Jesus broke borders, and maybe some border laws

I don’t mean to be too blasphemous, but I promise that the title will make total sense in a couple of minutes. My Spanish professor from Los Angeles, that likes to pretend he is from Mexico is part of an organization to help Latin people in the state of Arizona (which I admit is very good (I guess I can’t dump on him for everything)). He invited the leader of this organization to speak with the class. I assumed that he would be talking about the organization and Guatemalan Americans (because he is one), but I was wrong. What he wanted to talk about was that we are all God’s children and when we die we go and meet Jesus Christ and that the color of our skin may be different, but we are all God’s children and that in the eyes of God we are all sinners, but he loves us.
Now, let me stop you right here and remind you, I go to Arizona State University, which is not a religious university, not even close. The speaker then talked about how God understands that we have to work hard and get ahead, and sometimes we have to tell little lies to save ourselves (…….) I am going to quote (translated from Spanish) the rest of his little lecture to give you a clear idea. “Jesus had to lie to save himself too, when the government was trying to kill him when he was a baby, Joseph and Mary, who were perfect, had to cross borders to save baby Jesus. Now some people have to cross borders, even illegally to save their family. "
……………………………………………………… (picking my jaw up off the floor and placing my eyes back in their sockets) Okay, let me preface my next comments. I am pretty liberal on the the subject of immigration, my wife is an immigrant from a Latin country, and I am a God fearing man. That being said……THAT IS THE STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!
I normally have a pretty hard time staying awake in that class, but when the speaker compared Christ to illegal immigration, it was as if someone had just tasered my testicles. There was no going to sleep after that. I wonder if I should pick apart his comment, or I should leave stupidity to be interpreted by the reader. I will make a compromise. I won’t go over the big one, but I will say that he started off wrong. Mary and Joseph were not perfect. That little piece of false doctrine would actually undo all of Christianity, being that it is based on the sole perfection of Jesus Christ (the illegal immigrant).

Innocence or Ignorance

There is a time in all of our lives when we look back at specific memories in our childhood and realize one thing or another. Many of my memories make me cringe with how embarrassing they are, others make me smile, others are thankfully repressed in a recess of my mind that I hope stays in darkness forever. Many people think of their childhood as a time of innocence (hence the term "childhood innocence") I have been thinking a lot about my childhood and the childish perspective (childish not used as a derogatory word, but rather the real perspective I had as a child) with which I looked at those circumstances and the adult perspective from which I view them now.

I walk to school (which I have already mentioned) and on the way, I pass over some train tracks, which brings me back to a very specific memory from my childhood. I grew up in a large part in Oregon. When I lived in a city named Roseburg, my older brother and I passed the time Rollerblading. We would go to different parking lots where people would come together and setup ramps for everyone. It was like a "bring your own" skate park. The memory of rollerblading in Oregon still remains one of my fondest. Anyway, on our way home one day, we were walking along the train tracks with our rollerblades in hand and what I realize now was a hobo (I say hobo because it was along the train tracks, but really you can take your pick: homeless, bum, vagrant, crack addicted waste of existence barely human being (wow that was harsh)) came up to us and walked with us for a bit. She (I think) asked us if we liked skating, and in my childish exuberance said yes. She went on to ask if there were a lot of places to skate around here. (I think I did most of the talking) I said no or something to that affect. I think there was more small talk, but I was like 9 when this happened, give me a break. She eventually said that we should start a skate park (AWESOME) and that we could get people to give us money, and we could all work and make money , bring it together and make a park. She explained that she could help by keeping the money and really managing the business aspect of the park......... I don't remember much after that except for me being SUPER EXCITED about the new skate park that I was going to build with my new business partner, and then my brother telling me that she was a "con-woman."

So as I said, I think about this story just about every day as I pass the train tracks on the way to school. I sometimes laugh, I sometimes cringe at how gullible I was, and other times I think. I think about how that hobo really was and how I perceived her in my youth. Although I viewed her a savvy business woman looking similar to the hobo above, she was probably more like this.
I will never know. I guess I prefer to remember it the way that I do. It makes me wonder whether that fondness that we feel toward our childhood was really that times were more innocent, or it was the same screwed up place, through eyes that didn't know any better.

Don't pimp me please..... I can do it myself

CNN is airing a new documentary that they did and for the sake of this conversation, it doesn't matter what the documentary is, because that is not what I want to talk about. I didn't even see the documentary. What I did see though is the commercial. The commercial goes as follows, "Watch our groundbreaking new documentary, tonight at 7pm eastern." Ok, a normal sounding commercial I guess, until one looks a little bit deeper. Who is calling the documentary groundbreaking? THEY ARE! They can't do that! A person isn't allowed to praise their own work as genius or likewise, then it loses all it's meaning.

I would like to take just a moment and say that my blog is groundbreaking. My blog is revolutionary. My blog is unlike any blog that is out there and it will change your life. I give my blog a perfect 10, five stars and two thumbs up. It is as beautiful as it is inspired as it is simply a piece of art worthy of a center spot in a museum. There is not a person on this earth that would not benefit in some way from my blog. Oh and by the way, my farts smell like daisies, and my urine cures cancer (now that's a review!).

AAAAHHHHH! (I don't know why this pisses me off so much) A person has to wait for the accolades of someone else. You can't review yourself, that is the point of a review, it is to view again a work and give a critical analysis of whatever is being viewed (art, music, literature, movies, your self proclaimed masterpiece).

That leads me to think that they were trying to make a masterpiece, which normally leads to disaster. When people try to make a masterpiece it is awful, because their delusions of grandeur blur their vision and they can't see the real crap that they are producing. This is why remakes of movies are usually so terrible. The directors are so consumed with making whatever they are doing into a masterpiece that they forget to try to make it good. Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address", Martin Luther King's "I have a dream," and "Don't pimp me please...... I can do it myself" weren't amazing because they tried to be, but rather because it's what was needed at that very moment. The writers were inspired by their surroundings. They were not self-acclaimed (except for this piece, this is truly genius) but rather they were credited by others and in many circumstances, after a long period of time after.

(I apologize in advance for this reference) When Scary Movie 2 came out there were commercials in which the actors half disguised themselves (dressed up to be obvious enough for any idiot that it was still the actors) as regular movie goers and gave (right out of the screening) reviews of the movie. This was in response to a controversy that had recently taken place in which a movie studio was using their own employees in after screening reviews for commercials (you really don't see those commercials anymore, maybe that controversy killed them).

Anyway, back to the point. CNN is a Wayans' brothers joke, which makes them...... pathetic and disgusting.

Anyway.... you can't review your own products, or I guess you can, you just end up as smart as the guy up at the top of the post. (hmm... not as strong of an ending as I would have like, but oh well.)

Frickin' bull honkey

Today we are going to talk about swearing. Why the %#$! would we talk about swearing? you ask. Because I will write about whatever I #$%@ well please, so shut the #$#& up. So that being said, I would like to apologize. I don't swear much. In anger I do let out some "damn"s and "hell"s, but I try for the most part to maintain my language clean.

Before I get attacked as some religous zealot, let me just say, yes, part of the reason that I don't swear is religious (wait.... is human decency a religion?), but it's more than that. I am a writer and as a writer I pride myself in being able to express myself in a manner that conveys my emotions better than swearing. I believe that I can express my anger, or the fact that I am mad better if I don't use vulgarity. I think that vulgarity shows a couple of things. First, a real inability to express one's self, which is something that we have all heard in our childhood and the reason that everyone cites for not swearing, but furthermore it is addictive. Vulgarities are used as general expletives, adverbs, nouns, and adjectives. I am sick of this @#$%, it's so #%$%ing hot, You little #%$%, It's hot as %&*$, That @#$% head or mother-#$%!er. The point is, there are a multitude of ways to express it, and it is easy. In all the things that I expressed there, I only had in mind, two specific words. TWO WORDS! it was that easy. I sometimes find myself clammoring for a word and if I can't think of the word, it will drive me insane until I do. If I could just pick from one of two words it would make my expressive life so much easier. I wouldn't have to think at all, which is the danger. People who swear become dependent on those key words that can be used for just about anything. They start to use vulgarity as a crutch because they have forgotten other vocabulary because of lack of use.

Vulgarity is getting a lot more creative now, and a lot more vulgar. There seems to be a competition to see who can be the most offensive (it's really nothing more than an attention contest). I read this just recently, "Mary mother of #%&*#$*&#$ who $%*($*% in the $%(#$*#*. It's a competition not only to say the most vulgar words, but to also string them together in the most offensive way possible. It's really just a childish way of getting attention (childish because it is not a way of getting attention that compliments that person, but rather shocks or disgusts) ((concerning the picture) it's a disgusted baby..... don't look at me, ask google)

Anyway, I don't like it. I can take vulgarity in stride, but when someone uses vulgarity for all parts of speech it bothers me. It's called the F-bomb because it has impact, but when you drop it every other word, it's a dud. I don't care if you use it, but use it correctly. When someone swears it should grab everyone's attention immediately. There should be a hush over those who hear it, not a lack of recognition or care as it stands right now. So swear if you want, but when it's really needed, and if not, I will see you in $#!$ you no good @#$@#*(&#&*^%$#!$*&(&$.

I hate your blog

Ok, that may have been a small exaggeration. I don't hate your blog, I just think it mind-numbingly boring, but then again, most of your blogs aren't for me, are they?

Let me take a step back.

Yesterday, instead of posting, I spent the day filing through blogs looking for something that I liked or looking for people with the same tastes as me. I tried to look for people with the most obscure similarities like bands that I don't think anyone has heard of or books that no one has read. I found a handful of people that had the same books, movies, or interests, but their blogs were so personal that they really didn't invite an audience that wasn't directly in their inner circle of friends. Let me stop here and say that if I am in your inner circle of friends, I sure as hell better not have to read your blog to know what's going on in your life. If I am really your friend, you and I should probably be talking from time to time, and if your one of those friends with which we don't share personal information, I won't be reading your blog either.

I guess I assumed that my blog was going to be for analyzing crazy ideas and an avenue to be able to rant, rave, analyze, and be creative. I also assumed that most blogs were along my same mindset, but I was incorrect.

Most blogs are like this: here we are at that big thing we talked about and Frankie did that hillarious thing he always does..... it's been so long since I have written, I am sorry, and I promise I will continue to write more later (message from 3 months ago)

(just to note, I don't know these people..... if you type in "happiest family ever" into google, they appear. They seem happy, but happiest family ever? I don't know. I imagined 5 people with mouths wide with smiles and thumbs up, but I guess that is only a personal dreamland)

I hope that this blog is a bit more universal than a personal journal that no one else would understand. I am hoping that people read this and laugh and tell their friends about funny and stupid insights (I have the Fonz's picture on one of the posts for crying out loud). So don't be offended if I hate your blog, it's not that I hate it so much is that I don't understand it. If I don't know you, a minute by minute agenda from your trip to the Great Plains of wheat fields is not the most interesting way for me to get to know you.

(and you probably think that my blog sucks too, so no harm done)

Burning Horses and Smores

Class today was another epic battle to stay awake.

In addition to charging tuition that assures that only the wealthy or heavily indebted get an education, and book fees that make me want to take a rape shower, ASU also charges a ridiculous amount for parking. I don't know if it's my hatred of the system or just being cheap, but I refuse to pay for parking. I park in the neighborhoods about a mile and a half away from campus. This decision to save money or be a rebel (not sure which) comes at the cost of my having to walk to and from school. Walking wouldn't be so bad, except the picture on the left is a picture of Phoenix during the summer. That's right kids, it's hot..... very hot, and I wear ties. I guess I am to blame as well. I don't own a pair of sandals and only own one pair of shorts, so I am an idiot, but a well dressed idiot.

I get to my car after school drenched in sweat and then get into my 3 billion degree car and think.... "shoot me in the face." After the air conditioning kicks in, life gets better. It is with my thoughts of "it couldn't be hotter than this in hell" that I see a truck pass me with a horse trailer connected to it. I thought to myself about the metal on my seat belt which is searing hot when I get into my vehicle after school. The worse part of the whole thing, is there was actually a horse inside. I entertained the idea that the horse was being cooked in preparation for some hillbilly feast that would take place at the destination. The metal box around the horse reminded me of a tin foil dinner that one makes while camping (food wrapped in tin foil, thrown in the fire to cook).

I tried to convince myself that maybe horses can't feel heat or are less susceptible to it than I am, but then I remembered: The horse is in a damned metal box! The horse was essentially in an oven, cooking away. I can't fathom the temperature inside that oven of a trailer being less one billion, and the horses organs cooking inside the marinade of its own blood.

Now..... I am no animal rights activist, unless I am actively eating them, but the sight of the horse got me thinking. I am sure the horse enjoyed the ride. Animals love rides in cars and the wind rushing over their faces (i.e. dogs hanging out the windows). The horse has to be enjoying the ride and the wind, but at the same time, he is literally being killed.

I began to think of more examples of this same thought of enjoying something that is killing you (I guess some would say cigarettes, but I am referring to immediate death and not a long drawn out process or acquiring something that will kill you, but dying in the same instance.) I thought about flying a lobster around the room like an airplane before I eventually drop it in a pot of boiling water, but then the lobster would not be dying and enjoying itself at the same time. I tried to think of a more human example and thought about someone trapped in a burning house and making smores.

So this was my thought more or less, except the little girl would be roasting that oversized marshmallow over a fire that would also be consuming all of her dolls and eventually herself. (on second thought, maybe I shouldn't have used a picture of a little girl, it makes me seem kind of sick, not that this whole post isn't quite macabre. You can make a more significant message out of this post if you would like, but I was just talking about what I saw. I wasn't trying to make some great message about making lemonade from lemons. So that was my observation for today. Work is going terribly. I couldn't sell a fire extinguisher to the owners of the house above if I paid them (or at least that's the way I have felt the last couple of days). So until tomorrow, I say, go make some smores.

If I were someone else I could finally be happy!

There is no real point to the title of this post, I just wanted to put something ridiculous..... I think I did a good job. So if you were hoping that I would have some self depricating post about how I cut myself and live vicariously through the people that I see on the television, I hate to disappoint you, but I like who I am. I accept that I will not be as cool as the Fonz, and that is ok. (wait, did my blog just "jump the shark?")

Today is just another monday.

I wrote a paper for my spanish class this morning. The teacher wanted 500 words maximum which equates to about a page and a half of typed print. I was about two pages into the introduction of the paper when I realized that I can't write short papers. Everything is in the details. The jokes, the feeling, the (anything worth reading) is in the details. Details are what make papers fun to write for me, so I would rather disobey my teacher and write a better paper that I enjoyed writing, rather than a boring drone of a paper that was excruciating to get through.

The weekend was eventless.

On that note, let me talk about a non-event.

I love drive-throughs and drive-throughs love me. (I refuse to shorten it to Drive-Thru: fast food is trying to make us fat AND (exaggerated) stupid.)

I really appreciate people that make minimum wage. Why? I guess I just feel bad for someone who works harder than me and makes a small fraction of what I make. So when I go through a drive through I will put on an act for the intercom man. When I pull up to that box I turn myself into the happiest, most excited person ever. Let me try to explain by giving you what I remember of my last dialogue with the box: (keep in mind that my voice is so overexaggerated and cartoonish it's ridiculous)

Sonic: Welcome to Happy Hour at Sonic, I will be with you in a one moment

Me: Take your time buddy, I have ALL day.

Sonic: OK, how are you today

Me: I am having the greatest day of my life, thank you, how are you?

Sonic: Pretty good, what can I get for you? (I haven't won him over at this point, but I will)

Me: Dude, it would be awesome if I could get (my order)

Sonic: I am sorry, none of those things are on the happy hour menu

Me: That's okay because those things will make me happy anyway, and I am just happy that you are taking my order.

Sonic: (insert a laugh or long pause because the person doesn't know what to say) ok (repeat order) your total is $$.$$ is there anything else I can get for you.

Me: No, you have done more than enough, thank you so much for taking my order.

Sonic: uh...... you're welcome, pull up to the window

Me: Sweet, I will be right there.

(pull up to the window)

Sonic: Your total is $$.$$

Me: Awesome, thank you so much.

(give the guy my debit card)

Sonic: Thank you...

Me: No dude, thank YOU!, you are doing a great job!

Sonic: (laugh)

So at this point I have a free something or other. The last time I went to Sonic, I got a free shake and the time before that the manager bought my banana split because he said that I made his day. I am happy to be able to do it, because serving impatient (people in the drive-through) fatties (fast food remember) isn't my idea of a great job. If I can give them something to get through the rest of their day of being yelled at for wrong orders and missing spots of vomit and half chewed french fries then I can feel a little bit better about myself.

(weird.... somehow that actually made sense with the title of the post.... not planned so no need to give me credit for that, but odd how that works out.)

Oh my goodness, my head just blew up!

These are the notes from the class I told you about earlier. If you aren't thinking "What the #*%$?" you are probably doing drugs. There is a map of mexico in there somewhere, $50 to the person that can find it. It's like drunken where's waldo. I am still not sure if the class is going to be easy or hard. The class and I have decided that it's going to be easy, but the teacher has to convince himself that it's hard so he talks as if it is hard, but seriously, we have vocabulary once a week, and the only thing that is going to happen is that the teacher will say a word and we have to write it. That may sound difficult in English, but keep in mind that Spanish is completely phonetic. If you can't spell a dictated, you are probably so retarded that you should just go and shoot yourself in the face.

That's all I have for today, I really just wanted to show that picture.

OOOOH the Humanity! and the Shame

Hi, my name is Jordan and I play video games, as a matter of fact I admit it, I am a gamer.....(phew)

I play a lot of video games. I play all sorts of video games, but I still do other things. I am a student at ASU and I get good grades. I am a husband and think that I do at least a fair job at it. I like to do things outdoors and other things, but I like to play videogames too.

<----- this is the icon that I use to represent my gamer name that I use when I play. I am Antipunk because I love Antiflag and punk rock. I found the picture on google pics and it worked perfectly with the name so I went for it. It doesn't have any deep spiritual meaning like a chinese tattoo some drunken girl has on her lower back.

I can't even look at the page on which I am writing this, because I am so ashamed. I am ashamed that I play videogames. I am ashamed that I am a gamer. I am ashamed that I come home from work and immerse myself in a pointless universe that offers nothing substantial, longterm, or physical for me. I would rather tell you I had AIDS (I don't) or that I realized that I am a woman trapped in a man's body (I am not) than tell you that I play videogames.

This post feels like something out of AA or NA (alcoholics or narcotics anonymous). The only difference is that I don't see the damage that videogames do to me, but then again, a heroine addict probably doesn't see the damage either. Am I addicted? meh.... can't really say. I enjoy playing, but don't believe I would have withdrawals if I didn't.

So let me tell you a little story.

My wife and I both play a game called World of Warcraft, which is the most shameful of all games to play. Why is it so shameful (asks the person who has never heard of the game), because this is a game in which people create characters through which they live vicariously. This is not a game with an end. It is a life game which offers total escape from reality into dorkland with elves, demons, swords and magic. I play the game for something called arena. It's basically like a deathmatch in between teams of characters. It's short and I don't immerse myself as much in the world or lore and such. My wife plays as a social game. As you can imagine there aren't a lot of girls playing the game, and certainly not many as attractive as my wife, so she gets a lot of attention. She will not move in the game for several minutes at a time, just gabbing it up with people, anyway, on to the story. We met a couple that also plays. They live in WA and we played together and became friends (as much of a friend as you can become with someone you have never met in real life). We have known (insert last parenthesis here with the word "know" instead of "friend") them for about a year now and they recently decided that they were going to come to visit us. They made a road trip of it, visiting other friends they had never met and eventually rounding up the trip with my wife and I. I planned a couple of things, but had to work and go to school as well. What did they do on their vacation? They played World of Warcraft. I planned a day of cliff jumping on the fourth of july, but no.... they didn't want to go, they wanted to stay inside our house and play videogames. I was disappointed that we didn't actually go out and do anything, and thought that maybe they were disappointed with their vacation, but not the case. They couldn't have been happier that their vacation was filled with playing videogames in someone else's home and not their own.

I am embarrassed and ashamed that I am lumped in to the same category as these people. I am ashamed that I am categorized with forty year old virgins with coke bottle glasses. I am ashamed that I know and interact with these people.

I can feel the line in between myself and these people and it is a line that I try very hard not to cross, but on the other side of the line is a vacuum and it is hard not to get sucked over into oblivion in which your life is consumed with nothingness.

So if you ask me face to face, I will look to the ground and maybe admit that I play video games, and then turn around and try to find the nearest hole in the wall to crawl up in and die.

Shoot me in the face

So apparently my 1's look like 7's or I wouldn't have had today off. My anniversary with my wife is July 1st and so like a good (and scared of his wife) husband, I requested the day off, months in advance. I became very ill and had to take just about all of my vacation before that date. I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough vacation to take the day off, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had the day off, not as vacation but as an alternate and then I would work Saturday. Well, that was fine with me and that's what I did. I started school again today and had the weirdest class which I will talk about in a minute..... anyway.... I got to work and I had the day off planned time off. I checked with my supervisor and sure enough. They had apparently read my 1 as a 7 and then by some stoke of luck I got the first off as well. My supervisor asked me if I wanted to work to which I quickly answered, "not a shot in hell."

So I am trying to load up some pictures from my phone to the computer and I have no idea how to use bluetooth. I am now getting to the point in my life where I really have to work to keep on with things. I have to study in order not to be the guy that says, "you youngsters with your mobile phones and techonolomogy." So shoot me in the face, another thing that I have to learn that will be replaced in 4 days 2 hours and 54 minutes.

The pictures will speak for themselves, they are of my class notes, not the ones I wrote, but rather of the teachers. It doesn't sound too exciting, but I will put the disclaimer, don't look directly into the picture, because you will go cross-eyed and start bleeding from your tear ducts.
I will rant more abou the teacher as the semester goes on. Just one thing I want to say: He is so proud of Mexico and the heritage there. He is so in love with Yucatan, that he named both of his kids mayan names. Where is this teacher from you ask? East Los Angeles. Born and raised second generation. His grandparents lived in mexico, and not even in yucatan, in Guadalajara. So it's like if I went to Germany and loved it so much that I decided I am from Germany, and then I would be so proud of my german heritage. (I don't know if I feel comfortable being proud of my fake german heritage, but that is not the point). I mean, some of my descendants came from Europe, so I can just pretty much pick the prettiest place and decide that I am from there.
You know what? When you are born here, this is the country you are from! My wife is from Ecuador, me, I am as white middle class american as anyone can get, our children (that don't exist yet) will be from the United States. They are not Ecuadorian, their mother is Ecuadorian, they are North American from the USA.

The following is a picture of me and my wife. I am acting like a zombie and trying to eat her brains, it's a lot harder than they make it look in the movies. It's a fun little game we play.

Anyway..... that is enough for now, still more to come about my teacher and the class that I am taking.

Welcome

Don't ask me why I am doing this (is this how all blogs start, people somehow feel they have to justify why they are blogging (man this feels like a personal add (I don't know why I am posting, but I can't seem to find a date blah blah blah))) (<--- oh ya... I love parenthesis). I think that I chose to do this, because I don't have much opportunity to write anymore with school and work, so this is a type of writing that I can do at work. I admit, my fingers hitting the keys in a rythem that goes along with my thoughts is rather soothing. So I guess I will introduce myself and then leave it at that for now.

My name is Jordan
favorite color is black (shut up those that would say it's not a color.... have you even thought how miserable your life really is that pointing out that black is not a color is so important to you?)
I work in Insurance, and I am sure that you will be hearing funny stories about that in the future.
I am in my last year in college, studying Spanish, planning on going to Law School
I write and hopefully the blog also becomes a vehicle of sorts for my creative writing.
That's me in a handbasket..... or is it hell in a handbasket and it's me in a nutshell? I really don't know where I am, but this is all.