melankolywretch's Xanga

Thursday, January 29, 2004

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:58:31 GMT

Hey folks,. I've noticed that some of you have been dropping in and leaving feedback on here, and I apologize for not noticiing it sooner. I don't post at this site anymore, escept for the week of Thanksgiving, though I am still around reading and adding subscriptions through here.

You can find my current page at http://melancholics.typepad.com

Thanks for reading!

Friday, November 28, 2003

Fri, 28 Nov 2003 20:11:00 GMT

I'm sitting here listening to my mother and sisters complain about my dad's side of the family which they rarely have any interaction with anymore. They're accusing the Grabers of thinking "if you don't dress like they do and live like they do, well then you're just not living right."

Irony is not dead.

I'm hoping I don't grow up to be old and cynical. Not looking very good at this point...

As promised, I picked up the "Two Towers" extended edition and have been slowly digesting it while I've been on vacation. While there were some obviously extraneous scenes, there were a few that did go a long way toward fleshing out the story.

I was particularly partial to the extended scene in Ithillien where Faramir takes the hobbits captive. They extended the scene to give Faramir the dialogue that belongs to Sam in the books musing over the dead Southron that's been shot off the oliphaunt and fallen at their feet. (Of course, this is partially personal preferrence since I wrote a poem called "The Southron" that fit in very well with that paragraph, somewhat unwittingly since I had forgotten about it when I was writing, but later found it again. When I saw that they had added it into the extended edition, it was all I could do to stop myself from bouncing up and down gong "ee! ee!")

It's also interesting to note that PJ's Southrons are light-skinned.

"Give him some medicine, boys!"

Friday, November 28, 2003

Fri, 28 Nov 2003 03:22:51 GMT

Welcome back to the exhibition. We are sorry for the circus clowns being late, they have not been performing up to capabilities of late. We have sent them to be lectured on giving the audience more bang for their buck. It seems of late that their noses haven't been giving the people what they paid for.

You have to understand that being a circus clown requires that you cannot harbor any feeling of inadequacy. Being caught up in your own pity is only going to make this job rougher than it already is. The paying hordes don't want to see your sorry timid hide quivering in your rubber boots; they came to laugh at your hapless bungling, and laugh is what they're going to do. Not everyone appreciates us though, those stone-faced academics, but you know, you can't get them here.

The big story in the county this week was a second-grader who got left on the bus and stayed there all school day long. Let the speculation begin, whatever happens, the parents are bound to see what kind of cash is in it for them.

Then there was the death of the man who owns the cornfield the separates our house from the highway. Apparently he fell in his silo into a sea of corn and couldn't get his way out. You ain't heard nobody cuss like his brothers when they found 'em, somebody told me.

Frozen prayers upon my lips,
Inside the blood runs hot,
He was reviled, yet He reviled not.

When everyone in your own family doesn't expect you to make much of yourself, what expectations of anyone else could you possibly expect to meet? What solace is there in knowing they're right? What relief in understanding how your own simplicity and naivete and ignorance is what got you in this mess to begin with?

Can you get out? Can you reach?

My old grandfather whose mind is given to wandering occasionally says that my cousin is getting married, but he's not sure he's supposed to say that. Hey, did you read in the newspaper where your former classmate is getting married? Everyone knows you don't have it put together to get to that point. Who wants a braindead and twisted old drifter? They've got it all right, right about me.

All the wisdom of men is vanity.

Thursday, November 27, 2003

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 15:17:02 GMT

Happy thanksgiving folks.

I'll be around to post a bit later on.

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Wed, 26 Nov 2003 01:46:00 GMT

I have to try and remember how ta use this durn thang. (Got your Southern Indiana on?)

The U.N. says world hunger is getting worse., not better. But the U.N. is just a puppet for special interest right? Hm, perhaps that was someone else.

The report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003," found that after falling steadily during the first half of the 1990's, hunger grew in the latter half of the decade.

Between 1999 and 2001, the report found, more than 840 million people, or one in seven, went hungry. Most alarming of all, between 1995 and 2001, the number of malnourished people across the developing world grew by an average of 4.5 million a year.

The agency said the findings would make it impossible to meet its goal of reducing world hunger by half by 2015. That goal, set first in 1996, was cited as a top priority by the United Nations Millennium Summit meeting in September 2000.

The rise in hunger came even though the world produced ample food, and in 22 countries, including Bangladesh, Haiti and Mozambique, the number of undernourished declined in the second half of the decade. "Bluntly stated, the problem is not so much a lack of food as a lack of political will," the report declared.

Hmm, these Xtools aren't all bad; let's see how many posts this computer eats this weekend.

The Senators have stormed from 3-0 down to take a 5-3 lead in the 3rd against Atlanta. Perhaps this is the wakeup call we've been waiting for.

Thursday, May 01, 2003

Thu, 01 May 2003 02:19:38 GMT

And on that note, my time on Xanga officially comes to a close. Here's a nice prominent link to the new site, which I'll be updating beginning with my next blog entry:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0122711/

Thursday, May 01, 2003

Thu, 01 May 2003 01:52:00 GMT

b>The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Very Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 07:02:24 GMT

Well, if it's Tuesday night, you know where that means I'll be.

Awake.

This was even more frustrating tonight. I go to bed at midnight (shortly after posting my last blog), fall asleep quickly (much to my immediate relief) and now two hours later, here I am, wide awake.

And tonight, of all nights, is when I absolutely don't need this. Tomorrow I have Bible study at 7, and then I'm planning on coming home and studying for my early modern philosophy exam in the afternoon. Complicate that with the fact there are a couple other review classes squeezed in there that I'd like to go to (but probably won't) and the fact that I may have to bail anytime to go tape an interview (which would be a best-case scenario, since it would mean I actually got the interview, which is up in the air right now.)

uuuuUUUuu gu ug ug gu Ug ugug ug

Yes, I am leaving Xanga, and this may in fact be my final post (that depends on circumstances tomorrow). In light of that, I figure that I owe you an explanation of my rationale. It's not saucy or trashy or anything of that nature (help! I have a stalker!..kidding, kidding.)

There are certainly a lot of good things about Xanga, and I'd still recommend it to any novice blogger out there. It's fast and easy to use, and customization is pretty easy with colors and design and the like. It's very easy to get involved with the community and find similarly like-minded people or people from your region and what-not.

But there are a lot of things that I really grew to dislike. These are in no particular order of importance with these, but here are a few of the things that have been bugging me:

Most of the people on Xanga are strict journalers, which is not anyone's fault, it's just that reading stories of what someone did today etc., doesn't appeal to me that much. Certainly journaling is one aspect of my blogging, but it's just one piece in what (I hope) is an entertaining puzzle. I gravitate more toward people who are into ideas and meaningful reflections.
Again, it's not anyone's fault, but I'm a little bothered by the fact that I'm one of the older members of Xanga. And that's intended to be a dig at those of you who are younger than me, most of you are a lot better at this than I am, certainly . I just oftentimes feel like the old fogey hobbling about to and fro.
I said these weren't in any order, but this one was undoubtedly the most important thing. As I said earlier, Xanga works great as a community, but it's extremely inward-focused, and I would argue that it's unnecessarily so. Non-Xangans can't leave comments, and you can't post a non-Xanga blogroll unless you have Premium. Speaking of...
My Premium expires in May. I signed up for 6 months, to see if it was something I wanted to do long-term or not. Again, it's not bad, and Radio is a little more expensive, but given the feature list, it's the better choice for me. I don't mind spending money for my online venture, as long as it's important to me and I stay committed to it.

So there ya go. That's pretty much all I can think of at this moment (there may have been other, more subtle things working that I can't think of right now).

If you're wondering, yes, I'll still be around checking this site periodically and checking up on you, the people who read my site and still using my account to leave comments and the like. I'll probably still go out and subscribe to more sites down the road. But no more posts. And you're still welcome to read my new site, of course, just add a link to your sit...er...add a bookmark in your favorites .

Speaking of bookmarks, Sree Sreenivasan at Poynter has tips on making your web surfing more profitable by using them.

I could definitely stand to make my surfing a lot more efficient than I am now. I waste so much time checking the same sites over and over and over again. That's definitely something I'll need to correct when Dial-up Days come back next week.

I'm drinking Sprite now. Ahhh!!!

Here's something I posted on this thread over at Relevant, loosely concerned with whether the "beat" of rock music could be considered "evil." Most of the thread is a stilly response to an equally silly question, so I thought I'd spare you digging through the thread (if you don't want to, of course ) and repost my contribution here; again, only loosely concerned with the topic:

This kind of thing is not at all unfamiliar to me.

I grew up in a conservative Mennonite family, and kids were indoctrinated at a pretty young age that any kind of music with a "beat" was wrong and corrupting to listen to, it was even in the Sunday school books from time to time. And every once in a while, the pastor would figure out a way to squeeze a "there's-no-such-thing-as-Christian-rock" line into his sermons. (Ironically, many people here would agree with him, but for vastly divergent reasons ).

My family's main complaints generally fall into either "you only listen for the beat" or "you can't understand the words, so why listen?" You have to admire their consistency, at least, they don't allow any musical instruments of any sort in the church sanctuary, the women wear only long dresses and coverings, and the men have a special "dress code" and shaving rituals as well. No televisions either (especially no televisions!), my parents still don't own one, though we do have Net access at home, which you'll be thankful/regretful for in a week or so.

And now, a word from our sponsors

Whew, super-long post! I hope you guys get something out of that...somewhere .

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 03:37:31 GMT

There was a small earthquake in the Southeast this morning, a pretty rare occurence in that part of the world, to say the least.

That brings to mind my only real first-hand experience with earthquakes, which really had nothing to do with an actual earthquake at all.

I remember the exact day, in fact (December 3, 1990) because that played into the whole scenario in some weird way. I was in third grade at the time (decidedly sweeter than I am now, or perhaps not, who knows?) and for some reason, some think tank somewhere had predicted a major earthquake to strike the midwest that day. My class was in the smaller building of my school (which had 2 buildings in total, it was and is quite small for a public school system) and for preparedness' sake, all the classes in the basement of the primary school were moved upstairs and, being that the third grade was the oldest grade there, we moved to the "big" school to accomodate the kindergarteners moving upstairs.

As my sporadic but sometimes immaculate memory serves, the day was overcast, and our class spent most of the day in the cafeteria working in our spelling books and watching a movie or two. I can also remember the lead in the local afternoon daily paper as being something like this:

"1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0."

Meaning, that on 12/3 at 4:56 P.M. there would be a 7.8 Richter scale earthquake in the year (19)90.

What I don't remember about that day is exaclty how scientific those predictions were. Obviously, here we are 12 years later and still we've had no earthquakes to speak of, let alone a major one (although this area does lie not far from a fault line that has been active in the past.) Given the nature of my rural community in those pre-internet, semi-cable TV days, where what information that came oftentimes played hard and fast with the truth, not to mention that superstitions involving numerology were and still are common, I'd have to guess that those "Earthquake of Doom" predictions were probably pretty speculative.

I'd be curious to know if anyone else from the Midwest remembers this happening or if it was just a localized thing for me. At 9 years old, it's hard to distinguish between big national news and a oddball local story. (Those were my pre-journalist days still, in addition to wanting to be a baseball announcer like Marty Brenneman, I also wanted to be a detective or a pilot. High aspirations, I had .

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Tue, 29 Apr 2003 18:33:14 GMT

OK, a better Homestar Runner character quiz...and I really didn't "cheat" on this one, I pwomise .

Which Homestar Runner character are you?
this quiz was made by jurjyfrort

That's right kids, I'm a box with an "X" in it. (and just what I've always wanted!)

Just go here.

melankolywretch: can you call and explain Kant to me?
melankolywretch: I'm lost
Omnia Moriare: oh my cats
Omnia Moriare: i'd love to...but...that would be an all n1ght affa1r
Omnia Moriare: and...1 'kant' afford taht from Turkey
Omnia Moriare: heh heh heh
melankolywretch: heh

Waiting for an interview request to come through, if it doesn't come through, I'm gonna have to go to a backup plan, which is.....

I don't have a backup plan as of yet.