The Blarg

The Blarg predicts that shortly after this photo was taken, famous singer Tom Jones exploded. The exact cause of detonation is unclear, but his brain and other bodily parts were found strewn about.

If the above is incorrect, then the Blarg now predicts that Tom Jones very much needed to visit the restroom. In the event that Tom Jones was unable to find a restroom, he would then have preceeded to blow up, but obviously for different reasons than previously stated.

If both of those are incorrect (though the Blarg is not used to being incorrect) it is possible someone told him that his career is washed up, especially after that Mars Attacks movie he was in for no good reason.

RIP Tom Jones. I don’t care – 2005.

One of the biggest gripes I have with liberals (greens, dems, socialists, many republicans in office, etc) is how much faith they put in the government. Besides the fact that they think a government entity should decide where MY money goes beyond vital infrastructure (see social securty, food stamps, hand outs, etc), these people put a HUGE amount of trust in the goverment.

After both 9/11 and Katrina the government doled out large sums of money. Shockingly people abused (FEMA abuse) the money handed out by the government! (Take a moment to catch your breath, I know it’s hard to believe). Why on earth do liberals trust the government with their money? How naive can you be! The government is not a support system for all the lazy, no good, worthless people in the country. I think as Christians we have a responsiblity to love our neighbor, but I don’t remember God entrusting that responsibility to the stinkin’ government. It’s no wonder that red states give more than blue states, because many liberals think paying taxes is charitable giving. Taxes are to charitable giving as cash is to a drunk outside a liquor store.

The government was not created to give handouts. If you want to throw your hard earned money at people that pay for cable tv and then sign their child up for free or reduced lunch be my guest. Nobody is stopping you from doing idiotic things with your own money, you don’t need the government.

I took Denise’s hint to heart and decided to post, and luckily I thought of something worthwhile.

I’m sitting here entering grades in the district’s online grading program (how cool is that?) and I had a disturbing thought: I think I miss my students. When I stop to think about it, I see my students more than I see my friends and family. For 5 out of 7 days for the last four months I see the same kids, and some of them actually grow on you. I’m sure after a week or two back I may not have as fond of memories as I do now, but I think I genuinely miss them, maybe.

My CHRISTMAS break so far has consisted of very little of substance. There has been a lot of sleeping in and staying up late, watching movies, playing with the dog, and spending time with my wife. CHRISTMAS day itself was really nice. We split time between Stacie’s parents and mine, but we got to see everyone. We’ve watched Narnia, King Kong, Broken Flowers, Undertow, and Shall We Dance. In addition I’ve watched The Fantastic Four, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Red Eye. I got Stacie a z22 palm pilot for Christmas, so we’ve had fun putting software on that and learning how to use it, I mean she has had fun doing those things. Yesterday we returned a bunch of stuff and exchanged things. I really don’t like crowds, at all, and there are still plenty of them.

Today I’ve decided to work on lesson planning and get that out of the way. The first week back I’ll be at a workshop for 2 of the 3 days, and then that weekend we’re heading to Turlock, CA to visit my mom’s family. Stacie has never been to the farm, so I’m looking forward to showing her where many of my childhood memories were made (and they have a bunch of super cool Boston Terriers). I also start winter session at CSULB next week, so I need to have lesson and sub plans ready for the next two weeks.

Not sure what we’re doing on New Years, but we’ve got three invitations I think. Maybe we’ll try and hit all of them! Hope everyone is having a great time off (if you’re lucky enough to have some). Back to regular blarging soon.

Apparently there are a lot of shootings in Compton, what a shocker. Some idiot there had the great idea of disarming all the law abiding citizens. You could go turn in your gun for giftcards to Ralphs or Circuit City.

I doubt there were many gang bangers and thieves in that line. Now the responsible people can’t protect themselves and they have more stuff for the bad guys to steal. Genius idea.

Every Christmas I try to track down some extra rockin’ Christmas music to listen to during the month. I know it’s a little late this year, but here are some great tunes worth finding for next year.

Blink 182 – I Won’t Be Home For Christmas
Eve 6 – First Noel (I like christmas)
Fall Out Boy – Yule Shoot Your Eye Out
Fenix TX – Felix Navidad
Flight 180 – O Come All Ye Faithful
Home Grown – Christmas Crush
In Memory – The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year*
Jimmy Eat World – Last Christmas
MxPx – Christmas Day
MxPx – Christmas Night Of Zombies
MxPx – You’re the One I Miss
My Chemical Romance – All I Want For Christmas
New Found Glory – Ex Miss
Punchline – Icicles
Saosin – Mookie’s Last Christmas
Save Ferris – Christmas Wrapping
Save Ferris – Father Christmas
Simple Plan – My Christmas List
Something Corporate – Forget December
Tenacious D and Sum 41 – Things I Want
The Used – Alone This Holiday
Unwritten Law – Please Come Home For Christmas

*This is highly recommended. Very faithful to the original, but you’ll be rockin’ and rollin’ to Christmas like never before.

I finally finished the book Decipher, which I started in August. The book was ok, but almost a little too technical. While I enjoy a good technical and well researched book, I think it came at the expense of character development. Practically all of the characters blended together, and the only thing that differentiated a couple were their professions and gender. Otherwise I’d see a character name and have no idea what they looked like or what their personality was like.

Briefly, the book was about the city of Atlantis. Every 12,000 years the sun sends off these crazy waves that basically cook the surface of earth killing everything. Well the city of Atlantis and it’s inhabitants were way smart, and developed this crazy system to save earth, which is what the main characters spend the whole book figuring out. I give it a 6.5 out of 10.

Now it’s on to the FEAST!

I don’t think anyone will really care, but I’m working on a way to calculate dynamic sliders for the game MVP Baseball 2005. The game has "sliders" which let you tweak the difficulty and different aspects of the game. People post their sliders and everyone else can try them and see if they like them. I’m attempting to come up with a system that makes it based on individual skill, not some other person.

I know, poor excuse for a post, but I made a fancy spreadsheet and everything!

After a two-year hiatus Stacie and I have once again bought Disneyland season passes. Stacie loves the mouse, so as a belated birthday present we got passes yesterday. We went with her parents for the day and saw all the cool Christmas decorations they put up each year. Below are a few pictures.

That was my first time on Astro Blasters. I did some looking around on Google and found a guy that broke 150k. I plan on emailing our scores every game. I will reach Level 9! Anyone have pictures of their high scores?