jackalrockin2003's Xanga Site

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

*edit* This was a default message put on here when I resurrected my account.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

How touching, xanga actually sent me an email saying they've missed me and my rants!

Incredibly, I'm approaching the 3-month countdown to graduation. Still in hot pursuit of that "necessary evil," more popularly known as a job. Interviews/apps include or have included such companies as Raytheon, Plexus, IBM, Cummins, Caterpillar, Indesign LLC, JDSU, Eaton, Braun, Rockwell Automation, and Landis & Gyr. Nothing like prolonged uncertainty as to the future!

The courses of the final stretch
ECE437         Computer Design and Prototyping
ECE477         Digital Systems Senior Project
ECON251   Microeconomics
HIST151       American History to 1877

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 80% Conservative, 20% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

For the Music Appreciation class I'm taking at Vincennes, I had to listen to an excerpt from Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. It was a cheerful 2-minute piece called "March to the Scaffold," where the artist has killed his beloved in a fit of jealously and is now being taken to the guillotine. What struck me was the background behind the composition. Apparently, Berlioz fell madly in love with an Irish dame, who rebuffed his repeated advances. Desperate, Berlioz set to work writing a love letter in the form of a massive autobiographical symphony, and this occupied the next three years of his life. The symphony used enormous resources such as four antiphonal brass choirs. Berlioz spared no efforts in making sure the Irish dame knew the 3-year piece was about her, and said strumpet finally came to a performance. She was either flattered or freaked out enough to marry Berlioz. Ah, the sweet smell of triumph! The fruition of 3 years heavy toil, success! Berlioz landed the dame and married her in 1833. What a touching passionate romance! They lived happily in blissful love to the end of their days, surely. Oh, they divorced after 9 years! Granted, that's more than the average American marriage, but back then a divorce was a huge deal. Even if they couldn't stand each other, couples typically stayed together for the sake of avoiding societal disdain. So this pair must have ended up vitriolically hating each other's guts!

Is that it? Is that all one gets when he or she finally gets what they've exerted enormous toil pursuing in this world? A dream job? Dream promotion? Wealth? Super Bowl victory? Unimaginable glory and renown? A Ph. D? Landing the love of one's life? Is it possible that the euphoria, the comforts, the pleasures, are somehow not enough to guarantee happiness?

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." - Matthew 6:19-21

It's taken time for this passage hit home for me. For several years I've been constantly looking forward to the next best thing, such as possessions, relationships with the opposite sex, or the hallucinogenic thrill of college life that is always just around the corner. Looking at my computer now, I invested considerable time and money into the various hardware, making it externally spectacular and internally powerful. But twenty years from now, it will be equivalent to an AS/400. The software will be laughable, the hardware incredibly bulky.

"How lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and flesh cry out for the living God." - Psalms 84:2

More ramblings later. I'm going to make some sort of effort to put stuff on here more often.

Monday, September 18, 2006

• Muslims fly commercial airliners into buildings in New York City. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslim officials block the exit where school girls are trying to escape a burning building because their faces were exposed. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims cut off the heads of three teenaged girls on their way to school in Indonesia. A Christian school. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims murder teachers trying to teach Muslim children in Iraq. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims murder over 80 tourists with car bombs outside cafes and hotels in Egypt. No Muslim outrage.
• A Muslim attacks a missionary children's school in India. Kills six. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims slaughter hundreds of children and teachers in Beslan, Russia. Muslims shoot children in the back. No Muslim outrage.
• Let's go way back. Muslims kidnap and kill athletes at the Munich Summer Olympics. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims fire rocket-propelled grenades into schools full of children in Israel. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims murder more than 50 commuters in attacks on London subways and busses. Over 700 are injured. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims massacre dozens of innocents at a Passover Seder. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims murder innocent vacationers in Bali. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslim newspapers publish anti-Semitic cartoons. No Muslim outrage
• Muslims are involved, on one side or the other, in almost every one of the 125+ shooting wars around the world. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims beat the charred bodies of Western civilians with their shoes, then hang them from a bridge. No Muslim outrage.
• Muslims kill at least 200 in Mambia train blast. No muslim outrage.
• Newspapers in Denmark and Norway publish cartoons depicting Mohammed. Muslims are outraged.
• The pope delivers a speech speech in which he says the concept of jihad was "unreasonable" and quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad's innovations were "evil and inhuman". Muslims are outraged.

So they respond with violence to prove Islam's a peaceful religion. Way to prove the pope's point. Lordie they're so stupid.