We interupt this blog to bring you

Ok,

I have finally caught up with myself long enough to post something to the blog, so for those who have missed me, I’m back. So let me recap the last couple of weeks for you. It started with the remodel on my room. Well that became a disaster, we ended up having to pull up and the carpet because of a half ass patch job a previous owner had done, which because of the way we had to take up the old carpet to get to the messed up subfloor, I got new carpet, which meant having to completely empty the room. On top of that I had to help my sister with a project that she just had to have done immediately ( I mix all of the music for the cheerleaders she coaches), and help two friends with computer problems (the problem was determined to be located between the back of the chair and the keyboard). Throw a holiday in there and I am flat running out of time to get shit done. I also had to write three papers, two of them were simple and I just turned in some bullshit to get a grade and get the hell out of that god forsaken class. However, the third one, it was for my political philosophy class, Troystopher and Alternative blog know a bit about this paper. Well, to be honest, it became an obsession. The assignment was to do an 8-10 page paper addressing one of 20 questions the instructor gave us, or create our own scenarios and write a fictional paper that addresses our questions. I choose the fiction option, I ended up turning in a 22 page paper with a 3 page paper explanation. Now if you think that was obsessive enough, I’m not done yet, I created enough back story, character information, I have two legal pads worth of material that could be developed into at least another 100 pages of material, I could damn near write a book. So that has been my life for the last two weeks, work, school, work, school, I haven’t slept much, and have lived off of Sobe No Fear and Adrenaline Rush to keep me moving and halfway conscious. In other news however, I did have three tests cancelled this week, so now I just have final exams to take and I am done this year, no more papers or tests until next year. Well I am off to get some sleep.

In Closing, I was watching and SNL marathon today and figured I would share some quotes

“Schmitts Gay Beer, if you’ve got a thirst and your gay reach for a Schmitts Gay” (Seriously go search Schmitts Gay on YouTube, its funny)

“Don’t be a slut wipe your but” – from a sex ed class sketch

“Dick in a box” – JT with his dick in a box need I say more

And of course the ambiguously gay duo Ace and Gary

BW

Remodel

Ok so here are some pics of my home renovation project, right now it is a work in progress, Hope to have it dont sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Holidays

So here comes one of those things that just pisses me off. I have been out shopping at various stores, and since a couple of weeks before Halloween Christmas decorations were already appearing in stores. Now I am not anti Christmas, but come on, the middle of October is to damned early for Christmas shit to appear in stores. Well the weekend after Halloween I went shopping with my mom and what did I hear in the stores, Christmas music playing. I know it gets worse every year, but I remember 5 years ago the “official start” of the holiday shopping season. Now stores can’t get transitioned fast enough from fall to a brief layover at Halloween before throwing Christmas up, thanksgiving is basically passed over anymore. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind Christmas, I don’t mind holiday music, but I don’t want to hear or see it in October. Oh well, guess that is the way it goes then. In other news, I am going to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra again in St Louis on December 9th at the Scott Trade Center, I managed to score event floor level seats dead center about 30 rows from the stage. So after thanksgiving I have decided to share some holiday music on the blog, I will of course be posting some TSO, but I will also be posting my favorite holiday song from last year from The Dan Band.
BW

PS Remodel progress pics posted tonight

life

Ok,

So I have hit that post midterm point of not giving a damn and just wanting to be done with classes, homework, and papers for a little while. I always find this to be worse during the fall semester after midterms, because it’s getting, darker, colder, and everything around is dying. Not that I am a big fan of summer or anything, but at least it’s not as dreary. So what have I been doing instead of homework? Well I have been remodeling a bedroom, I will post some pictures of that soon, as well as the final product of the two room renovation I have been doing. I have also been surfing the internet a lot. I guess sooner or later I need to get my ass moving, I have a lot of stuff I have to catch up on right now, it seems like I went from being a head to being behind overnight. Oh, well I will get around to a bigger post on something important later. But in other news. I have kinda/sorta met a guy, problem is guy don’t know it yet, so here is a set up of this, feel free to tell me if you think I am being a stalker here. There is a guy that comes into the bank I work at to cash his paychecks, well I had noticed certain things that set off the gayday, well one night I was looking at one of my friends myspace profiles, and looked at his friends list to see if he had any of our old friends listed that I didn’t. Well while going through his list I found the guy from work who ill call paycheck guy. Well I checked out paycheck guys profile and it confirmed my observations. So I added him as a friend. Paycheck guy face me a weird look the last time he was in but I didn’t wait on him, and couldn’t bring myself to really say anything to him. I mean he is attractive and seems to have a nice personality. I just have never been comfortable talking to guys I am interested in. I can talk in front of large rooms, talk with elected officials and be perfectly comfortable put a guy in front of me I want to get to know better and I become uber shy and wont speak. So feel free to tell me if I am a myspace stalker of tell me what my hang up here is and any helpful advice anyone might have on this.


BW

Homophobia

Whether you are homosexual or not, you should repost this in support of your friends and loved ones who are. Start a conversation with those around you. Love is not defined by color, creed, or gender.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the boy who never finished high school, because I got called a fag everyday.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.
We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my husband of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn't have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am a warrior for my country serving proud, but can't be my true self because gays aren't allowed in the military.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends I'm a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.

I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to "teach me a lesson". My name is Matthew Shepard.

On October 7, 1998 Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson lead Matthew to a remote area east of Laramie, Wyoming where they demonstrated unimaginable acts of hate. Matthew was tied to a split-rail fence where he was beaten and left to die in the cold of the night. Almost 18 hours later he was found by a cyclist who initially mistook him for a scarecrow. Matthew died on October 12 at 12:53 am at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. KILLED BECAUSE HE WAS GAY!!!

Separation of Church and State: The Independence of Thought and Function

Yesterday I was speaking to a group of students (my sister’s class (she is the teacher)) about government, politics, and our state. During the question session, I was asked why during the tour of the state capitol building there was a chapel in the building since in this country we have a separation of church and state. Now this might be sounding like the beginning of another one of my endless rants on religion, but don’t worry this isn’t going there. Now here goes my best shot at constitutional interpretation, and personal opinion. First off, as I have said before people founded this county who fled Europe due to a persecution of their religious beliefs, the Puritans and the Quakers (not the oats people). In the first amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights, its first three words are Freedom Of Religion, and it specifies that congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of a national religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof. Then there is the ninth amendment, it protects rights not specifically enumerated in the bill of rights and that interpretation of the constitution and the bill of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. On our money the words IN GOD WE TRUST is printed, our pledge of allegiance included ONE NATION UNDER GOD, the bill of rights says that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among them Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My point is that religion has also been a cornerstone of our country, however, at the same time a building cannot stand on just one cornerstone. Freedom to practice the beliefs of your choice has also always been a part of our country and its founding as well. I have no problem with an athlete praying before a game, I have no problem with a student who prays is school, I have a problem with mandatory time for “silent reflection” Not every student prays, not every student believes in the same religion, I don’t think this should be something that is forced. I firmly believe in the separation of church and state religion should not be legislated, just as social issued should be considered on merit rather than religious ideology. It’s a fine line, and I know its hard to walk on one side or the other of that line. The founding fathers went through great difficulty in setting up the governance of this country and protecting the rights of the people. So back to the original cause of this question, do I object to a chapel (it’s a room set aside in a corner of the first floor) being in the capitol building, no I don’t, because people are not forced to go there, there is not a mandatory prayer session held in the room, it is there so that if someone chooses to exercise their freedom to express their religion there is a place that they might do so. That’s not contrary to the separation of church and state, that exemplifies it.

Polling Data 2

Ok here are month two poll results, first number is last month’s totals, then gain/loss compared to last month’s totals, and finally, cumulative votes and percentages. Enjoy. Let month three begin

Democrats 8 total votes cast no change over month 1 cumulative 16 votes
Clinton 4 votes 50% gain of two votes over month one Cumulative 6 votes 37%
Obama 1 vote 12% loss of two votes cumulative 4 votes 25%
Edwards 2 votes 24% loss of one vote cumulative 5 votes 31%
Richardson 1 vote 12% gain of 1 vote cumulative 1 vote 6%

GOP – 6 Votes loss of 1 vote from month 1 cumulative 13 votes
Guiliani 1 vote 16% loss of one vote cumulative 3 votes 23%
Thompson 4 votes 66% gain of one vote cumulative 7 votes 53%
Romney 0 votes 0% loss of 2 votes cumulative 2 votes 15%
McCain 1 vote 16% gain of one vote cumulative 1 vote 7%

Faith

I have found myself thinking about faith and religion for a while and reading Cody over at alternative life has had me thinking some more and this is the result. With the exception of 4 years of hell known as high school, I received most (1 year in the public during grade school) in private parochial schools. As a result, I have at least some education in the church and church doctrine. I will say here that I no longer believe in the church, I do believe in a higher power of some sort and I believe in fate and destiny and that the universe has a funny way of bringing people into our lives when we need them the most. So where is this headed? Well I keep getting asked by people to define my religious beliefs so here I go. First, one of my biggest bitches with the church is over money. I have worked in banks and have seen some deposits made into church accounts and they aint small people. I see clergy driving 30-40 thousand dollar cars and wearing designer clothes. I have also seen fist hand some of the multi-million dollar churches dedicated to “worship”. So what is my problem with this? In the bible, Jesus led a sermon on the mount; nowhere in the bible does it say to build houses of wealth and vanity to worship the lord. My problem is with multimillion-dollar churches being built while the sick the hungry and the homeless sleep in the streets in the shadows of that million-dollar building. If the entire monetary wealth of the Roman Catholic Church were applied towards doing the work of the lord rather than the trappings of feudal theocracy built on wealth power and greed, what would this world look like? The institution of the church itself is not the house of god, its a billion dollar a year business, not for profit my ass. You wan worship god from a garage, from a tents, or anywhere else, people can gather to worship. My other bitch is the hypocritical judgmental assholes that stands at a pulpit and spout the “words of god” to the applause of those who are too fucking brainwashed to read the book and find the answers for themselves. The bible in black and white says judge not others least ye shall be judged thyself, it also says to love the sinner but hate the sin. I find it funny that Christians can damn homosexuals to hell and treat us like shit and try to keep us from having the same rights as straights in this world because if we want to get technical about things then slavery is perfectly fine, so is polygamy, and we shouldn’t eat shellfish or tough pigs skin. I find it amazing that they can justify what parts to leave in and what parts to ignore as out of date passages, if they can interpret out one part then they can shut the fuck up over another. My last bitch is this, Christians have been one of the most persecuted groups in the history of the world and also one of the greatest offenders of genocide, murder, and torture in the history of the world. I find it amazing the Christians in this country forget that if not for a group of people seeking to escape persecution for their beliefs this country would not exist as it does today, so what in the hell gives the church the right to dictate to anyone what they should believe, how they should live their lives, and who they should love. I’m not anti religion, and I respect anyone right to the beliefs of their choice, if someone chooses to believe the world is flat that don’t affect me, if a person believes in Allah, Buddha, of God its doesn’t affect what I believe, and Who I love, Who I want to marry won’t affect them . Ok end of rant, I am sure I will be catching some shit over this one.