jpcromer

Wed morning around 10:30am, my grandfather, Erhart P Schreiber, passed away. There are few people that I have known that I admire more than him. My grandfather's mother and father, August and Helene Schreiber, immigrated to this country from Germany. He was among the first generation to be born on American soil. When the US entered WWII, he signed up to fight immediately when he heard. He volunteered to fight against the unspeakable evil that our nation faced without any hesitation. He saw and lived through horrific things and fought against the very country that his mother and father came from in order to be here, but he did it because he loved the USA. He participated in the Battle of the Bulge, received the Bronze Star, American Theatre Service Medal, and EAME Theatre Service Medal with 4 Bronze Stars.

This is one of the things that makes him braver and better than I will ever be. One of my biggest regrets in life is that once I was asked in a group of my peers, "Raise your had if you think this is the greatest country in the world." I did not raise my hand because I knew that answer would be unpopular with the group that I was with and I would be labelled as "ethnocentric" or some other such term. I wish that I could go back and redo that.

I believe that I do live in the greatest nation in the world. We do more to help other countries than any other country. We give more to aid foreign countries than anywhere else on earth. We treat people with more dignity and respect than anywhere else on earth. Our poverty line is still a better way of life than the standard of living for a lot of countries. Yes, our country has done wrong in the past and yes, it has had its problems. However I know of no better system and I know of no other country that has done more for other people in the world. I know of no place that has more respect for human rights or the inherent dignity of all peoples. My grandfather knew this and he was prepared to fight against the very country that his mother and father came here from, where I on the other hand was too much of a coward to even raise my hand to say what I believe about this country when I knew it wouldn't be popular.

I think it is important to remember men like my grandfather and the sacrifices that they made for this country, especially in a time where one of our presidential candidates is willing to listen to a minister filled with unholy, unrighteous hatred rather than the love of Jesus Christ, curse our nation. The fact that someone who was willing to listen to this hatred for 20 years and then only denounce it when it became politically necessary is even running is a slap in the face to my grandfather and all of those like him and I can't believe that we've come to a place where someone like that may become the Commander in Chief of our military. I am so thankful to my grandfather and what we did and all those who fought with him. Why are we so close to electing someone who doesn't seem to understand this?

My grandfather loved music. He taught my mother and my uncle to love music as well. I believe that this is where my deep love and appreciation for music came from. Many of you know how much I love bluegrass music and some of you have been to Bill's Picking Parlor with me. My grandfather loved bluegrass. He was the one who taught me all about it. The first time I step through the door of Bill's Picking Parlor, it was with him. There will never be a time when I hear bluegrass I do not think of him. He played several musical instruments: the guitar, the mandolin, and the organ. We used to play guitar together and when I first started playing, he taught me a lot. I would give anything to be able to sit and play guitar with him, just one more time.

So this is my small way of paying tribute to one of the bravest, most kind and loving men I've ever known. I will miss him terribly, but I do have the comfort of knowing in my heart that he has gone to be with Jesus and I will see him again one day.

Having grown up during the early years of Sesame Street as a devoted viewer, I am quite interested in the DVDs of the early episodes that just came out. They are currently floating around somewhere on my Netflix queue. So when I saw this article I was interested in what it had to say. So tell me, is this article sarcastic? I can't tell and its a sad day when you can't tell if ridiculous statements are sarcasm or not, but I honestly can't tell. If its sarcasm, its hilarious. If its not sarcasm, its infuriating. Please tell me, sarcasm or not?

Ok, I'm going to come out and say it. I don't like Johnny Depp. It would suit me fine if I never saw Johnny Depp ever again. I wasn't always this way. I didn't mind him when he was just a quirky character actor, but now that most women think he is the sexiest thing around, I can't stand him. Why? Why him?

I don't understand. Look at the characters he plays. A lot of them wear makeup. Occasionally he plays someone who likes to wear dresses. Some of his characters had qualities that could make them seem to have a propensity for pedophilia ("Finding Neverland" "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"). One of his most famous roles is a guy with scissors for hands! Scissors for hands! Even when he plays a normal character, hes always unkempt and unshaven. If you are going to think a celebrity is much more attractive than me at least pick someone normal, so I know what I don't measure up to. See I'm not sure now if its my lack of eyeshadow or the fact that I cut my hair and have my facial hair neatly trimmed or the fact that I'm not so creepy that you'd be afraid to have your children around me.

Just why Johnny Depp? Why not someone normal like maybe Daniel Craig? I can understand Daniel Craig. He's better looking than me and in better shape. He's James Bond. James Bond is cool, dresses better than me, and he beats the crap out of bad guys. I can understand not measuring up to James Bond and can deal with it, but Johnny Depp? I just don't get it.

It's not just that though. It's alls these stupid pirate movies. That's what started all this mess. The puffy shirt looked silly on Jerry Seinfeld, but Johnny Depp puts one on with a little eyeshadow and the entire female population is smitten. He's somehow duped people into thinking these movies are good too. They aren't. They aren't good movies at all.

First of all they are based on a theme park ride. Hollywood has come up with some pretty lame things to base movies on in the past: video games, comic strips etc. but never a theme park ride. Come on its a little tunnel you ride trhough on a boat and look at crappy animatronic figures and you're going to base 3 two hour movies on it. Why? Can't you think of anything better? That's like basing a movie trilogy on something like Mr. Clean. "We'll get the Rock and put him in a white T-shirt. Shave his head. Put an ear ring in his ear and he'll go around cleaning people's houses. It will be great." They tried to start a trend too. They made a movie of the "Haunted Mansion" ride at Disney World. If that had been successful, what next? Space Mountain? Teacups? I think "It's a Small World" would make a good horror movie. Those creepy little wooden dolls could kill people. I'd watch that.

They are boring summer blockbusters that rely heavily on CGI and long action scenes. Don't get me wrong though. I can definitely sit through that and enjoy it if the CGI is impressive and the action scenes have cool stunts in them. However pirate ships and sword fights don't do it for me. Give me some cool looking monsters or some weird alien landscapes or something. The whole concept of pirates is just too hackneyed for me to get excited over. They've brought back what simply used to be the least creative costume at the Halloween party and made it a craze. Before pirates were only a step above the T-shirt that said "This is my costume" and now suddenly they are the coolest thing ever. Let's be honest. Pirates were mostly just rapists, murderers, and thieves. Why romanticize that? If you are going to romanticize horrible people at least make it something cool and exciting like the Mafia.

What I hate most about Captain Jack Sparrow is the fact that he has become one of those characters you see everywhere. On bags of potato chips. On soft drink bottles. Stay off of my food packages, Johnny Depp. Haven't you done enough making me look at your stupid eyeshadowed face while I eat. Its bad enough I have to look at that stupid Spongebob on everything... now you as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasoncromer1980

The list is long and it needs to be addressed. If you do any of these things, you should stop. As a result, the world will become a slightly less annoying place.

Writing checks - There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to write a check to a store anymore. NONE! There's been this little invention called a "check card." It drafts the money from your checking account just like a check would EXCEPT that you don't have to write a check. For some reason, check writers are also the world's slowest writers. I have never seen anyone take a full minute to write their signature except for someone writing a check. Also check writers seem to forget that while the cashier is ringing up their 250 dollars worth of stuff they could use that time to write the name of the store and sign their name. Then all they would have to do is add the amount.

Digging in your purse - Now its not the purse digging in and of itself that is annoying. Its the way that its done. Purse diggers normally get their shopping cart and then place their purse on the little child seat and commence to digging. This is usually done immediately upon acquiring the shopping cart, meaning that their shopping cart is blocking me from getting a shopping cart or in some cases their shopping cart is blocking the entry to the store. Purse diggers always have a variety of shopping lists, check books, and coupons to sort through. I think their purse is some sort of mini-filing cabinet.

Staring at one product for hours - Some people get into the store and act absolutely awestruck at the sheer magnitude of choices that there are. They will stare at one product studying every label, price, and variety with a seriousness that one would use in solving major world crises. When I used to work at a grocery store in college, I once witnessed a woman spend roughly 25 minutes picking out toothbrushes. A toothbrush is not a 25 minute decision... sorry, but its not. These people are annoying mainly because they take up space on the aisle and somehow magically always seem to stop directly in front of something I need to get to. It doesn't take me long to pick out stuff since I use the "whatever is cheapest unless a namebrand exists that is clearly superior" method.

Walking in the middle of the parking lot - In other words. when you walk through a parking lot, rather than walking over to the side near the sparking spaces like a normal person would, you walk in the middle of the lane where the cars drive. People who do this tend to walk extremely slowly and be oblivious to the fact that cars are behind you, causing you to navigate through the parking lot at their speed which is usually "reanimated corpse" walking speed.

Talking on those headset phones - When the headset is on the other side of your head and you say something that makes sense in the current context, I usually assume you are talking to me, since I don't see the headset. So while I wonder why a complete stranger is asking me if I've tried the new berries and cream Dr. Pepper, I will generally answer them since I am a polite person. I will continue to have this conversation until eventually they respond with something that makes absolutely no sense since they are actually responding to the person on the phone and not me. Then I realize that they are on the phone and feel like an idiot, despite the fact that I grew up in a world where until a couple of years ago people walking around having conversations with invisible people wasn't normal.

Cigarettes - I will admit. I don't understand the appeal. Even if I hadn't grown up in a time, when cigarettes were known to cause cancer, I can't really see the appeal of rolling up a bunch of dead leaves in a piece of paper, burning it and breathing in the fumes. I'm not sure why that's such an enjoyable experience. Sometimes I end up in the line in the grocery store where you have to go to buy cigarettes. It always takes them forever to get cigarettes because there are 12 million kinds of each brand and the smoker always wants one specific kind. I really don't see how they could be that different but apparently they are. So I have to wait until the cashier can find "Virginia Slim Ultra Super Happy Fun DX Unleaded Diesel Menthol Caffiene-free 1500s in the hard pack with the logo that has the blue circle inside the green square on the front."

Human beings seem unable to accomplish any task that involves cooperation without having meetings. Once thought to be merely a part of the business world, meetings seem to pop up in generally every area of life now. Even if you don't have any kind of an office job, if you are involved with any club or organization, you will more than likely be asked to attend a meeting. If you are involved in church planning, once again you'll have to attend a meeting. Its an unavoidable fact of life.

My first experience with meetings was in high school. My church wanted members of the youth group to serve on the Administrative Board. I was chosen probably because both my parents were board members and I was pretty much one of the only 15 year olds actually responsible enough to show up for meetings. I thought of this as a great honor. I got to shape the future of where the church was heading. Little did I know that this actually meant mostly sitting there and being bored.

So I've had around 10 to 11 years of experience with business meetings from church government to student organizations I was involved with in college to actual office business meetings. From these experiences, here are what I would say are the essentials to have a good meetings:

1. Charts that have boxes with lines coming out of them going into other boxes - If you have nothing else, you want to have this. It makes thing appear official and important. Its best if the boxes end up doing a complete circle.

2. Powerpoint - Your chart with boxes should ideally take up one or even several of the slides. You also need to have plenty of clipart that features people in business attire talking on the phone, using computers, shaking hands with each other, and pointing to generic charts. There should also be a slide at the end that simply says "Questions?" and has a stick figure with a big question mark over his head.

3. Someone who asks questions non-stop - A good meeting should always last at least 30 minutes longer than it was intended to. What you need to do to acheive this is have someone there who incessantly asks questions. They don't even really have to be good questions or intelligent questions. They just have to take up time and ideally require long drawn out explanations for the answers.

4. Jokes that aren't funny - Actual humor is not really allowed, but you should have some attempt at humor. You should do the sort of generic jokes that aren't particularly clever and no one thinks are funny. Generally a good humor topic is how long the meeting is going to be. If people don't want to be there its always a good idea to point out long its going to take. You can joke about how many hours you will be speaking etc. etc. Then everyone will give you their best fake laugh.
If you don't want to make jokes yourself, you can have little sound files in your powerpoint with clips from TV shows and movies that have little or nothing to do with what you are talking about. Dilbert cartoons on your powerpoint are also allowed despite the fact that those are actually funny.

5. At some point, someone will need to ask about some minute detail that will in turn be discussed and debated for at least 20 minutes. By minute detail I mean something like whether bullet points in a document should be numbered 1,2,3,4,5,6 or lettered a,b,c,d,e,f,g.

6. Food - Lots of people, particularly men, will sit through all sorts of stuff if free food is involved. It kind of eases the pain. I know with me, the better the quality of the food, the more I'm willing to endure. If you have doughnuts I'm good for 30 -45 minutes, but you have a good seafood buffet and you have my attention for several days! Food is what makes a meeting.

So those are the elements that make up a meeting. Whether you are in the business world or some club, church, or organization, I hope that I helped you organize a meeting that will be the best possible.

For any who are interested, I've posted some new pictures to my flickr.

www.flickr.com/photos/jasoncromer1980

Holidays are a mixed bag with me. Some of them cause huge amounts of joy and happiness for me. Some of them frankly depress me. Some of them are in between. I decided to take today, one of my least favorite holidays to pick apart what makes a holiday good or bad.

1. Religious significance - for obvious reasons.

2. A day off from work - Any holiday that gives me a day off from work is probably going to be ok in my book. Any holiday that doesn't better have some extremely good festivities to make up for this. This is almost an essential.

3. Eating large quantities of food - Any excuse to eat large quantities of food will be taken by me. Lots of holidays incorporate this and that is a definite way into my heart.

4. Having people give me stuff - Getting stuff from people is always good. Now that I'm an adult its a little more stressful due to the fact that I'm expected to give stuff in return, but its still great.

5. Pretty decorations - Decorations are fun. Christmas is really the only holiday that does the whole decoration thing justice. Easter eggs are pretty cool too though. I'm not really into pumpkins and plastic skeletons though.

These are pretty much my ultimate holiday criteria and for that reason Christmas is pretty much the ultimate one for me since I get all of those. Thanksgiving has 2 days off AND large quanities of food, so its on up there too. This to me is what makes a good holiday.

Now what makes a bad holiday:

1. It depresses me - Even good holidays can depress. Like at Christmas, sometimes I get depressed a little bit because its not the same as when I was little. New Years can be a bit depresssing if things are worse than they were last New Years.

2. It is an invented holiday - Florists, restaurants, greeting card companies etc. tend to invent holidays so they can sell crap. This is how we got Mother's Day, Father's Day, Boss's Day, Secretary's Day etc. etc. etc. I generally hate these holidays. You NEVER get time off or large quantities of food for these holidays either.

3. It has really stupid traditions that I find annoying - St. Patricks' Day is the worst of these. It seems that its just an excuse to get really really really drunk if you are an adult and if you are kid it is an excuse to abuse your peers who violated the dress code for the day. These are the holidays I tend to completely forget about until some annoying perky person shows up in some over the top outfit commemorating the holiday.

So that is what I think of holidays and that is why today, Valentine's Day is the worst the holiday of all time. It doesn't make me think about Jesus or be introspective. Except for a few cards, people don't give me stuff. I have to go to work today. I will only be eating normal quantities of food today and the only decorations are crappy pink paper hearts. It also depresses me. It appeals to all my insecurities. It seems like the world is out being all romantic while I'm alone. I think that restaurants and florists have blown it way out of proportion. It is my very least favorite holiday. I have a feeling I won't like it when I'm in any kind of romantic relationship either, because then I'll be expected to be all over the top lovey dovey romantic just because the calendar says its February 14th. Valentine's Day pretty much sucks. Who is with me on the anti-Valentine's Day bandwagon?

This cartoon mildly ticks me off, but mainly it puzzles me:



First of all, I will admit I have an extreme bias against hip hop music. This is because it is becoming such a dominant form of music and I can't for the life of me understand what appeal it as. Call me ignorant or closeminded or whatever, but I have tried and tried to understand its appeal, but I can't. For me a large part of music is the effort that the musician puts into the performance and by effort I mean it has to be something that takes years of practice to refine and craft. I can't pick up a guitar and suddenly play like Eric Clapton. That takes time. Not everyone is born with a beautiful singing voice and those that have still need to take time to develop it and learn proper techniques to sing correctly. Creating a good and complex melody is a difficult thing to accomplish. Hip hop strips music of everything except words and rhythm. You no longer need to carry a tune, play an instrument, or read and write music. It's stripped down to writing lyrics and keeping a beat. I find that when actual music is included its either a simplistic repetitious melody that is simply a few notes repeated over and over or it is a small portion of a piece of music created by another artist simply repeated over and over again. I think this is called "sampling," while I think of it more as "plagiarism." I try to be openminded about music. I'm willing to listen to something if someone suggests it to me and give it change, but I find myself unable to find anything redeeming in hip hop on a purely musical level (not getting into lyrical qualities). Is it that I am someone who is too focused on melody and musicianship? I just feel like hip hop is creating a general trend in all popular music where musicianship and melody are not at all important anymore. Crafting a beautiful piece of music and being good at an instrument doesn't seem to matter anymore.

This has absolutely nothing to do with my misgivings about this particular cartoon. I just feel the need to preface what I'm going to say with that, because I will admit, as a music lover, I am completely biased against the stylistic composition of hip hop. My problem is with the second panel of this comic strip. Yes, there are probably many hip hop artists that do have a positive message, but they are in the extreme minority. The majority of the hip hop I have heard tends to glorify the worst things in our society. Why do you want to glorify a genre of music that is mainly known for its glorification of violence, drug use, crime, meaningless sex and objectification of women? It also doesn't seem to promote the best in language and communication skills either. I'm sorry, but this seems to be the majority of hip hop that I've seen in the last 10 to 15 years. You might have a case if we were still in the days of the Fresh Prince, MC Hammer, and other innocuous fare, but we aren't. I think that the fact that children are growing up listening to hip hop is one of the worst possible influences on our society. I don't understand why this is continued to be upheld as one of the great parts of African American culture. I feel like it perpetuates existing stereotypes and actually hurts race relations more than it actually helps. I once read an argument that someone made that shoe detractors of hip hop were no better than those who criticized early African American jazz artists. May I point out that Nat King Cole was not singing about doing degrading things to women, engaging in illegal activity, and murdering people? He was singing about Mona Lisa and the hazy days of summer. Not exactly the same thing, is it? There are far more beautiful, culturally significant, and constructive aspects of the African American culture. Why is hip hop continually upheld as a major cultural achievement?

I'm not saying this merely as a criticism, but as someone who truly doesn't understand it. I don't understand not only its appeal, but why its considered significant in any way other than the harm it causes.

What disturbs me most about this comic is that the final panel actually acknowledges everything that I have just said. It implies that it is not a good thing for children to be exposed to and that its content can have a negative influence on them. Its as if the cartoonist is torn between a politically correct endorsement of this as a significant part of African American culture and his realization that most of its content probably isn't the best thing for society.

I know that its a stupid comic strip and I'm thinking too much about it, but it has brought up questions that I have had for years and years and never can seem to come up with an answer to. I literally don't understand anything about this genre of music. Why is it appealing? Why do people choose to listen to it? Why is considered such a significant cultural acheivement, when it seems to do nothing but glorify hurtful behavior? I know some of it is innocuous and may even have a positive message, but that seems to be the minority. Please, if you have any answers to any of my questions, explain.

Rants that aren't big enough to fill up a whole blog! I find the following things annoying:

1. Name a star after somebody - This has been around for years and years and the advertising for it is particularly ramped up right before Valentines Day, as some sort of perfect romantic gift. I can't think of a dumber gift than this. I really can't. First off let's pretend that this is legitimate. Who is going to see your star besides you? Astronomers and geeks with telescopes, not really that many people and if you point up into the sky to show someone your star, I doubt they'll be impressed. This isn't even a legitimate thing though. Their "star registry" is a special thing they made up to sell you stars. From what I've heard about it, its pretty expensive to name a star after somebody too. I can't think of a bigger waste of money. If you want to name a star after me, just give the cash equivalent of naming a star after me. Tube socks are a better gift than naming a star after someone. At least they have a practical use. I think that probably lots of guys who thought they were being terribly romantic either ended up sleeping on the couch or breaking up with their girlfriends because of this. Maybe I should start my own version of this. Name a tree after someone. Pick a special tree from our tree registry. How about name a grain of sand on the beach after somebody?

2. Phonebooks - No one really uses the phonebook that much anymore except for people who don't have computers. If you have a computer with internet access, there isn't really that much use for a telephone book anymore. However the less useful telephone books become the more of them we seem to have. January and Febuary seem to be the official telephone book release months. It seems like once a week almost there is another new phone book in front of my front door and since I rarely use my front door sometimes it sits out there for a while. If this trend continues in 10 years there may be enough phone books in front of my house in January to block light from getting in. the windows.

3. Stuff in my newspaper box that isn't the newspaper - If you have a newspaper box under your mailbox, expect to get lots of homemade advertising campaigns. I have received in the past various fliers advertising people who do odd jobs, political ads, an invitation to join my neighborhood's Red Hat Guild (too bad I'm not an old lady), an advertisement from the writer that lives up the street telling me what a great Christmas present his book would make and how I can buy an autographed one from his house, various fliers from churches telling me how I need to come to their church so I won't burn in hell, and probably lots of other nifty things I can't even remember. Not only am I pretty much never interested in what these say, but on a windy day they usually blow out of the paper box and end up all over the ground and in the yard. The only worse is the little doorknob things that go on the front door, which I usually never notice since, I once again almost NEVER use my front door.

4. Perfume ads in the newspaper - Some fragrances make me sneeze therefore I do not need them permeating my entire Sunday paper and getting all over my hands. Thanks.

5. The song, Blinded by the Light - For some reason, this song gets played a lot in places I happen to be and on stations I happen to listen to and with each time I hear it I think it is dumber and worse piece of crap than the last time I heard it. The little part where they play chopsticks in the middle of it particularly seems to get on my nerves. I always thought Bruce Springsteen was an overated musician who wasn't particularly talented, but the fact that he wrote this song makes me pretty much hate him.

So I've determined that there are 2 kinds of people in the world: those who are hopelessly addicted and obsessed with 24 and those who have never seen an episode of 24 in their lives. That's about it.

Non-24 watchers don't understand the sacredness that is 24. They don't understand that you can't miss a single second of the show. If I blink I rewind it so I can see the frame of film I missed during the blink. My friend got a text message from a guy Sunday night saying that he was getting ready for 24, but she could call during 24 because she's "more important than that." I know better than that. That is diplomatic guy code for, "You better not under any circumstances call me during 24, because its FRICKIN' 24!!! ....but I really do like you. I really like you a lot. Just don't interrupt 24, ok?" either that or he has Tivo. I'm guessing its a Tivo, or he wouldn't risk a call during 24. The only reasons to miss even a second of 24 involve death, dismemberment, blood or vomiting. This is why I save it to watch on DVD. Eliminates the likelihood of me missing parts of it.

You also don't ever divulge what has happened if you are farther along in your 24 viewing than one of your friends, EVER under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!

WARNING TO ALL 24 WATCHERS: I have watched 24 up to the first 3rd of season 5. This rest of this post may contain spoilers about the first 4 and 1/3 seasons of 24. Also if you plan to comment, please do not comment with anything that will spoil seasons 5 and 6 for me. Thank you. (:

Antoher reason to watch 24 is that you can learn a lot about national security from watching 24. Here is some of what I've learned:

For some reason the majority of the major terrorist attacks in the US take place in and around Los Angeles, while the president happens to be in that general area. This is very convenient for us for a couple of reasons. First of all CTU, the counter-terrorist unit, happens to have a headquarters in Los Angeles. Second of all, Los Angeles seems to be an amazingly well designed city when it comes to roads and traffic. You can get from one place to another regardless of where in 10 to 15 minutes.

Working at CTU kind of sucks. For one thing they try to make it look all modern, which pretty much means poorly lit with lots of stainless steel. CTU also has an extremely high turnover rate. No one ever leaves to seek greener pastures or retires or anything like they. Everyone who leaves does so in a wooden box. Those who do leave alive leave because they are afraid that they'll get killed too, only to end up being killed anyway. Forget the happy little farewell luncheons. Those aren't happening. If you work at CTU, even if you're just the guy that orders sandwiches and makes coffee, expect to die at an early age. CTU employees also tend to have to work very long hours. Also expect the higher ups to be treated more favorably. If your mother dies in a terrorist attack that you helped lessen the severity of, don't expect to get to go home and mourn, but your supervisor whose nutjob daughter committed suicide earlier on the same day will of course get to go home. Another bad thing about working for CTU is the fact that any of coworkers may at any time be working secretly for some terrorist organization.

There are a few CTU employees that seem to have some sort of godlike status. They are very durable and have extremely great stamina and endurance. They are practically indestructable. The most notable of these is Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer can be hit by cars, have cracked ribs, be tortured, flat line and then get revived etc and get right back up and keep fighting. Tony Almeida seems to also have a this status to a little bit lesser degree. Tony can get shot in the neck and return to work 4 hours later with a bandage on his neck. However if you are one of the more durable CTU employees, you can expect to pay for working there in other ways, like having all the women you are interested in either killed off or no longer want to date you because your job involves breaking people's kneecaps and giving them electrical shocks to get information out of them. Also you may be forced to fake your own death for a while. Nothing is worse than when your girlfriend from before you faked your own death ends up interrogating your current girlfriend. I hate it when that happens. However if your job forces you to commit an act of treason, plunging your life into an impoverished, self-pitying, unemployed, alcoholic existence, it is possible to pick up the pieces and be back on your feet again fully recovered within in 16 hours, given the right terrorist attack for you to help stop.

Other things that I've learned from 24:
1. Kim Bauer is the stupidest person who ever lived.
2. If you are President of the United States and you have a greedy conniving crooked ex-wife, its probably not a good idea to repeatedly involve her in the decision making for your administration.
3. If you are President of the United States, you should always listen to your wife even if she is insane and has nuts conspiracy theories. One day one of those conspiracy theories might be true.
4. Fat male computer geniuses with no social skills have a thing for skinny no-chinned female computer geniuses with no social skills.
5. Jack Bauer has the best cell phone carrier ever and I want to know who it is so I can switch to them.
6. Hobbits probably aren't the best people to have in charge during national security crises.
7. For about a 3-5 year period all major terrorist attacks on the US seemed to directly involve a woman named Nina Myers, but she has thankfully been apprehended and killed.

www.flickr.com/photos/jasoncromer1980

Thought I would share... This is a very funny comic strip that the State newspaper comics page is lacking. I think that some old people would probably be offended by 75% of them anyway:

http://community.livejournal.com/pearlswine/

I posted a comment answering the last round, if anyone cares at this point.

1. Your mother who neglected you owes a million dollars tax and your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax.

2. Now my life has changed in oh so many ways. My independence seems to vanish in the haze.

3. I'm tired of making out on the telephone.

4. Tell me, hon. Whatcha done with the gun?

5. Funny how my favorite shirt smells more like you than me. Bitter traces left behind and stains no one else can see.

6. Here's a man in evening clothes. How he got here I don't know. Man you ought to see him go.

7. I found my way upstairs and had a smoke. Then somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

8. She's got the grown up blues. Tight dresses and lipstick. She's sporting high heel shoes.

9. We're like 2 lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.

10. The kids don't eat and the dog can't sleep. There's no escape from the music in the whole damn street.

So occasionally the oldies station will play something that I personally don't consider old enough to be called an oldie. It has dawned on me that all popular music will eventually be considered an oldie with age. This frightens me. In fact, it terrifies me.

30 years from no will "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas be used in TV commercials for Mutual Funds?

Will there be those cheesy national oldies shows where the DJ tells trivia about the songs they play? "Back in 2001, this artist was shot in the head by another artist. We will play a song by each of them coming up after this!"

My parents like to watch those Doo Wop specials on PBS that they have during pledge week. 40 years from now will these be hip hop specials, where the audiences is filled with elderly women wearing T-shirts that say booty-licious and elderly men with doo-rags and FUBU gear on?

What about the groups that only had one or two big hits so they are cheap enough to get to play at the fair or at local venues? Who will these groups be? "Now at the State Fair grandstand. It's the Bloodhound Gang." "This month at the Newberry Opera House, Alien Ant Farm!"

All of the popular groups of the time are classified into nice little groups: Girl Groups, British Invasion, Teen Idols.. etc. What will we have in the future? Cheap Whores, Boy Bands, and thugs?

What will become of the oldies that I love now? Will they be relegated to the station that advertise hemorroid cream and adult diapers and then fade away to obscurity when that generation dies?

These are questions that need to be answered. The future of our oldies is at stake.

One of my biggest pet peeves is picky eating. So many social activities revolve around eating and picky eaters are ruining it for everyone. Here I will outline the types of picky eaters and why they are annoying.

Picky restaurant chooser - the most common of all picky eaters. The least annoying, unless the person is a frequent offender. Let's say its Friday night and you want to start out your weekend going out to eat with this person. You start suggesting restaurants. They will find something objectionable with everything you suggest. The first will always be, "I'm just not in the mood for that," but the reasons will get more elaborate as you continue to suggest places.

"I don't like the music they play there."
"I got the ebola virus from that place on time."
"I don't like the shade of blue that they have on their table cloths."
"It is rumored that a waiter may have said something mildly offensive to someone who was either a really tan white person or a really pale black person and I don't want to go there because they could possibly be a bunch of racists."
"Their honey mustard has too much mustard and not enough honey."

If you are hanging out with this particular type of picky eater, count on eating at one of the 3 places that they enjoy. This is especially charming if they enjoy 30 dollar a plate Japanese steakhouse or the like.

The standard picky eater - this is the classic picky eater. This picky eater never had a mom that wouldn't let him/her leave the table until they finished their food. You can look forward to lots of picking things out of dishes. NEVER order a pizza with this type of person. You are liable to end up with a boring all cheese/no topping pizza. They will often order something like this.

"I'll have the deluxe turkey club, only without the bacon, lettuce, onion, tomato, cheese, bread or mayonnaise. Just give me a plate of turkey deli meat with mustard on it."

This type of picky eater also tends to have certain foods that they only like under certain conditions.

"I only eat potatoes if they are backed at 400 degrees for 12 minutes after being rolled in olive oil. Then top them with Kraft brand cheddar cheese and hormel bacon bits. If they are fixed even slightly differently than this I cannot stand the taste of potatoes and they disgust me."

You can detect this type of picky eater at an early age, because they will be the scrawny malnourished kid that is so small that they look 2 years younger than their classmates and they will bring their lunch everyday consisting of the only food on earth that they will eat, jelly sandwiches (no peanut butter) on white bread with the crust cut off. It is a little known fact that that is the official food of picky child eaters.

The health conscious picky eater - This picky eater is annoying for 2 reasons. First if you ever are shopping with them it will take 6 times the amount of time that it takes a normal person to shop, because they have to study every label and do complex mathematical equations to determine if they can eat whatever it is. Secondly they will try to impose their diet on you. If you eat in anything that even vaguely has any kind of nice flavor to it, they will exclaim something like, "DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING IN YOUR BODY?" Sometimes they will have some diet book written by some sort of "fitness expert" that they carry around like some sort of Baptist preacher with his Bible as they quote a passage from their holy scripture to show you the error of your culinary ways. They may even send out mass E-mails around holidays when certain foods tend to be consumed warning everyone about how that food can kill you.

The wussy picky eater - This picky eater thinks the inclusion of anything with any bit of spice to it is "way too hot." You could sprinkle black pepper directly from the pepper shaker, just plain pepper and they'd be running for a glass of water. These people could be eating Rice Krispies and complaining about how spicy they are. It is because of these people that all food produced for a mass audience is bland and unremarkable.

Vegetarians/Vegans - the worst of all picky eaters. I personally look at chickens and think "Wow, all these chickens do is lay eggs and poop. They are stupid and ugly and useless. Eggs are good to eat. Chickens are good to eat. That must be what God made them for. I surely can't see any other reason." For that reason I eat chickens and the eggs they lay and I love it. This is what most of society does. This is what normal people do. If you choose to be a vegetarian, you are choosing to be abnormal. Because you are not doing what everyone else is doing, you should expect to be inconvenienced from time to time.

However anytime you are getting food for a large group of people someone always says, "Be sure to include a vegetarian alternative." If this person isn't a vegetarian themselves, it is probably someone equally irritating. They are the ones that chose to have weird eating habits. What makes it my responsibility to cater to them? Usually when you do get the "vegetarian alternative" no vegetarians actually show up. People who eat meat always choose meat over no meat so the "vegetarian alternative" gets thrown in the garbage. Vegetarians therefore indirectly waste a lot of food. I contend that 75% of all vegetarian subs ordered from Subway are ordered as a "vegetarian alternative" and then never eaten.


So these are the types of picky eaters. They must be stopped!

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. </td> Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 86% Emergent/Postmodern 82% Neo orthodox 82% Roman Catholic 71% Classical Liberal 64% Modern Liberal 46% Reformed Evangelical 43% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Fundamentalist 29% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Rules: Write a journal entry for this meme with six random facts about yourself. Then pick six of your friends list and tag them--no tag-backs! These rules should be included in your entry.

1. I have never been camping in my entire life. I can think of nothing that sounds less enjoyable than sleeping on the ground outside in the weather and cooking my food over an open fire I had to start by hand. I can't possibly fathom why that would be enjoyable. If God meant for us to live like that he wouldn't have made us smart enough to come up with central heating and air, insulation and microwaves. Nature is nice in the daytime, but at night you go inside and get in the bed!

2. I feel some strange compulsion to watch every special feature on a DVD unless I just hated whatever the movie was. I also like to put on the commentary tracks as background noise while I do other stuff. Pretty geeky huh?

3. I have never shot a gun in my life, unless you count the Nintendo Duck Hunt gun. I would like to eventually change this, but to be honest guns kind of intimidate me.

4. I feel the need to subscribe to the newspaper, but the only thing in it that I ALWAYS read is the comics page. I read pretty much all of them too except for Cathy, Doonesbury, and Mary Worth. I even read some of the ones that I don't really like. Family Circus makes me want to vomit and I'm guessing that you have to be 84 years old to find it funny, but I still read it. Garfield is the same 6 comic strips repeated with slight variations over and over, but I still read it. Sally Forth has a guy's name as the artist. If that's true, I'm pretty sure he's gay. No straight man would spend that much time on the detail of his character's clothing, nor would he make a comic strip based entirely on husband and wife witty bantor. There are even some comics strips that I really like that our paper doesn't carry so I read them on the Internet. We need to replace Sally Forth and Jump Start with Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy. Check them out on comics.com

5. I could spend hours in a record store... literally hours.

6. Not watching TV anymore has made me blissfully ignorant of certain things. I had to ask someone why everyone was talking about "bringing sexy back" the other day.

I tag.... jonathanb, lazoey.... and all my other friends have either done it or abandoned their livejournals. Even my random facts turn into mini-rants... strange huh?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasoncromer1980/

and a rant about flying....


There are very few things on earth I hate more than getting on an airplane. I hate the entire process from start to finish. From the beginning it is demoralizing. I realize the extreme need for national security, but when I'm asked to remove my jacket and shoes and the contents of my pockets and any of my bags, I begin to feel like I am entering one of those prison camps that Steve McQueen is always escaping from in movies. I begin to feel like all that will await me on the other side is a small room where I will have to sit alone for a month and bounce a ball against the wall.

Then comes waiting on the airplane to come which is invariably late. Don't dare become hungry during this time. They realize that they have you trapped between the security checkpoint and the plane, so enjoy that 15 dollar Burger King Whopper. It's all you can get. I always wonder about the people who buy things other than food in the airport. Are you really prepared to pay 30 dollars for that paperweight bearing the skyline of the city you are departing from? Couldn't you have bought souvenirs before then?

Then you get on the plane. Approximately 50% of the time on the plane is spent on the runway before you ever depart. I'm not sure exactly what the pilot does on the runway but it seems to be lots of moving about 50 yards and then waiting a while and then turning. Are there stoplights on the runway? Does he have a little turn signal thing to let the other planes know he's turning left?

Planes are just a jo to ride anyway. I love being cramped into a seat I can barely fit in. Thankfully this time I didn't end up next to one of those chatty people. When I'm on a plane I just want to read a book and check out from the real world, but often you get next to some fool who wants to know every detail of your life. "What brings you to (fill in name of the city)? Really? I'm visiting my brother. He's blah blah blah blah. So what do you do for a living?" I feel no need to get chatty with someone that I will most likely never see again in my life.

Then comes the food and beverage service. So someone who is allergic to peanuts sued or something and they can't have peanuts anymore. Couldn't you just have a peanut alternative and still have peanuts for everyone else? Are they afraid that the peanuts might get ground into tiny peanut particles and float in the air and land on a peanut allergic person, or maybe someone will breathe peanut breath onto a person with allergies and kill them? Maybe someone will commit peanut terrorism and force feed a person with allergies a bag? I'm not sure. Anyway now we are stuck with a bag of 4 pretzels and 6 little soy things that vaguely resemble peanuts in that they are sort of peanut shaped... kind of. If you were hungry before you ate this, you will be more hungry afterwards. Hunger looks at this "snack" and says "Hey, is that the best you can do? 4 pretzels and some fake peanut things? Ha, come back when you have some real food." Pretzels are only good if they are those giant ones with mustard or those Snyders ones that are flavored. Wash it all down with a soft drink that you have to pour into a plastic cup 5 times before you can finish it because they give you those little tiny cups. Great snack!

Then you finally get to your destination where your luggage has been lost by the baggage claim people who are just one step above McDonalds employees on the career evolutionary scale. Enjoy spending the next 2 days with no deordorant!

So I was driving by the State House the other night and there were a bunch of people out there protesting the Iraq War. There were a couple of people protesting the protestors. I must admit. I have absolutely no respect for protestors. First of all, I think anyone with even an ounce of common sense will realize that if someone already has an opinion about something, seeing some fool outside holding a sign isn't going to change their mind. Protestors are good for changing the minds of the easily duped sheep. That's pretty much all.

Really the other thing that comes to mind is "Don't you have anything better to do?" I have a fair amount of free time, but still less free time that I would like. I am certainly not going to spend that time standing around with a sign outside. If I am going to spend that time for a cause, I'll do volunteer work or write to my Congressman or something like that. Sometimes it seems like they stand out there for hours. Don't they have a job? Hobbies? Television shows they need to catch up on? I can't imagine having so few options of fulfilling things to do with my time that I'd come up with standing around annoying people with a sign as my best option of activities. Maybe protesting does work in some cases, but you have to have a LOT of protestors like maybe a 1000 person march on Washington. 5 goobers in front of the State House does not a revolution make.

Only slightly above protestors in my book is those people that have 1500 bumper stickers on the back of their car giving their political, religious, and social views. You can have one maybe 2 political bumper stickers and I'm ok with it. They should preferabbly the ones endorsing some candidate and not the ones with pithy slogans. I don't think any minds have been changed by pithy slogans. If they have been, they are really stupid minds. People with lots of political bumper stickers always seem completly unlikable. They seem to either be people that will grab you by your lapels and scream that you are going to hell because you watched a Harry Potter movie or people that hold demonstrations in front of furniture stores because of the mass tree slaughter that was perpetuated to make a chest of drawers. I don't think normal well adjusted people have huge amounts of political bumper stickers.

I've also noticed that the left wing leaning bumper sticker collections tend to always have feminist bumper stickers in them. Somewhere over the last 20 years, the feminist movement went from "equal rights and equal treatment for women" to "At best men are lazy worthless piles of scum at worst they are sick perverted sexual predators." About once a month I get behind some woman whose car has these bumper stickers telling me how I think she is some sort of second class citizen and I'm some sort of sexual deviant because I think women look cute in dresses and high heels. I think in a few years the big feminist slogan for bumper stickers will be "If you are a man I want to rip your penis off." If I ever pass these women, I've also noticed that they usually have tried their best to hide the fact that they are actually women. They make Janet Reno look like a delicate feminine little flower.

Anyway that's my rant on bumper stickers and protesters. I don't have a good way to end this blog, but I don't really care. You will read it and laugh at it regardless, most likely.