If Thom is around and not posting, then he certainly has more self-restraint than I do.

Tomorrow is Steve's b-day...make sure you ignore it...

OMG, I am only kidding...

Steeeeevie...Hope your day is awesome.

-I hate it when people poke me to get my attention. Nothing irks me more, I think. It just puts me in such a foul mood. I can't imagine a non-emergency circumstance where I'd ever feel the need to invade someone's personal space--especially someone I don't know. It just seems like proper etiquette would tell you touching is off limits. (Some girl just poked me in the back to ask if I was going to be here long and if I could watch her bag. I'm not and I can't.)

-It's strange how God has changed in the minds of His people over the years. Let's take Jonathan Edwards, for example, in his 1741 sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God:

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours."

I saw a Cold Case episode once about the worst case of child abuse to date: The lady not only physically hurt her kids (which was most disturbing to me)--eventually killing them, but told them how much God hated them and was punishing them for all their wrongdoing. I wonder if Edwards' mother did the same to him.

-In other news: Mom and daughter both give birth within 2 hours of each other... Brought to you by Utah.

-My school has converted to a card system. To get into the dorms, we have to swipe our ID cards. I'm thinking about getting one of those wallet's that flip out so I can pretend I'm in the FBI. I have it all planned out. I'd walk up to the door, look around suspiciously, press my ear and talk into my watch, flash my card, look over my shoulder, and dart in. It'd be like in a movie.

-You know what's good? When you're about to get a reimbursement from the school of all the money they owe you for not buying books. You know what's better? Getting $260 more than you expected. You know what's the best? Instead of writing your English paper, going to the mall and treating yourself to a whole new closet. You know what's crappy? Realizing that 60 days after you graduate, you'll be paying it back with interest.

-I hate going to the pharmacist to get embarrassing medication... It's hard to make eye contact with anyone who knows you're about to insert something into your rectum. =( And they always say, "Do you have any questions?" I always want to say something witty--but I can never come up with anything appropriate. There's nothing funny about rectal medications.

-I've decided that everything should be free. Thanks.

-My mom sent a mass email out to her bible study group (and me as well) and she misspelled "Hello." So her introduction looked something like this:

"Hell!
I forgot to tell everyone that our Bible study is cancelled Thursday."

Hahah!

-I saw an ad the other day for "Rat Shoulder." Like... meat. I'm not sure how much "shoulder" a rat has, or why anyone would think that a rat might be tasty... the whole thing disturbed me beyond words.

-And now I must go to the "Rat" which is another name for our school cafeteria (short for "Refectory") and I have "Rat shoulder" in my head.

And now you know the rest of the story…

Paul Harvey… Good day.

They are kicking on American Idol tonight

Melanie and I will be off the internet the next few days - we're attending a marriage seminar called "a weekend to remember"

cool. you will have to tell us all about it. have fun.

Sweet!!!

Praying it is awesome and life changing!!!!

I'm attending a seminar too, tonight and tomorrow. It's called the "all about Embie" seminar and I'm staying here, (5 minutes from Newport RI):

http://www.shamrockfarminn.com/about.html

Rachel actually thinks that it's about her and her prom, but she is sadly mistaken...

Andy Rooney's CBS Newsman


Tips for Handling Telemarketers

Three Little Words That Work !!

(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."

Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.


(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?

This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.


This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kic ks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!!

(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away.

When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and sim ilar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back.

It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimne y cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!

Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !

If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.

this is actually pretty fun, someone's been on hold for a few minutes now

He got tired and hung up after ~4minutes

does the hitting the # button really work too?

Not sure, but I AM going to do the junk mail thing. I think that's hilarious!!!!

Junk mail is an accepted practice here in our home. I always send them back. I haven't seen a decrease but, I feel the flesh being satisfied when I return their junk. Is that good or a bad thing??

It's probably a good thing since it will allow them to send it to someone else, thus you aren't wasting paper

you tree huggers!

insert tree hugging emote here

Back in the "day" I was a huge hippy. I loved to go follow the Dead and Phish

i think you are out there .. i mean really "out there" hahahahha ..... just pickin. hippes are great. i think i would have been a great surfer girl in a past life. i have always liked the frazzled look, the way they talk, i still do it when i can get away with it, and i would "totally dig" living at the beach. surf's up duuuuuude.

Isn't it amazing what we would do if we could do it all over again? I am not sure what Id be doing but I wouldnt have taken this long to get my head on straight. LOL

Melanie left yesterday for San Francisco for a conference for work

I go Tuesday evening to meet her