How To Tell You've Been Sick Longer Than You'd Like

Forgive errors, as I'm typing without my glasses on my mom's weirded-out keyboard. Yes, here are some signs to tell that you've...uhh long word, you know what I mean. Some points could be present during short sicknesses, as each case is different, but these are guaranteed if you've been sick for longer than...you know.

1. You seek comfort, and comfort flees from you. You can't sleep without exacerbating something (i.e. horrendous, Cough Level 5), your eyes hurt so it's hard to read, you can't concentrate for long periods of time, and you can't seem to handle cold items long enough to form yourself a glass of ice water that you've been craving for the last five hours. TV is not an option because it rots your brain, and the radio would just make you an upset wreck. Long car rides are out of the question as "no one wants to hang out with the Level 5 Cougher." Usually only your favored activity will remain to comfort you. I don't understand this mercy, kind of out of place.
   
2. You're grateful to smell the worst smells. "Ah, I never thought I'd be glad to smell the cat box! At least I can smell something!"
   
3. You can't eat anything. If you liked apples before, it's a surety that all the apples in your state will be bitter. Not sour, as grannysmith, but bitter. Kind of like...eating grapefruit peel. If you liked kiwis, every store miraculously has their kiwis either purchased by some kiwi-baron-tycoon (what else is Bush gonna do now but stockpile kiwis?), or burned to the ground by pranksters. Then you'll find out that you can't have fruit (surely not peaches), and the only vegetables that you can have are onions and Tabasco. You had no idea Tabasco was an(sic) vegetable, but the Sick gods thus judge it, and you make due with onion-for-bread and Tabasco-for-meat sandwiches. For weeks. It's better than Tabasco-onion soup, and much better than Frosty Onion Smoothies. (Onions blended = taste nasty!)
4. You cough so much and so hard that you come to recognize, quite alarmingly, the existence of 'false ribs'. The aunt's-friend-who-used-to-be-a-nurse-well-I-think-so-but-at-least-I-know-she-knows-alot-oh-maybe-it-was-a-veterinary-nurse-I-can't-remember-not-important-to-know-let's-see-what-she-says tells you via your aunt that it's nothing to worry about, and they'll reconnect on their own eventually.
5. You learn to bend physics, a la The Matrix. Actually, not so a la The Matrix. The only physics-bending you'll be doing is tossing kleenex into a closed garbage can. Quite a feat, it's just kind of like being able to instantly, telekinetically cause your car to break down; not very popular with people, not something you're proud of. They get all hung up on the "Eww, why are you throwing that nasty, used kleenex near me?!" part. They don't care at all that you made a kleenex go through a closed garbage receptacle without harming the can. Ingrates.
6. Everyone else suddenly seems happy, perhaps because of your sickness. Thus you get strong desire to read Job chapter 3. Then you get paranoid.

Then you start plottin'.


Plottin......

.........

Intentions

Has anyone ever asked your intentions? I bet it's quite harrowing. What are your intentions with that gun you're holding, what are your intentions with that board you have that has a plane ticket stapled to it (imagine the possibilities of that!), what is your intention for that invention that rhymes to keep attention. Convention. Abstention.


I ask myself quite often what my intentions are. I count it an important aspect of life. I, of course, because I'm talking to me, add in a description of thought to my intentions. My intention is to kill the flies, and my thinking/reason for doing this is to accomplish world peace. (Flies are the sole cause of evil in this world, you know.)

I especially ask myself my intentions when I do something I don't count entirely wholesome. And it gets to the point where I have to stop asking myself my intentions and focus more on the thought behind it. This amounts to 50% more resources for the thought process.

But thought is weak. Thoughts change and morph and you sometimes have to rely on decisions you've made; or, at least rely on these decisions for buoys of current intent; because thought is weak, and thought changes, and thought reliant upon emotion is crippled thought.


Then, what is fear-driven thought if not emotion-reliant thought? What of setting your mind against something, fear of betrayal/betraying being the cause? Can this truly be considered a legitimate thought buoy?

And what about the case where, to deal with betrayal, or the near dodging of catastrophic loss or mental damage, you create a thought buoy as a scapegoat against a bystander? What if that bystander was in fact innocent, but banished for the underlying, unrelated reasons mentioned above?


But what if you were right all along, and the bystander isn't as innocent as it seems? And now we're back to square one.

Halo. No angels involved.

Yes...it's time to consider Halo. And by 'consider,' I mean 'think of.'


I don't have much to say about Halo. Seen gameplay footage. Know that it's a good combat engine. Know that it's online, a leviathan from Microsoft, got an armorsuited freakshow in it ("I'm a representative of Freaktropolis." "Never heard of it." "Never heard of it?...you're looking at it."), has bells, has whistles, has a ripoff of Adon. Named, um, I forget. I think she's cool, but she won't say the things that Adon would say. Like, "Lair of the Blind Ones."

You can probably tell that I know so little about Halo that I have to fill this post up with speculative comparisons of the holographic assistant in Halo and the amazingly above-par voice-acting marvelous wonder that is Adon in Turok. Sooo FTW.


Yep, that's almost all I know about Halo. From what I hear, I'd like to play it. From what I hear, I don't expect much from it. Go on, take off my shoe and spit in my face.

The State of Hymning: 2008

Here's the current condition of our familial hymning ability:

• The losers of the family: me, my dad, my mom. And my brother...he's some unheard of form of Super Loser. You've heard the term, "Can't carry a tune in a bucket." He can't even carry words in a bucket. The poor sap.
  
• The star of the family is M.P. Echo. Who is a guitar. A piece of wood- wood which is not an animated marionette by the name of Pinocchio- is better than all three of us combined. (Actually, all three of us combined is worse than just one of us.)
  

My goal is to, somehow, some way, teach me and my family to sing. It will be a terrible journey, and I'll be working with oafish loons who will go backwards on me the entire way.

One of them has a horrible phobia of singing...

...and the other has to unlearn 15 years of formal Muppet Choir training.




I go into this knowing that I will not accomplish my goal. But I'll have tried. And in this dreary, platinic world of sentient engravings, that's all that matters.

Until then, humble fools.

Hey, I Know What We'll All Do!

Bored? I got it. We can all go to a rally.


Then we can hit each other with hammers. Not steel hammers, I suppose, but the symbolism of whacking each other with plastic/rubber hammers will suffice. I'm of course talking about the Grand Hammering of '92. You remember, right, humble fool?

You don't?!


Oh, it was dreadful. 30,000 hippies, losers, dorks, nerds, geeks, freaks and about 50 normal people gathered in the heart of the downtown of the city. They all brought hammers and well, the rest is history. I think that the hippies won; there are for sure more losers than hippies, but hippies are better-organized and, surprisingly, they don't shy away from violence- unless the government or anything that could be mistaken for "The Man" is involved. "The Man" is a hippie's kryptonite (and "Police" is equivalent to "Sunless Earth"). Otherwise, they're very adept warriors.

...well, mostly. But yes, we can all make plans to gather in downtown Phoenix to reenact the Grand Hammering of '92! We'd need to use real hammers, though. Think about it: The Grand Hammering took place right before the '92 election, so maybe we can do the same thing and in about 16 years they'll be talking about the "Grandiose Hammering of '08" and wanting to reenact it. What do you say, humble fools?


Yeah, I don't wanna, either. That sounds painful.

9:15 AM. The heat is on.

Yep, 9 AM. I went to sleep last night at (about) 9:15 PM and got up at 11:43 PM, so I got two and a half hours of sleep (didn't I already say that in a prior post?), and I'm still awake. Fifteen hours to go. No coffee, no caffeinated beverages, no sugar. Just raw, unconditional manliness.

Which can sometimes cause me to say "unconditional" instead of "unrelenting." Which also can cause actual reversal of "unrelenting" and "unconditional" (aside from causing me to use confusing grammar). Meaning that unconditional love would turn to unrelenting love. Kind of the same thing, just more violent.

And less relenting.


Anyways, birthday #19 is going great so far. Did I mention that I put more than forty cans of sparkling water into the refrigerator last night? Yeah, so I guess I need to drink those before the day is up. It's my honor or something. I'm doing very badly so far. There's practically a wall of sparkling water inside the fridge, and it doesn't seem to be taking the hint. It's unconditional.

Sorry. And my mom officially told me that I wasn't born at night, but at 2:57 PM or something like that. She started in on the technicalities, about how I would need to stay up from 2:57 PM to 2:57 PM. I almost slapped her, but I didn't.

I said, "Listen, stupid. Don't you think I know that? October 6th is my birthday day, and I will be up for my entire birthday day, which is October 6th." And again, I almost slapped her. She was like, "OK, whatever, I've got to go to work. OH, BY THE WAY, GO MILK!"


That time I almost strangled her. Milking went fine; I don't know how many we have currently producing the "white gold," as my parents are fond of calling it. My heart says we have about forty milkers, my mind says we have six or seven, and Jeremiah 17:9 factors in there somewhere. Dad did the majority of the milking, as far as retrieving the goats go. My parents retrieve them, I put them away. I've got the goats relented to obey my will because they know it's futile to do otherwise. I am an (sic) dictator with an iron fist. And I have opposable thumbs. They only have pitiful, cloven hooves.

And sometime before the milking I cleaned the kitchen floor with a rag; which didn't work too well. But it will do; our mop head is dead. And I also got some hours in on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. That's going great. But my hair? Bad hair day. Or, at least I consider it a bad hair day.


Oh, and as for the title of this post, it always heats up in my room between 9 and 10:30 AM. So it's going to start heating up in my room.

...don't get it? Fine, let me put it in simpler terms: That is why the heat is on. I do declare, you fools think I need to go get some sleep! HAH, I'M NOT CRAZY, THE WOOOOORLD IS CRAZY! AHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAaaaaahackgh

Yawn. 2:30 AM.

Funny that I post this around 2:30 AM. Why is it funny, you ask?


Well, I got two and a half hours of sleep "last night." Which was three hours ago.


So it's...not exactly funny in the sense of hilarity. Remember this post? I didn't get to sleep until later. Yeah, so I'll see if I can stay up for the 24 hours on two and a half hours of sleep and no coffee.

That's it!

Yeah! I'm having a trouble: I'm restless, but not in the typical way of being restless. But I think I figured it out: my computer's messy!

Surely this is the cause. Let me example you:


In my Blog photos folder, (which is also the Blog videos folder), I have 178 items; 19 are folders for organizing the photos, 159 are photos. That means there are 159 unsorted photos.

This happened because I had a May Blog Pictures folder from 2007, but then it was May of 2008 and I wasn't smart enough to add a "2007" to the previous May, so I made May Blog Pictures 2, but I got so confused that sometimes I'd put new pictures into the archival folder. I know that's a silly way to become unorganized, but I sure did it.

I actually almost sorted them in this post, but I didn't. There were too many for me to worry about at the time and I'd probably never use them again anyway. So I suppose I'll sort my blog pictures over the next few days...


Also, my desktop is a train wreck, but that's a more conventional problem.

I must sort the desktop items into folders on the desktop...and if I have any trouble (i.e. not knowing where a file goes), I create a folder that will ease that certain trouble. In the end, I should have about 10 folder categories that will fit any file. Then I can slowly move those folders to locations other than the desktop...or, more likely, create a "Hub" folder to...uh, hub all of these folders.


I still have 3.4 GB left on my hard drive; I estimate that there are 5-6 GB of pictures- recent pictures- that I don't have, and at least 2 GB of elder pictures that I don't have. (All I know is that my mom has about 40 backup CDs from the dark days, so there must be at least 2 GB.) The lack of hard drive space could certainly be driving me mad, as well. And then,-

-

Hmm!: PomPOM Revived

I was thinking...since I get little joy out of life right now (cause I'm in a videogame-deprived, zombielike stupor), maybe I should make some food. Remember PomPOM?

Well, I sure didn't remember PomPOM- I had the same idea I had last year, then after the fact realized that PomPOM was for my birthday (and the following wedding).

But I can't really make enough food to last for the entire two weeks of my birthday run because the lack of slaving over a hot stove for hours would drive me to madness...I'll only get to play MP2 for an hour or so a day, you know. That's an increase from the half hour a day I spent on TTYD, but eh, none of you know these acronyms, so I'll cut to the chase.

(Plus my parents don't enjoy buying three weeks worth of food in one week. It drives them mad. And it makes them rave. Mad ravers are bad people to deal with.)


Thus, I will strike a compromise. I'll clean the meat we have and prepare the vegetables/side dishes we have ingredients for and make some stews, but I won't go overboard. And I'll let you know how it goes. See you then, humble fools! I mean, see you then on this same topic. ...you know what I means.

Breaking Again

Well, consarn it. I've got too much to do. There's a special project I'm working on (some of you may be privy to that), and I have another project that I'm working on (some of you may also be privy to that), and I've got another project I'm working on (not many of you are privy to that), and I just got the call. I bet I forget what the three projects are unless I write them down. Let's see, BGHAULCAM, PFCCAM, GCAM4IMp, not necessarily in that order. That should help me remember.


"I need a tow truck, boy! I was driving down the road at 50 MPH, and all of a sudden the passenger side rear wheel flew off!"

It was making a creaking sound the last few days. Thusforthtoheretothere, I will not have time to make blog posts, despite the fact that I have at least 10 I want to write (including a 4 or 6-post 'serial'). I may post some update posts on the progress of repairing the Red Beater, though. It'll all be manly discussions on axles and suspension and leaf springs.

See you then, humble fools. See you then. Hopefully no longer than a week. I will persevere, and be strong.

Samus Aran VS. Three Space Pirates

Twas a bloody, close battle. Observe.

Bravery is not nearly a strong enough word! 'Fearless' is a weak characteristic in the face of reality!




The video came out surprisingly good (aside from spelling valiant wrong...ugh. And I doubt that's the only one, I was in an energy-drink spawned daze), considering I took it with my digital camera. It was dark in my room, and I used the GorillaPod to stabilize the camera. So that's the best my digital camera can do.


If you don't know who Samus Aran is and would like to know more...umm...go get Metroid Prime, and you'll be off. Or get Metroid: Zero Mission for Gameboy Advance, but avoid Fusion until you've played the Prime series. I wish I could voice act...then I'd rule the world...

Why Aren't They Like Us - Gamers and Non-Gamers

Have you ever wondered what makes gamers gamers? I've pondered that. I usually run into a wall. I've heard more brilliant souls than I leave it at a mere "Thank God we are who we are, who knows why they're them." It is a difficult question that may not have any satisfactory answer, and mayhaps the answer is simpler than we care to accept, as is common. I feel it is time to consider my thoughts on this manner in a short-sighted and incomplete way.



Certainly, the human brain can be trained to perform nearly any pointless activity, and quite a few that have purpose as well. I'm often dumbfounded at my parent's lack of sense. I used to think it was my imagination, but they just don't think the way I do.

For example, a while back, there was a ceiling fan that wasn't working. My dad was about to take it down. I flipped the switch that should normally indicate which direction the fan spins, and it began spinning. Apparently, that was the on/off switch. You don't spend an hour sitting on one screen trying to guess which window/mirror to jump through and not develop these kinds of tinkering abilities. Bless that bizarro joker-freak and his trick mirrors that are undetectable in 2D AND 3D.


Unfortunately, this can't translate for me into computers for the same reason that you don't inherently know what is dangerous in computer terms. If it were life, you'd see a dark alley and know not to go because "Spiderman has taught us that much."
In computer, it doesn't look like anything, except for the ever-evasive recipe for the An Quaff of Youth. Then you click on it expecting to take "YEArs OF OFF YOU LIFE!!!!!" and WHAM, you've downloaded hacxu.exe and are doomed.



Here is something I feel accentuates how my thought process- which I assume is nearly a normative Nintendo gamer's thought process- works. Watch the following YouTube video. If you can get past the ruinous aural assault, which perniciously threatens to tear down and make waste the fortress of my well-being and overall will, chronicle what you do, and tell me if it's anything like what I did. Here is the link. Go watch that. Write down what you do. Here's what I did...only read below once you've fully viewed the video. Watch it muted, if you like. Or just don't participate, you spoil sport.








First thing I do is make a feeble attempt at discovering the meaning of "ai yai yai," or "ay ee ay ee ay" to no avail. I did spend 20 minutes trying to make avail, but in the end, all I have is a tall glass of No Avail. And one heck of a adulterated pronunciation of "blue" to get rid of. Luckily, I have no idea how the word "blue" could be pronounced that way, so it should be easy.

Then, I watch the video some more, hoping for some futile clue. I hadn't fully watched it before. When such an assault bears its daunting face at me, I tend to give it as little of my attention as possible, so as to limit damage to the pillaged crater of what was once my heart. Boy, am I feeling dramatic tonight.

I come across a picture at 2:46. What do you do with this picture?




I immediately seek to find the quote. Turns out, it's from The Legend of Zelda. I've never played a Zelda game that didn't need an MM, OoT, TP, WW, or LttP after it, but I will someday, I promise. Nevertheless, I don't think it's obvious to a non-gamer that this was a quote. Am I wrong? Is it apparent to everyone that it was a quote? Do you simply observe without identifying that it has purpose other than simply subtitles?


Are you really that stupid? I think I may be barking up the wrong tree. I'm looking to be barking up a willow...

Feel free to tell me if I'm barking up a pine.

Don't Kill Me, I Won't Kill You

Today, as me and my dad were wandering through a store, I realized that any one of the fools around me could have killed me.

Any one of them could have had a knife, gun or even a sausage or- God forbid, a fish bone. Hokey, pokey, fishbone chokey. Where have I heard that...I hate fishbones, did you know? They creep me out.


Anyways, I pondered what exactly breeds peace between us as humans. Is it simply our nationality? That isn't true, because I could go to China right now, and they'd certainly kill and eat me, but I wouldn't do anything negative to them. I might tell their women that I really like their dresses (they're awesome), but I don't think that's necessarily negative.


It has to be some kind of built-in social framework. We just know that is it right not to kill others (there are exceptions of this knowledge, of course), and there's this idea of assurance that no one will harm you unless they look like a threat. My dad hates everyone regardless of nationality, belief, personality or mindset, and he would never admit it, but he doesn't worry about someone in a store stabbing him to death.

It could certainly be a matter of numbers. Of all the people in our country, very few would attempt to injure you. I'm not saying they couldn't be trained or convinced to, but for the most part, they won't hurt you if you won't hurt them, and vice versa.


Then, THERE'S, OOPS, CAps lock. We'll get that in editing, like men. Then, there's the issue that people feel invincible and are mostly ignorant. I know that when I'm driving a car down a thoroughfare, I drive very cautiously, but most people drive like headless chickens. That's a mental image I've never thought of..."driving around like a headless chicken was behind the wheel." That's grand.

...and they just don't worry about others, as the(y think the) world spins around them and honestly, they don't have to be aware of their surroundings. Anyways, I was just thinking that today. The conclusion I come to is don't kill me, I won't kill you.

And that's what makes the world spin 'round.


Except in China.


In lieu of this 'don't kill me, I won't kill you' bargain, they just have really, really neat dresses. Especially the red ones. As far as I can tell, this pacifies the masses somehow. Of course, as with anything, I'm sure they have some crazily weird and bad dresses. Thus, I must be talking about the sanitized, "I don't want a lesbian in my cartoon or I won't let you show it" variety.

Wait, wait! That isn't China; I'm thinking of Japan! They don't eat people in Japan. But still, the thing about the sanitization stays. And the thing about China eating people.

That stays, too. That's why I'll never go to China. I don't want filet migKev showing up on a menu. Um, just so we're clear, this is um, about the like...abuse over in China, yeah, that's it. I'm a respectable protester, you heard me right. I'm not a...um, yeah. I'm not an umyeah. Got it?


Now I'm just rambling. Oh man, wait, I'm supposed to be being nice to China right now because they just had an earthquake. OK, I apologize. I forgot that when I wrote the above. Forgive me?

...friends?

Welcome the newest addition: A Yet Unnamed Filthy Buckling

Yep. A goat gave birth- Lightning, to be exact. To another filthy buckling- fifth this year with no doelings. That is unprecedented in our short history. Maybe a nuclear warhead will fall out of the sky and detonate and kill us all to put us out of our misery, as even if it were a doeling, it would still be worthless because we have enough goats. The only option is to slaughter them, and I just hate slaughtering females. Really, I do.


Sorry. Anyway, that's why I'm up right now. And why I didn't post until now. I would post pictures, but honestly, I'm just starting to get over the grossness of it. And I videotaped the whole ordeal. I'll be taking that to the dataDyne's and...anyone else who wants it. The weirdos.

I took pictures, too. It'll be a grand, gross epic tale of um, grossness. I'll edit the pictures into the video, and I'll take it to them and say, "Here, have your filthy goat birth, I don't want it anymore." And if they want, they can have the buckling. It'll be grand.


Now, enough of my venom-dripped sarcasm. I've really got to get to bed and seethe for a while. Actually, I won't seethe. I'll go sing Amazing Grace three times, and if I'm not in a better mood by then, I'll have fallen asleep. I got a capo for my guitar today, and I need to practice up as I think I'm a "capo the first" voice. I have to record myself for Fool/Guitar, too. You guys will get to hear me embarrass myself soon, I promise.

Actually, I think I might fall out.

Church This Week: Q3 of February 2008

Well, I'm still all in a teetotaler ...tee...tizzy, over the events of the weekend. I think it was mostly the 6 straight hours of brainwashing I received on the way back. "Hey, Kev, let's start us a choir. You and Bruce Bruckner figure it out. Also, let's start a youth group. You and Mick will be the firstfruits."

I'll need to talk to Bruce Bruckner to make it official, but I think we'll call ourselves the "Bruce Brothers." The Google Calender application is awesome cool; though I'm still not too sure what to think of it, nor what to think of Mark Nickosian (one of our resident cool guys). I like him, but he seems like he might be the ax murdering type...but maybe I'm not the best judge of characters sometimes.


Speaking of resident cool guys, Don Feldick was in church Wednesday night! Woohoo! We were so glad to see him; he missed church for two Bible studies and three Sundays. He has a new Bible, and it's a bit bigger than mine. He said he was worried that we might have thought he converted to Islam or something. If he hadn't shown up that night, I was going to go visit him. I owe him a DVD of the Bible studies he missed. I have that scheduled into Google Calender.

Kile II and Mr. Pinkerton were also there. I missed Kile II for some reason. Mr. Pinkerton was kind of quiet, as was the Hitman. I love our little group there. I told them I turned into Wild Man over the weekend due to my fierce surbibal instincts kicking in. Get it? Survival, surbible? Laugh, man! Bible humor!

Regardless, it was sure quiet. With the Fletchingbirds gone to Florida, where the wood is apparently in season (I know, I didn't know wood went in season, either), I can now go to church without my manhood being challenged. YES! GG!


I am in contact with two saints in California. One, Dan Corn, runs the website. The other, Mark Marker, uh, is a techie. He sent me two emails from his PHONE! I wish I could do that; I need a keyboard in my phone within the next 3 months.

He said that he would be at a keyboard over the weekend, and his thumbs were hurting. Funny thing; my laptop was out of commission. The AC cord broke right at the solder point where it connects into the laptop. Fun, huh?

Thus, I am going to email him back tomorrow, when it will be more convenient for both of us (my hands were hurting due to my mom's keyboard). I should have the AC adapter fixed by then. He seems interesting. I am also waiting on an email back from Jehoshaphat, who is advising me on guitar buying. I think I pretty much know what I want. The rest will be my pure, unmatched thirst and unrelenting quest for glory and honor just practicing hard to learn to play it with a spirit of humbleness. I'm a server. Let each esteem other better than themselves, as Paul says. (Philippians 2:3.)



Also, I think I got the karaoke version of the song me and Pastor will be singing. I may need to edit it some. Mr. Bruckner can't help us, because he is the sanctified singer. Me and Pastor will sing the heathen laughtrack songs. I'm planning to be a Sanctified Singer within the next 20 years. I figure if I scream really loud, it will "terraform" my throat to be able to sing differently. I love that word. Terraform. Terraforming.


Anyway, it's getting time to go. Oh, and my room is almost clean. I desolated it. I would use the word "pillaged," but that's a bit extreme. It just needs to be cavuumed, and vacuumed, and then have garbage cans placed in it.

I may have a few new readers. The Hitman demanded my email and blog URL, so I gave it to him and forgot the 'a'. Great work, Kev. Hi guys, if you're reading!

Back to Basics

Well, my schedule is filling up slightly. I'm- gasp- involved in ministry work! Can you believe it? Kev, the highly trained procrastinator, the crowd-avoider, the teleprompter-hating candidate for split-personalities is involved in ministry work!


I'm going to go back to a 4-plus-post-a-week schedule. Blogging full-time takes so much of my alloted computer time that I'm barely having enough time to enjoy other's blogs or websites, and I also need to take the time to focus on the transition from Sacrilegious Sunday to Sanctified Sunday. Plus, the guys are always telling me to close down the blog, so I will meet them halfway and cut down on my blogging. That will be 16 posts a month. More than manageable.


I also need to practice my singing. Solo, I sound like a wet dog that got ran over by a cat with its tail on fire (seriously), but I imagine I'd sound OK in a group of 4 or 5. Especially if I didn't sing, but just stood there looking efficient. I look efficient very well. God forbid, I might be able to be taught to sing, but I doubt it. I talked to Kile II about it today; he said that "I [Kile II] sound[s] like a dying cat that's being strangled by a fireman." Fair enough. Since everyone has more-or-less abandoned ship, me and Pastor are going to do duets. Wait...that's not nearly manly enough.

We're going to do "Manliets." That's better. Man-lee-ette- WAIT, the "lee" is too girly. Manmanets. Man-mahnets. That's better. Manmanets.


To better perform these feats of pure unrelenting manhood- not girly duets, or feminine-sounding manliets, but manmanets- I will need to learn to play the guitar. GEEtar. My mom seems to believe in me wholeheartedly. "Guitars are a girl magnet! I'll have grandchildren in no time!" she exclaims. "Yeah, but Mom, I'm not getting married until I'm ready to, and that will be years and years."

"Not if you get to playing that guitar! I'll have so many grandchildren, I'll have to start raising them en-mass like goats!"

"Uhh, yeah. About that...anyway...I'll be heading to the guitar store today."

"The guitar store?! Today?! Wow! That means I could be as little as 9 months from a grandchild or five!"

"Uhm, yeah...I'm pretty nervous, though-"

"Come on, now! You practically went to California alone! You can handle a guitar store! You're a saint of God, now act like you're not going to Hell! GET OUT THERE, AND BRING ME HOME SOME GRANDCHIL...ER...A GRAND GUITAR FOR YOU!!!"


My mom has good pep talks when her receiving grandchildren is involved. I think I learned a thing or two over the weekend. When combined with Bits Kibble's sermon on Romans 1:11- it's on Pastor Crude Justice's website- I learned three things. As he says, we are soldiers. We are in a battle. This is important to understand, as soldiers have much different training than civilians.

Pastor Vertigo- the main speaker last weekend- reminds me very much of a soldier. He is an ex-marine, and he looks the part. At least 6'5", around 260 pounds, and he carries a 15" Bowie knife with him "at all times." His signature greeting is to hold it to your throat and ask if you want to die. When you say "No, sir!" he says "ALRIGHT, just let me know if you want to die in the future," and gives you a card.

This guy is scary. He's the kind of guy who punches through a glass window, and the one left bleeding is the glass. When he goes riding in the wilderness, if the horse gets tired it simply rides him. One time, he took a drink from a lake, and his reflection ran from him. He chased it down and told it not to try anything funny again. He also did this with his shadow numerous times. It is unclear if he can harm either beyond somehow grasping them to keep them from running.

When there's an emergency or hostage situation, the police call him. When the boogeyman goes to sleep at night, he prays to his lonely "wall god" that he didn't scare any of Pastor Vertigo's kids during the night, and then checks his closet and under his bed for "The Vertigan." The Godfather calls him for advice half of the time.

When he preaches, the congregation trembles not from "preaching power," but from his tendency to make entire rows wet their pants from fear. He throws his bowie knife like a boomerang in front of them, and the real scary part is when it comes back behind their heads; defying the laws of physics is not as scary as defying him.

When he used to smoke, he gave the cigarettes "Vertigo breath," and they had to pop mints to keep from smelling like him. It didn't work as well as they'd hope. When he drinked, the whiskey would pass out before he did. He would crush beer cans on his eyes, not his forehead. Thieves break into his house, and end up getting robbed themselves at "fistpoint."

His children were born with beards and well-developed biceps. This is a scary man. When he goes to the zoo, the predatory species observe him cautiously; the others run. At football games, he is often recruited to fill in for one of the motors that opens the roof of the stadium; typically, they just shut down all the others to save electricity and he pushes it open himself.

One time, he got a flat tire, and he changed it with one hand. While it was going 65 MPH. When he raises his eyebrows, he exerts as much pressure as a full grown man does doing pushups. Once, he knocked a guy cold with a "piercing stare." Three others nearby experienced heart palpitations.

When he would develop cavities, he dug them out with his tongue then chewed steel to fill them. This is a powerful man. His pulpit is made of brick because he stabbed, shattered, and burned the wooden one during a particularly enjoyed sermon.

He chews wood instead of gum (and he can blow a "wood bubble"); he picked this up from his days as a lumberjack in which he would "chop" the trees down with his teeth. He never got accurate enough to make 2x4s, but he did make several rough canes. Yes, he does whittle with his teeth.

He's so much of a man, that all of his children were boys, and one of them may be a new sex that is somehow beyond man, but scientists will not be sure until he fully grows into adulthood, which they expect to be within one year. He is currently two years old.


As you can see, Pastor Vertigo is the kind of guy you avoid, but God forbid if he does find out you avoided him. It's best to not avoid him, but to just not be around him. Call in sick, feign a suicide attempt, whatever you have to do. Hide behind his wife, but don't let him know you hid behind her. Don't shake his hand, because then he's got you. But don't not shake his hand, because then he'll get you. This was the most nerve wracking part of the California trip.


Anyway, I swung by the local Music Planet. They said, "Dude, you need a dreadnought. Classical guitars are for SPANISH PEOPLE!" (I think they're called dreadnoughts, at least.)

Now, I am not a Spanish person, so I have no business in owning a classical guitar. He said that they are classical because you don't play them with a pick. According to Jehoshaphat, my mom's friend who used to work with her, classical guitars are the best to get because they sound a lot better. But the Music Planet guys say the exact opposite. I'm not saying that they couldn't have purposely played the classical quieter, but it sure did sound quiet. I don't see a reason for them doing that.

We'll see how this pans out. Update sometime soonish. I'm still wondering if "pan" is a play on "dish."


Actually, I think I should force questions like that out of my head...ah well...I'll expound on this more later. For now, I am hyper for some reason. I had a burrito for dinner, and a claw machine owned me. To be smart, you DO NOT waste your time on a machine if most of the toys game is hard to get at, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway. I probably could have gotten one if I'd tried five more times.

Preparing for my trip to California #2: The Knee Knows

This is the day I prepare. Fun time merriment. I'll probably post the checklist I'll make tomorrow.


My knee isn't doing any better. It's number, but more wobbly. It's exactly like trying to walk on a leg that's fallen asleep. It keeps buckling and locking backwards and threatening to go sideways. It's still as stiff as a Jew's neck. (Jimmy Pinkerton will get that one.) As for my schedule, it's probably a bit ahead; the swelling is starting to spread up my leg a little bit, and it's beginning to have that shiny look about it and get really hard. I forecast pain and trouble sleeping by tonight, and noticeable bruising by tomorrow morning. I may cause everyone to miss the Sunday morning messages, what with driving me to the emergency room to get...ugh...lanced. I'll try to delay it as long as possible or drive myself, or just bring a scalpel.


At church last night- Wednesday the 13th of February, some jokepot (jokepot, crackpot, get it?) spilled coffee everywhere all over the carpet. There were at least 5 blotches- big blotches, the size of a deck of cards each...hmm...the house just shook again.


This is disturbing...I will report back.

OK, let's just say...it's best to ignore the shaking of the house. Being torn apart by a raging hell-beast is not fun.

Anyway, I'm going to bring some Kev's Mom Approved cleaning supplies next Wednesday and see if I can't get those stains up completely. I only managed to make them slightly less noticeable; good point is, you can't tell someone spilled coffee 5 times anymore.


I reported that Don Feldick is out sick. He almost caught pneumonia, and he's experiencing a bout with pyromaniacle tendencies (they both begin with 'p' and end with a vowel), so he thought it best to avoid the church building. Poor guy. We're all going through a sickness and injury period as we subconsciously try to avoid this conference and church in-general. Thanks to my messengering mediator, I can hopefully bear whatever I throw at myself.


Pastor Justice had me confirm that I would be going to California. "You still haven't given u-...ah...decided not to go, huh, Kev?" he asked. "Nope! I'm going to represent the church!" I said with stars in my eyes. "Well...have you...y'know...called to make sure you still have a room? I mean, anyone could have heard that your dad wasn't going and called and canceled...then you'd just have to not go. I mean...I could have even done that, you know...it's very plausible."


I bizarrely proceeded to defend that room as mine, and no one else can stay in there. "If someone needs to stay somewhere, there's assuredly a dumpster out back," I said. "Well...yeah, if anyone needs a bed, we'll find you one," Pastor Justice said. "...yeah, they throw those out all the time," I said.


I then took a tour of the Pastor's minivan. That thing's mad. It's the weirdest car I have ever seen. It's some sort of fusion of old, beaten-down 1930 Ford and a 2008 Expedition. I took him to the Pathfinder to see the back seats there so that he could get an idea of what I can bear as far as leg space goes. Poor guy heard me wrong...he thought I said "Let's take the pathfinder." On the short walk over there, I can only imagine what he was thinking. This fool, this fool, this fool, this fool, I'm not taking their car. How I do tell him this gently, how do I tell him this gently...


Here is a chart detailing how far I can bend my leg. Days 1-3 were fine, days 3-6 were a little worse, and day 7 practically makes me bedridden. I would class this in the "not fun" category.


Nevertheless, I'm going to make it to that conference even if I just have to lay in bed screaming for three days straight. "My God! What's the hideous moaning?!" they'll ask. Off to make the list.

Preparing for my Trip to California: Post #1

So I am now going by myself, as the lone Flag Representative of the Quixotic USay. Too many things have to be done around here and abroad, and my dad can't get Monday off. The way I look at it, it'll just be one long, extended, 4-day-long Wednesday night. I wish I had a good hat to wear. I don't wear hats well. They tend to wear me. I'll bring my "I'm sad" hat, which is probably the second hat I've ever liked in my entire life.

I'm planning to travel with the Pastor Raw Justice and at least one other (Mick Lock), but I'll probably be sent to travel with the Bruckners, so that Mrs. Lock can travel with her son. Old people are usually fun to ride with. All you have to do is be very, very quiet, only speak when spoken to, and they get all impressed and stuff. They can even forget about you, if they like. But usually, they start treating you like the perfect grandchild they never had: "Hey, Kev, want to stop and pick up an ice cream cone?" "Oh, sure, granddy!"

It may sound like a sweet gig, but not when it comes to actual food. "And one happy meal for my grandson here!"



I've finally figured out the teenage angst: it isn't teenage angst at all, it's stress! I'm now free! Yes! Liberated from the crushing jaws of the teenage angst. Stress is easily handled- depression that isn't actually depression is not. It's like trying to pull a tooth by giving someone a haircut. You may have heard of the Kev Conscious...ah...I'll explain it later.

I was getting fed up with all the theories. "Maybe you don't think you'll ever meet anyone. Maybe you'll come back from California with grandchildren!...triplets!" my mom breathlessly suggests.

"Maybe you hate Pastor Raw." "Maybe...why would I hate Pastor?" "Because he first hated you?!?! LOL, I JOHN 4:19 BABY!" my dad laughs. Great one, pops. Just great.


I'll need clothes to last 3 days, my camera camcorder laptop and their respective chargers, 4 1-hour miniDV tapes, 2 SD cards (one 1 GB, one 2 GB), on and on and on. I'd also like to bring some powdered paper towels...just add water, and poof! Paper towel!

And some socks. Whew. I figure I'll need 40 pairs of socks to get me through the weekend. And I'll need to bring two pairs of shoes.


Speaking of which, it's laundry time. I have so few clean clothes, --- That's a bad joke...I'm going to cross it out in editing.

Then I need to do a load of dishes and start dinner. We're having steak...pounded flat and covered in breading! My favorite kind of steak! I'll be having a side of black-eyed peas. I bake them in the toaster oven just until they lose their nutty flavor. They're all dry and stuff, it's great.


OK, one load of laundry done. On the second load, I realized that IT WAS SET TO MINI, and it was supposed to be set to extra-awesome ultra double-sized steel-chain-wash-mode! GREAT! No wonder that first load of laundry smelled like a pile of dead, rotting corpses when I transferred them to the dryer!...oh well, if I don't tell anyone, no one will know, just like that time that cat poop found its way into the wash. They wouldn't of know if I hadn't of told them.


Milking is done. I milked those goats so quickly, two of them now have what could be called hemorrhoids on their udders. I have to process the milk, still.

OK, the milk is processed. I got most of the clothing washed for this weekend, except for the socks. I need to get my DS all together, and Dad advised me to take a plastic bag to bag up all of my filthy, smelly clothing. Uh, yeah...my clothing doesn't tend to get filthy and smelly after I've worn it for one day to a glorified Bible study. Speaking of Bible study, if Don Feldick doesn't come to Bible study tomorrow, I'm going to be saddened. Heaviness of heart, all that.

I contacted Pastor Raw Justice to let him know it would only be me. He said something along the lines of "Oh...are you sure you don't want to just stay home too Kevin, maybe your mom could go instead of both of you, or yeah, the better option is that none of you go you guys get a lot of things done that you want to do. Like covering hay or milking pigs or building maternity wards or whatever."

There's not that much to do, not too much that I can't go and represent the church! Yes, they'll be like, "Wow, Pastor...what a dead group you have here, I wouldn't want to be handcuffed to any of them when they died," then they'd see me and go, "Wow! Quality over quantity! That boy's anointed, make way!" They'd push down old ladies and randomly stop and momentarily choke people on their way to me.

"Oh, yes, I taught him everything he knows," Pastor would say. "Well boy-howdy, every single day of your life hasn't been a miserable waste, after all!" his dad would chime in. "This boy is the future! We must build him a megachurch!"


I would react with typical humility...I don't have a proud bone in my body! Anyway, I've still got to make a more detailed list of what I need (my mom pledged to help with this), read up on California some (there have to be some good eateries on the "strip." I really don't know if it's called "the strip," from what I know, 95% of land in California is "on the strip." I need to find out weapons laws especially. I think a Bible is considered a weapon of some sort.)

That Desk is really Mine

Remember when I said I needed a desk? What? You don't?

...



Don't you pay any attention at all? I mentioned it in my post on the 20th, when we were at church, and had brought the refreshments.

Anyway, I need one because there's no place for me to really listen to sermons. In my room, at least- there's 2 or 3 places in the living room. I could just listen and take notes and read verses (and there's probably a "bathroom break" application as well) on my computer, but...well, that's just not the same. I don't memorize where the verses are in my Bible, and I can't, in a futile manner, scribble notes I won't use ever again, on and on.

My conclusion is, I need a desk. My brother has two. I went into his room to scout them out today. Here's the first one.



Yes, that is a 4-bottle gift box of hot sauce. And yes, that is an unused litter box. And yes, that is a 19.2 volt cordless drill that should be in the living room, and yes that is an unused SpongeBob lamp, and yes that is a penny, and, yes, that is the platinum/silver Gamecube we got a while back that clicks ominously to replace our old black Gamecube that got bricked somehow (I think something burned out, actually- not a software bricking). I don't think I'd need a desk this big.

Now, below is my old desk. I used to sit at this desk years back, and me and my brother would play SSB (N64), Battletanx, and Donkey Kong 64. I remember we had to get the...RAM upgrade, I think, for DK64.

If you didn't know, the DK rap owns. Remember that post I mentioned it in? I remember it, too.


There it is, in all its glory. It used to have a chair to go with it, but bad things happened to it.

You see, I figure, if you put something outside, and it is destroyed, God does not want you to have it. Cars. Cars don't get destroyed from being outside, God wants us to have cars. Chairs? They get waterlogged and die. God does not want us to have chairs. Dirt? Dirt is made to live outside. God wants us to have dirt.


Now I've just got to figure a way to take it from him while he's not looking and blame it on Wall Smurfs...or I could just go check a Savers or a Goodwill and see if they have one I can have in exchange for some inky paper.

I guess you could call this post a Desk Update. Thus the Updategrade tag.

How Many of God's Dear Saints have to die to milk a goat?

The answer may surprise you.


Since I was in church today, I see it fit to post a sacrilegious post. Call me, uh...sacrilegious. That is, I'll just go ahead and confess my evil ways. Yes, that's it; I am holding myself accountable. Listen up, now, children, as I put forth a positive example of ...integrity. I am unsure if I worded that right. Pastor, the other night, said something about me, but he said it real fast; all I heard was "-oom Kev on us." I assume he also worded that wrong; he most likely meant to say "-ove that boy, Kev. He's such a blessing."



So, Thursday night, I went to milk. I really don't like milking at all- I put up with the goats, and there is absolutely no enjoyment of them whatsoever; I look at it as a chore, like doing dishes. Not visiting with animals I love. This manifests especially in that when they cause problems- like kicking the milking pail, effectively costing us $5 to $12- it annoys me. I don't have the "I am in love with this animal" thing to fall back on, so I become bitter fast. Quite literally, I am ready to explode at any moment. Some things you can depend upon people for; me milking, is not one of them.

Anyways, the only way I can deal with milking without turning bitter- it's one of those activities where the world darkens and an aura of uncontrollable self-pity and hatred breed, regardless of if it goes perfectly or not- is to sing constantly. I've taken to singing He Lives as well as The Battlefield by some fool who lives somewhere. He has a really great voice; a TV pastor has a radio program that has him singing in it, as well, but I do not know that song. Needless to say, the better someone can sing, the worser it makes me seem when I attempt to sing it. But no one can hear me, so I let my voice wail through the night.


Here's the new song I came up with: 99 of God's Dear Saints:

99 of God's dear saints on the wall, 99 of God's dear saints
Take one down, cut off his head, 98 of God's dear saints on the wall
98 of God's dear saints, take one down, cut off his head
97 of God's dear saints on the wall, 97 of God's dear saints
Take one down, cut off his head, 96 of God's dear saints on the wall

And you continue until you reach "0." As you can plainly see, when I run out of songs to sing, I make up my own, and they're not always that good. Sure, the idea is right- God's saints will have their heads cut off, and that's an important thing to know. But that's not exactly a line to run with for 99 repetitions.


If you were wondering, it takes 23 decapitations to milk Little Stupid (note that this was when I was getting a hold of the song, so it should be doubled), 15 decapitations to milk Lightning, and 14 decapitations to milk Mozelle.



Also, uh, if you were wondering...yes, I won't be singing "99 of God's dear saints" anymore, anytime soon. I've taken to a new song; 99 Statues of Saints.

99 statues of saints on the wall,
99 statues of saints. If one of those statues should happen to fall,
98 statues of saints on the wall!

Brilliant! Me and my dad came up with it. We're going to ride in a big camouflaged bus (note: we actually are not, I am making this up) to the Bible conference in a little over a month (we'll also be wearing pirate hats; I realized they only cost $1 each, guys! We'd be the talk of the conference and then for days after!), and we'll be singing this! It's a great song; sing it, the tune is awesome!


In other news, today, I asked the Hitman what Romans 1:5 meant. I almost had it, but like Romans 2:13, the linguistics escaped my feeble mind's "metallic whirring trap." Had he resisted, I would have reminded him of 1 Timothy 3:2 (bishops must be apt to teach), and then asked him if he'd rather disobey the Scripture or tell me what Romans 1:5 means, but he didn't offer any resistance. Good work, Hitman! Romans 1:5:

By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name;

One that brutally escaped me, was the "we." I am unsure of the ye's, the he's, and the we's, so someone will have to explain it to me. It's sort of like "but's." Very important. I'll try to ask Pastor this Wednesday. I also did not catch at all the -all nations part, one of the first distinctions of Paul's ministry in Romans. Probably the first, but I don't know.


Pastor and the Hitman said that I can't be possessed by demons, so the hideous demonic visage on my right tonsil is just "nothing." They can't see this hideous, demonic ocular sensor set inside this hideous, demonic ocular housing (i.e., demonic eye socket). (Via this post, A Very Disturbing Manifestation on my Right Tonsil.)


I guess they could be right. But...I don't know. I asked my mom to look at it today, and she said it's still there, so... I just hope it doesn't jump out and try to get anyone. I think I'm going to wear something over my mouth this Wednesday, just in case. I mean, how long does it take a demon to incubate? Can't be too long...so I can't tell when it will decide to make a run for it.


I wonder what despicably evil things it will influence me to do!