Grab Two Beers And Meet Me In the F'ing Unknown: December 2005

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Hey is someone having a birthday?

cause i cant tell.

just kidding, happy 26, elbrecht, you big lug.

Friday, December 30, 2005

Dear Garrett

oh and a PS to the G... having been to Oklahoma myself, i am aware there is no internets there, but if you get a chance (maybe you can make it over to illinois or something) you still havent given us the background details that sparked your outburst about your fiances roomates.

there sounded like there was a good story there...

Last Day at Work

Now the last day at any job always ends with “the awkward goodbye” to various co workers.

The awkward goodbye I am dreading has to do with a co-worker I will simply refer to as “Gary”. Gary and I have worked closely together of the past few months. We have the same job title, we help each other out, we recommend music and movies to each other and we discuss Gray’s Anatomy on Monday mornings over a cup of coffee. We have similar wardrobes, you get the picture. Now, when 5 o clock rolls around, it will be time to say goodbye to Gary for the last time. Now, my quandary presents itself. I am not sure if a “goodbye and goodluck and see you later” with a handshake will suffice, of if we are on “man-hugging” terms. Will he be offended with just a simple handshake? Would that be to casual? Or on the other hand, have I read to much into this relationship, and if I did go in for a quick but firm hug, would it be unexpected and lead to an even more awkward, fumbling moment?

He did bake me "farewell" cookies. They are double-chocolate chip. yes, he bakes. and his "roomate" is a fireman. And he really likes Snacksss.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Update

This Christmas was nice. I didn’t go to Colorado Springs and eat at Panera Bread Company (read as an insult calling Drew a mestrosexual) nor did I get a hookah for Christmas (read as me being jealous) but I did get to spend some good times with my brother and brother in law watching movies on my brother’s new widescreen projector. By the way Lord of War is really disturbing and The Great Raid was so very good. I got to spend Monday repelling along the Jack’s Fork River with my brother (thanks to Stan’s Christmas present to Daniel).

I was sipping on some Chrysanthemum tea last night when my channel surfing brought me across a pretty funny show. It had everything I like in a TV show: 1) Female with a British accent and normal teeth, 2) making fun of people who don’t quite catch on. Of course I am talking about Daisy Does America. If you haven’t seen it then I suggest you go steal a TV and cable by next Wednesday so you can watch it. Oh and thank you Drew for assuming since I called you twice in one day I obviously had been drinking. Thanks.

I’ve been listening to Sarah Bettens a lot this week as it is the most recent CD I have purchased. I especially like her song Don’t Stop. Favorite lines from it are:

think before you buy a car,
don't marry someone you met at a bar
there's no such thing as going too far

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

I Did Not Believe Until I Saw

He's been telling us that he has been working out but I didn't believe him until I saw these pictures.

Why I dont play soccer.

oh yeah, and its gay.

Morning News

While reading the morning news I came across an exceptionally poorly written article. While the story is bad the writing is worse (if writing can be worse than the beating of a 50 year old man).

Favorite lines are:

They also were looking for two girls who apparently were stopped and harassed by the same group but made it through uninjured.

"We would love to chat with those girls," Schwartz said.

and

Jennifer McClain said her uncle is large, making it difficult to pull him from a car.

"He is not a little man. He is big," she said.

Thank goodness that the Sun Herald of South Mississippi is upholding a level of writing that tells the world hey we may be ranked 49 in education but we can still write ~~good~~ well.

Good Reason to Keep Him Around

I was driving in to work this morning when I heard the single that is currently sitting at 18. It was so romantic I thought I would just share a few of the lyrics for the married men out there. So here it is Trina and Kelly Rowland's new song Here We Go.

Whatchu think this is?

You treat me like a random chick
You done forgot who introduced you to rocks
And poppin all that cris an shit
Who letchu hit it from tha back
Anyway that chu like
And any debts i can pay tha price
I thought i was a chick you would make your wife
And now a bitch cant even stay tha night (You wack)
I cant even look in ya face
Witout wantin ta slap you
Damn i thank God i aint get that tatoo

You betta thank God i aint have tha strap boo
You aint even worth that trick get at chu

Monday, December 26, 2005

mele kalikimaka

that is the wise way to say merry christmas.

I just got back from j2k's wedding rehearsal dinner, that was fun to see everybody (lorenzo larsen, daniel c. etc.) fun times, but now to the stories.
I went to kuaui, hawaii for the christmas holiday, it was fun, no joke!
we flew first class on the way there. and we were worried about jills dad spending a bunch of money after already paying for all of us to take a trip to hawaii and jill mom said " guys, dont worry about it, your father makes more money than you could imagine, he is fine, he likes doing things like this for you" so I kindly oblidged. so as we sit down they gave us mai tais, which were tasty and jills dad said "drink as much as you want, its free!"

we got to hawaii and we settle into our condo(s). jill's sister's boyfriend and I had our own condo, which means I had a huge room all to myself.
the next day we hung out at the beach and just relaxed. (side note, have you guys ever been to kuaui? there are f-ing chickens everywhere and they are loud as balls!)
then the next day the father took us boys golfing, golfing in hawaii is AWESOME! we had GPS in the carts that told us exactly how far everything was from the cart. so rad. not to brag, but I must.. I was 8 over after 8 holes, not that good. I had a couple pars, couple bogies and a couple double bogies, not cool. so I then told myself I was playing golf on the most beautiful course ever so I decided to then golf. I rattled off 9 straight pars, then bogied 18 for a 79, I was one over on the back. my previous record for pars in a row was 3. it was fun.

then we had fun the rest of the week, went snorkleing, golfed again (84) and went home. but the best story of all happened in the airport in LA on the trip home. we are walking through and I see/ hear this lady/slut talking on the phone and she was telling the person that she missed her flight because she was at Carl's house. she said and I kid you not "I kept telling him he was going to make me miss my flight... I was jackin him off and I kept telling him he was going to make me miss my flight" and she said it loud. no joke.
then we took the red eye flight and that sucked. we spent Christmas at her house then went to her uncles for christmas dinner. I overheard the grownups having a convo and so I listened it. her uncle said "yeah he (a friend of his) was just killed in prison... he was a part of the white power and the people in jail killed him" and he said it like it was completely normal that he was part of the Klan. I brought this up to jill later and she said "yeah, it is normal around here, the KKK grand master lives 10 minutes away and his liscense plate says 'KKK'"

anyway, that is my vacation so far, I will go to j2k's wedding tomorrow and then fly out to oklahoma on wednesday and I will have more stories then. we are going to a hockey game and sitting in the owners suite, should be fun.
no new updates on my job situation. I will be applying for jobs with the padres, biola and the special olympics. yeah I am serious. so I will let you know as soon as I know anything.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Happy Christmas

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Merry Christmas, Chuck!!!

Things we all should know about Chuck Norris: *******************************************************
1)Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

2) Macgyver can build an airplane out of gum and paper clips, but Chuck Norris can kill him and take it.

3) Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.

4) Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

5) If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, "Two seconds till." After you ask, "Two seconds to what?" he roundhouse kicks you in the face.

6) Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

7) Chuck Norris appeared in the "Street Fighter II" video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked about this "glitch," Norris replied, "That's no glitch." Then proceeded to roundhouse kick him in the face.

8) Since 1940, the year Chuck Norris was born, roundhouse kick related deaths have
increased 13,000 percent.

9) Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled
martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

10) Filming on location for Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris brought a stillborn baby lamb back to life by giving it a prolonged beard rub. Shortly after the farm animal sprang back to life and a crowd had gathered, Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the animal, breaking its neck, to remind the crew once more that Chuck giveth, and the good Chuck, he taketh away.

11) Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

12) Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

13) Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard". Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.

14) To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer, Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

15) There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.

16) There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

17) The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.

18) Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

19) When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera or
dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

20) It was once believed that Chuck Norris actually lost a fight to a pirate, but that is
a lie, created by Chuck Norris himself to lure more pirates to him. Pirates never were
very smart.

21) Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.

The Holidays

Well since no one has anything interesting to say, thought i would just take a quick poll... what are ya'll doing for the holidays?

we know garrett is in hawaii, NOT getting his rocks off, and i am headed to Colorado to visit the fam (i dont think they have internet in CO, by the way, so consider this my merry christmas), and rumor around this hemisphere is brady flew to London, just to watch Narnia. that crazy, traveling gypsy.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

To Nate, Missouri, and the greater Midwest.

This is a must read.

Monday, December 19, 2005

on like donkey kong...

saddle up, partners, its FANTASY TIME. Congrats to nate bishop for rocketing up the charts into third this week. Elbrecht and i remain locked in a dead heat at the top, and will slug it out this week to see who will be king of the hill (not really fair since he has hella more active players then me, but i still think i can take him).

and speaking of Kong, i took my girlfriend to see Brokeback Mountain this weekend.
yeah. probably should have done a bit of research about that one. i guess it wasnt to bad though, once you got used to hot cowboy on cowboy action.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Get Some Action

Around these parts....

There are a couple of posts I would really like to take me into and through the weekend, if you dont mind:

1) one from bishop about how his eyes have been opened and his soul freed.
2) one from garrett explaining just why he has recently referred to his fiancee's roomates as... well, you know. (as a man of the cloth, and since we are being recorded, i now no longer say hell and shit).
Oh and Garrett... if you attend "The Mike Lord" party I keep getting invites for, I would appreciate a full description of "When Glamis comes to La Mirada".
3) one from brady, that will probably be no more then one or two sentences, make very little sense, yet be bizarrely confucious-like at the same time.

Can somebody hook a brother up?

Oh, and are you all as excited as I am about the clash of the titans next week... Drew vs. Nate E in fantasy basketball? I will be on the edge of my seat. Tyler, I have an idea, why dont you reject EVERY trade offer I make you, even when I tip the scales absurdly in your favor by offering you half my team for one player. Could you keep doing that? Thanks.

Oh and finally, I live in California, albeit Northern California, but that is still NO EXCUSE for it being 35 degrees DURING THE DAY!!!!!!!! my nuts froze to my thigh on my way out to the car this morning. It was bad.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Merry Christmas

Knife-wielding Santa Claus holds a bloody head outside the home of Mildred Castellanos...

If this doesnt outrage you...

Ask yourself how long you have been an ass.

So its no secret that I am completely opposed to capital punishment, which may or may not put me in the minority of people on this blog... But regardless of your stance on our currently flawed system of taking lives as punishment for... well.. taking lives...and a debate about that is not what this post is about, THIS is a case you should be aware of:

Over the last week there has been a lot of blog talk regarding Cory Maye, but mainstream media has largely ignored it. I was informed of this by Dave Lowitzkis' blog, The Interaction of Faith, Politics and Culture.

Cory Maye is sitting on death row in Mississippi for shooting a police officer who raided his apartment. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Unfortunately it is not that easy.

Maye today sits on Mississippi's death row, convicted of capital murder for shooting police officer Ron Jones. It's probably worth mentioning that Jones is white, and Maye is black. It's probably also worth mentioning that at the time of his death, Jones' father was police chief of Prentiss, Mississippi, where the shooting took place. The jury that convicted Maye contained two black women, but was otherwise white.

Summary:
Cops break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, they had the wrong door. The man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened [sic] for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a largely white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about him having drugs in his possession at the time of the raid, to "well, he had traces of drugs"...which are probably a whole lot easier to plant.

Here is a collection of links talking about the case.

This case has been completely ignored by mainstream media, and I am not sure exactly why. I am blogging about it to try to spread awareness about a situation, where a man is going to be executed, who does not deserve to be.

Consider yourself informed.

Too Far?

Virgin Territory. US Women Seek a Second First Time

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Rumor Central

All I am saying is... the latest rumor on espn.com states very clearly

Artest

to the Warriors.

for Dunleavy.

If this goes through, the West is ours.

Fear us, you stupid wankers. Fear. Us.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

senioritis

the common comments to me around work these past couple of days is... "dang man, senoritis! you clocked out a while ago huh? stay hot! figure it out! go answer that phone! " so basically here is my response.." f-u, f-u, f-u! you are cool, f-u... Im out!!" I am ready. I am diolated, my water broke and I am ready to be free from the womb of employment.. at least for a while. I am afraid I will leave this place with a middle finger in the air pointed at the building, except for some of the people I work with. but to the rest of them I say "chug my root!" I will spend a free day at disneyland then take a free trip to hawaii then go to oklahoma for a week and return to the hell that it southern california. oh and jill's roommate are, in the words of tyler, CUNTY WHORES! and if I were allowed to punch females I would head striaght to them!
bye

Monday, December 12, 2005

The Second Coming...

I love Larry Legend. My earliest memories of basketball involve watching this goofy, completely unathletic white guy just taking over games and dominating. When the game was on the line, everyone knew who was going to get the ball. And everyone knew who would deliver.

People say the mold was broken. People say there will never be another.

But is there?

I dont know if you saw Adam Morrison and Gonzaga on Saturday. They were on the ropes against Eddie Sutton and and always dangerous Oklahoma State team. During the pre-game shpeal, they talked about the Adam Morrison/Larry Bird comparisons, always quick to jump in and say, "Well, he is just a kid, lets not get crazy..."

But crazy or not, the comparison is eerie. Adam is incredibly goofy looking. Not that athletic. Just a lumbering, awkward 6'9'', with weird, herky-jerky moves, up fakes, strange angles, incredible court vision, and a pure-point forward position that hasnt been seen since.... well, you know.

All I am saying is, as OSU hit the shot to go ahead by 2 with nearly nothing left on the clock, everyone knew who was getting the ball. Everyone. Including OSU. They put 3 super athletic black men all over him. Morrison popped out, caught the ball about 33 (a sign) feet from the hoop, with Cowboys hanging all over him. One fake, the first defender flew by as he put it on the floor and moved right, whipped the ball up, and launched a deep three with the other two defenders in this grill. Off the glass, and good. Game over.

The play-by-play call went like this: "Here's Morrison, he fakes, 3 seconds, he shoots... OOOOOOOOHHHH.... LARRY BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRD!!!!!"

Honestly, what more could you say?

Postmodern Christians?

After a few years feeling like I am pulled between both sides of the emergent/postmodernism conversation I don’t know how to respond. I find the greatest difficulty is in the fact that neither side does a good job of explaining their foundation of thought for their objection (expected for the postmodern since, as a philosophy postmodernism dislikes definition). I’m not sure really where the debate is taking place and I agree wholeheartedly that the discussion is much like two ships passing in the night. I would even go further and say its more like two trains passing in the night as it seems their terms aren’t even allowing for meaningful discussion on the same topics. Even if traditional evangelicals (whatever that means) and traditional emergents (whatever that means – if meanings exist) use the same words I have yet to find them talking about the same object. I am becoming more and more convinced that this debate will be the next great debate within the church for the next couple decades and will either give us a greater understanding of what it means to be (or in process of being) a Christian or it will wind up expending a lot of energy and resources building a new seminary in order to better articulate an argument in opposition of the other side. I also don’t know which side I’m going to wind up with or if I will wind up anywhere.

That said let me tell you my thoughts on this evangelical/emergent discussion. Like I said I have been pulled between both sides. Two years ago I got involved with a wilderness ministry in Minnesota. Little did I know that the guy who started the ministry is the protégé of the protégé of Brian McLaren. So for a summer I was immersed with the lifestyle of an emergent church. I have had the opportunity to attend Solomon’s Porch church in Minneapolis on several occasions. It’s a great church with a great atmosphere and the times I attended it had amazing teaching. The next semester I took a class on Christian philosophical postmodernism. We spend the first 80% of the class exclusively with postmodern texts. After reading several books by postmodernists I was firmly convinced that postmodern philosophy (Christian or not) has serious dangers. Fast forward to summer and then comes my next summer and back into the emergent world. I loved every minute of it (at least ever minute in the wilderness doing ministry). I spent the summers trying to defend at least some of what I believe (some is quite indefensible) being a traditional evangelical. Going back to Biola I spent time defending what I believed as an emergent sympathizer.

Where is the debate? For the evangelical side the debate is about absolute truth. It seems to me when absolute truth is brought up by the evangelical (again who are we talking about) it is an unintentional red herring since I have yet to find an educated evangelical theologian defend 100% epistemological certainty (doesn’t exist… I’m sure of it?). Is anyone out there saying that Jesus lived with absolute certainty? J. P. Moreland who was arguing against postmodernism back in 1996 even conceded that this central foundational truth to Christianity had an epistemological possibility of being false (it’s true I have the tape). It’s not on this ground that the evangelicals choose to do battle yet with their critique of the emergents denial of absolute truth they seem to be unwittingly drawn into an epistemological debate.

On the other hand the emergent community does not seem to deny the ontological existence of a right way of living. More so it seems that their objection lies in the epistemological. The concern ranges from a denial of 100% epistemic certainty all the way to questioning whether epistemic methods can be objectively scaled. In this you get the objection to one pastor claiming the absolute abomination of homosexuality and another pastor reading the same text as that particular homosexual instancing as having more implied than mere same sex intercourse and cohabitation (i.e. bells and symbols aren’t necessarily the sins of a prostitute as it is in a specific biblical text). There isn’t a concern as to whether there is a rightness or wrongness. Instead the question becomes how can pastor A make one claim and pastor B make an antithetical claim with them both claiming absolute truth. Does just claiming absolute truth make an action a right way of living? Moreover with such different views held as rightness, who has the ability to stand outside of their own community and determine what is actually the exact explanation of our reality? There’s no denial of absolute truth there. There isn’t even a denial that rightness and wrongness cannot be known. The emergent position more accurately says that as we are looking through a glass darkly it is difficult to determine exactly how dark each person’s glass actually is.

What is the emergent saying? It is that nothing is known? Is the emergent view that there isn’t right or wrong per se but only right or wrong degreed by the culture time and situation? I don’t– nor do I want to – believe that this is being fair to most emergents. I think before understanding the majority of the emergents view (if there is a majority view) that there needs to be a clear distinction between Christian Philosophical Postmodernism (i.e. Alistair MacIntyre) and Christian Postmodernists (i.e. the emergent community). I believe that the Christian Postmodern Philosopher has journeyed quite far from a cohesive view of reality that is easily compatible with orthodoxy. Christian Philosophical Postmodernist find themselves a discussion of language and the ability to know both epistemologically and ontologically. Alistar MacIntyre seems to suggest two things in his book Who’s Justice, Who’s Rationality. First, that language cannot be bifurcated from the world such that without language there would be no world. Second, there is no way meaningful communication can take place between two language groups. MacIntyre describes language as both utterances and non-verbal gestures within the context of a community and time period. In this MacIntyre would throw English-as-uttered-and-gestured-in-the-18^th-century and English-as-uttered-and-gestured-in-the-21^st-century as two different language groups unable to communicate in a meaningful way. I say that, not in order to give one a comprehensive understanding of MacIntyre, but that I believe it is this argument that traditional evangelicals fear – and rightly so. I believe that is the fear the evangelicals have is that since emergents call themselves postmodern Christians

I’m not so sure that the emergent church is following MacIntyre into this line of reasoning. I don’t think it’s so much that communities can’t communicate in a meaningful way. If this were true I don’t think that Brian McLaren would be writing books (of course it begs the question why would MacIntyre write book but as a professor he obviously writes books so he can force his classes to buy and read them). The reaction of the emergent church is more against presenting Christianity as being completely figured out and also to presenting Christianity as being merely a conversion experience.

A critique emergents bring against evangelicals is that evangelicals put all their emphasis in the conversion instead of the ongoing lifestyle of becoming more and more like Christ. I don’t think anyone would question that there are people who have had a conversion experience at summer camp, going forward in church, praying a prayer after a random evangelism experience or after a life changing experience that later nothing changes in their life. There is no question that happens. Jesus told his disciples this would happen when he taught them the parable of the sower. I don’t think it is a fair characterization to say that this is the hallmark of evangelicalism. If you look at the churches who have really grown into mega-churches there has been more than just an emphasis on evangelism. If you look at the parachurch organizations to that have risen up to challenge the organized local church there is an understanding that discipleship is part of the Christian experience. I believe it an error to bifurcate between sharing the gospel and evangelism.

On the other hand there seems to be a mistake made by the reacting emergents in reacting to evangelism without discipleship there seems to be a practice of discipleship without evangelism. Thought I do not believe that it is imperative to pray a prayer or have a traditional point of conversion in order to be grafted into the tree of life, I do believe there needs to be an understanding of what sin is, its offense to God and what Jesus’ did in justifying the forgiveness of sin. What I have seen in my very limited experience with the emergent church is that living rightly is more the focus than the justification Jesus brought with his dying on the cross. While welcoming people into the community of God is defiantly in God’s plan, if you watch the early church there was no shying away from explaining what Jesus’ justification was. Brian McLaren does tell a fictional story of how one could invite a person in the life of Christ in his book More Ready than You Realize, but my experience with an emergent church is more an invitation to live in the ways of Christ than who God is and what Jesus’ death on the cross means in their fitting into the story of the world. If we look at Christians as being monks in a monastery then the emergent approach is to invite people into the monastery and after they are comfortable with the lifestyle then ask them if they want to become monks. Conversely, the traditional evangelical approach is to explain life in the monastery and what is means to be a monk then ask them to decide whether they want to be a monk before they can come into the monastery and experience it in a meaningful way. Both approaches seem incomplete and limiting.

Are they really so far apart? Certainly there is disagreement on the methods/practices of a Christian’s interaction with God and man. I don’t believe there is as great a disagreement on the ontology of the relationship they should have with God and man. That is just to say I believe that the emergent complaint that D. A. Carson should have spent time in community with emergents prior to writing a book critiquing is a good one. But I also believe that the emergents should spend time in active ministry with a dynamic growing evangelical church. If there isn’t an charitable effort by both sides to understand each other it won’t be long before you see a reaction to the emergent reaction. I pray this doesn’t happen.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Merry Christmas indeed....

Quick, unfunny story here. I was doing some Christmas shopping for Mandy at Old Navy when I happened to notice one of those little gift wrapping stands outside the store. Well since it was directly en route to Best Buy and I wrap gifts like I have big oven mitts on I decided I would check out how much they were charging. Low and behold it was a church, Garrett Anderson's own Silverdale Baptist to be precise, wrapping gifts and providing coffee. Recognizing the name as the Anderson's old place of worship I started to mingle with the workers, talking about Garrett, Muff, and the whole gang we know and love. At one point I realized that the church was not excepting any donations for either the coffee or the wrapping. They were simply there to provide a service to the community and wish them a Merry Christmas. As I continued to observe I noticed how completely flabbergasted each person was that these people simply wanted to help them by wrapping their gifts for them. One guy came out of Best Buy with like 10 boxes, walked over to have them wrapped, realized they weren't charging him and would only let them wrap three because he felt like he was taking advantage of them. The nice lady who wrapped Mandy's gift simply told him something that would have been cheesy if it hadn't been so sincere: "We are here to share the love we have with everyone."
Well damnit as you all know I don't really like church. I always feel like the church operates on a strict "dangle a carrot in front of you to see how far you'll run for us" philosophy. Whether that carrot be salvation, gift wrapping, what have you. Suffice to say that when I got back in my car I was completely overpowered with emotion by the awesome, unconditional love that these people were showing. Maybe there is more of this kind of thing going on and I just don't want to see it, happy and content as I am in my hardened, embittered shell. But those frickin' Baptists got to me man. Go Baptists man...go Baptists.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Merry X-Mas

Remember to keep X in X-mas

History 101-- The Legend

Pay your respects.

the end of an era and the return to another

Well this time next week I will be take my spot at the end of the unemplorment line. My last day at the Big A will be on wednesday the 14th. Sad day, but also a very happy day.
I got to thinking. I am so stoked! I can now stop acting like I like the angels and I can return to my Mariners with pride. I am so pumped for baseball season to start in 80 something days (spring training). I have a feeling the M's are going to be pretty darn good, (this may be my superfan goggles talking). bye bye rex hudler and adam kennedy and hello, richie sexon and johjima. I love it.
on this weekend (10th) I will be acting as a production assistant for a tv station who is covering the wooden classic at the pond on anaheim. oh and by the way, UW is playing in that. awesome!
Then on the 18th I will be leaving for a week long trip to hawaii with jills family then I will return for a few days then leave for oklahoma for a week. then on the 4th of january (3 days before my BIRTHDAY!) and facing the harsh reality that is being jobless and moneyless. can you hear my violin yet?

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

For Those Who Care...Updated

The Suns have won 7 games in a row and are second in the division to the Clippers. That puts Golden State in *tear*, third, I'm afraid. By the way, the Suns are only two games behind where they were last year at this point, and that is without Amare. Scary! Drew might piss his bed. Bish, congrats on your weekend!

Let's make that 8 in a row, after tonights win against Golden State.

R.I.P.

A reminder of the glory days of Sonics basketball. I still love you Shawn. And all your kids.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

The greatest weekend of my life?

Ok through all my bitching you guys know the story: No professional championships since 1979, zero in my lifetime. Not a single championship of any significance since the '91 Huskies had to share the national championship with a disgrace of a Miami team. Even one of the greatest baseball teams in history, the 2001 Mariners, who one 116 games flamed out in the playoffs. All of this led to my utter amazement when the all of my teams performed shockingly well this weekend. To wit:

Seattle 115 - Cleveland 108

The Supes get a good win against Lebron, Drew and Larry despite getting lit up again on defense. It helps when you shoot well and Rashard Lewis is playing out of his mind. Just the beginning. Sunday brought.....

Seattle 107 - Indiana 101
The heretofore mediocre Sonics finally rose up and had a solid win against a solid team. Although they still didn't try to play any D they at least shot the ball decently. A repeat of last year's success now appears possible. Vlad Radmonivic stopped playing with his head up his ass which also helps. Immediately following this was......

Washington 99 - Gonzaga 95

Holy crap I don't even know where to begin with this one. The Huskies had lost seven in a row to the Zags and lost three of their top four players but had the nation's longest home winning streak on the line. Romarville was up in arms and the Huskies responded with a great effort despite Brandon Roy not playing most of the game due to foul trouble. It helped that they knocked Derek "The Professor" Ravio out about 5 minutes in. But it didn't help that Adam Morrison made like Scott Skiles in NBA Jam and made every damn shot he put up. Freaking ridiculious. UW showed their depth by getting significant contributions from Freshman Justin Dentmon and transfer Ryan Appleby. It's possible that this team could be better than last year's. Bring on the bears baby!!!! As awesome as this game was, nothing, and I mean nothing, could prepare me for what happened next....

Monday Night Football: Seahawks 42, Eagles 0

Of all the sad, pathetic misery that my teams have put me through over the years none have been worse than the Seahawks. The last time they were good I was 2 years old. They haven't won a playoff game in 21 years. I've watched sad ass orginizations like Atlanta, Tampa Bay and St. Louis go to and win superbowls. Not only have they never been good but they've lost games in infamously stupid, painful and easily unavoidable ways. You've all heard of teams that were greater than the sum of their parts? Well the Seahawks have always been less than the sum of their parts. And now, finally, in 2005, I've seen a Seahawks team rise up and bitch slap the league. They traditionally don't win on the road. They traditionally don't win on the east coast. They don't like snow. Well screw all that because they beat the ever livin' hell out of the Eagles. It was like watching a college team play a high school team (or like a standard USC game. Damn SC). The domination was so thourough and so quick (35-0 at halftime) that most people changed the channel. But I watched every single snap, so mesmerized was I by the thought of actually having a Seahawk team that didn't exist solely to rip my heart out. I am deeper in with this team than I ever have been. Go HAWKS!!!! Get ready for Christmas Eve when Peyton finds out what the 12th man is all about. I'm already setting aside the first sunday in February.

Postscript:

Although the Sonics lost tonight 104-101 to the Knicks it was only due to the 41 point produced by Rainier Beach's Nate Robinson and Jamal Crawford. Life is good, life is very very good.

I'm late.........

Man here's too hoping I don't here these words for a long, long time. The title is actually referring to this post. I would like to point out that it would have come much sooner except a) I've been busy makin' coin and b) I was under the distinct impression that Tyler was going to write a detailed account of the thanksgivings. Instead, we have only Tyler's funny picture and extremely cryptic message about an ass kicking. Allow me to clarify:

THANKSGIVING 2005!!!!!!!!

Monday - Mandy and I fly to Phoenix. Our flight is not only packed but packed with an unbelievable amount of small children, all of whom scream their snotty little guts out the entire flight. This is all exacerbated by the plane sitting on the tarmac for a good 35 minutes before taking off. Why is it that none of these factors ever occur independantly but only act as some sort of three headed monster, or "axis", of evil. Sort of like the anti-trinity. Good times. Suffice to say that Mandy and I were sufficently encouraged to continue leading our private, self-absorbed lives and to never have children.

Tuesday - A strange day indeed. We spent the night at Mandy's friend Sarah's (holla the G!) apt. In the morning her friend Amy came over to join us. Well the lady's were planning on hanging out with Mandy's maid of honor, Erin. Now Erin is a nice enough gal but none the less the exact opposite of Mandy and her friends (has many children, anti-alchahol, boycotting Target because Jesus told her so, etc.). Due to these unfortunate differences Mandy and Amy and Sarah, known henceforth in this post as MAS, tend to not look favorly upon time with Erin. To sum it all up MAS decided that the best option was to all start drinking at 9:30 in the AM and not stop until Erin showed up at about 11:30. Classy. Anyways they all took off for a healthy dose of shopping, gossiping and breast-feeding. Which left me alone for the whole day. I proceeded to have one of the best days of my life as I, in order, watched Anchorman, had lunch, saw Walk the Line, bought and watched The Iron Giant (best animated movie, ever), had In-n-out, watch Adam Morrison go nuclear on Michigan State, and then read about 150 pages of The Brothers K. I love my wife very much but I confess that I felt a certain loss when she and her friends returned. Thus was Tuesday.

Wednseday - My first sight of the Thompson house in its boxed up state (for those of you who don't know, Mandy's mom is selling the house and moving to the WA. Yikes). A very sad thing a house in boxes. Anyway today marked the eagerly anticipated arrival The Legend of Tyler Thompson and his beautiful, charming girlfriend, Elizabeth Browning. Since the flight got in at 11:05 and we had a half an hour drive ahead of us we took off at 11:02 when Mrs. T got back late from school, her excuse being that she didn't want to drive around in circles at the airport. Well a few wrong turns at the airport took care of that problem as we went around twice. Fortunately it was a light travel day. Anyways with Tyler and Liz safely in tow we took a tour of the greater Pheonix area which proved, irrefutibally, that Phoenix is in a big fucking desert. When evening rolled around a bunch of people came over to the house for a Thompson house goodbye/birthday party for me. After this schindig some of us headed out to Scottsdale (the Newport of Pheonix) for some good old-fashioned barring/clubbing. The thing about clubbing is that it entails dancing. Now I hate dancing like Jared loves EGM so I wasn't looking forward to this. Suffice to say that when we all stepped foot in the trendy Scottsdale club Myst my sole purpose in life became getting out of there as fast as I possibly could. It was here, in my absence, when Tyler's fury was fully unleashed. Now keep in mind that since I was not there I desperately wish that we could hear Tyler's account of this incident. However, since he has not graced us with this I will tell it as told by his girlfriend.
It seems as though Tyler noticed a certain guy who kept doing a certain dance move known as "the grind" upon unsuspecting ladies of the club. Well when Tyler saw this same gentleman about to perform his signature move on my wife/his sister he decided to politely ask said dancer to not try to "get freaky" with Mandy. Well due to the intoxicating blend of intoxication, club music and hip gyration Tyler was unable to perform this action without first running over and shoving said freaker across the club. Suffice to say that the would be dancer didn't care for this. After which Tyler and he got close enough to kiss and said a few words. It seemed as though Tyler's combatant would triumph but just when he seemed to be defeated Tyler cocked a single eyebrow and instantly the fight went out of "Cory". He immediately bought Tyler a drink, gave him his phone number and is rumored to have invited Tyler over for Christmas. Another crisis averted by The Legend. Meanwhile I called Paul for some reason thinking he wouldn't be out on a wednseday night shit faced at a club at 11:00. My bad Paulass, my bad.

Thursday - Thanksgiving. Turkey, family, football. Dinner was on the back patio in 80 degree weather. Weird, weird shit. I read about 100 more pages of the Brothers K. My life starts to change forever with each turning of the page.

Friday - My birthday. Tyler and Liz left in a Uhaul. Mandy hooked up with the A and the S to form MAS and we went out with Amy's boyfriend Jason for dinner. Our restaraunt had a "chili beer" which was not only hot, but even hotter when included with an entire Jalapeno. This single libation ruined my night before it got started when it proceeded to do the cha-cha in my stomach for about six hours. Fucking chili beer.

Saturday - We fly out, our flight was way, way, way better than the other way. We get home. Sleep. prepared for another week of work, church and crappy Seattle sports. Little did I know.....

Working 9-5

Garrett needs a job. I think we should all post our suggestions.

Anyone?

Monday, December 05, 2005

is anyone else disturbed/depressed that nate e is winning our fantasy basketball league, and I am not?

Cryptic Messages

So I was sitting in a gymnasium in south san francisco on friday night doing a little scouting, when my cell phone vibrated as it received a text message.

The text was from 562-xxx-0921, a number I did not recognize, and simply stated the following: "I am moving to DC in a month. Let's get together."

Now, my mind went into overdrive. Who was this mysterious texter? Obviously someone down in the La Mirada area. Was it a hot chick? Who would I be "getting together" with?

I decided to answer just as cryptically, to create an air of mystery about myself as well, to further my chances of getting lucky. So I texted back: "That depends. Who is this?"

An answering text was immediately received.

"Does the name 'Lord' mean anything to you?"

Yes, I have been receiving cryptic texts from freaking Mike Lord.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

College Sports Recap

By the way, as i was typing this post, Duke just ripped the damn heart out of Virgina Tech and stepped on it, put it back, and ripped it out again.

So tonight, the result of the Huskies/Zags game (7:30 PST) will determine whether or not Bishop chooses to get out of bed come monday morning.

Next, who is the Heisman Tropy shoo-in? If you listen to the West Coast people, it is mr Reggie Bush. But before you jump on The President's bandwagon, may I remind you of one thing? 82 total yards on 18 carries. Thats how your Golden Bears play mother-f'ing defense!!!!!!!!! Please. Bring a real player to the table.

Oh and speaking of real players, you Cal Bears hoops team is gonna sneak up on some people this year.

If Chuck Norris fought JJ Redick, who would win? I am gonna have to call it a push.

Love.

Friday, December 02, 2005

6'5", 255

As in, the measurements of the guy whose ass I kicked this Thanksgiving in Arizona. He looked kind of like this:

How's that for an interesting Thanksgiving story!

Ditka

I think its safe to say we all have videos in our past we regret being involved with.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

PS

Something I forgot in my update yesterday:

I love JJ Redick, and if you saw his very complete game against Indiana, you know why. No weaknesses.

Also, just to bring something to your attention... this a serious issue that often gets overlooked...

cruelty to fish.

Jared J. Andrew P. Nate E. Garrett A. Cody H. Paul Smith Brady K. Tyler T. Nate B.

You might find the name of this blog a bit strange, however it makes perfect sense to a small and tight-knit group of friends who often find now that college is over and they have all moved on with “life”, the only time that all their paths cross again is at weddings. The title of this blog is not only a tribute to a wild, intoxicated night spent being pursued by a butchy park ranger in the backwoods of the WA (aka the "f'ing unknown) during a certain bachelor party, but also a tribute to life in general. It may be an “F’ing Uknown” but if we all make a point to grab a couple beers and meet up every now and again, we will get through it ok.

Grab Two Beers And Meet Me In the F'ing Unknown