Dead kitty.

Nixon Leslie (1989-2004)

God killed my cat yesterday.

I’ve owned Nixon, my cat, for 15 years, since he was six weeks old. The rest of the family was not so attached to him; he didn’t like humans. He liked me, though mainly it’s because I fed and pet him.

He tolerated the rest of the family, who felt in his last year that I should euthanize him. I didn’t; I don’t approve of euthanasia, and hardly think arthritis is enough of a reason for it. I will of course remind them of this when their joints start to ache.

I’ve been an absent owner a lot, what with living in places that don’t accept pets. The past three months have been at school. I suppose it’s better that I was back to see him before he died.

I feel sadness and loss, of course. I don’t know if animals have an afterlife; despite what we tell children, we don’t know anything about their spiritual nature, or even if they have one. Do I have any hope of seeing him again? Well, what I have hope in is that God is good, and that’ll have to do.

More work to do.

School is out but my classes aren’t done. I have one more paper to turn in. This sucks but it’s my own fault.

I notice that at the end of the semester, many people don’t care so much about getting good grades as much as they care about getting the semester done and over with. Currently, I relate. I’d love to have A’s but I want to be finished and start over and do better next semester. Plus, I have to get started on my Christmas shopping.

It will be nice to be done… next week.

There are coffee fans, and there are coffee snobs.

You don’t love coffee unless you love all coffee.

I love coffee. I know some other folks who claim to love coffee, but they’re really just coffee snobs. If you really loved coffee, you wouldn’t care whether it’s Starbucks or Yuban, so long as it’s coffee. Coffee snobs are particular about their coffee, so one can argue that they don’t love coffee so much as they love one particular brand or style. It’s like those people who claim they love music, but only listen to pop; or those people who claim they love Jesus, but don’t obey his commands.

Hey, check it out: I made a little mini-sermon.

Need to check my email more often.

I really don’t check my email enough.

I do; but I have too many email addresses. The only two I check regularly are my Hotmail account (which I use for family) and my iWon account (which I’ve had forever and use for just about everything else). Then there’s a Juno account I never use. Finally, Bethany College gave me a FirstClass account.

I’m not in the habit of looking at it. I care more about my other accounts, and I find that most of the things on FirstClass are administrative spam. So I check it maybe once a week. This freaks people out. Too many people are dependent on quick responses to their email, and they don’t consider the possiblity that I have other email addresses that I give a higher priority to.

Except I now realize I have to check my bloody FirstClass email too. But I think there’s some way to forward it to my iWon account or something. I’ll figure it out.

Surrounded by hypocrites in the café.

When mature Christians are offended, they say so privately. Hypocrites get loud.

So I’m in the café, complaining about all the thumping that goes on in the upstairs hall. “It sounds like someone has a trampoline up there,” I commented.

“It’s probably R,” said one of my hallmates, who was at the table at the time. “She bounces around a lot.”

“If this weren’t a Christian college,” I commented, “I’d presume she was doing something inappropriate.”

This offended the others at the table.

“If this weren’t a Christian college,” I reiterated.

Still offended.

Ah, but were they?…

The greatest asset the Pharisees had was a pack mentality. Here, I was surrounded by a group of—presumably—good Christians, some of whom live in my hall. I have personally witnessed how “good” my hallmates really are. They’ve said much cruder things than I just did, using four-letter words or their euphemisms; some of them swear solely in Spanish, assuming that white English-speakers won’t know what they’re calling their moms. Compare, now, with how I never said what inappropriate thing R might be doing. But since there were women at the table—women they found attractive—they suddenly became the biggest bunch of self-righteous hypocrites to ever piss off Jesus.

Nah, there have probably been bigger hypocrites. But you see what I’m dealing with here. And ladies, you might also notice what you’re dealing with. If a guy starts to get righteous on you about another person’s inappropriate comments, consider this: Truly righteous people ignore such things. They’re better than that. If they feel the need to discuss your inappropriate behavior, they take you aside and do it privately. Hypocrites, on the other hand, get loud about it.

Staying in my hall, even though it’s noisy.

There is some minor pressure to get me out of my hall, “Burnett South,” previously known as “Victory” and sometimes known as “the Endzone,” though I think only Alvin Leota calls it that. It’s mainly because other Burnett guys want to live here next semester. I don’t blame them; but I’ve got a sweet deal here and ain’t moving.

Besides, some of them are music majors and we have enough singers in this hall. Good Lord, some of them are the most tone-deaf people I’ve ever heard; how the heck did they manage to get into the program? The way they mangle Stevie Wonder is just criminal; the fact that they even sing Johnny Mathis tunes deserves them a caning; and what’s with the Metallica lately? (Not that I object; but must they sing along?)

On the up side, they are at Bethany College to learn something, and I’ll simply need to tolerate them getting their horrible music choices and practices out of their systems. Bethany did wonders for my sister. Not to embarrass her; but she used to sing Whitney Houston songs before she came here, and thank God, Bethany cured her of it.

I know some people are going to say, “You should talk; I’ve heard that sucky ‘Cup of Jesus’ song you play on your blog.” That’s different. I play that song so you, like me, can make fun of it. You also have control over your computer’s volume. I have no control over the other music played in my hall; I can only turn up my music to drown the other stuff out.

What I’d love to get is one of those inverse-noise generators to cancel it out completely, but I don’t know where to find a non-industrial version. (They used to be installed in certain luxury cars to cancel out engine noise; but I haven’t seen them in a few years.) If you know of any place that sells them, drop me a note. Such devices are necessary in college dorms.

Etch-a-Sketch Tech Support.

I found this Etch-A-Sketch Tech Support info amusing enough…

Here to answer your frequently asked Etch-A-Sketch questions.

Q: My My Etch-A-Sketch has a distorted display.

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen.

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What's the shortcut for Undo?

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I create an empty New Document window?

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I exit without saving?

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color?

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch?

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch?

A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I keep from losing my Etch-A-Sketch documents in the middle of my work?

A: Stop shaking it.

The state has no business legitimizing marriages.

Marriage is a religious sacrament. Isn’t there supposed to be a separation of church and state?

To pick up on this Rant from lunch, where it came up:

I believe in the separation of church and state. The state has no business telling the church how to run things, telling Christians how and where they can worship, and legitimizing religious rituals. Likewise, the state doesn’t take orders from any one church. I think every American can agree with these principles; problem is, most people believe “separation of church and state” means how the courts currently misinterpret it: the removal of religion from public places and functions, which violates the spirit of the First Amendment’s clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Technically, it’s not really violated—Congress doesn’t make laws against it; the courts do.

Another way in which the separation of church and state is violated is by the government legitimizing marriages. Marriage is a societal function; but it’s one that comes from religion. For crying out loud, the marriage ceremony is a religious ceremony. It’s considered a sacrament by many churches. Yet we actually have judges and J.P.’s performing marriages, and we don’t think anything of it because we really aren’t thinking about it whatsoever. You wouldn’t have ’em perform a baptism, a briss, communion, or the last rites; what are they doing performing marriages?

Most of the problems with marriage in America are because of state legitimization of marriage. The state will let you get married with no premarital counseling, no waiting period, and no judgment calls; some states don’t even require a blood test. They dissolve marriages in a no-fault manner; everything is simply divided fifty-fifty, with no marital counseling. It’s like a business arrangement; and to the state, that’s all marriage is. And because it’s nothing more than a business arrangment, the state really doesn’t care what gender the partners are either.

The state needs to get its hands out of it, but instead, the Republicans want to define marriage in the Constitution. This is no surprise, since most politicians worship their party rather than God; why else are so many of them available Sunday mornings for the talk shows? They don’t understand the nature of marriage any more than most of us; they certainly don’t respect it, as seen by their past examples; they even tax it, which is why my grandmother and her boyfriend are currently shacking up—why get married when it means they lose pension and Social Security incomes?

As a result, they’ll likely pass their silly amendment, create a Constitutional contradiction that helps nullify the First Amendment, and help future judges erode the Amendment’s protections even further. Bloody Congress.

How many repeats does it take to drive a roommate mad?

New fun prank: Put “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads in your CD player and hit Repeat. See how many times the song has to repeat before your roommate realizes what’s going on and freaks out.

Currently Mike holds the record; I ran that sucker 14 times and got tired of it before he did. My previous roommate S only needed to hear it start the second time. “Dude, you're sick!” he squealed, and fled from the room.

I don’t even sing along.

My current events. And Niners suck.

I returned to campus today. L brought me, after first fixing his brakes, then discovering one of the rotors is cracked, then as we came up Scotts Valley Drive one of his tires went flat. So the trip sucked for him. I lent him lots of money to take care of these things, and he hates to borrow money, so this was a big step for him, but he’ll get over it.

Grandma went home today, after spending about five days in a row griping about the cold. She lives in Phoenix. Out of curiosity, I looked up Phoenix’s weather and discovered the weather is exactly the same as northern California’s; they’re going through a cold spell. Ha HA! It is a little annoying, though, having the heater cranked up to 75° Fahrenheit and having to wear jackets and socks because she’s cold. I’m much happier in my cold little dorm room.

I was also amused with this morning’s sports page; the Forty-Niners are now 1-10 and bottom of the league. I commented to my sister, “Now they officially suck.”

If you find that statement annoying or offensive, I remind you—they’re in last place. If last place doesn’t suck, something’s wrong with your judgment.

Mike pointed out that maybe this is part of their strategy to get the first-round draft pick next season; and there might be something to that idea.

More obnoxious behavior.

Sucky Christmas present: Next semester’s textbooks.

“Merry Christmas. Have a textbook. You’ll thank me later.”

How my Thanksgiving went.

Thanksgiving was good. Went home to visit the family. L drove me, and stuck around for Thanksgiving. Got to visit with family and family’s significant others. And L.

L’s a great guy, and he’s been my friend for years. But because he’s homeless, this weirded out Mom a little. However, Mom got to know him, and now she has no problem with him, as I expected. Mom's cool.

Grandma will take a lot more work; and she’s too set in her ways to change. Unfortunately, a lot of those ways annoy me. Her anti-Mexican bigotry, her passive-aggressive comments, her obsessive fascination with celebrity gossip, her complaints that I never wear shoes, and her obvious favoritism towards me at the exclusion of my siblings, all bug me. I love her, but her anti-intellectual habits don’t make it easy.

I haven’t got a lick of homework done this weekend, which isn’t good. Dead week should be insanely busy. I’m only up to chapter 11 in Bill Clinton’s autobiography; it’s interesting. But so much of my time has been spent watching movies I’ve seen already. I feel like I’m wasting time here; I guess this would be a better vacation if I didn't have so much still to do.

But on the negative side… internet access sucks without broadband. I’ve been spoiled.

About the music.

Kent’s Recommended Listen:
U2:
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

The new U2 album rocks. So does iTunes.

Loneliness 𝘪𝘴 curable, you know.

I get to go to Vacaville for Thanksgiving, which is very cool ’cause I get to see the family. So I can kind of understand how come so many people are writing blogs and emails about how they’re lonely and that sucks. Indeed it does.

I don’t mean to crap all over anyone’s misery, but often loneliness is a person’s own bloody fault. Every lonely period I have ever been through has been entirely because I was, at the time, a miserable bastard. I was too caustic, sarcastic, passive-agressive, foul-mouthed, self-centered, greedy, needy. Not even God wanted to talk to me. I didn’t even like myself; why on earth would anyone else disagree? I had to take inventory of my life, eliminate the characteristics that I didn’t like, and become the person I wanted to be—someone more like Jesus.

I don’t presume to know a lot of the bloggers. Some of them may think they know me because they’ve read my Rants and assume this is what I’m like. (This, in spite of my disclaimers that Rants are my way of letting off steam, and that in real life I’m a lot nicer, wittier, and more handsome.) I don’t know if you’re alone because your personality resembles old mayonnaise. I hope not. I simply find, through personal experience, that this is often true.

And I find it ridiculous that such people regularly defend themselves with, “That’s not true. I’m not like that. My other friends think I’m great.” First they complain that they’re alone; then they defend themselves by referring to friends. Aren’t these the same friends who aren’t around? True friends warn you about your flaws; false ones make fun of them behind your back.

Stupid internet questionnaire.

And now, some personal information that you can only find out through Internet spam.

Here’s a questionnaire my brother sent me once. I like this better than the last superficial list of likes/dislikes I posted.

1. Last movie you saw in a theater. Ray.
2. What book are you reading now? Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abegnale. Better than the movie. (The book usually is.) Finished Elmer Gantry Friday.
3. Favorite board game. “Mr. Leslie Gets to Mess With Your Head,” which I invented. After that, I suppose Outburst.
4. Favorite magazine. Christianity Today.
5. Favorite smells. Brewing coffee. Pine incense. Clean laundry.
6. Comfort foods. Cheez-its. Pea soup. Mom’s enchiladas.
7. Worst feeling in the world. Knowing the trouble I’m in is my own bloody fault.
8. First thing you think of when you wake up. Where’s the %$#@ snooze button?
9. Favorite fast food place. Quizno’s. Pizza My Heart. McDonald’s.
10. Future child’s name. Jesus. Why aren’t there any Anglo kids named Jesus?
11. The most important thing in life. Loving God and one another. I know, Jesus said it first and it sounds like the perfect Christian answer, but I’ve come to believe it’s quite true.
12. If I had lots of money I would… pay off loans. Then I could do whatever I wanted and not worry about an income.
13. Favorite collectable. Jazz CDs. Bible reference books.
14. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? No. But I do have some.
15. Storms: Cool or scary? Neither. Annoying.
16. First car. A Honda CVCC that my Dad figured he could teach me to drive, so he put it in my name. It never really was mine. I don’t drive.
17. Favorite color. Green. Either hunter or kelly; sometimes lime.
18. Do you eat the stems of broccoli? Yes.
19. If you could dye your hair any color, it would be: Strawberry blonde; it’s the only other color that looks natural on me. I have made it that color a few times.
20. In how many states have you lived? California and Texas.
21. In how many cities have you lived? Seven: San Jose, Houston, Hayward, Vacaville, Sacramento, Dixon, Scotts Valley, Grass Valley.
22. Favorite place to relax. My room.
23. Favorite sports to watch. Basketball. Football. Rugby.
24. One nice thing about the person who gave you this. Chad Leslie is one of the coolest guys I know; and “cool” is a term I seldom use about people.
25. What is under your bed? Mike Venegas’s bed.
26. Of the people you’ll send this to, who will likely respond first? Heck if I know. This is a blog, not email. People can copy this list all they like.
27. Least likely? Mom. She’s not on Xanga and it’s hard enough to get her to write email.
28. Whom do you hate? I don’t hate people. They may annoy me sometimes, but I reserve hatred for only inanimate objects. I cannot hate what God loves. Not even the devil.

More on Elmer Gantry.

There’s lots of ends-justify-the-means behavior in both Elmer Gantry and Christianity.

Still reading Elmer Gantry. I reached the section of the book that they made into the movie. The whole book wasn’t made into the movie; just one interesting little segment of it. Guess the producers thought the book was too long.

Of course, some things got changed for the movie. In the movie, Elmer is a salesman and con man who passes himself off as a pastor and gets involved with a revival. In the book, Elmer is a pastor—he cons himself into becoming one, mainly for the power that comes with it, and since he believes he’s actually doing people some good, he has no trouble adding con man techniques to his salvation messages. Hence the book is a little more disturbing than the movie.

There’s a lot of ends-justify-the-means attitude in the book. Elmer has no problem with making up testimonies and decorating the revival tent with bogus crutches if it will win souls. Unfortunately, I’ve known too many people who have “spiced up” their testimonies because they think a dramatic conversion will get people’s attention better than “I grew up Christian.” Sad but true; and more common than you think. (Unless you’re one of those people with an embellished testimony; then it may surprise you to learn you’re not the only hypocrite.)

What’s with the petition?

This isn’t how Christians are meant to deal with problems.

It’s not easy to tell this story without dropping names or hints, but I’m gonna give it a shot. Two guys, roommates, are not getting along. The solution, they figured, was for one of them to exchange rooms with another person. Sound reasonable? Except that some buttinsky figures the wrong roommate is exchanging rooms, and has drafted a petition—which he asked me to sign—to express this to our Resident Director. He picked the wrong guy. Last time I encountered such a petition, it was meant to get me fired. I’m not a big fan of the “strength in numbers” mentality; it got my Rabbi killed. Besides, there were a lot of steps bypassed in order to put together this petition. Most places actually have a procedure to address grievances; Jesus even has one. First you go to the person; then you go to the RA, then the RD, and only after that point would I feel comfortable signing any such petition. But people don’t want procedure; they want quick, ego-shattering, relationship-damaging results. Really, they want vengeance, and nothing provides a better passive-agressive assault than a big list of names telling someone to go f--- himself. Unfortunately, the typical response to an assault is either a savage fight or a bitter surrender. (My response to the petition against me? Fortunately, I and my bosses were mature enough to handle it properly. I let God—and my bosses—deal with it, and kept my job.) I shouldn’t get so annoyed at immaturity. I’ve encountered enough of it; you’d think I’d be anesthetized to it by now.

Interesting read: Elmer Gantry.

Kent’s Recommended Read:

Sinclair Lewis:
Elmer Gantry

---

So the characters in Elmer Gantry nitpick the bible. Doesn’t shake my faith any.

I downloaded Elmer Gantry from the internet and am reading it off my pocket PC. But click on that book cover if you’d rather have it on Kindle.

So far it’s nothing like the movie. I just got past the bit where the “Christers” are trying to save Elmer, and his atheist roommate keeps quoting Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll at him.

I’ve read Paine and Ingersoll. They have a lot of good points about iffy portions of the bible. They spend more time ridiculing it than asking honest questions; and that’s mainly because they don’t have honest questions; they just want to rip on the bible. So let them have their fun; it doesn’t disturb me any. My relationship with God isn’t based on the bible. It’s based on God.

I get in trouble whenever I say that, so let me clarify.

I greatly respect the bible. I believe it to be inspired and quote from it often. I believe God’s character is well-reflected in its pages. As so many Christians point out, the bible points us to God. However, the bible is no substitute for God, and regardless of how much I may respect the bible, I don’t confuse the two. When God tells me something and it’s not in the bible, I don’t respond, "That’s not in the bible, so that’s not from God." If I were to do that, my god would be the bible.

I get in trouble with Fundamentalists whenever I say that, but that’s only because the truth can hurt.

𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭 drama at Bethany College.

Watched the school play. Some was good, some bad. Same as usual.

Saw “Arsenic and Old Lace” yesterday. I found it very amusing.

…It is hard to fairly critique a production when you know many of the people in it. Some of the actors were very good. Others… well, the usual complaints are

1. some people recited lines or shouted, instead of acting;
2. some too obviously showed their anxiousness to hit the cues;
3. the motivation of some characters were obviously unexamined;

and anything more specific and I'd be naming names.

But you find this sort of thing when you have people who aren't so much interested in being better actors as they are interested in being involved in a spectacle. It's the difference between, say, Anthony Hopkins and Shaquille O'Neal.

It's why I did plays. I'm a lousy actor because I like to get attention too much. Some would say that therefore I'm in no position to critique other actors; which is baloney. Having talent and recognizing talent are two different things; you don't need to have both.

Some of it I found unintentionally amusing. The all-female police force, for example. I know; there are always more women trying out for parts than men (especially at Bethany College, where there are more women in general). This is the sort of thing that makes it obvious how male-dominated most plays are.

Then there were the anachronistic music selections played before the play and during intermission; but I'm nit-picking.

But to end this positively: Most of the prominent parts are played by good actors, and that largely makes the play worthwhile. And, from what I hear by those in a position to know, they get better with each performance. So if you haven't seen it yet, do.

A side rant: It's too bad that school productions limit themselves to three or four productions; I think they should perform for at least two weekends, just in case one weekend or the other is poorly timed. Why go to all that work for such a brief payoff when you can extend the payoff?

Maybe we should meet at homecoming.

Classmates wanna meet? That’s what homecoming is for.

It’s strange; since I came back to Bethany I keep bumping into old friends that I went to school with back in the ’90s. Some of them just never left. (Which is actually quite sad.) Others of them did leave, but I bump into them anyway.

I was talking to H recently, who lives in southern California. He’d like to visit but in order to make the trip worthwhile he wants to visit lots of people. I suggested homecoming. By golly, there’s an actual use for homecoming!

True, this is the sixth year since I graduated; but I’m roping up old friends for it, no matter what year they graduated. Thus far, only five people are interested, but with enough publicity more will come. So, old friends, mark off Friday and Saturday, February 4-5, 2005 on your calendar, tell your friends, then email me if you’re coming. I’ll post a list of attendees on my website.

Good Lord, I’m turning into a publicity shmuck.

Stupid joke.

“Isn’t “xanga” onomatopoeia for pocket pool?” —M.

Two rants about whiny veterans and whiny lefties.

If the veterans want their own holiday, fine. They get the day off. The rest of us will go to work.

I’m a little annoyed at the veterans for demanding that, and having, Veterans Day put on some day other than Monday. I want three-day weekends, dangit. Every federal holiday should be moved to Monday. Yet the veterans whined, “But then nobody will pay enough attention to us,” so now they get their day today.

I think Veterans Day would be more appropriate if only the veterans got the day off. If they move it to Monday, they can even have the three-day weekend they’re depriving the rest of us from having. The rest of us who didn’t do our civic duty to fight for our country can just go to work as usual. We’ll celebrate some other holiday, like Jurors Day or Voters Day or Taxpayers Day; something everyone can celebrate (unless you dodge jury duty, don’t vote, and don’t file taxes). We can put it in August because that month needs a holiday. We don’t need two holidays in November anyway.

Deadhead humor.

What does a Deadhead say at a Grateful Dead concert once he runs out of weed?

“Man, this band sucks!”

Bad, 𝘣𝘢𝘥 worship leaders!

Leaders are supposed to lead. Even if they’re busy singing and playing the piano.

Another pet peeve: Worship leaders who worship more than they lead.

Trouble is, whenever I bring this up, people think I’m talking about the people who just recently led worship. Admittedly, they brought this up; but not everything I’m about to rant on was practiced by them. They just happened to have sparked me. And I know the job isn’t easy; but there are some things that every worship leader ought to remember to do.

Repentant Episcopals, sarcasm and vagueness.

The Episcopals repent of idolatry, but don’t deal with their core problems.

Good news—

I ranted about the Episcopal Church endorsing idolatry. Some Episcopal pastors with a connection to pagan churches had put together a liturgy encouraging worship of another god. In response to a whole lot of criticsm, they’ve recently repented and recanted their activities with the pagans.

The only down side to this is that the leadership of the church needs to take responsibility for its actions—and it hasn’t done so yet. Likely leadership will figure that since the pastors repented, the issue is over with. If only that were true.

And now, a brief moment of sarcasm: Yeah, right we’ll only be working on the yearbook for an hour.

Amusing website: The Holy Observer.

God bless The Holy Observer; sometimes we just gotta laugh at ourselves.

Take a glance at a few more:

• "Welcome, Semi-Annual Worshippers"
• "Come look at our asses"
• "Going to church won’t save your soul!"
• "Backslider amnesty until 8/31"
• "Hungover? No problem!"
• "Going to church won’t save your soul!"
• "There’s no A/C in hell!"
• "Saddam, Jesus loves you…"
• "Think you might be going to hell?"

Of course, some of them look fake to me. For all I know, they’re all fake. But they’re funny.

Wanna buy an electric piano?

Kent’s Recommended Watch:
Taylor Hackford:
Ray

Saw Ray at the theater today. Damn, Jamie Foxx is good. The ending was typical Hollywood cheese, but don’t let that stop you from seeing it.

By the way, if you want a Wurlitzer electric piano like you saw in the movie, contact my sister. I don’t know how much she’s charging for it. Two keys don’t work properly.

You don’t 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 care how it’s going.

We’ll call this Annoyance #55.

It’s not really a pet peeve, but it’s slightly irritating: People who, in passing, ask, “What’s up?” or “How’s it going?”

Don’t ask such a question unless you want an answer!

In order to point this out, I began to respond with, “You don’t care.” But that usually resulted in guilt-ridden people stopping in their tracks to find out what actually was up with me—see, such an answer implies that there’s something seriously wrong and that I’m feeling alone and unloved. I don’t feel that way at all; I was only trying to make a point, and I wind up accused of being in denial.

Okay, so now I’m back to the semi-automatic responses “Not a lot” and “Better than average.” Smart-ass remarks don’t get the response I want; and I can’t fix ’em.

Tell you a funny story about fixing people, though. Dad has a bad habit of trying to fix people. For the longest time he was trying to get Burger King employees to stop asking him if he wanted cheese on that or fries with that.

“You want cheese on that?” they’d ask him when he ordered a Whopper.

“You mean a cheese-Whopper?” he’d say.

“Yes.”

“Did I ask if I wanted cheese on that?” he’d say.

This would make them hesitant to ask him if he wanted fries with that, but they’d ask it anyway because they have to. I worked for Burger King once, and the managers would tear you a new one if you don’t.

“Did I ask for fries?” he’d say.

“I can’t go to fast food restaurants with you anymore,” I told him. “God forbid I order the same thing as you and I wind up with the huge glob of spit in my food.”

Eventually Dad realized he was just frustrating the employees unnecessarily and stopped doing it. This happened regardless of my comments about hock-laced Whoppers. He just had to come to this conclusion on his own.

And yet we still have Christians that are convinced that nagging apologetics converts people…

My hall is becoming all kinds of strange.

The guys are starting to crack. Wanna make them crack faster?

I was fixing lesson plans all day. My brain hurts.

The noises from my hall are occasionally disturbing. Not annoying; disturbing. There is a lot of screaming, a lot of shouting, occasional wrestling (smack ’em if you like ’em, remember?) and lately the guys next door have decided to sing Johnny Mathis songs. In harmony. It’s like living in a freakin’ musical.

I’ve seen weirder, though.

My new favorite prank:

Go up to people and say, "Did you hear the latest about the election?"

"What about it?" they’ll say.

"They finished counting the absentee ballots in two states," you respond. "It flipped their electoral votes over and now John Kerry is president."

Watch them flail like fish in a boat.

Dang, it’s funny.

Don’t leave them hanging too long, though. Some of these right-wing nutjobs are so temperamental they’ll smack you for even suggesting such a thing. But it’s still just so dang funny. Especially since in the Bethany Bubble, people know nothing.

The Halloween freak show.

I can’t recommend visiting Santa Cruz on Halloween, though.

Sunday my sister and I went to watch the Halloween freak show in downtown Santa Cruz. Man, I’ve never seen so many people dressed as prostitutes in all my life… if that’s what they were dressed as… if they were only dressed as prostitutes. I went as God.

Most of the people were in no discernible costume. (Me, fr’instance.) They were just dressed ridiculously or outrageously. (Then there were the guys dressed as Jay and Silent Bob, whom the people in my group simply didn’t recognize because they’d never seen the movies.) Halloween is the perfect opportunity for freaks to be themselves and get away with it. So they did.

Makes you wonder how many people out there save their freakdom for days like Halloween? With me, what you see is pretty close to what you get; I’m still trying to get the two to match. It’s called integrity, you see.

𝘚𝘰 much juvenile behavior on this campus.

I’m surrounded by immaturity.

Someone was playing that Clay Aiken song that goes,

🎵 If I was invisible

🎵 Then I could just watch you in your room.

Am I the only one that finds that creepy?

So I’m doing my homework in the library and inadvertently listening to the people in the room. I became an auditory witness to one of the saddest fumbling attempts at flirtation I’ve heard since I taught junior high school.

He was hanging out with her because he likes her. She was giving him opening after opening to admit this, and yet he kept missing them. Instead, he did the usual stupid junior-high stuff: bragging and teasing. The bragging part was when he was talking about his good qualities (“I’m really good at focusing on my work.” “Oh yeah, so am I.” “Yeah, when I’m working on something I just stick with it until I get it done.” This conversation was taking place while they were working. Ah, irony) or showing off (“Check this out.” “Ewww!” “Heh-heh.”), both of which were less disturbing than the “smack ’em if you like ’em” behavior (“Ow, stop that.” “I’m just playing.”) which takes on a whole different meaning if you’ve ever watched your dad beat your mom unconscious like I have.

This is the difference between boys and men. Men realize that women like positive attention more than they like attention in general. Men know they should give compliments. If a person isn’t emotionally mature enough to be honest and admit something as simple and non-committal as, “I think you’re great; I like spending time with you; I value your company,” then that person is too young to date and should expect nothing but traumatic messy breakups until the phase is over.

I resisted the temptation to turn around and shout, “She likes you, okay, and you’re blowing it. Tell her what you feel.” The last time I got into someone’s business like that, the guy was so embarrassed that he denied everything—then he mourned for the next two days about how I had blown his chance with her.

So much juvenile behavior on this campus…

So I’m telling this story at dinner and M, who is studying to go into ministry and should be one of the people fighting gossip on this campus, wanted to know who these people were. He wanted names. I wasn’t about to give them. “There’s enough gossip on this campus,” I said, “without adding to it. I don’t need to embarrass them unnecessarily.”

SO much juvenile behavior on this campus…

Campus Days insanity.

Namely kids running amok. I leave it to you to guess whether I’m speaking of the high school kids or the Bethany kids.

Bethany is having Campus Days.

This means there are a bunch of proto-freshmen touring the place, getting the wrong idea because our facilities are pitiful. You don’t go to a campus for the facilities unless you’re a superficial idiot… which may explain University of California grads.

(Not all of them. Some are exceptions. Nobody I know, but statistically, there have to be some.)

Idolatry among the Episcopals.

For those of you who said they were headed that direction…

So check this out; the Episcopal Church of America is now officially encouraging idolatry.

I’m not kidding; read it for yourself. This page on the ECA website has a liturgy on it where women are to pray to Mother God, whom they refer to as the “Queen of Heaven,” and then share raisin cakes.

I personally have no problem with recognizing God’s feminine side. Trouble is, the "Queen of Heaven" referred to in Jeremiah 44 is a pagan god which the women worshipped in defiance of their male relatives and Yahweh. This liturgy actually makes reference to the defiance of ancient women towards their male relatives, but skips the bit about defiance of Yahweh. Twisted.

How clueless is the pastor who made up this ceremony? …Or, God forbid, she’s not clueless and is trying to lead astray every Christian who doesn’t read the prophets, which is unfortunately most of us.

Is it any wonder why so many Episcopals in America are leaving the U.S. Church and joining the African Church?

Finding the pony.

There’s a lot of manure to dig through in the average sermon.

God busted me some years ago (when I was at Bethany before) when I was getting down on sloppy preachers. I didn’t want to listen anymore; I did my Greek homework. Then God told me, “I anointed that guy, and I put him in that pulpit. You listen to them.”

Ronald Reagan’s favorite joke was about an optimist who was cheerfully digging through a giant pile of horse crap. The punchline: “There’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!” So in some sermons (thankfully not most of them) I gotta go look for the pony. I can’t argue with God; I figure he’s teaching me patience or something.

This was one of them. You know the type—he says he doesn’t want to do the usual sermon and altar call. So what he does is something that’s not a sermon; it’s a sloppy string of tangents and it goes overtime. He does something that’s not an altar call; people have to stand up and confess something, and everyone else has to gather around and pray for them. (At my home church, we usually do that around the altar.) We had to pray for the people on this campus who feel lonely. What good did that do? They’re prayed for; but did anyone invite them out for coffee?

I’ve been racking my brain today trying to figure out where the pony was.

He did point out that there were millions of twentysomethings not interested in church. I knew that already; I work on some of them. He pointed out that God can do things in spite of the sloppy way we handle things. I knew this already; God has done lots in spite of me. He encouraged many people to change their majors if God wants them to. I already did that. So…

Dangit, every other time I could find the pony.

Maybe I’ll think of it tomorrow.

Burnout again?

I might be working too hard… but I can’t take Saturday off.

I worry sometimes that I’m suffering from burnout.

I did it once before, when I was working nonstop for about four years straight with no vacations. After that point I realized the value in taking the Sabbath—Saturday, of course—and arranging to do nothing on that day. You notice how everyone schedules stuff for Saturday because it’s the one day we all have off? I decided I wasn’t going to do any of it. Absolute rest, like God intended. No nothing, unless there were any emergencies.

Can’t do that in the Teacher Education Program. Saturday is just another day of classes. So that means I have to pick another day of absolute rest… except I haven’t, and it’s frying my brain. So I’m going to make it MONDAY, dangit, and do NOTHING on that day if I can avoid it. Which isn’t easy to do.

Dead pastors aren't much fun.

When God takes someone, it sucks. But life sucks.

God killed my roommate’s pastor this week.

If that statement shocked you, it shouldn’t. I believe in free will, but I also believe that no one dies without God’s permission. God may not like the way we die—I’m sure he didn’t enjoy the death of Jesus at all—but if it serves his purposes he will allow it and even approve of it. This is not because he is heartless or callous; this is because he knows that death isn’t permanent. Life is.

From our perspective, it feels permanent, and it sucks. The guy was only three years older than me, and his death—from pneumonia—was completely unexpected. His church and family are in mourning. They don’t yet know why he had to die; and grief tends to make any reason appear petty and superficial. (For that matter, most of the reasons they’ll hear over the next year will be petty and superficial.)

What can we do? Wait for the grieving to accept the circumstances. Be available; let ’em talk it through. Be realistic—none of this “it’ll get better with time” crap which isn’t true. Be sympathetic. Give space when it’s needed. Hide the liquor. And pray.

A frequently-overdone and misquoted worship song.

Enjoying worship music isn’t something we need to repent for. (Not worshipping with it—that’s another issue.)

🎵 I’m coming back to the heart of worship

🎵 And it’s all about you, all about you Jesus

🎵 I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it

🎵 When it’s all about you, all about you Jesus.

That’s from a Matt Redman song. Worship leaders love it ’cause it fits them so often. So they put it in the worship cycle and the rest of us have to sing it along with them. And then we start to question what thing we might have made worship; and maybe we didn’t.

The song isn’t about worshippers; it’s about worship leaders. It’s about people who put more into their performance than into their worship. I’m not a worship leader, so it doesn’t apply to me. And yet I got suckered into thinking, “I listen to this stuff for fun. I’m losing sight of who it’s about.” God had to interrupt and yell at me.

“You’re supposed to like worship music,” he said. “You think you’re supposed to worshipme in a way we don’t mutually enjoy? Do you really think of me as a sadist?”

“But what about when I’m enjoying it for entertainment?”

“While you’re being entertained, does it make you think of me?”

“Well, yes.”

“So it’s doing its job.”

He got me thinking about that question—“Do you really think of me as a sadist?” How many times have we figured we shoudn’t be enjoying something that God made for us to enjoy because we’re supposed to be “holy”? How messed-up does that make our view of “holy” and of God?

Creepy internet graphic of the day.

An odd combination of piety and ghosts.

Creepy image, isn’t it? Especially since George Washington was a Deist—so what’s his ghost doing there?

I found this at a Salon.com weblog referring to the Save America Now website. Some Evangelicals are putting together a video that they intend to show lots and lots of times on TV before the election. This is because one of them got a prophecy that 2004 was an important year.

Assuming the prophecy is true (for the sake of argument) I don’t know that this necessarily means the election is what God finds most important about the year. Christians may recall that Jesus never expected the politicians of the first century to fix the problems of society; his message was to the people. Then, as now, politics was an ungodly source of power. When God wants us to pray for things, I think he wants us to pray for elections about as much as he wants us to pray for World Series winners. God could really give a crap.

So these evangelicals are wasting their time and money—sorry, God’s time and money—pushing for Bush. Sure, they say on their site that it’s not important whether you’re Republican or Democrat. (And it really isn’t, so long as you’re voting for Bush.) But if they really trusted God, or their petitions to him, to take care of the election, they wouldn’t be asking for money, would they?

Unhealthy self-image isn’t helped by unhealthy standards.

Wanna know what guys like? Ask a guy.

Too many women have a messed-up idea of what men find attractive.

Much of this, I pointed out to the women at my table, would be cleared up if they simply asked one of us.

So S asked. I answered. They didn’t believe me. The other guys at the table agreed with me; but the women simply refused to accept it because they had never heard such things before.

How messed up have the fashion magazines made this generation of women?

Recently N pointed out that it’s not just the fashion magazines; it’s the porn. The fashion magazines take their cues from popular pornography as to what men like. Therefore if you follow the magazines’ tips, you’re unconsciously contributing to the warped view of sexuality that porn encourages.

That certainly does explain a lot. Disturbing, huh?

Water: Drinking the Scotts Valley swill; and floating on Alaska’s water with Charles Stanley.

A little discovery I made about our local tap water.

If you live in Scotts Valley, you know that the local tap water smells and tastes awful. There’s no reason why most of the population must independently filter or buy their own water. The local water board should be prosecuted for fiscal mismanagement because they should’ve taken care of this decades ago. In this day and age there’s no excuse for it.

Especially after my little discovery. I was taking water from Café Bethany and pouring it into my 2-gallon water cooler. The café filters it; they don’t mind if we drink it; and it didn’t hurt to have a little extra in my room to make coffee. So one morning I’m filling my coffee carafe when I notice an unwholesome odor. I open the lid on my cooler and discover I have a mold. (Café water comes out the same tap as the fruit punch; if any sugar gets into the water, mold can grow.) Down the drain. But as I’m scrubbing the cooler, I realize—the moldy water smelled like the freakin’ tap water.

Coincidence? COINCIDENCE? I don’t think so. In the process of testing the city water for lead and mercury and other brain-fuddling chemicals, has anyone bothered to test it for biological agents? Somebody call Erin Brockovich.

Gambling: Not immoral; but not wise.

Sometimes decisions are more logical than moral.

Tonight my small group leaders decided they wanted to play poker. Everyone has to cough up $2 to put in the pot. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

I have no objection to gambling on religious grounds. There’s nothing in scripture for or against it. I simply object to it on a purely logical basis:

20. If it isn’t reasonably certain,
    it’s a stupid decision.
6. If it is reasonably certain,
   yet the other party doesn’t recognize this,
   you’re preying on the stupid,
   so it’s a moral decision.
   (Basically immoral.)

Sometimes I’m just too logical for my own good.

Amusing comic strip: Jack Chick meets God.

The ironic bit is that the strip condemns Chick for condemning others.

Less amusing behaviors.

Don’t overdecorate to the point that people can’t read your bloody web page.

Another pet peeve to add to the list:

Websites whose background image make it impossible to read the text.

Were you wondering what the others were? I don’t make an official list. I simply let God deal with them until they’re no longer on the list.

Non-loving "Christians" have always been on that list, though. That’s why I included the cartoon. I suspect they’re one of Jesus’s pet peeves too; He used to gripe about people that call him “Lord” yet never did what he told them; and he ordered them to love one another, their neighbors, and their enemies. In other words, everyone. They don’t do that, yet they still call themselves Christian. I blame them every time a non-Christian calls us a bunch of hypocrites.

Again, it’s a pet peeve that God has to deal with. He manages to love them anyway; I still have to work at it.

Evil bastards in the laundry room.

One of my bigger pet peeves is when people are just destructively selfish.

Today each time I came back to the laundry room, someone had taken my things out of the machine she (likely a she) wanted to use, and left it elsewhere in the laundry room. Once it was even mixed with someone else’s wet clothes.

When stuff like this happens to me, I blow it off; life is too short to be upset by other people’s stupidity. But I’ve been thinking—it’s not just me that this person does this to. Likely she’s a self-centered jerk who only cares about getting her laundry done, quickly. She could give a rip about anyone’s stuff. But she needs someone to harsh on her—to have a little reality crack into her self-focused world—so that next time she will give a rip about someone’s stuff. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work, because such people are so self-centered that they take criticism as the critic’s problem, not theirs. She’d just go on her merry way, leaving piles of other people’s wrinkling laundry behind her.

Until she’s assaulted in a public laundromat. Nah; I’m being too optimistic again.

Stupid Internet Survey: What color am I?

You are light goldenrod yellow
Your dominant hues are red and green, so you're definately not afraid to get in and stir things up. You have no time for most people's concerns; you'd rather analyze with your head than be held back by some random "gut feeling". Your saturation level is very low; you have better things to do than jump headfirst into every little project. You make sure your actions are going to really accomplish something before you start because you hate wasting energy making everyone else think you're working. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.
the spacefem.com html color quiz

What color am I? Uh… pale peach with brown spots.

Familiar with this?

So by checking a bunch of little boxes I have discovered that I like red and green, which I knew already; but the rest of it is utter crap. I overcommit myself. I analyze things to death because my gut feelings hold me back. I could care less if everyone thinks I'm working; I am working. I am more optimistic than many people, but I'm also more realistic than them too.

The only connection I have with light goldenrod yellow is that it's the color I was when I was born. (Jaundice, you see.) Quite obviously this quiz was not created by a trained psychologist.

Kung fu movies and visiting New Hope.

Kent’s Recommended Watch: Ang Lee:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

---

Visited a church, then watched a kung fu movie. A little Christianity, a little Taoism.

Finally got around to watching my DVD of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (Got it through Amazon about three weeks ago, but never had the time to watch it.)

Sundays are great for kicking back and watching a good movie. I find it fascinating how Taoism and the medieval European Great Chain of Being resemble one another. Most theologians think there’s something to that which indicates a common predilection towards order in humanity. That may be true, but it’s not something we can know for certain.

Funny how kung fu movies make me all philosophical.

The presidential debates.

Between the weaselly behavior and the habeas corpus violations, Bush annoys me.

I found the vice-presidential debate on CSPAN’s website and watched it. Likely I’ll watch the next presidential debate in the same way.

George W. Bush’s behavior annoys me in these debates. It’s because his personality reminds me of someone I used to work for; nice guy in public, says all the right things, very friendly and charismatic, and so forth. Then you get him back to the office and discover he’s a weasel. Now, I have no evidence that Bush is such a person. In fact, from what I’ve read about his public and private acts, I suspect that’s what type of person he used to be, possibly when he was drinking. He’s a recovering weasel.

Public prayer.

Kent’s Recommended Listen:

John Coltrane:
A Love Supreme (Deluxe Edition)

Playing right now: A Love Supreme is the album John Coltrane wrote for God. It shows. I just got the newly digitally remastered version, which fixed that glitch in track 1 and includes the live 1964 performace of A Love Supreme. (True jazz fans appreciate the difference.)

My public prayers were turning into performances, so I stopped doing that for now.

Today the campus has its 24-hour prayer thingy. I am all for prayer. I always need to pray more often. Gotta listen to God.

I am, on the other hand, getting more self-conscious about my public prayers.

Unwelcoming local churches.

My first Xanga post, which I’ve since ported all to Blogger. I was on Xanga till July 16, 2005.

I am a little annoyed with the churches I’ve been to in this area. I am looking for a church with friendly people. I know they’re out there; I’ve been to churches like that before. That’s the sort of church I join. But thus far I haven’t been to one in this area.

The first church I went to had great worship (led by Bethany people) and a decent sermon. The people didn’t say jack to me (except for the meet-’n’-greet part in the middle of the service that every pastor feels obligated to insert). Unfortunately that was just how the Bethany people liked it; after the service they hopped in their cars and scampered back to Bethany before the cafe ran out of waffle batter.

Liberal media bias.

There are a lot of liberals in the media. I know this firsthand because I used to be in the newspaper business and I worked with a lot of knee-jerk liberals. They’re nice people; fun to hang out with, great to party with, but you don’t want to start a political conversation with them or they’ll bite your head off.

I probably needed my head bitten off. For a long time I was a knee-jerk conservative, and when you put all us knee-jerk types in a room together you don’t get the best vibes. Knee-jerk anything, no matter what your political stripe, isn’t good. At first, the discussion begins with what you believe. But because it’s a knee-jerk belief (in other words, it’s a reflex, but there’s not a lot of depth to it) you can’t really get into why you believe what you do, or why it’s good to believe what you do; all you can do is say that you believe it. Loudly. And then it’s all downhill from there. Because when you can’t defend your position, the only debate tactic you have going for you is that your opponent is just as clueless as you are. Pretty soon you’re not debating the merits of your belief; you’re arguing about who’s stupider.

On Jesus movies.

Jesus movies I have seen, and what I think of them.

I’m a big fan of Jesus, and I also like movies. So naturally, I’d like to see the two come together. Unfortunately, they don’t always come together well.

Here’s a list of Jesus movies I have seen; some of which I own. I have them listed in the order that I like them: favorites to suckiest. This is not a comprehensive list, of course. But it’s a start.

Corporate isn't evil.

I love coffee. I thank God for coffee whenever I drink it. I make it at home; I buy it at coffee houses. I will even buy it at 7-Eleven when the mood strikes me. I'm no coffee snob—although I really don't like Folger's; there's just something about that brand I don't care for. Maybe it's their “flavor crystals,” but I just don't like the taste.

So I went to this one coffeehouse where they have some anti-Starbucks bumper stickers on the wall. The sticker in question has the Starbucks logo, probably in violation of copyright, and “Friends don't let friends drink corporate coffee.”

Temper, temper.

Some folks like developing a reputation as a difficult person.

There’s a person I met on this campus who insists that they’s not all together there. They insist that there’s something wrong with them; that they could just snap at any time. Yet I’ve seen nothing in their behavior which indicates this is true. In fact, I’m largely wondering if any of it is true.

The proper use of apologetics.

Ever read Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell? It’s every high school student’s first introduction to apologetics. Youth pastors love it because whenever someone smart-aleck high school kid has a tough question for them, they can whip out their Josh McDowell and beat him over the head with it. McDowell’s a youth pastor, you know; he had a very practical reason for creating the book.

I like the book. Parts of it are questionable, of course; McDowell’s grasp of Aristotelean logic is shaky in a few parts; he’s awfully fond of the straw man argument, as many Christians are, and for some bizarre reason he quotes a comment by Napoleon Bonaparte more than once about Jesus. He’s pretty sure his big mound of evidence proves that Christianity and Scripture are true, and confronted with this evidence, people should just drop to their knees and accept Jesus as Lord.

Finding a church.

Originally published on my Geocities website “Kent’s Rants.” Technically my first blog post.

I am trying to find a church. I moved to Scotts Valley for school, my home church is all the way back in Vacaville, and Christians are not supposed to go it alone. (That’s how cults start.) So I need a local place of worship.

I realize that, by confessing this, I’ve opened myself up to a lot of emails from well-meaning Christians who think their church is the greatest ever so I should go there. I appreciate the kindness, but there’s no guarantee that I’m going to agree with you once I get to your church. See, I’m looking for a certain thing; one that’s lacking in a lot of Christians, and therefore lacking from a lot of churches. I’m looking for a friendly church.

I haven’t found one yet because I keep going to churches with college students in them. Hang on; I’ll explain this statement soon. But first you should understand that statistically young adults aren’t friendly. They haven’t learned how to be friendly yet. They will someday, when they’re older. But currently they’re growing up, and they’re self-focused and self-centered, and heavily insulated with friends. So instead of being friendly with new people, they’re busy talking with their friends, and I don’t happen to be one of their friends, so I can go to hell for all they care.