Living the Middle Life

In soviet Russia, the middle life is living.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Miss Teen USA

So I ran across this video on Youtube.

It's hilarious. Simply hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

(no, It's not Rick Astely, That's here. I also found a "You Got Rick Rolled" website.)

Monday, August 27, 2007

Piggly Wiggy Radio


I noticed last Friday morning when we played KT Tunstall's "Big Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" and Chris Daughtry's "Home".

We've never played those before.

Later, when we played Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie", I knew it for sure.

Someone had changed the radio.

When I went on my break, one of the girls from up front was in there making a call. I heard her say something about the radio being changed and if anyone had noticed.

When she got off the phone she told me all about it. The Dairy manager had finally got fed up with it all and changed it. Apparently they had an R&B station on first, but were responsible enough to stop playing it in a grocery store.

The cashier said she thought it was still pretty boring music, but at least it wouldn't put the customers to sleep.

Indeed, at least half the time we still got music that was on the old channel.

One of my co-workers assured me that we played Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" three times. Though I only counted twice.

There are a couple dance re-mixes on the downstairs computer, for which we played the original songs at the store. I can't seem to find their names right now. (and I'm to lazy to look)


sniff... I miss Rick Astly. ;-)

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Written communication


So I'm taking a writing class up at Gateway tech. As my mom put it, "Paul thinks he's going up there to learn, I just want him to get a grade from someone who's not me. I could teach him writing myself if I just wanted him to learn"

My first class was today. I don't know why they're starting so early.

I decided I ought to listen to Lyrical Life Science on the way up. After all, if I have to do a forty minute drive there and back 32 times this fall, I might as well get some extra schoolwork in there.

Unfortunately the power adapter I brought along to power the CD player refused to work. I found out later, after I got home, that this was because the outlet didn't work. Why didn't the outlet work? Because it wasn't attached to any cables. the whole outlet just came right out in my hands.

Shame.

I got there really early. Boy was it ever dark in there. So my first act was to find the lightswitch.

Funny thing: We naturally divided up into a girls side and a boys side. All but one guy sat on the one side of the room. (no, that guy was not me :-P )

The first class was less of a lesson, and more of an introduction. We were given the syllabus and were told to write a short paragraph about an interesting event of our lives. (I wrote about dancing like a crazy maniac. It got quite a few laughs.)

The teacher then read all of our paragraphs, and we were to try and guess who wrote them. It was a combined: name learning exercise, learning small bits about classmates, and giving the teacher a sample of your writing.

I must be a pretty suspicious guy, because people kept suspecting me. One time, even thought I told them I was only 17 earlier, they still threw me suspicious looks when someone wrote about going to the Bahamas where the drinking age was 18, and getting totally plastered. :-P

I'm really such a nice guy, why do people keep calling me evil? 0:-)

The only homework we were assigned was to read a two page story about "Engfish", and try to figure out what it is. (Apparently Engfish is the dull, unimaginative way of writing they teach you in schools. I didn't figure out 'till the end that Engfish was supposed to be a bad thing, so it was a bit confusing for me.)

After class, when I was on my way to the car to go home, I noticed a bunch of classmates hanging around a table with food on it. Remembering the teacher had said they were giving away free food that day, I went over to check it out. The one guy who had written about Kendo in his personal paragraph was there. I noticed he had on the "3vil l33t" shirt. Turns out he was also homeschooled. We shared Chuck Norris quotes.

Mine: "Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his good looks and martial art abilities. He then round house kicked the devil and took back his soul. The devil, who knew he should have seen it coming, couldn't stay angry and now they play poker every Saturday night.

His: "When Chuck Norris eats salad, he leaves nothing but the bones."

"People argue that Chuck Norris can't be the best at everything, because he had learned everything from his father. The truth is that he invented the time machine, went back, and fathered himself."

Friday, August 17, 2007

Stardust ...again!


Every time I hear the Can-can I'm going to think of Robert De Niro in a petticoat.

Other than that it was an awesome movie. A grand adventure and an excellent fairy tale. Septimus was an excellent villain and Tristran a true hero.

It followed all the proper rules for a good fairy tale/fantasy novel, and yet was still original. A superbly climatic ending. Just all around done well.

Even though I haven't read the book, (which I'm sure I'll have to do now) I'm quite certain that there were many parts that deviated from it. Just by looking at how it was presented.

Though it seems to me that the more a director tries to keep true to all the details of the book, the more the movie lacks in overall presentation of the movie. Books and movies are fundamentally different media outlets, much is lost in translation. It always pleases me to see a director deviate the movie just enough from the book so that it's enjoyable to those who have not obsessed over the book.

(Yes, this means I fail at being a geek. Sue me.)

Monday, August 13, 2007

Solitaire ...again!


So me and my brother went up to see Solitaire - The Movie yesterday. It was a bit of a rush to get out of the house on time. I had to gulp down my food speedily.

On the drive up we saw nine cop cars in the space of about two miles. Nine of them. It looked like some sort of horribly disorganized speed trap.

That is, horribly disorganized. Note the emphasis.

Despite the fact that there was some sort of summerfest like thing going on not a mile from the theatre, we didn't have too bad of traffic. We actually got there just in time for the movie. Or so we thought. (They started ten minutes late, so we actually got there like fifteen minutes early.)

It was a cool movie. Done quite nicely for amateurs. Excellent camera work. There were times when they redid some of the lines and inserted that audio into the film. That was good. The times they didn't do that, it was hard to hear. (So much that I could almost always tell when they did that.)

Andrew convinced me to drop by Matt and Rachel's "Because I hadn't seen their place since they gotten it straightened out." Last I'd seen it was when I helped move, and there were boxes everywhere.

I hadn't planned on staying long, but the visit turned out to be a little over an hour. Rachel pushed cake onto me and Andrew, and showed us her "Animal Crossing" video game.

I had heard her speak of Animal Crossing before. And had always assumed that it was some show on Animal Planet. (dunno' why)

Andrew borrowed her PotC, AWE sound track, and I two webcomic books, Mega Tokyo and Penny Arcade.

I didn't notice the title of the PA book until I had gotten home. When I saw it, I burst out laughing. It was soo funny.

Now, I could tell you what the title was, but it just doesn't have the same effect unless you see the cover art with it, which can be found here.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Vacation Bible School


So Yesterday evening we went up to Peace, Sussex for VBS. Now, I had seen "VBS" written on the calender for this week, but I had no idea we were going. about fifteen minutes before were were supposed to leave mom calls out to us to ask if we're ready to go.

I'm rather glad I've trained myself to not ask questions. Because if I had, we would have had a long conversation explaining everything. And then I still would have had to end my three chats, put on my shoes*, and make a sandwich. So we would have been late.

As it was I only just asked why we were going, and was told VBS. and during the course of the preperation for leaving, I found out it was at Pr. Bender's church. Now, in the car ride up, I did ask more questions. Like, "why were we going?"

See, when I think of VBS, I think of 1st and 2nd graders doing craft projects. This is, after all, the only kind of VBS I had, up to that point, known of. It was also the only kind I've heard my friends talk about. So I had no idea why we would be driving a whole hour just for that.

It turnes out that it's not "traditional" VBS. It's really just an excuse for Pastor to have a week long bible study on prayer. Which is cool. I would have hated to spend a week doing "crafts".


*which are more like boots, so it's a bit of a chore.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Higher Things, For You, Post #2

Okay, what I really thought of the conference. ;-)

I could pay attention. I have a terrible attention span. Terrible. So, when it's about half way through Pr. Stiegemeyer's second sectional, I realize that I've been paying attention. Not just to his sectional, but to all of the so far. I could remember them, all of them, with an unnatural clarity. That I began to freak out. Not big, nothing that would be noticeable by others, but I did. Took me a while to calm myself down.

Yet, even though I could pay attention really well, I don't think I learned as much as I did other years. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, and I did learn loads. Just... not as much.

As much as I'd like to think that's just because I'm smarter now than I was then. I honestly think it was toned down. (This was why I could pay attention, it was made easier to understand.)

I remember Pr. Wilkin's plenary section. He took one whole session to say that "everybody loves Jesus". Not the true Jesus who died for you and took away your sins. But a fake, happy, all smiles, buddy Jesus. He spoke slowly and clearly, he showed us lots of pictures that reinforced his point (and were often humorous), and really nailed that point into us good and solid.

I don't think he said that much. But what he did say, he really made us understand.

...which is good. I'll probably remember a lot of what I learned last week for longer than what I've learned at other conferences.

I think my only major irritation (besides the constant stream of jokes about "for you", having half the housing over a mile off site and the ballgame take 3rd and 4th) was the poor job of naming the sectionals. The titles seemed largely disconnected from what the topics where really about.

My only excuse for that is that in past years i usually picked sectionals based on which pastors where teaching them. But this year (because I knew so few pastors there) I picked them based on the topic. So maybe I never really went in looking for an exact topic before.

On the whole I very much enjoyed it. At least as much, if not more, that last year's "The Feast". (though I did miss all y'all who weren't there)

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Solitaire

So, Old Munk Productions has come out with a movie. A whole whopping movie. Not just some short video. But a movie. I believe it's over an hour in length.

And they're showing it in a movie theater. Granted, it's not a big theater, but nevertheless...

It got two showings, at 1:30 and 3:30 on Sunday, August 12. It'll be two dollars a ticket. I'd encourage all y'all people in the Milwaukee area to go see it. (I'll have to poke Ethan about it, he knows the OMP people too.)

Never fear! I have not forgotten to give you the website. http://www.solitairethemovie.com