why don't we do it in the road?

1:04am: on the bible belt and community college
I don't even know where to start on this one. This is something that has been bothering me since I started school in Florida, and is becoming less bearable by the day. It seems that every class I register for is full of religious, neo-conservative, climate change denying, young earth creationists. Now, this in and of itself is no problem. I'm always respectful of other's views and beliefs, regardless of how outlandish or inane they may be. What bothers me is the when these students try to pass off their worthless drivel as actual, legitimate scientific thought.

Let's start with the global warming deniers. I've run into fewer of these people than I have outspoken creationists. However, I chalk that up to a general apathy regarding global warming which exists in the south, and certainly doesn't exist in regards to religion/creationism. Now, if you want to believe that global warming is "a crock," then by all means, do your thing. All I'm asking is that you don't come into my public speaking course spewing that bullshit, and expecting to be taken seriously. If by sitting in a core requisite community college class you've somehow developed a knowledge and understanding of climatology which allows you to refute, scientifically, literally thousands of top minds in the field...well...why the fuck are you still sitting in a core requisite community college course? I hear Exxon is payin' big bucks for knowledge like that.

Also, keep your copy of the Bible away from my history and humanities courses. Far away. Forget you even memorized the scriptures. The next time I hear someone talk about the book of Genesis in a historical context, I'm gonna shit fire and brimstone. Life on earth has no origin in dirt and bones. God did not put fossils here just to fuck with us. People never rode dinosaurs to school. If you want to believe those stories, cool, by all means do your thing. Just don't try to convince me, or anyone else, that there's some underlying scientific basis for your belief in creationism, especially young earth creationism. If you can't argue it without citing the Bible as being irrefutable fact, it's not science. If I want to study creation stories I'll take a class in mythology. Until then keep your religious stories to yourself, and don't try to pass them off as scientific reality - it's...what's the word I'm looking for....fucking retarded.

I want to make it clear that I don't have anything against Christians. I've been down that road before, and I've got nothing but respect for people who choose to do the whole spirituality thing, regardless of religion. It's when people can't reconcile their faith with scientific fact that I start to worry for them - and when they start trying to force others think the same way as they do that I get angry. But then again, what else can you expect in the Bible belt, at a community college where the #1 favorite book listed by students on facebook.com is The Bible?

7:17am: this is pretty rad
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2702954667573493760

9:29pm:
(21:26:09) cait : sigh, neutral milk
(21:26:17) cait : music for boys like you

12:08am: ( Study finds no marijuana link to lung cancer )

Link to actual article on reuters.com

12:34am: (00:32:44) teh sex0r: haha come to think of it, i think i actually said "uhhhh i'm not really down with the clown"
(00:32:58) teh sex0r: which in retrospect is one of the funniest moments in my own personal history
(00:33:01) alex: oh wow
(00:33:04) alex: thats good

12:26am: allllllright
I haven't really done shit with this livejorunal, aside from refreshing the friends page now and again and making posts in communities. Rather than try to revive it, (if you can revive something that was never alive to begin with,) I'm just gonna make a new one. I need ideas for a user name. GO.

2:56pm: ftw
( just one )

12:14pm: unemployment
I quit my job. It's not official yet, but I'll be swinging through today to pick my crap up and tell them to piss off. While I'm already looking for a new job, I'm not too worried about my financial situation. Between the checks I have coming for the hours I've worked, my tax return, and money that's owed to me, I should be alright no matter what comes up. On top of that I'm selling some stuff on ebay, which may end up financing my Columbia trip entirely. Seeing as how I now have some free time, I've decided to invest some of it in myself. I'll be focusing on school more, reading more, playing guitar more, fixing my hideous farmer's tan, and generally bettering myself. This is the start of something good, I hope. My tentative plan is to stay focused and keep a forward momentum, and the rest should fall into place. We'll see. I'd love to write more, but I really want to get going on this math homework.

9:47pm: uhhhhhhhhwtf
Did I just hear Spoon playing in the background of a Jaguar commercial?

9:18pm: guitars fo' sale
Alright, it's time to trim down the fleet. I haven't played either of these guitars in well over a year, but they're in pretty good shape. I have pictures of all substantial imperfections on both guitars, so if you're interested, they're available upon request.

( First up, the strat. )

( The almighty warlock. )

3:58pm: ideas
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, about who I am and where I'm going. One thing which I've decided concerns me is that I don't know what it's like to be out on my own. I feel it might be a good idea to take a semester off sometime within the next year and a half and move out by myself, preferably to somewhere awesome, for a few months. I definitely want it to be a city environment, where I could get acquainted with the city in my short time there. My first instinct is to go with San Francisco, just because it's such an awesome place to visit, and I could get a med card while I'm there and get great medical pot on the cheap. I'm up for pretty much anything though, so long as I can hold down an apartment there for a few months with money I've saved up, and work part time for spending money. Apartments in Portland are reasonable, so that's another idea. I've got plenty of time for planning, so it'll be interesting to see how things end up panning out.

10:23pm: when your past catches up
There's a girl in my math class who was also in my fifth grade class. I'd suspected it for a while, but hadn't said anything. Today I asked her if she was who I thought she was, and I was right. She had actually recognized me too, but hadn't said anything. I tried to talk to her, but she didn't seem interested. I guess that's how it goes sometimes.

4:44pm: I'm huge in Africa.
For those of you who don't know, a friend of mine recently dropped a hip hop a single over in Cape Verde, which I played guitar on. It hit their local charts today, and debuted at #17. It's already being picked up and played all over Africa. I don't have a list of countries yet, but it's blowing up pretty good.

8:41pm: english
I'm starting to put some effort into my english class, but only to boost my average a bit. I've been doing alright to this point, but there are only a few weeks of class left, so it seems logical to go all out at the end. More than anything, I'm just happy that it's almost over. The class is a joke, the teacher is a joke, and parallel form is a joke. In any event, I'll have my Wednesdays back in a few weeks, which means I'll be fencing at the salle regularly again! AHA! Back to homework, I guess.

12:23am: ( new stuff )

10:28pm: school
School is going pretty well so far, could be better though. Got a 90 on my first math quiz, 87 on my first english essay. I did bomb one of the four or five english quizzes, but all in all I think my GPA is doing alright. I've got math class again tomorrow night, and a bunch of crap is due. Most isn't done yet. Luckily, I have off of work tomorrow, so I'll have plenty of time to work on it. It's getting harder and harder to take my english class seriously, though. We'll see what happens.

12:34pm: car update (you know you love them)
( pictures )

9:23pm: Homebrew(ish) Navigation System
I just got done taking my laptop on it's maiden voyage loaded with Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006. It was only a quick trip to the nearest Wal-Mart (only because it was the first thing that popped into my brain when I was trying the search feature that locates points of interest in your area,) but it went pretty smoothly, and the directions and overall look of the software was awesome. I can't wait to get it all up on the ( new displays. )

Fencing tournaments and all other manners of road trip are about to become a lot more awesome. Next on the list is fixing the driver's side window (as well as the back two, preferably,) and reupholstering the ceiling.(

11:00pm: gps escapades
After work today I installed Microsoft Streets and Trips 2005 on my laptop, to work in conjunction with my GPS for road navigation. It seems pretty rad, except that it doesn't give verbal directions, or have some of the newer roads/developments (see: mine). I happen to know that Streets and Trips '06 does the verbal direction thing, though, so as soon as I can find a seed for it, I'm in business. I'd also like to check out DeLorme's "Street Atlas" which seems to have more accurate maps, the ability to receive and respond to simple voice commands (!), and give verbal turn-by-turn directions. If I can't find something nicer, Streets and Trips '05 will suffice, but I'd REALLY like the verbal directions. I ran out of things to wrote, I'll update when I have something more to write about.

6:21pm: bah
I got the USB GPS I ordered today, and I'm kind of pissed off. I tried unsuccessfully to get it to work properly under linux. This means that until I can find some kind of work-around, my car's navigation will be powered by Microsoft. Let's hope I don't crash as often as it does.

2:32pm: School seems like it's going to be alright. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't more than a little excited to be back in an educational environment.

4:49pm: today after work I decided to go take some photographs around my neighborhood...
( What lovely scenery! )

10:58pm: today was super rad
A lot of really awesome stuff happened today. However, rather than talk about it all, I'm going to smoke pot and watch the Daily Show. Peace.

3:47pm: School starts next Wednesday, I hope it's not lame.

11:14pm: linux on lappy
Yesterday I installed the latest Ubuntu release on my laptop, but ran into some roadblocks getting the wifi (more specifically, ndiswrapper) to work. Well, I'm happy to report that I'm writing this entry from logjam on my laptop, via wifi, and everything is pretty much done being configured. It feels nice having everything working well, and looking nice. My room is clean, my car is clean, my boxes are all looking and working great, my bike is cleaned up...for whatever reason, when everything is clean and organized, I just feel more content, driven, and focused. Now I just need to keep this up.