choice is a maintenance choice. These are choices that you face everyday, and are based on the directional choices that you have made in life earlier. Examples would be "go to practice, or not go to practice." or, "eat the peanut butter and jelly, or eat the ham." They're easier choices, littler choices, and generally overlooked.

The main difference between the two is that with a maintenance choice, I believe that there is always a best choice, whereas with a directional there might not be. Cross country vs. swim will make a huge difference in my life, but they're both going to be good for me. Go to practice vs. not go to practice, well, go to practice will make my life better.

Now that that's taken care of, on to some real business.

I believe that there is always a best choice to be made in maintenance choices. Even if it is a trivial thing like what to eat, you can always make a good choice, a medium choice, and a bad choice. Sometimes medium isn't in there, but the point still stands. You can always choose the healthier food, the better idea, the safer route.

I also believe that every time we make that 'best' decision, our life is better for it. Every time that I choose to go to practice instead of not going to practice, things get a little bit better for me.

On the flipside, I believe that when we make the 'less good' choice, we don't necessarily have terrible consequences, but we lose whatever good things would have come from making the 'best' choice. It's not a "you're gonna die if you don't go to practice." It's more of a "You're not going to have that extra kick if you don't go to practice."

So, what does this really boil down to?

According to what I believe, in order to have the best life, one should always strive to make the best choices. The great thing is, I believe that we all know what's right and what's wrong, I think we know it deep down. Therefore, if we could always think and know what is right and what is wrong, and always choose the choice that is 'righter' or better, we would be better off.

This also means that I disagree with anyone who says that life is going to be better if they cheat just this once, or if they go do this stupid thing so they'll have the experience to tell their kids. The way I see it, life is always better and easier if we make the right choices. Making the wrong choice will never lead to a better end than making the right choice would.

That's not to say that you're screwed if you make a wrong choice, or that good things can't come from it. When we make the "less good" choice, we generally learn from it. Truth be told, we're not always going to make the "right" choice, and it's our job to learn from the times that we don't. If we were to refuse to grow from making the wrong choices, we would cease to progress in our lives.

Yea verily, that's it to the basics. Is my life going to be better by cheating? No. Is my life going to be better by sluffing practice? No. Will life be better if I just do a crappy job cause I'm going to get an 'A' anyways? No.

You know that feeling you get, when there's the easy way, and it looks so great, but you know that something inside you tells you that it's for suckers? Well, c'mon folks. What's going to be the better choice here? The one that looks easy and produces the 'same' result according to you, or the one that deep down feels a little better? I go with deep down.

So that's number one. There's a good answer for every maintenance choice. Directional choices are different, they're much more confusing. I think there can be two equally great directional choices presented for you. I also believe that there are times when there's an obvious good direction and an obvious bad direction. Jazz band vs. Junior choir? tough call, both are great. Go to Youth Conference or go to soccer tournament, well, I say youth conference. But of course, that's just me.

I tell you what, it's alot easier to take this and explain it as a blatant religious deal. I haven't done that hear, if you want the religious version, ask me about it, we'll have a discussion. That's something I want to start doing again, scripture study with friends. We did that a couple times last year, and we had some good discussions. It's nice to be able to talk about it, because alot of times in social settings we all feel that religion is taboo. No Nick, this one's not for your benefit, it's for mine. Truth is, religion is a huge part of my life, and it's hard to talk about me as a person without getting in to the religious side of things. So, moral of the story is, don't be afraid to talk about religion. Don't be afraid to ask about religion, I love to talk about it.

-The end-

Yea verily, make good choices.

So, the end of blogaday version two. A pretty good success I think, no complaints. Not as much variation as I would have liked, I wanted to get a little more creative. But I still think it was good. It's made me want to write alot more frequently. I hope you guys have enjoyed it, thanks to everyone that left comments. Those of you that didn't... well, I like you guys too I guess.

Just not as much.

Haha, it's 2:15 AM. I've got to be awake in about 3.5 hours. Lucky for me, I had a huge nap. Therefore, I bid you adieu for now. Expect new posts tuesday and thursday. As for me, I'm out of here. G'night everybody, good luck with this next week. I wish you all the best. Cya.

Blogaday day 7!

What a day to fold.

It's late. It's always late. Trouble with it being late is that I'm tired.

So, here's the thing. It's day 7. That's the last official day of blogaday. But really now, tonight is not the night to conclude this. Tomorrow night, that's the real time.

So, you get a blogaday day 8. Consider yourselves lucky.

Yeah, I made a flower in paint. Why? Cause I felt like sketching something.

We didn't really have practice this morning, which thing I'm very grateful for. Practice would have killed me. I was so terribly tired when I woke up, I felt like crawling back into bed and dying. Luckily only 3 people showed up, and we all felt like falling over, so we just called it off.

So then I came home, went back to bed, and woke up at 2.

I didn't get the things done today that I wanted to get done. I needed to get done packing for scout camp, I needed to go riding, and I needed to go to a party. I did none of these things.

My ulna hurts. It got severely jacked up today.

Hmm. Scout camp next week. That means I'll be gone for the whole week. Lucky for you, I've devised a way to post beyond the grave. So, expect updates next week. How cool is that?

Wow, I'm tired, and tonight's been rough. Yea verily, I'm going to bed. have a good one all. G'night.

Blogaday day 6!

whoosh, just one day left.

This one is going to be short. I've got CC practice in 6 hours. Wow, need more sleep.

So let's talk. No reason for the small news. Swimming was real fun this morning, I loved it. The greatest feeling was when we went to great harvest afterwards though. Me, Selck, and Jared decided that we were gonna go get free bread. We hopped in our cars, cruised over then, and walked in. We felt a little akward just asking for free bread, it's hard to do. We're all nice little good kids who don't wanna be moochers. The task fell on me to inform the nice lady why we were there.

Her: "Hi, what are you guys in the mood for today?"

Me: "Hey, (Smile) we sorta feel like being moochers today."

Her: "Oh yeah?"

Me: "Uhh.... yeah, so we were thinking, that you could help sponsor the Taylorsville cross country team by giving us free bread. Yeah."

Her: "good deal."

See, here's the best part. She gets paid to be friendly and nice and give us free bread. So really, even with all my great smoothness, we would have ended up with free bread. Good thing, cause I'm not good at this whole "social" stuff. I really can't carry on a conversation with a girl, lets face it.

But really, it was great, because we had just worked pretty hard at practice, had a ton of fun just messing around, but when we were all done, tired, and beat, we decided to go get free bread. It was so great to just be able to do that. Without a worry, we just drove over there. Carefree as could be, we got free bread. For just a little bit, things were perfect. Standing outside great harvest with my wet shorts still on, eating my sunflower whole wheat slice with butter and honey. It was overcast outside, I love overcast. A slight breeze, making jokes with Selck and Jared. It was really good times, I loved it.

Sometimes things like that just happen. Where life is all the sudden perfect for a little bit. Maybe you don't really realize it right at the time, but nothing is wrong right then. You're just happy to be alive. You breathe a little deeper, smile for just a little longer. Things are perfect standing outside great harvest, tired legs and lungs, wet shorts and wet hair, that slight little breeze playing along your ankles. I just wanna breathe it in, it was great.

So that's my inspirational idea of the day. Sometimes things are just perfect. A little bit later they're not gonna be, and that's ok. You've just gotta love and appreciate those moments for what they are. You can't really try to make them last longer than they're supposed to. But it's a nice little gift, use it, love it, and remember it.

Mmmmmmmm.

Frisbee tonight was good, it was a different night though. It was windy, and wind does weird things. Some people play better, some people play worse. I play worse.

Some people had great nights, others had harder nights. Everybody has hard nights though. It's sorta just what happens. Sometimes your throws just don't work, and that's alright. You accept it, move on. It beats you up, but you know that there's always going to be next week. There's always another chance to redeem yourself.

I love how many people love frisbee. I remember in Junior high I was always trying to get people together to come play. It never really worked out, we weren't good. I felt like i was trying to force it on everybody, all that jazz.

And so I sorta felt like that a while ago, when I was making another big push. Trying to get everyone to come play, trying to make us great. I kept telling people to come, all that jazz.

But really, people are coming of their own accord. They want to be there. They love it as much as I do, it makes them happy. They look forward to it, they get their own rides to it. They show up after work, before work, instead of work. They're coming out of the woodworks. And it's not because of me, it's because of how cool ultimate is. It's a great sport. These people want to be there, just like I do. It's a great group of kids, and it's just gonna keep getting greater. We're always open to new people showing up, we're generally pretty nice to them. Sometimes we're a little mean to the locals, and I feel bad about that. But the important thing is, they love it too, it's not just me tricking them in to it. That's a good feeling.

Blogaday. What a crazy ridiculous adventure. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. Ratings haven't gone up, that's for sure. It all runs together in the end.

There was an interesting phenomenon this evening. First off, you must understand that I love driving, especially at night. I love driving around when there's not too many cars around, and you're just going. You're not speeding, you're just sorta driving. You know that eventually you're gonna get home, but you're not in any real rush. There's nobody behind you making you feel stupid for driving slow. You're just moving along, and it's nice.

So, I'm driving home from frisbee around 11:30, and listening to the radio. I'm not too much of a radio-guy, I don't like the ads much. I don't like alot of the music. So I'm sorta surfing around, and I find one station that is playing the old school love song that they always use in the movies. Whenever they want someone to be dancing in 1960 in the movies, they're playing this song. So, I'm moving along these abandoned roads, cozy in my reliable minivan, listening to this song. And really, for the first time in a really long time, I started to feel a little romantic. I don't think that's the right word, it wasn't what I was looking for, but it's the best I could do for now.

But anyways, for the first time in ages I wasn't all "Love is a waste of time." Now, I'm not exactly all "love is a waste of time" all the time, but I haven't been too keen to run around searching for a significant other. The way I see it, life is pretty good right now, and there's no reason for me to go around changing that.

In short: I haven't liked anyone, or had the great desire to like anyone for a long time. Driving in the car tonight, I didn't start liking anyone, didn't feel the need to start liking anyone. But for a little bit there, I started to remember what stuff like that felt like. To shed off a few layers of the old bitter and lazy heart and feel good for a while. Sentimental, maybe that's the word.

Anyways, it was really nice. Cool music, good times. I really enjoyed it.

So what's the news? the news is that it's bed time. G'night all, this is Christopher Thatcher, signing out of blogaday day 6.

Blogaday day 5!

Is it really day 5, or day 4? I think it's 5. I'm too lazy to check, so happy day 5!

It's getting much later than I'd like it to be. Very recently I've been endowed with the realization that I need more sleep. I've finally been feeling responsible enough to go to a bed at a decent hour when I know I've got a morning practice the next day. It's been nice though, more sleep means a healthier me. Case in point: I should have been to sleep a while ago.

I've suddenly become a little bored with writing this. I know, it's only been a paragraph. But do you ever feel like I'm writing the same thing over and over again? I sure do. Never any new writing styles, never any new news. It's all the same in the end:

• Recap of frisbee friday
• invitation to next frisbee friday
• Cross country woes
• Cross country hope for the future
• Random thought of the day
• "but really, things are good" paragraph
• Some closing remarks

So there you have it. Sorta getting tired of it. Maybe it's just blogaday wearing me out. I need to think of something original, and fast. Maybe a little paint will lighten the mood.
















Sorta fun.

I was really lazy today, and that doesn't feel too great. I don't like being lazy, I like to be able to look back at a day and think of how much good stuff I did. Therefore, tomorrow I'm not going to be lazy. I'm going to go work really hard at cross country, and I'm going to get some history done. I'm going to play raging at frisbee, and not be lazy.

I went on a little bikeride by myself tonight. I really really enjoyed it. I went on the parkway, on some of the routes that we run alot as a team. It was amazing to see how fast I flew through the scenery, how quickly I got to the end. Runs that take an hour took me no time at all, it was a pretty good feeling. I went out just after sunset, so by the time I got home it was dark. The temperature was just awesome, everything looked nice, smelled nice, was nice. It was a quality ride. I'm gonna start going on more rides after practices and stuff. It's decent exercise, and it's just really relaxing. If anybody wants to come, what the heck, come along.

Why does America smoke? I don't think that we should. The world would be a much better place if the tobacco companies were all dead. Sure, it'd be a big hit to the economy, but it'd make the whole world healthier. I honestly believe that the tobacco companies are evil, I'm not going to beat around the bush. I'm sure there are some good honest people that work for them, but I'm really confident that the people on the top are evil. How else could they peddle a product that is ruining the world?

That's the next step. We've got to erradicate smoking. Little steps. Sure, smoking is a pretty big step. But really, the national guard has gotta go blow up some buildings or something. That'd make the nation's average lifespan go up 5 years. That'd make everyone smell alot nicer. We'd run faster. Our brilliant thinkers would live longer and think clearer. In all seriousness, what's the deal with smoking?

Oh right, it's ruining the world.

With no offence to smokers or whatever, don't come blow up my mailbox. Just, really, c'mon now. I don't understand it. I love my lungs. I'm never gonna smoke. I wish that our country didn't.

How about a little more paint?

















I sort of like that one. Don't know why. But it's an adventure.

So, the whole fiction thing that's been making the rounds has been pretty fun. I've enjoyed reading it. Until recently I've stayed out of it, but it's just too much fun to pass up. Last thing I wrote was of terrible quality, but I had a very good time writing it. Therefore, I'm embarking on a new little journey. I don't know how this is going to turn out. This is simply an experiment. I'm doing this for a couple reasons.

One, I've got a few more blogaday days to fill up, I need junk to fill with.

Two, heck, if I've got to write I might as well have fun with it.

Three, why not?

So here we go. Don't expect anything. But first, a disclaimer.

Most stuff sucks. Not really and all, life is still good, but most stuff just generally sucks. That's the whole idea. You can't have the good stuff without the bad stuff. What makes good writing good? Well, it's better than the bad stuff. What makes an athlete fast? he's faster than the competition.

So, most stuff sucks. When one of my friends makes something good, it's cool, and unexpected. The truth of the matter is, I expect most writing to suck.

However, everything I've read recently has been good stuff. Nick's saga has been intriguing, courtney did some really cool stuff involving chocolate, and what I've read of Jaron's was pretty accurate. To be short, I was surprised.

I exist to make them look good. Score it.

Water, day one.

Hey, I'm Paul. My name might change, it's temporary. My parents are.... weird.

I woke up this morning with a beard. A big one. For years and years I've longed for such an immaculate piece of face-decoration, and all the sudden it finally showed up. I went to bed last night looking like a pre-pubescent teen girl, and woke up a man worthy to wrestle a bear. This thing is beautiful, this thing is pimp. This thing makes me look oldschool.

Something is going on around here, something big.

Things just aren't quite right, today has been off. You know that feeling when you walk into a room, and everybody looks at you with that weird look, and all the sudden you know that they're about to tell you a family member died? That one piece of news you missed because you were at work when your aunt called? Yeah, it's not that sort of feeling.

Right now, I'm not even sure what kind of weird notion I'm getting. But there are some serious vibes out there, and my giant beard isn't getting half of the attention that it deserves.

I mean, c'mon. It's huge.

I showed up to school 8 and a half minutes late. I'm always 8 and a half minutes late. I don't know why, it's just a little more comfortable. As I walked to class, I was planning my triumphant entrance. I'd fumble with the knob for just a moment, let the class turn their heads expectantly to the door. With just the slightest pause for dramatic effect, I'd hold my breath, then rush the door open and reveal my new face-friend. There would be stares, there would be gawking, and with any luck there'd be a little bit of giggling. The plan was golden.

So I'm booking it along the hall, running my fingers through this ridiculously huge beard. Every minute I was getting prouder and prouder of this thing. For the first time since I had peed my pants in the cafeteria I was going to stand out. Things were going to be great with this beard.

The doorknob approached, my heart was beating like the drummer from the junior high band when he forgot his pills. I took a moment to calm myself, to prepare to enter into a new phase in my life. Finally I'd be respected. I'd be the only kid in school with legitimate facial hair who wasn't named Juan or Raul. I was gonna be known, respected, even feared. No more would I be obscure, no more would I sit in the back of the class to be ignored. It was time to face my destiny, to rise up and become what the fates wanted me to be. I was to burst through those doors, stare my lame and frequent bed-wetting past in the face and say to it: "Hey Jerk, I've got a beard, girls know my name. I'm through with you, I'm moving on to glorious golden pastures. Fast cars, free meals, and facial hair."

I realized then that this was a big step for me. Free meals? I didn't doubt it, a beard of this magnitude hadn't been seen in Forthwood county since 1832. My heaven-sent neck protection was going to change the way this town was run. It was going to clean up this joint. I could be mayor, I could be manager of the arctic circle. Things were about to change.

I gave the doorknob the premeditated quiver. A pause that seemed to last for eternity, and when I could stand it no more, I gave it another preliminary tease. My heartrate, erratic and unsteady as the attention-spanless percussionist shot through the roof. A deep breath.

It was time to face my destiny.

A power not my own thrust the door aside. I was bathed with the glorious shimmer of the florescent light tubes that adorned the chemistry room. Framed in the doorway I stood, my sleek beard sending dazzling reflections on the walls. I needed no bling, for I was bling incarnate. There I was, prepared to lead my people to freedom. To deliver the oppressed, to rise up and ascend the throne. I was graceful, I was strong, I was steady. My pose was impeccable, my entrance flawless.

The dull thud of oak door on rubber stopper echoed through the silent classroom. With a stunning flick I turned my head from it's heavenward pose to inspect my soon to be subjects. I knew that once they saw the new me, they'd fall in love instantly. Heck, I knew that I had. This beard had a hold of me, it was all I thought about. They'd respect and fear this beard, it'd be revered. That's why things are fishy today, because what happened next just really blows.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, perhaps the world just wasn't ready for me and my beauty. I turned, and they weren't even looking. They were like, staring at their desks. Doing stuff, or something, I don't even know. And I'm there, in the doorway, and at this point my beard is honestly blowing in the wind. How cool is that? Can your facial hair blow in the wind? No. Just no, don't even try, cause it's too cool for you. I was brilliant, I swear I was glowing. My beard was giving off rays of excellence and awesome power. And there they were, oblivious.

I cleared my throat, trying to mask my obvious dissappointment and frustration. Who just ignores an awesome beard-man anyways? This is high school, nobody has a raging beard! This was going to change their lives! It was going to finally set their priorities straight, set their focus on what's really important; me and my beard.

They remained as they were, eyes on their desks. No recognition, no glory. No cheers? not even a gasp, a giggle? Nothing. Today was just like every other day, it was like they didn't even see me.

And that's why things are fishy. Because good crap, I've got a raging beard, and nobody has given me their number yet. No girls have swooned over this raging chunk of stone cold keratin. No sophomores offered to be my sidekick. Even the weird kid who always sits by himself at lunch didn't notice when I sat down next to him and purposely got my hair in his food. Nothing.

Man, this town is screwed up. Something big is going down, and I'm gonna find out what it is. The whole system is screwed up this morning. Vibes? Up the wazoo! Nobody paying attention to the new facial improvements? Hello, that's crazy talk. This whole place is messed.

/sob.

-Paul

Haha, that was fun. To be continued tomorrow. Score it!

Blogaday day 4!

Victory is mine. Sort of.

This morning's practice was intense. Remember how I was gonna make it so we only ran 8-400's instead of 12? Yeah, coach won out on that one, we ran 12.

But really now, I ran 12. I didn't just run 8, I didn't have to stop, I ran all 12, and I kicked their butts. I ran my first in 70 seconds, and kept my times for the rest of them somewhere between that and 76. I'm pretty happy with that, I ran really stable for all 12. I got it done. I did it, I survived.

I even got a cool badge.

















sweet huh?

I love paint. It's just something I like to mess around with. Yay for paint.

I really have no ideas for blogaday. So, maybe it's time to get some of my older ideas down on paper. Here goes some random crap that nobody's gonna be too interested in, but that I might have fun writing.

So, the whole net neutrality stuff got blown down. The legislation passed/didn't pass, whichever one means that the big companies can be tyrants. In all honesty, I don't think that that is going to happen, but it's still a fear that alot of people have. Yea verily, here's the worst case scenario, with a great opportunity for me to dominate.

oh gosh, I'm way too lazy to write it out. Basically, things are going to have to start becoming mesh networks. Since wireless networks are finally a valid possibility, this can finally start happening. A mesh network is a network with no identifiable center. Each computer is connected to the computers adjacent to it. Those computers are in turn connected to the ones next to them. That way, to get a message from my computer to the computer downstairs, I don't send it straight downstairs, I send it to the computer that is halfway downstairs, and then that one sends it on down to the one all the way downstairs. Get it?

It's like standing in a big circle holding hands. You can't hold hands with the guy that's 8 people away from you, but if you're holding hands with the girl next to you, and they're holding hands with the person that is holding hands with that original guy, it's pretty much the same thing.

Basically, mesh networks are the future. I want to see vehicles beginning to operate with mesh networks. Sure, we can satellite link our big SUV to some server in taiwan that's gonna feed out roadmaps for us, but what about that other car on the highway? Why can't me and him bounce messages off each other? why can't I see his position on a heads-up-display?

See, I think that's where this is really going to take off. Imagine a highway where every car had essentially a wireless network hookup. Every car can beam and recieve messages. Trouble with this is that wireless connections don't go very far. I couldn't hook up to a hotspot most of the time, so I'd be internetless. Trouble right?

Well, sure, but not really. I can't shoot a beam all the way to the nearest hotspot, but I can shoot far enough to talk to the SUV that's riding my tail. I can get his location, or send him a fun radio message if I'd like. The more cars there are around, the more cars I can talk to. I'm constantly bouncing signals off of all the cars around me, and they are sending signals right back. We're all connected, just by ourselves. We don't have to be hooked up to the giant 'series of tubes' that is the internet, we can create our own local mesh network.

Imagine I-215 in the morning. If everybody had the mesh setup, I could bounce a message from here to downtown in no time. Guaranteed there's a hotspot somewhere between here and there. I need directions from google, I don't have to get beamed up to a satellite to get them. I just need to bounce a signal from me to the car that's a quarter mile ahead of me. That car then bounces that signal further, and another car gets it and sends it. We finally reach the car with the hotspot access, he gets the info and bounces it back.

The great thing about mesh networks is that they're flexible. One car goes out, the network just keeps on chugging. There is no central node. You're connected as long as you're next to somebody. On the highways of life, that'd be a great thing to be.

You could see everybody else, find out what traffic is like by looking at all the red dots on the little screen. If for some reason you need to talk to that guy who's tailing you, go for it, send him a message.

That's just my thinking. I think stuff is going to start to become alot more mesh-oriented. I don't need to know about the kid in pakistan. I need to be able to send a message to my brothers computer, even if google is down.

That didn't make as much sense as it should have. There used to be a huge and crazy political story behind it all. Maybe one day it'll come back, who knows.

Fidel castro just had surgery and gave command of Cuba to his brother Raul for a little bit. What does this mean? It means he's an old man who runs a country. He's sorta a lamewad. Dude, give your people toilet paper.

Speaking of running a country, there's a pretty cool game a couple of us are playing online these days. It's text based, and doesn't take much time at all. It's a persistent world where you basically run a country. You don't do too much, but you're faced with an issue every day, and how you choose to react to it influences the way that your country will evolve. It's really pretty interesting business, it'd be fun to have everybody playing it to see how all our countries would be different. Anyways, it's http://nationstates.net, go check it out.

I have alot of ideas. Some good ones, some not so good ones. You should probably ask me about them some time.

So, steroids. What a joke.

Here's my theory.

Why do we compete? We compete because we want to win, we want to be better than other folks. That's the sad truth I think. We enjoy it, we love the game, the sport, the whatever. But in the end, I think it's us trying to be better than we were before, and showing that by being better than the other guys. We want to win.

But why do we want to win? We want to win because it means that we're good. It means "hey, this kid is good, he beat the other guys." We want a win to show that we worked harder, or that we're smarter or faster or better than the other guys. A win shows that you're cooler than him.

So, taking 'roids so as to win just throws the whole thing out of the window. Because then the win doesn't mean that you worked harder, it doesn't mean that you're better. It means you used the syringe. So, the whole basis for wanting to win, to prove that you're better, is now bunk because it's not you that's won. You didn't work for it, you shot up and got pumped.

So, really, steroids are a joke, because by using them to win you get rid of the reason to win. Go get a life you fruitcakes.

But then there's that crazy ethical question that someone posed us once. What about rescue workers? Firefighters, our armed forces, people like that. Should it be legal for them to be on the top of their game by using performance enhancing drugs?

You say no, but when your burning house is falling down on top of you, wouldn't you want a gorilla of a man to be barreling in to save you instead of dateless-Jim who can't bench more than 40 kg? The guy who's driving you in the ambulance to the hospital, shouldn't he be wide awake and alert? shouldn't his reflexes be like lightning?

And the men out there, fighting for our freedoms. Let's say that all the sudden we're invaded, ground style. While this is pretty much impossible, let's say we are. And we get to ground combat, soldiers vs. soldiers in southern california. Do we pump up the soldiers to win? Wouldn't we have an advantage if our soldiers ran faster, breath'ed easier, and shot just a little straighter? So that's the question. Sure, sports are fruity. But that's what I ask you, do you pump up the guy that's going to save your life?

I say no, but I'm interested to hear what you guys think.

Now, for some fiction.

It was dark. The night had fallen, and the trees were motionless. No wind tonight, it had been stifled by the blazing inferno that was my mailbox. The evening had started out calmly enough, but when the ninjas came... well, I'll let the piles of severed ninja appendages speak for themselves. My mailbox had caught on fire in the lamest way possible, not even cool. You'd think with a raging ninja battle going on in my front bushes that it'd be some awesome exciting story about a bomb or dragon or something cool. Nah, not even food poison, this is lamer than undercooked hamburger. Some dumb kids playing with fireworks.

Yeah, that's my life. The ninja's were dissappointing, and that's the trouble with all of this. Life just isn't fair anymore.

I wear a cape, it's part of the job. I'm better than you, and my mailbox is still on fire. Why a flaming mailbox actually stopped the wind from blowing is a mystery to me, but it made for a great opening line didn't it? Back to the cape. So here I am, and I'm one of those 'super heroes' you used to dream about. Yeah, most of the rumors are true. I can fly, but only for a little bit. I punch harder than you could imagine, and my boots make me 3 inches taller than I really am. I wasn't trained by any old guys with shadowed and conflicted pasts. I showed up and got the job on the spot. No rigorous interviews, no background checks. Heck, I don't even know who gave me the job. But here I am, with the job, and with the cape. I hate capes.

Not that I'm ungrateful or whatever, c'mon, I've got raging super powers. I wear shorts that look like they're made out of snakeskin. I can dunk a basketball from half court, I can take down an elite squad of ninjas while clipping my toenails. I'm freakin' awesome, and it's making me a little upset.

You've got to be a little jealous, it's alright. It is a dang good looking cape, even if it does cut off the airway a bit.

Hmm... I really ought to turn the garden hose on that mailbox. The postal service guy is gonna go postal on this one. Sigh. This whole bit is tiring. I wish there was a breeze, I love breezes. It makes my hair look really cool when it gets tossed around. Yeah, my hair is unnaturally good looking too. That's another one of those super powers I didn't apply for. Another one that I got.

I hate my job. Why? Because I win; every single time. I've never ever had to go to the gym. I never watch what I eat, I've never worked on my moves. I'm the greatest DDR player this side of the mississippi, and there's not a drop of asian blood in me. I've never gone running, but I know I'd beat you all in any race you wanted. I could be the boxing champion on the world right now; in any weight division. Sigh, I'm unstoppable.

What I do doesn't mean anything. Oooooh, I just took down 25 ninjas with cool black costumes... great. Did I work for that one? Nah, I just stepped outside and sorta let loose. It doesn't mean anything. Nobody sees the ninja appendages strewn throughout the rose bushes and thinks: "Gosh, he must have worked really hard to be able to beat so many ninjas!" No, they say "Good job captain dazzle pants, I'm an honest hard working guy. I went to school, I got a degree. I work hard every single day to feed my family. It takes me hours to do my taxes. My car is old and beat up, I fix it myself. I go to the gym every day so I won't die of heart disease. I'm a real person, I have to work for what I get. What do you get, cape boy?"

The truth is, I'm raging, and I didn't earn it. I've never had to work for this cape, somebody just sorta gave it to me. I win at everything, but it doesn't mean anything. It's not me that wins, it's the super powers. Just once, I'd like to have to work for it.

Dang. More ninjas.

Hahaha. This is why I don't write fiction. Anyways, maybe some art to go with that tomorrow or something. Anyways, I'm out. c'yalls, I hope you had a good blogaday day 4.

Blogaday Day 3!

Holy crap, I've made it to day three. That's ridiculous.

So here were are, it's tuesday night. What's the news? I played some mad frisbee today, that was super hot for a bit. Me and Fairborn were on the same team for the first game we played, and it was a total rampage. The teams looked like they were fair, but my team had all the fast young guys, and their team had all the old guys that weren't willing to run. So while they could throw more accurately or something like that, we just outhustled them. On at least 3 occaisions, we kicked off, and I ran down to guard the disc. Instead of just trying to guard the disc and get a swat out of the deal, I pushed his throws to one side. I sorta purposely guard one side hard, and leave the other side a little more open. They always throw to the open side, that's the idea. So then Fairborn, who knows this plan, has been lagging just a tiny bit on that open side, behind the thrower just enough to let the bad guys think he's not a threat. Once the throw is in the air, he pounces like a raging animal and gets a killer swat. He picks the frisbee up, by which point I'm in the endzone for an easy point. At least 3 points were fairborn to myself, a couple were me to fairborn, and a few more were just odds and ends. We finally called the game at 8-1 on account of it being a rout.

So that was frisbee, it was good times. I ended up playing in my jean shorts cause my gym shorts are all smelly. I sweat so much, it's ridiculous. I can't wear gym shorts more than once without a wash because it's just terrible. Everything is wet, I feel like I've been swimming. On monday, my entire shirt was saturated. Trouble was, it was a big shirt, that went way past where my shorts started. There was a good 7 or so inches that got wet just by capillary action. Good crap.

I figure the sweat thing is a biological advantage. I never ever overheat. Temperature isn't really an issue for me, I just cool off. There's the catch though, I have to drink alot more water to stay hydrated, and nobody wants to stand next to me. It's survival of the fittest really. Sure, I survive longer, but the terrific stench presents some obvious obstacles to passing on my genes.
So, cross country is all the sudden terribly terribly hard. We have our first race in three weeks. That's a terrible time for our first race. I am really beginning to wish that all my camps and youth conference and stuff had been at the beginning of the summer. I've got scout camp all next week. That leaves me with this week to train, next week to say I'll run but never actually do it, and then the week after that to get ready for a race. Since competitions are about to start, coach has shifted us away from distance training towards speed training. So, Monday was probably our last distance run for a while. According to coach, it was closer to 15 miles than 12. D'oh.

Anyways, tonight we were supposed to be doing an organized fartlek run. Fartlek is swedish or something for "Speed play". The concept is you run normal, then you do a burst of speed for a while, then run normal again. It helps develop your kick at the end of races, and just your speed over all. Tonights practice was entirely on the track. Coach would blow the whistle, and we'd jog. He'd blow it again, and we'd speed up to somewhere between a jog and a sprint. He'd blow the whistle again and we'd sprint like crazy. Once he blew it after that, you jog again, lather, rinse, and repeat.

So, that shouldn't have been too hard, but it was terrible. I sucked it up big time, and had to honestly stop. I never have to stop at practice, that's just not something you do. You suck up the pain, you wade through the terrible agony and keep running. Yeah, I couldn't do that tonight.

See, practice is at 8. I tested at 7:40, and I was 65. That's way too low to go running on, so I immediately went in search of food. I had eaten all the bananas earlier, so we didn't really have anything quick to eat. I searched around, still nothing quick. Sure, we had some tier 4 and 5 stuff, but nothing easy. So, I ended up having some milk, some tang, and then some ice cream. Ice cream is a horrible thing to eat before a run, it's just not smart.

So, I get to practice, and my bloodsugar is fine, it's on the way up. We can determine that the reason I sucked tonight wasn't pancreas related. Anyways, we're on the 4th or 5th lap of this crazy workout, and I just feel like I'm dying. Coming around the far curve, I thought I was gonna hurl for the second time ever while I was running. It was just crazy talk. So, I finally finish that lap, by now I'm hobbling for the jog part, the semi-sprint is something like a fast shuffle, and the sprint is unrecognizable by even the most generous eyes. I figure it's time to stop, so I sorta lean up against the fence, and tell coach that I'm gonna sit down for a minute.

So there you have it, I wussed out of practice. They only ran 3 or so more laps, but it was still ridiculous. Coach thought it was all blood sugar related, and so he was pretty worried about me. I don't really know what the deal was, but me and my body still aren't getting along too well. The idea of running anywhere from 12 to 15 miles yesterday, getting not enough sleep, playing a frisbee game, and then eating ice cream right before a speed workout just doesn't quite add up to a good performance.

Either way, I did most of the workout I suppose, and coach didn't give me any grief cause he thought I was gonna die.

Tomorrow morning is 400 repeats. 400 repeats are probably the worst workouts ever. They're crazy hard. I love the 400 meter race, but the repeats are ridiculous. You run one, trying to keep your time somewhere around 65 seconds. You get anywhere from 1.5 minutes to 2 minutes rest, and then you do it again. You're expected to keep your time at or under 65 seconds. It's crazy talk.

Coach says we're doing 12 tomorrow morning. I say we're doing 8. We'll see who wins.

If anybody asks, my bloodsugar is low.

Just kidding, I'd never use that excuse to get out of running. I hate that whole idea. That's so lame. I'm not gonna do it. I didn't do it tonight. Coach knew I was fine, he was just worried. I'm not gonna be a wuss. I'm gonna do my best on those 400's tomorrow morning, even if I can't finish them all.

I'm going to bed early tonight so I can be a little better rested. I'm gonna hurry and get ready for bed, then have a bowl of cereal. I think that's one of the problems, I haven't been eating enough. More food, more energy. It works hand in hand.

So, that's my cross country stories. It's getting hard. Real hard. However, I did get some super shwanky new shoes and shorts tonight, compliments of my awesome mom. I'm really happy with them, the shorts are just right, and the shoes are real nice as well. Score it, things are good.

Blogaday day three, what's going through my head? I'm thinking that I could be in bed right now if I didnae have to write this. I'm thinking that I dunno how good these are. I'm thinking maybe I should work on these before 10 at night, maybe do something quality while the sun's still up.

What happened to the good old days when CC was easy? What happened to the good old days when I was a fat kid? Where oh where did my happy weak and not-sore muscles go? Where'd my happy feet go?

It's just owning my body, I'm not gonna lie. Oh well, I'll recover soon, and then I'll be raging. Maybe I'm already raging, I don't even know. The important thing is, I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. How d'you like them apples?

Me and kyle went 1-1 in warcraft today. We're always 50%. We can never seem to win more than we lose. We're working on that.

Ok, it's really time for bed, g'night folks, have a good one. Cya.

Blogaday Day 2!

Here's the trouble with blogaday: I write no matter what.

The great thing about the publishing world is that when you send something to a publisher and it sucks, they send it back and they say it sucks. No way around it, they don't dodge aroud the issue, they just say it sucks. If it's not up to snuff, it's tossed out.

There is no publisher here. There's no grand plan. There's nothing but a big fat deadline. The sooner I get this written the sooner I get to bed.

So blogaday is interesting, because you end up with a post that is entirely different than a post you'd get any other time. Any other time I write a post it's because I've got something to say. Now I write a post because I've got to say something. So here we are, what am I going to say? No idea. Let's move on to exhibit A.

So... blogger won't let me upload any images. There goes exhibit A. Sigh.

Moving on....

For CC we ran 12 miles today. That's a ridiculous amount. Nobody should run that many miles after taking a week off. I'm still feeling it. It was a good run and all, but it was rough. It shattered my great theory that you can run forever. I used to believe that once you get past the 2 mile mark, as long as you take it slow and eat and drink enough water, you could run forever.

Unfortunately, the theory starts to break down towards mile 11.

So it was rough, but good. I finished it honorably. We got beat by a bunch of sophomores, I'm not sure how they did it, but whatever. More power to them. I think our team's gonna be raging.

I spent alot of the day after that asleep. I've felt weak all day. Me and my body are in a fight, it didn't like that run too much. Too bad I'm in charge eh? Hear that meatbag, I'm the winner, you're the loser. You'll do what I say. Don't make me come over there to where I'm at and you're at and we're still both at and we can't really get away but I'm gonna come get you anyways.

So really now. 12 miles is alot. But it's ok, cause I get to go to bed soon. Sleep will make things better.

You know what's trouble? Those personal messages on MSN messenger. The little italic text that you get to put after your name. The trouble exists because they've got insane potential, but you never know whether to take them seriously or not. They can be veiled messages to the whole world, and reveal how one is feeling in their innermost kidney. Just through analyzing the semantics of the whole bit, you'll find out what they had for breakfast yesterday. Sometimes they're deep, like a deep hole of some sort. So, you get used to analyzing these things, reading in to them, trying to figure out what's going on with your friends.

Then some other times, they don't mean anything. Sometimes I just throw some stuff up there for fun, and I can only assume other people do that too. It is in these cases that we tend to over analyze and make a fool of ourselves.

"Hey look, Example Girl A's personal message is "I like ultimate frisbee and guys who run cross country. I also enjoy halo." I should go bust a move!"

Me: "So, example girl A, I hear you like frisbee."

Example Girl A: "I'm a middle aged guy named Eugene."

Me: "Oh snap."

/log out

So really now, to simplify life, a breakdown of all the personal messages I've had in the past little while, and their significance.

Troubador - A traveling poet/song man in the high middle ages. Why is it my personal message? Because it's unique, and isn't super happy. It's not sad, but it's not super happy, and therefore it fits the mood sometimes fairly well. It means absolutely nothing, but it looks like it does. In that sense, I suppose it means more than anything else could at that moment. How's that for unneccesary depth?

The truth shall set you free - Taken from the bible, a good old line that's been cliche'd to death. The trouble with things being cliche'd to death is that they're usually very true, but after being cliche'd to death nobody wants to admit it. However, it's a good reminder to myself that the truth will set you free. None of this "I'm not gonna tell the whole story" business for me. I thought of it one night after having a particularly difficult conversation with a friend. It was a rough one, and I figured it was probably so because there was alot of stuff that just wasn't said for fear of other such stuff. So, the truth will set you free. And I really believe that.

Frisbee friday, 7 oclock, bennion elementary - This one isn't what it seems. It takes alot of courage to reveal this one, but I think it's time. When you scramble the letters about, you end up with a cryptic message that reveals my unnatural fear of rejection. It's true. I'll let you try to unscramble it, but one of the words involved is "onion." You say "But wait, this message appears nearly every thursday night, it doesn't make sense." That's where you're wrong you mountebank. Throughout the week I go about gathering courage to finally bust a move on thursday night. I do so, and am rejected each time. I thought the pain and fear of such a terrible answer was gone with the passing of the region dances, but no, it's back. So there you have it. My heart is crushed each and every thursday night. I set my personal message, then regroup. By next thursday, my spirit bar is high enough that I can attempt again. At which point, the cycle continues.

~ - That one means that I have no adequate message for what I want to say. Pretty basic. Like cole slaw even.

So there you have it. My secret life. I hope that was informative.

Now it's time for an even more fun game. I'm going to interpret what everyone else's personal messages mean.

Levi - Christian Rock Hardcore. Period.
This one obviously refers to an inner fear of clowns and loud noises. He wants to mask this fear by embracing the Christian music scene and wearing black lip stick. This makes him especially vulnerable to fire attacks, but gives him added resistance to rock and lightning based assaults.

Kendal - Spaghettification
Unless I'm mistaken, this refers to the internet counter-culture joke that is the flying meatball theory. See, a bunch of weirdo's decided that it wasn't evolution, and that it wasn't anything else but a large flying meatball that people'd the world. Spaghettification has something to do with becoming one with the meatball or something like that. Interestingly enough, it also affords resistance to lightning attacks, but adds great weakness to bible type moves. Fancy that.

That got old quick.

What's the deal with cardboard?

Yeah, it's definitely time to bring this to a close. Thanks to all our sponsors of blogaday day 2. Namely google adsense, and mozilla firefox. Now for some closing Haiku's

Raging
I'm like darkwing duck
saving the world with plungers
I wear a towel

Yeah, now some from Nick. Yay for Nick for actually giving my haiku's. Feel free to give me some. Email them to me at CJThatcher at Gmail dot com.

"Hai!"

Swords and sorcery

Just don't cut the cheese for me

I need more... ninjas.

As you can see, Nick greatly outskills me. But as for now, it's bed time, so have a good night all. G'night blogaday day 2.

2 down, 5 to go. Sigh.

Blogaday Day 1!

It's day one, and it's go time.

I think that if I ever write a book, the main character is going to assume the super hero name of Captain Go Time. I love go time, there's power behind it. It brings out the best and worst in the competitors on the field of life. No more mediocrity. No more second-best. It's time to bring your A-game, time to show the world what you're made of. This is no place for those who aren't willing to bring everything they've got and lay it on the table. It's time to give them everything you've got. It's time to be the very best you can be, the ultimate and greatest form of you. In short: it's go time.

Today was sunday, and sundays are amazing. I love sundays. Not just because I get a nap, but because I get to go to church and do some home teaching usually. Sunday's just make me feel good, it's great.

Life theory. I think that's going to be blogaday day 7. That's something that I've been wanting to write for a while. It's similar to food theory, but much cooler. I think I might work on that throughout the week, and finally post it. That'd be cool, to actually work on something instead of just letting things spew out of my brain.

I have a great love for wikipedia. For the uninitiated, wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Therefore, it is the greatest encyclopedia that the world has ever seen. It is a risky model, that's for sure. The fact that anyone can edit it leads to some trouble. I can go in there and write an article about myself. I can also go in there and change the article on world war II to involve me winning the battle against godzilla.

However, since everyone can edit it, there are scores and scores of people that would quickly roll back what I had done and fix it. The fact that everyone can edit it is a risk and a safeguard at the same time. It's like all biological systems, it balances itself out. There are natural systems in there that will fix problems as they arise. It's really awesome.

But the moral of the story is, I go to wikipedia several times a day and just learn stuff. I can honestly say I enjoy reading the encyclopedia. You can find anything you want on wikipedia. I would strongly recomend using wikipedia to all of you. It's better than MJ.

So, for some further reading, go wiki bat bombs, or Lafayette, or if you're up to have your mind blown out of the water, go read about memes.

In conclusion, libya is a land of contrast. Also useful if the wikipedia home page, that has articles of the day, current events, recently added stuff, and whatnot. I like to wiki-surf. It's fun and useful.

Also worth your time is google news. Google, in its quest to make the world's data more accessible, has made an awesome little tool that compiles a ton of news from all sorts of sources, and makes it easy to find. You've got sports, you've got US, you've got world, you've got Health, you've got science, you've got business. You can even make your own custom categories. I could get frisbee news if I so desired.

Google news and wikipedia will keep you up to date, and make you a smarter person. Everybody loves a guy that knows what's going on in the world.

This post isn't too exciting, not too great. There's better stuff to come though. This is just day one. Tomorrow is bound to bring greater adventures. I'm going to cross country practice for the first time in a little more than a week tomorrow, I'm so excited to go run. It's going to be hard to come back in to it, but it'll be a great opportunity to show everybody that I'm not gonna fall over just cause I took a week off. I'm gonna be strong and jump right back in. My body isn't gonna know what hit it.

So, what's the news? Things are pretty good, it's been a good day. I'm going on scout camp next week, I'm excited for that. Hopefully this years will be a little less drama-bombed than last years. You can't really get drama on a scout camp, cause there aren't any girls. It's funny to remember last year though. Crazy talk really. I mean, what were you up to last year this time? I remember what I was up to. An adventure.

I'm excited to get back to school. I'm excited to start and finish my eagle project, and my summer homework. I'm excited to play halo for the first time in a month or so. I'm excited to go run tomorrow morning, and to get to bed tonight. So as for me, I'm out of here, but not before some good high quality Haiku action.

"Speed"

Ugly game face time.
Booking it across the way.
I run in wet socks.

"w00t"

Ph34r my l33t 5killzorz
I'll fragzorz you to your knees
from my mom's basement

See, Haikus are super fun. I'm not even good at them. But they're fun. You should all write them, and send them to me. Also, if you have any requests, now is the time to give them. Since i'm forced to write whether inspiration hits or not, I can do anything you guys feel like. So, send in the haiku's, send in the requests.

Tomorrow is monday. It's an opportunity to have a great day. It's an opportunity to make the world a better place. How are we going to make the world a better place? We're going to start with us. Perhaps it's a selfish idea, but perhaps that's the only way. History has shown us that the more good people there are around, the better a place does. How are we going to make the world a better place? We are going to improve ourselves. We're going to eat healthier, we're going to be nicer. We're gonna smile more, we're going to pick up the trash. We're going to do the little things. The power is within us to choose what we do. We can't tell them to stop smoking, but we can keep ourselves from smoking. We can keep our lungs healthy, and that's going to make the world a better place.

Christopher Thatcher, over and out.

Take a Knee

Hey guys, sorry it's been so long. I've been gone for a lot of the week, and being gone prevents me from writing. However, I am going to make a renewed effort to write more often. I love writing, and it accomplishes alot of goals that I've got. Therefore, there shall be more writing.

Life is good.

Total miles run this week: 1
Total games of DOTA this week: 0
Total unique sessions of frolicking in a fountain: 3
Total nights spent in a sleeping bag: 3

So the week has been awesome. The family reunion went really well. I enjoyed it. The montage thing worked out decently, and we had a good time. I went down the river a couple times, that was awesome action.

Youth conference was just amazing. It was the best youth conference I've ever been to. I learned a ton of awesome stuff, grew alot, and had some super awesome fun. I ate like crazy. I had 9 slices of pizza last night. Half of our meals were eaten in the cafeteria, and so I had about 3 meals for every one of those. That's 9 meals, score it. I just didn't stop, it was super. I got to do some water ballet in a fountain, and spend a good 3 hours talking to fluffy bunny on the radio. It was great times.

The trouble about Youth Conference is I know that it's slowly going to be leached out of my brain. I'm gonna forget, and that's not even good. I really want to remember all that stuff, I don't want to lose it. Of course, it's gonna. It's gonna seep out all secret like until all but the really big stuff is gone. So I'm gonna try to write it in the journal. I type so much faster than I write, it's ridiculous. I spent half an hour writing last night, and I could have typed it in about 7 minutes. So really now, typing is crazy fast.

The Frisbee drive has been receding lately. I haven't been throwing good for the last couple weeks. I think one of the issues is I've gotten way too excited about the biscuit and the hammer throw, and haven't been sticking to the basics too well. I gotta get back into the old school. I really haven't been throwing well, even just tossing around in my free time. Hopefully this next friday will be good, I'm always excited for it. It's a unique adventure, different from the rest of the week. It's a standing appointment, it's great.

But I'm thinking that maybe the frisbee club isn't going to be as huge and complex as I previously had planned. It'll prolly be alot more relaxed. I wanna teach a ton of people how to play, get them a little more conditioned, and make sure that there's always a good game going on when people want to play. Facilitating scheduling, facilitating good training sessions. If the people that actually end up joining and coming want more stuff to go on, I'm awesome with that, we can go really far. But really now, I'm not going to drag anybody. Because that's not what it's all about, we're just gonna get out there, have fun, learn some skills, and end up being able to run a mile without dying. That's my main goal there.

I had so much to write about this week. Alot of the main ideas are captured on the hard paper, so it might resurface later. For now, it's lost in my memory. I don't really like to write about events, I like to write about ideas. I had alot of ideas. Where do spiders go? They're always going somewhere, but I never know where. But anyways, I've got a raging plan. A most raging plan in fact.

This next week, going from July 30th to August 5th, is going to be blog-a-day. You might recall I did a blogaday in the past. That actually ended up bring out some awesome dynamics. My favorite ended up being a raging adventure in time management. So that's what this next week's goal is. A blog a day for 7 days straight. Can I do it? I sure hope so. I'm going to need inspiration and support. But really now, I believe in myself, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna be a better person for doing it.

Also, I'm going to host a haiku competition. My last competition is nearly done. I just need to ask Jason Liu how he did that poll on his site, so we can get to voting. That's really what it's taken so long, because we haven't had a good way to vote. But now all the sudden it looks like we might, so that'll wrap up soon.

Anyways, Haiku contest. For those of you that don't know, a haiku is a 3 line poem with 17 syllables. It goes 5-7-5. It's a short poem, and the trouble is getting meaning in within such a small canvas. The reason I chose a haiku contest is that it's universally possible. Nobody can't write a haiku. Haiku's are rarely serious things. You've got no time within 17 syllables to talk about the girlfriend that dumped you. You do, however, have the capability to write about your terrible halo skills. A haiku example will be up tomorrow for y'alls.

I don't have the details of the contest all figured out, but once I do I'll throw them up. In the meantime, start writing some if you feel like it. Send em to me, I'll post em up here. It's going to be great. I hope you'll all help out with this one. We had a ton of paint coming in for the last competition, let's see some raging haiku's.

So really, this post could have been deep. By all means it should have been deep. I've got so much to write about. I could write about bat bombs. Maybe they'll come out during blogaday. They're pretty ingenius. This post is just the gateway for something greater. Blogaday is coming, and it's gonna be raging. I'm excited.

It's 1:45 AM. It's time for bed. I only worked out about twice this week, and both were very little workouts. I ate like an animal, but I think that did alot of good. It gave my body a chance to build back a bunch of stuff it hasn't been able to stockpile because of the constant running. Wow, I love being a 16 year old guy. Things are pretty good. I've got some dates out there on the horizon. School will be starting soon, and I'm nothing but excited for that. Tomorrow is Sunday, and Sundays are always great. I'm excited to be here, things are good. Keep up the good work guys. I'll see you all tomorrow. G'night pals~

Bunk

The Picture of the Week




















Yeah, that's definitely my grandpa Thatcher. I never knew the man, he died before I was born. But that's him swabbing a deck, he was a navy guy from what I can gather. The important thing is, it's easy to see where I got my studly good looks from. Keep up the good work Grandpa.

The Quote of the Week
"History is more or less bunk"
-Henry Ford

So, it's 1:00 AM, and I'm just starting this. That's late, it's been a long day. I'm tired, so this post might end up a little different from others. I've got different glasses on. I try to avoid blogging when I'm wearing certain glasses, because nobody wants to read about how tired I am. However, I think it's important that I preserve my thoughts, even when they're not entirely happy-go-lucky. To get an accurate portrait of me, you've got to catch the ugly parts too.

So here I am, it's tired, and I'd love to be in bed. But I'm not going to be, because I want to write. I really enjoy writing. It makes me feel like I've accomplished something, and it helps get alot of thoughts out. I have no problem with having thoughts "in", I just like to get them posted up here so I can come back and remember stuff. I think that's what I value most in this blog though, the thinking. I really don't care how frisbee was. When I come back a month or two later to read something I wrote, I'm not concerned about hammer throws. I'm still intrigued by my analogies, and the stuff I've thought of. I like the theories, the wonderings and ponderings. So, you're gonna get some of that tonight. As well as some stories. yay.

Sometimes it's important to have some incorrect grammar every once in a while. It's unique, and it's generally on purpose. Language is a tricky thing, in that it's got rules and rules, but that it's very flexible at the same time. It is in the hands of the people. Language is a tool that has been created by the people for the people. Nobody ever sat down to determine how a language was gonna work. It just sorta happened.

So really now, who's to tell me that I'm wrong? Who's to tell me that I'm using a word wrong? I'm using it exactly the way that I want to, conveying the meaning that I think ought to be conveyed. I am giving others information, that's the whole point of this language business.

If we were to stumble upon a previously-unknown bunch of natives living in a jungle somewhere, we'd probably find that they had a pretty unique language. It'd have all sorts of fun little nuances and quirks. We wouldn't question them about whether it was proper or not. We wouldn't care that it was slang. It's how they talk, it's their language.

So why, when people stumble upon me and my great state of Utah, do they tell me that I talk funny? Why are they upset that I can't say 'both' without adding that awesome L sound? The truth is, it's my language, and you can't tell me that it's wrong. Because language is in the hands of the people, and I sure fit into that whole people category. If Mexican folk don't talk the same way that Spanish folk talk, nobody minds.

So really, language is in the hands of the people. It's always changing. Anyone that tries to tell me I talk wrong is just speaking a different version of English than I am.

That whole tirade was brought on by the fact that I had a sentence fragment in the 3rd paragraph or whatever. It wasn't planned, it just came out.

Frisbee tonight was bunk. We didn't have enough people at the start, but eventually they came. I didn't play well at all, made a ton of mistakes. We were missing alot of our high quality guys, so it made the game alot harder. It was dissappointing, but it'll be better in the future.

This week has been very mixed. Parts of it have been great, and parts of it haven't been. Cross country was not so great this week. I was a slacker, and that's not a good feeling at all. I didn't run tuesday or wednesday at all. Monday was a distance run that I took too easy. Today was swimming, and I worked hard at that. Today was really the only good practice I had this week. Cross country should have been good this week, but I didn't put the necessary work in, so it was sorta lame.

However, things are still good. I went to the doctor wednesday morning, and I've got all sorts of good news. First and foremost, I finally passed the 6 foot mark. Yay. I measured 72.25 inches tall. Score it. My A1C came back 6.6, my best since I was diagnosed really. Last time it was 8.4, so this was really a great improvement. The target is somewhere around 7, so 6.6 was mad pro. I was very happy with that. All this running has really been doing great things for my body.

My brother Andrew is now on a mission. He's in the MTC right now, learning Spanish and the whatnot. I'm really going to miss him, but it's going to be alright. I know he's doing the right thing, and that the world's gonna be a better place cause of it. So, I won't see him for 2 years. I inherited his video camera, that's pretty cool. I haven't used it much yet, but I'm excited about the possibilities.

Oh gag me, I'm tired.

It's a really nice feeling to come home and have something waiting for you. Something new and nice. It's sorta an empty feeling when you arrive and there's nothing at all. That's just a downer. What is it about stuff waiting for you? Maybe it just makes you feel important, makes you feel like the world missed you whilst you were gone.

Moral of the story is, it's nice to have stuff waiting for you.

So, what's the deal with the UBSCT? It exists to make sure that our students are above a certain level before they graduate. That's a great plan. That'd make it so the kids that don't have the skills to really succeed in life have to go back for another year of school to get them. In theory, it'd lead to a better society.

But really, you can graduate without passing it, you just have to take it 4 times. Or something like that, I'm not really sure of the specifics. But come now folks, if you're going to have a test that you have to pass in order to graduate, you might as well follow through with the threats. You're not going to make the world a better place by letting the kids without skills graduate because they never stopped trying. It's not a punishment, it's helping us.

So, what's the deal? Even if I fail the test 4 times, I'll graduate. Unprepared to work for Carl's Junior. What's the good?

A couple weeks ago, I came home from helping at a little kid track meet, and I was totally beat. I was tired, hungry, angry, and all sorts of other negative adjectives. I was just beat. So, I go and look in the mirror, and my hair looks great. It's all gelled and nice, it's like, whoosh. All smooth, makes me look sophisticated. And really, that was bad news. Because right then, my hair wasn't representing how I felt inside. It was totally off. My hair should have been done for, messed up and tired. But nah, it was solid and set and looking relatively nice.

That's odd. I fully expected it to mirror the way that I was feeling on the inside, but it didn't. That shocked me, my hair is supposed to follow me around and do what I do. Why is this relevant? I don't care, I'm not the one that has to read it.

I've got some more ideas and stuff. Stuff to talk about, stuff that I could talk about but don't have to. As for now, I'm off to bed. It's late. I don't have morning practice tomorrow, so I can sleep in. That's a great feeling there. I need more sleep. Drinking more water is a great idea. iI want to do some amazing stuff some day. I wanna be great.

Life is like everything else. You get out of it what you put in to it. Go big or go home.

Bits/Pieces

Hooray, the old model at the side of the frisbee, except he's been updated to look alot cooler. I gave him some pimp gloves, and made some little stripes to give him more of a megaman feel. I like this one the most so far, hooray for random photoshop fun.

It's been a while since I've written anything, I've meant to for a while but haven't gotten around to it. This week has been pretty good, things are on the up and up. Cross country has been going well, I ran every day this week minus today (saturday), but I still got a bit in. I know I ought to run saturdays, but that'll have to wait till next week to start, considering it's 10 minutes from Sunday. But either way, we did cross training in the pool on Friday, and that was super fun again. I'm a terrible terrible swimmer, but it's a good workout. I won't go into the gruesome details, but I definitely drank alot of that pool, and Hugie took a chunk out of my pinky when we were playing water basketball. We had some chicken fights for part of practice, people on our shoulders trying to knock the other guys off. Little clements was on my shoulders, and we were totally champions both times we fought. Despite the glory, my neck is extremely sore from it all, and that's sort of a downer. Moral of the story is, join the cross country team.

Hmm, that brings up another unfortunate point. There are no girls in our generation that run anymore. They've all sorta lapsed out of existence. Marissa used to, but she hasn't been to practice in ages, we can only assume she's broken both shins. Heather was coming, but then she went on vacation for a bunch of weeks, and now is playing softball/basketball. Whatsherface ran with us last year for a bit, but I never talked to her, and haven't seen her since. So, pretty much there aren't any girls in our generation that run, and that's a downer.

But things are still going great for the team. We're gonna be super. Kirt's got mad skills, Trevor's got mad skills, and me and santy are working on getting some mad skills. Once the season starts, we ought to have at least 3 runners that are competing, instead of just getting owned like last year. We won't be winning too many meets, but we're still gonna run our little hearts out. I'm really excited for it.

My life has become pretty simple these past couple weeks. It revolves around cross country, frisbee, sleep, family, and food. Every once in a while you can sprinkle a little warcraft in there, and if there's time maybe hanging out with a few people. But really, it goes back to those 5 basics. Most things I think about are directly linked to them.

I wake up in the mornings, and go do my crazy cross country workout of death. I'm almost starting to like waking up in the mornings, it's becoming alot easier for me. I never ever get to bed on time, so I end up with anywhere from 4 to 6 hours of sleep before I have to get up and go running. But, I go run on limited sleep, then come home and take a nap till sometime in the afternoon. I wake up, and forage for food. When my stomache is satisfied, I hang out with Andrew, or find some friends to talk to for a bit. This goes on for some time, until I start eating again, or running again, or hanging out with my whole family. I then go to sleep, and repeat the process.

Changes occur every friday, and even some other days if circumstances are right. On Fridays, I wake up, go to practice, come home and sleep like any other day. The big difference happens once I wake up, when all my thoughts start to gravitate towards the coming frisbee game. Fridays exist for frisbee. I start getting ready at about 6, and don't get him till 11 or 12. When I eat food on fridays, I eat so I can play frisbee, not cause I'm hungry. When I take a nap on fridays, I nap for frisbee energy, not because I'm tired. Fridays are all about frisbee.

Every other day, well, they're about cross country, or sleep, or food, or family.

My brother got married yesterday. Score! I'm really happy for him, and I really like his wife. she's really cool. It was a great wedding, everything went really well. It was just a really good quality operation. Not too much junk going on, none of the unnecessary junk, just the important stuff. So yeah, way to go Nathan. I'm not distantly related to little peter, how cool is that? He's a cool kid.

Time to get down to business. It's bits and pieces time. I don't have any way to connect all this stuff. It's just gonna come out, and it's gonna be disjointed. Some of it will be good, some of it will be stupid. Score it.

Todays song is definitely "yellow" by coldplay. I have no idea what the songs about, I don't really get it, but I know I like it. It's a good song.

Over the past couple months, I've found myself becoming something that I hate. Alot of you know that I'm not a big fan of "popularity." I mean, I won't hate somebody because they're 'popular', but I think it's a stupid thing to strive for. I'm not the biggest fan of people that go farming for friends. In my world, friends sorta just happen. They're not something that you add to your list, and not something that you really go about 'asking' for. They just sorta happen, ya know.

So, I was running around the school way back when during track, and I said hi to at least 4 people in a minute as we ran past, and I classified every single one of them as a stallion. This was trouble. You see, I was one of the people that run around the halls saying hi to EVERYBODY and getting up in everybody's bidness. If I had been looking at myself from afar, I would have accused myself of friend farming.

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying hi to everybody, and thinking everybody is cool. I just sometimes get the feeling that some people are doing it just because they can, doing it to feel cool or something. I've got troubles with that one. So, I was quite alarmed when I found myself being a friend farmer.

However, after alot of self reflection, looking deep inside of myself, I have determined that I in fact am not a friend farmer. Here's my theory: By coincidence, 4 stallions happened to be in my path in the course of one minute. It wasn't that I was making everyone a stallion, it was that I ran in to 4 stallions.

See, that makes me sleep a little better inside. I have been worried about something that's come to be known as the stallion effect inside my head. You all know it, I call alot of people stallions. I throw the term around like candy. But, like supply and demand, if you flood the market, it's value goes down. So, has the value of being a stallion really dropped?

See, I don't believe that it has. I still mean it every time that I say it. Here we are, it's 2006, and the world is at a very unique place. It's never been here before. The way I see it, the world is the best it's ever been, and the worst it's ever been. It's going to keep continuing on this trend. So, we've got alot of dirtbags, that's for sure. We can pick them out all we want. We've got drugs, we've got gangs, we've got murders, we've got teen pregnancies up the wazoo. We've got divorce, we've got people trying to hit their spouses with trucks, we've got all sorts of crazy stuff going on. If one were to focus on the negatives, it's easy to see that everything sucks.

But, at the same time, I think we've got the greatest generation ever. We're some of the first people to live in a state where smoking in public buildings is illegal. Our lungs are better than anybody else's. We haven't been licking lead based paint for all of our childhoods. We haven't been smoking asbestos. Jaron said a while ago that he was mad that he never got to do stupid stuff, because now he can't tell his kids "when I was your age, I did stupid stuff...". The way I see it, we're the coolest because we don't have to do stupid stuff. We don't have to go bungie jumping with nothing but crisco smeared all over our legs to learn a lesson. We've got a bunch of all stars that the world has never seen before. We've got good kids, growing up all the time, ready to go do awesome things in the world.

Case in point: We've got Jared and Jose. Two raging stallions from the cross country team. Lots of you know Jared, I don't even know his last name. A few might know Jose, he's raging nonetheless. But really, these are good kids like we've never seen before. They're nice guys, smart guys, guys that are ready to work. They are gonna get out there and make a difference. They're not gonna be famous, but that's gonna be alright with them. Things are gonna be good, because for every couple drug problems, every couple teen pregnancies, we've got someone like Jared, or someone like Jose. We've got a bunch of good kids, just waiting to get out and do some good.

So say what you want about the world, I'm filled with hope for the future. You're not gonna keep this generation down. You couldn't stop us if you tried. Freedom is on the march, the real kind.

So, that was disjointed deal number one. The stallion effect. There are more people worthy of the stallion title today than ever before. Granted, there are more people around than ever before, but I think we've got higher quality people. It's no surprise that when I run around school I find so many stallions to greet. The world is getting a whole lot better, thanks to this generation. No more asbestos, no more lead paint. No more cold war. No more arms build up. No more smoking, no more crap. This generation is going to make it big. We got the power, we got the skills.

You guys may have read about the quadripalegic (not spelled right) guy that everyone's getting all excited about because the doctors put some stuff in his brain, and he's been able to move a cursor around a computer screen and do some other stuff with it. That's pretty good news, but it's not exactly break through. The concept of just using your brain to move the mouse around the computer screen is way old school, from what I understand they've been doing similar things in monkeys for a few years now.

Now, this is where things get a little hazy. I read up on this a couple years ago, and so I've got all these opinions and ideas that have formed since then based on the knowledge that I've got. So, we start to delve into the realm of me pretending I know a little more than I really do. But here goes, it's gonna be great.

Hmm. As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason why a very very rich man couldn't control his television with his mind. Technology has existed for a really long time that'll show brainwaves, or which parts of the brain are firing off electric signals, and all that jazz.

Now, the trouble with that, is your brain has tons and tons of nerves and neurons and other technical jargon that can send off signals. Back in the day, when this brain technology was just getting underway, we used to think that there was one specific signal for everything. A signal like "go eat a banana" would be totally unique from "Go eat a pineapple".

Now we can tell that it's alot more complex than that. It's like a big organ. Our old theory was that we had a ton of keys, and when you hit that special #E, you'd want a banana. There would be hundreds and hundreds of keys on this piano, but it was easy to find out which one was the banana key. Now, we can tell that this organ is a thousand stories high, with millions of rows of keys. It's a giant cylindrical tower, and your brain is standing in the middle, hitting keys left and right. But, instead of one key meaning "I want a banana", we know that when we want a banana, our brain is hitting thousands of keys at once, all a little differently. It's a symphony of signals getting thrown about, not just plucking off one solo note. This makes things alot more complicated. It's easy to pick out a note, but it's difficult to analyze a symphony in a second.

So, that's the analogy. When we want to go right, our brain sends that idea, that message, as it makes thousands of individual neurons send messages. All of these combined end up sending the go right message. It's not just one message, it's huge.

So, we've got that down. We've established that you can't just look at what keys are being played and figure out what we want. However, with these cool chips that they keep putting in people without limbs brains, they can find out a lot more keys that are being played. Back in the day they'd put a suction cup deal on your forehead and the sides of your head, and they'd pick up some stuff. But now we're listening closer, and hear even more notes. It's an even bigger symphony going on in that swirling organ. (PUN!)

Anyways. the catch is, if you keep looking at all the notes that are getting fired off, you start to figure out the jist of which one is go right. Then, you look at that, and when that one fires off, you can make the cursor go right. So, you watch this guys brain, and when those notes are firing, you can translate that with your computer, and make the cursor move right.

That's what they did with the monkeys a few years ago. They could get them to chase something around the screen, moving the cursor with just their thoughts. They trained them on it by giving them little rewards of juice when it worked out right.

So, the technology exists to get into someones brain and figure out what signals are getting thrown around. The technology also exists to assign certain patterns certain commands. When the monkey's brain does this, make the cursor go that way. Eventually the monkey learns that to make the cursor go that way, you think this. Viola.

So, why can't we give a rich man the TV he can change with his mind? In theory, we could. We just put the chip in his brain, and spend a day or two assigning brain patterns to remote commands. This is where it gets hairy though. The brain function for "change to channel 13" is going to be very very very similar to "change to channel 2". So similar in fact, that I doubt you'd be able to detect the difference. So, you've got the task of assigning new patterns. Unique patterns. You don't want a rich guy accidentally changing the channel when he gets excited during a basketball game. You can't exactly use patterns that are common. The "I'm hungry" pattern should never have anything to do with this man changing the channel. You can't really have overlap when a TV remote in placed in your head.

So, after a very lengthy introduction, we get to what I've been thinking about. I think that in the future, alot of the upper class is going to have the chips. Ok, I take it back. I don't really think this is going to happen, but I think that this is a very plausible outcome based on current circumstances. If trends continue... the rich get the chips. More and more things become brain activated. You want to unlock your car, you think the magic thought, your car unlocks. You've got alot of rich people willing to pay for it.

So, more and more devices begin to be brain friendly. Then you get the problem of unlocking your car AND opening the garage door. Things start to overlap when you use common brain patterns.

So what's going to happen? There's going to be a new alphabet of sorts. That's my bet. You're not going to be able to assign "unlock the car" to the "unlock the car" brain pattern. You get too much overlap. You're going to have to learn something unique. Something easily recognizable as different from the other stuff going on in your brain. When you get your implant, they're going to take you into a little room, and show you a cool symbol that you've never seen before. The symbol will be colored sorta weird, and have some very unique things about it. They're going to analyze how you react to this symbol. How your brain waves move, they're gonna record that. They're gonna give you 30 or so different symbols. All unique, all designed to be new to you. So then, when you want to unlock your car, you can think of that fiery ╫ in the sky, and shabam, you've got an unlocked car.

The technology is there, and it's been proven possible. It'd be alot of work, but it's out there, possible. I'm still waiting for a very rich man to start the business of brain recognition. All you'd really need would be a team of about 40 people to test on. You'd have to come up with a completely unique 'alphabet'. Something the world has never seen, something completely unique. You wouldn't want your car starting in the middle of the night cause you dreamed of the letter E. You'd need a bunch of rich people that are tired of having their butler unlock the car for them, they'd rather do it with their mind. It'd be difficult, but you could do it. And if you were the first to do it, you'd get filthy filthy rich off of it.

So, if there happen to be any billionaire's reading this with a few good buddies that happen to be brain surgeons, I expect results from you guys. Why can't rich folks unlock their car with their minds? I demand to know.

There's money to be made. Go go go.

It's 1:24. The moon was orange tonight. I have no idea why, but it looked really cool. I think it might have been from all the smog and fires and stuff we've had. I don't rightfully know, but it was very cool action.

and now, for some lists.

If I were a billionaire, there are a few things that I would never be without. And here they are, in no particular order.

My house would always be stocked with bananas. I'd hire a man whose job was solely to make sure I always had bananas at the perfect window of ripeness. I'd never be without a good banana. I'd always have string cheese, because string cheese is great. We'd never run out of bagles and cream cheese. We'd have all the fixins for a great sandwich, all the time. I'd never have to slice the cheese, it'd be ready for me. We'd always have fresh tomatos, and always have lunch meet. There would always be a few chocolate products around, but never too accessible. They'd be hidden away, but I'd know where they are. The trick would be making them inconvenient to get to, so I wouldn't eat them all. Of course, being a billionaire, I could never eat them all, they'd just keep coming back.

But most importantly, we'd never run out of bananas. Bananas are the perfect fruit. The world would be a better place if we all ate some more bananas.

Ok, enough of that billionaire business. I've rediscovered chocolate milk, and I love it so. For years I hadn't had it, but a couple nights ago I decided I wanted some, and I've had a glass of it every day since. I busted out the old nestle powder stuff from ages past, and surprisingly enough it's still good. It was sorta chunky, but with a little bit of a beating it got all nice and powdery again so I can put it in my milk to make it delicious.

This is getting really long. But this bothered me yesterday. I got a letter in the mail from the insurance company. The jist of it was "Hey, since we're the insurance company, we're not going to cover the OneTouch brand of blood sugar meters anymore. We're switching over to the Freestyle brand. This will come into effect on such and such a date. We'll mail you a free meter and some test strips to get you started."

So, not for much longer am I going to be able to use my beloved Ultrasmart meter. I figure the freestyle is going to be similar. I've only used one once, and that was at a demo at walmart. I wasn't impressed. Their main selling point is that it takes less blood to get a test done. Do you know how much blood it takes to test with my ultrasmart? Pretty much none. Well guess what, you need even less with the freestyle. However, it takes longer to get me my results, something like 15 seconds instead of 5.

The insurance company is doing this because freestyle is cheaper, and they probably struck a deal with each other. But here's the real obnoxious part. I'm going to have to move to an inferior meter. It's a crappy meter. It's not designed with me in mind. It's designed to make money, not to be the best meter ever. The blood is not an issue here.

When you poke your finger, you're gonna get blood. There's only two kinds of pokes. Crappy pokes, and good pokes. Crappy pokes yield very little if any blood. In order to get blood out, you've got to squeeze and squeeze like an animal, really hurting your finger. Crappy pokes suck. Then you've got good pokes. You poke, and more than sufficient blood comes out. You put it on the test strip, and then dispose of the rest of it.

Now, have I ever complained about having to give too much blood to test? No. That's the least of my worries. If you poke your finger, you're gonna get enough blood to test with the ultrasmart. You're just gonna use less of it on the freestyle, and you're gonna get rid of more of it on your pants or in your mouth or whatever. The blood thing is 100% worthless.

So, why did they spend money developing that when it could have gone elsewhere? I have no idea. In my conspiracy theory mind, I think they did it to make money. Because hey, dinguses hear "less blood, that's great!" and jump all over it. But really, blood is not an issue, and hasn't been for about 7 years. Why did OneTouch come out with that stupid compact meter with the gay canister of "auto loading" test strips that sucked big time? Not to make my life easier, cause it sucked. It was to make money.

See, that's trouble. It's all this political mess that results in me using a crappy meter. Look at me, I'm cheaper. I don't care, this is my health we're talking about. Will this make any difference to my health? No. None at all, but I like to complain. I don't care how much blood it takes, but if it takes more than 5 seconds I'm gonna get a little antsy. If it doesn't give me awesome graphs, I'm gonna be upset.

The insurance company is giving me the shaft here. Sure, they're mailing me a free meter. But I like the one I've got. Too bad I won't be able to use it for much longer.

So, here's what I need in a meter. I need something that'll fit into my pocket that comes in one piece. I need a built in poker for my finger, and a little place to store my test strips on the meter. That way, I slip that in my pocket, and it's always with me, I'm always ready to test. I don't have to unzip my little pack, and pop out the poker, then the test strips. Nope, it's all there, ready for me. That'd help me a ton. I could test more often, it'd be more convenient.

Am I ever gonna get that? No. Because that doesn't sell. The people in charge of the big money aren't about what's really best, they're about what sells. Less blood sells. The freestyle is going to save the insurance company money, so that's what I'm gonna get. Boo-urns.

wow, almost 2. I've got church in 7 hours. That's pretty cool. This has been a long post, but things are good. This is the stuff I've been thinking about this week. I've definitely thought about more stuff, but this is what comes to mind at the moment. I hope you've enjoyed this. It's been fun writing it, revisiting the important stuff I've thought about over the week. I figure if I had alot of money I could make alot more money. I'd make a good meter, and then I'd make some cool brain recognition stuff. I'd be unlocking my car doors and testing my blood in no time. So that's the way things are this week. Good. The future looks dang bright, thanks to the greatest generation ever. We're gonna rock, there's no stopping us. Shoot at me all you want, impregnate my peers. I don't care, cause we're gonna rock. At least a few of us, and that's good enough for me.