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Man, I really should proofread these before I hit “publish post.”

I got my essay back. All you optimists were right. How I hate you so. (Well, not really. I got a 45/50, which is one point better than my last essay, and supposedly “really good” for this point in the year. It wasn’t as good as I thought I would get though, so I think I’m still right about my feeling! Take that, you silly optimists.)

Seems like my newest demographic is middle-aged mom. Not that this is necessarily bad, but how in the hell did this happen? That’s a pretty big demographic switch — teenage gamer to middle-aged mom? I consulted with Dave. You might remember him as a big gay robot — and the guy I have the most pointless arguments with ever. One time we argued about whether or not certain games (like Ninja Gaiden) were RPGs. Man. No wonder we don’t get the womens.


He thinks it’s because these middle-aged moms are looking to get insights on their own kids from my blog. Lemme tell you straight (would I do you dirty?) — if that’s the case, you’re looking in the wrong place. I’m quite different from your kid, I suspect. For one, I never was parented much. I had my brother, mostly, and then the internet. Not that I’m complaining. I’d do it all over again if given the option. My mom’s real… uh… great. Yeah. That’s the best way to describe her.

And my dad? He’s real… around. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

I’m almost as good at lying as my brother was, in his late-night drunken prime!

Well, maybe not quite so good.

I had this weird mental-breakdown thing at work (on Wednesday, I think). I kept having all these weird thoughts that I couldn’t place — and not the awesome kind, either. Even my hallucinations suck. I think I was hallucinating about video games. Go figure. Anyway. I was also thinking about all the homework I need to get done this weekend. And all the crap that I had to do on Wednesday to get some stuff turned in. (I finished three or four AP Stats assignments between my first two classes, and finished an APUSH essay in under 40 minutes during lunch.)

Add some heat to that mix (I was working in the kitchen, doing the dishes) and you’ve got one violently ill John. I step outside to get a drink. When I “come to,” I can’t really remember much of what I was thinking about, and I felt about ten times dumber. (Which still makes me ten times smarter than you. Zing! No, I’m humble. Really.) Plus I kinda started to sob at weaker moments for the rest of my shift.

Then what do I do? Probably something pretty stupid. I mean, what else would you expect? I’m not exactly a paragon of brilliance here.

I get home and try to talk to one of my friends. None are around. So I write a weird message to this girl in my French class. If I hadn’t creeped her out before, she’s definitely creeped out now. (Who cares about my mental breakdowns? Psh, not girls in my French class. That’s for certain.)

In slightly more hilarious news, I was playing Guild Wars today. No, that’s not what was hilarious… you people are so impatient. Anyway. There was some guy dancing amongst a bunch of female characters (who I reckon were actually men in real life, for the most part), trying to get them to dance/trying to mack on them. I walk over with my big burly warrior, and start dancing. (If you don’t know the male Guild Wars dance, it involves lots of crotch thrusting and spinning.)

Some other big, burly male warrior comes over and starts dancing, too. I take off my armor. He takes off his. Insert about 10 minutes of chasing this poor sucker around and half-nakedly crotch thrusting him until he finally leaves town. Good times. Good times indeed. Here’s a picture: Oh yeah, and there’s always this.


Hamlet may have thought he had a doozie of a brain-tickler when he wrestled with suicide, but let us not forget about John Donner and his eternal struggle with attendance.

So I find myself in the same situation I always do Monday mornings — I have a bunch of homework and only about half of it is done. Do I try to finish up the other half real quick like, between now and when I leave, on the bus, and at school before my first class… or do I just stay home and sleep a whole bunch?

Normally I’d opt out and sleep a whole bunch. But I already slept a whole bunch. Like, 18 hours a bunch. That’s kinda what got me into this predicament — I was going to wake up about mid-day and work on homework all day (well, that was the plan at least — who knows how that plan would’ve been executed) but instead I woke up at about 2:00 AM and decided I should shower, eat “breakfast” and watch Family Guy until 3:00 AM. And here I am at 5:30 AM with only a bit of what I need done done!

For everyone who hasn’t figured it out yet, I lack motivation. People say I’ve got great potential — potential to what? Do well in school, get a great job, make lots of money, and buy phat loot? Well, maybe. That’s great and all. But it doesn’t interest me much. I’d rather do “pointless” things like write books, travel the world, and combat evil with my unique brand of violent oration. If I can find some love along the way — all the better! Instead, I’m kinda doing this boring crap that I don’t really want to do but feel obliged to do just in case I change my mind and decide that maybe I’m a stupid moron who doesn’t know what he’s talking about because nobody likes reading silly novels about stupid crystals and who gives a crap about traveling the poverty ridden world with all its third world countries and oppressed people and guerrilla fighters and I’m not good at orating that’s why I write long posts on the internet like this one that ramble on endlessly and have no point. Not to mention that nobody loves a guy who smells like ass.

In conclusion, this was not another five paragraph essay. But it came damn close, didn’t it? Man, I wish I could top that genius.

Okay, that title is probably awkwardly worded and sucks at getting at what I want to get to.

But you know how you can go into a test and have a great feeling about it, but get the grade back and you scored worse than Billy-Jean, the kid who used to crap his pants in kindergarten?

Or, inversely, as you take the test you feel like Billy-Jean but score the genius score that you so deserve?

Yeah, that just happened to me today (yesterday, god damn it’s 5 AM already?). I looked at my score from the multiple choice section of my APUSH test — 31/35. Hot damn, that’s a high mark for APUSH. I expected much less… somewhere in the low 20’s.

However, this has got me worried. I felt like I wrote a really strong essay.

Any takers that I get like 25/50 on the essay?

The new epidemic sweeping the nation/my life is procrastination. It’s become a huge problem. Kids aren’t turning in homework, novels aren’t getting written, work isn’t getting done and sex isn’t being had, because why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? I propose the following twelve step program in order to slay this beast (each step will be accompanied by a short narrative chronicling a completely and totally fictional character, Timmy, and his battle against procrastination):

1. Came to the realization that our procrastination was beyond our control, and hoped others would sympathize with our plight.

Timmy was up late again — it was 3:30 AM and he had about 6 hours of homework left to do. Well, I suppose “left” to do is inaccurate — that implies that Timmy had been working diligently on his homework up until this point. Really, Timmy had put it off for four days until the absolute last minute and was just getting started on it. Finishing Tales of Symphonia seemed like a much better decision than doing homework. Monday mornings before school aren’t really the best time to be doing homework anyway. Timmy wasn’t a criminal for not doing his assignments. No, he was a victim! Procrastination was killing poor Timmy. He cried out, tears streaming down his face, “I am a slave to procrastination! I am powerless! I can not defeat this forsaken curse alone!”

2. Came to realize we’re fucked, and only God can bail us out.

Timmy was exhausted. He had stayed up all night stressing over the homework he had to get done, putting it off until he decided the best way to tackle it. Well, that and drowning his woes in Tales of Sypmhonia. It was now 4:00 AM and he hadn’t done jack squat — he was tired physically and emotionally. He curled up into a ball on his bed and passed out from his fatigue. As he fell asleep, he realized that he alone couldn’t beat his demon. He needed the Power.

3. Made a decision to stop trying and hope God saves our sorry asses.

Realizing that only God could save Timmy from his plight, Timmy stopped trying to combat his problem on his own. He gave up and placed his complete faith in God. After all, there’s no sense in trying to battle procrastination — a procrastinator will never get around to it. It’s best to sit around and be rewarded for inaction and blind faith.

4. Realized we are pieces of shit.

Timmy realized he was a piece of shit. He made his teachers upset because he never got his work done on time. He never got around to buying those birthday presents for his mom that he said he would. He never got around to doing that favor for his friend. The only thing he ever got around to doing was… well.. he ate some food once in a while. He also tried to sleep some. Hey, don’t look at him like that — he knows he’s worthless.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being that we sucked worse than Tales of Symphonia’s shitty plot.

Timmy’s blaring alarm awoke him after his brief two-hour slumber. It was time to go to school. He prayed, as best he knew how (heathens tend not to pray much) and pleaded for God to help his rotten ass out. “Man,” he thought, “Tales of Symphonia has got to have one of the crappiest plots ever. It’s clichéd, shallow, predictable, boring, and uh… bad. But clearly, I, in comparison, am much worse. I mean, you can draw a comparison between a human and a shitty plot — that makes sense, right?” Later, at school, when his teacher asked why his assignment was not complete, Timmy replied “It’s because, ma’am, I’m the lowest of the low. I suck worse than Tales of Symphonia’s rehashed plot about false Gods and evil religions and racism.”

6. Dreamed of how awesome it’d be to do stuff on time.

Having realized how worthless he actually was, Timmy could only hope that God would bless him. Timmy didn’t want to be a piece of shit anymore — no, he wanted to be that kid that turned everything in on time! He wanted to buy presents on time, and he wanted to do favors in a timely fashion! He wanted to get things done… and not ten minutes before they had to be, either! Damn it, he wanted to, y’know, function normally. And not have to sit through another Japanese RPG with a shitty rehashed plot, if at all possible.

7. Kinda asked God to remove our shortcomings.

“Yo, God? You there? It’s uh, me, Timmy, again. I’m real sorry about, y’know, not believing in you for 17 years. And not going to Church. Or, y’know, praying. Or reading the Bible. I’m sorry for my hedonistic tendencies, and my shallow attachment to material wealth, and my bad mouth, and my lustful mind… and… wow, I suck. But uh, can you help me out here? I really, really need to stop procrastinating… and uh… y’know… I heard you can read the future and crap, so you already know how this prayer ends… yeah…”

Timmy began to scrawl his list in the back of a notebook (where he should’ve been doing his Pre-Calculus work):

Friends (12)
Teachers (33)

9. Made indirect amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others, or require too much effort.

Timmy approached his mom. Scratching his head, he thought of how best to apologize for his wrongdoings. “Hey Mom,” he started.

“Yes, dear?”

“Uh…when’s dinner?”

Okay, so maybe he could apologize to her later. Dad would be more receptive anyway, and besides, he’d hurt dad more by procrastinating. Then again, Dad wouldn’t be around until later, and boy, was Timmy tired. Maybe it’d be better to apologize tomorrow…

10. Continued to take personal inventory, or buy and play Civilization 4. Whichever seems more beneficial.

It was a month since Timmy cried out to God for help. He’d kinda forgotten about the whole silly thing, actually. He’d started a list of all the times he wasn’t doing homework, and had religious updated it for two days. Then he sorta stopped doing that and sorta started playing Civilization 4. I mean, that game was awesome! It had like, axemen and musketeers, and you could control everything about your nation, and you could use ICBMs, and his friend Nick played it, and his friend Dave sucked at it…

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our skills in Civ 4. Or stay up way too late playing, because in the next few turns, something awesome will happen.

Just ten more turns, and Timmy’s Manhattan Project wonder would be complete. From there it was just another 14 turns until he got his first ICBM… boy, those French had no idea what was up. Lyon? Fuck that city! Right in the ass, with a nuke, even. I mean, come on, they were so arrogant, trying to take over Boston way back in like 1500 AD. Old grudges die hard, for Timmy. Wasn’t he supposed to be doing something else, though? Some 12 step something or other… eh, whatever…

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to friends, and to tell them how awesome Civ 4 was.

Timmy approached his friend Albert. “Hey man, do you have Civ 4?”

“No,” Albert replied in earnest.

“Dude, you should get it, it is awesome. You can totally make up your own names for cities and stuff… there was this jerk who tried to invade me once, but I totally kicked his ass. It was great.”

A few days later, he approached his friend Blaine. “Hey, do you have Civilization 4…”

Looking on this comprehensive 12 Step program, I find myself to be at about Step 12. Which reminds me… do you have Civ 4? It’s pretty friggin sweet.

I wrote this in lieu of doing homework, wasting approximately an hour of my time.

Sorry for the delay. Got caught up in homework and other things. I also found out something semi-interesting regarding Haley, but there’s no need to blog about it. People who want to know will ask or already know. So without further adieu, I present to you THE WEEK IN REVIEW!

A new feature for the best blog in the universe (right after 15 Minute Lunch and Maddox, that is) has finally arrived! Y’see, I’m rarely inspired to update this silly blog, but people often say my updates are fairly awesome. So I’m going to try out this thing where I’ll write a little bit about my day as it’s drawing to a close, do this for every day of the week, and post the resultantly svelte masterpiece at week’s end.

And because I am so awesome, my weeks begin and end on Wednesdays. Mostly because something interesting happened this Wednesday (11/02) so I’ve finally got something to write about.

Wednesday – November 02, 2005
Apparently, a Five Minute Drive is Enough to Ruin My Mom’s Life

I can’t exactly just dive straight into this story, so, a little background info is necessary on what’s been occurring for the past week or so. Stricken with a crippling bout of apathy (its potency rhino-virus enhanced), the forces that be had decided I was going to miss another week of school. It was beyond my control – God, or the gods, or the randomness of quantum mechanics (or whatever the hell you believe in) had me in a headlock I couldn’t escape. In retrospect, I was lucky to escape with my life.

The consequence of these absences was lots of homework. Which I put off until the very last god damned minute possible (three hours before school started on Monday), and then ended up not doing because I decided sleep sounded like a good idea. Tuesday I was able to get some of my homework done, but not nearly enough. And right now I’m unwinding/relaxing (which is rare) by listening to music and writing this (and the blog about my eyes deceiving me). I still have 2 chapters to read for AP US History and an essay to write for AP Lang, and a test to review for in AP US. Anywho, that’s a tangent.

I come home today and decide to nap for an hour before I go to work. I set my phone alarm to 4:25 and doze off. Apparently, my phone alarm hates me and/or sucks ass and/or is broke, because it didn’t go off. What ended up waking me from my beauty sleep (and I seriously did get about ten times more beautiful after that sleep — man, I’d totally bone me if I were gay and also a doppelganger of myself) was a call from work at 7 PM. Let me paraphrase the conversation:

Josh: Hey jackass, where are you?

John (groggy): Uhm… uh… what?

Josh: Didn’t you know you were supposed to come into work today?

John (still groggy, possibly groggier): Of… course… because I’m on my way right now bye *click*

Sucker. He had no idea I forgot at all. (True story.)

Now, to the point: I run upstairs to ask my mom if she could give me a ride to work because forgotten that I had to go in. She says yes, and I don’t detect any signs of resentment or dissatisfaction in her voice — whoops. I get into the car and get a 5 minute rant that basically consisted of how I was ruining her “whole fucking life” because I’m “always asking for rides” (never mind that this is the first time in a long time I’ve asked for a ride TO work, and I would walk home but my mom doesn’t like me walking home in the dark). Insert casual references to my worthlessness as a son/human being and my insatiable greed (and subtle references to how I must be the bane of my mother’s existence, seeking only to cause her misery). We arrive at the Valley Market and I get out of the car and say “Thanks for the ride” with as much sincerity as I can muster. Ah, to turn the other cheek — I’m a lot like Jesus!

Guess What? I’m a Boy

I’m sure most of my rabid fan base is aware of the fact that I think post-feminism smells like bullshit…it might be due to the fact that post-feminism is actually a synonym for “brain matter consisting largely of fecal content,” but that’s just wild speculation. If that was too pedantic for you, then try this on for size: post-feminists have shit for brains.

But that’s completely irrelevant to the story I’m going to tell now. I’m browsing MySpace, which can only mean one of three things:

Today was a blog day. And I found a marvelous one where the content read a little something like this: “I HATE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BOYS BOYS BOYS (repeat x50 whilst breaking the internet).” Ahhh, wonderful — a sweeping generalization about how boys probably suck from a stuck up bitch! Better still, this is someone I know! Did I ever hit the jackpot. I fire off a quick comment:

“Sweet. Way to break the internet, by the way. I hate girls girls girls girls girls.”

This quickly elicits an email from the poster of the blog (which is an unusual response to my comments — they tend to just be ignored, as they should be):

“Why did you put a comment on my thingy if you were jsut going to be rude. i really dont care if u hate girls sorry that you dont know what i was talking about and further more i dont really care. Sorry… you broke it.”

Oh boy, where to start. In retrospect, I missed some things in my reply, such as: where does she get off thinking anyone cares that she hates boys? Just as much as no one cares if I hate girls (which isn’t entirely true), nobody’s going to give a shit if she hates boys. Just about every girl bitches about boys being stupid at one point or another in their teenage-angst years, and she doesn’t even have a juicy story to accompany her rant. (For your information: I wasn’t really pissed that she hated boys. I couldn’t give a flying fuck what she cared. I was bored and needed someone to antagonize.) Yawn! Here was a bit of my reply:

“Ah, see, it’s not so much fun when I use sweeping generalizations to say that I hate your gender, is it?”

Which earned the following response (and provided me with the title for this short anecdote):

“Well thats kinda annoying since i said i didnt care whether or not you liked girls since you didnt know what i was talking about… i dont like boys… i like men and obviously if your affended y it then your jsut a boy and then youd understand i suppouse…. i really dont care.”

And there you have it, folks. Irrefutable evidence that I am, in fact, a boy masquerading around as a teenager. I’m probably impotent too, because I try to debunk baseless generalizations about how my whole gender sucks. Apparently men suck because some dumb bitch dates a shitty jock boyfriend who she cheats on with a crazy drug addict (on occasion) — guess I missed that memo.

Thursday – November 03, 2005
The Path of the Valedictorian

It’s a commonly held misconception that the hollow space in my skull is actually occupied by a human brain, when, in fact, the center of MY nervous system consists of a paper clip, a length of string and two toothpicks. Crafted by McGuyver, of course.

I like to call the spiffy contraption my “McThinker.”

That’s why I laugh when people think that I’m going to be valedictorian of my class. First of all, valedictorians don’t miss damn near 20 days before midterm. Second of all, valedictorians usually sleep before big tests, and eat three square meals a day. Currently, I’m running somewhere in the realm of 7-8 total hours of sleep in the past four days whilst averaging about .7 meals a day. I also had a mammoth test today in AP US History. I used the McThinker to craft a brilliant essay, and upon finishing, to defuse a nuclear bomb that was in the janitor’s closet.


The McThinker doesn’t have much competition. Some of the students in my AP Language and Composition class lack a certain special something that they probably should have…what’s the word again? It’s like, um, you know, a word that means like to know a bunch of like words that like describe something and elicit this like feeling of like knowledge being imparted on like you and um it like is, you know, deep…oh yeah, a fucking VOCABULARY.

True story: One girl used 27 instances of the word “like” while making the most muddled point in 2-minute soliloquy history. I counted, with my own hands! Of course, this happened a while back…but today, my colleague Ryan counted again when she was talking, and she broke another record! 17 instances of the word “like” in the most irrelevant (due to redundancy) 1-minute soliloquy ever. And for those of you who appreciate a little hypocrisy with your dish of moron: the girl sitting next to my colleague and I casually insulted Queen Like I Like The Like Word Like, but then proceeded to use the damnable word 9 times herself.

Coincidentally, this anecdote contains 17 instances of the word like.

Friday – November 04, 2005
On the Job With Dr. Deezee

I speak for convenience-store-bitches (or, more accurately booze-stockers) everywhere when I say that Beck’s makes the worst God damn cardboard boxes that man has ever known. First the Germans bring us the Holocaust, and now this!? The box is made out of some hellish combo of cardboard and slippery plastic (I’m no chemist, damn it) that is just an accident waiting to happen. This problem is compounded by the lack of handles on the box (most other boxes have pieces of cardboard you can push in to create holes for handling). Furthermore, the box is a non-uniform size — it’s much smaller than all the other boxes. It suffers from cardboard impotency, I guess. This means this thing is most safely stacked on top of all the other boxes. And damn if it won’t be there a long time; in my store, Beck’s hardly ever sells. This means you have to jostle the piece of crap around all the time. Last, but not least, the thing breaks down into about a million pieces*.

It’s a wonder that we can engineer rockets and ICBMs and still manage to get this garbage not only beyond the blueprint stage, but into mass production and use! Good job, German engineering.

* This is a rough estimate. My counting is none-too-good.

Saturday – November 5th, 2005
Mid-Weekend Crisis

You know how sometimes you miss about 20 days of school in the first two months, and you’re taking a bunch of really hard classes — that give lots of homework — but you don’t feel like doing any work? That basically sums up what happened to me on Saturday at about roughly 4 PM (when I got out of bed). So instead of doing anything productive, I went into town with Mark, Cody, and a couple of Mark’s pals to eat some crappy mall food and see Jarhead.

Jarhead was about as good as I was expecting it to be. That is to say I didn’t like it much. It’s a good movie, to be sure, but I just wasn’t in the mood to see a story about soldiers and their hardships. The ending was also kind of “meh.” I do think every woman on the face of the planet, however, should see this movie. It’ll explain why no man will trust you farther than they can throw you, ladies.

After the movie Cody and I stopped off at Fred Meyer and I purchased Civilization 4, thus putting the final nail in the coffin of any semblance of a social life that I might try and maintain. God damn it.

Sunday – November 6th, 2005
End Weekend Crisis

Here are my thoughts as I woke up on Sunday: “I better start homework by 6 PM so I can get it all done by 6 AM.” Here are my subconscious thoughts as I woke up on Sunday: “I better put off my homework until 9 PM, and then do about half of it, and then spend the rest of the 3 hours playing Civilization 4.” Guess which side won out?

Although I did kick some ass in Civ 4. Some dick tried to start a war with me, so I burned his capital to the ground. Then I declared peace but made him tribute all his gold to me. He “begrudgingly” accepted. Damn straight. If you can’t take the heat, get out the kitchen; if you can’t take the axemen, get the fuck out my continent.

Monday – November 7th, 2005

Go read Wednesday’s first entry again to see what happened on Monday. Only part that’s different: I had to walk 3 miles (total) in the cold and dark because my mom wasn’t in town. On the plus side, I didn’t suffer any shrinkage.

On the negative side, I reached the previous conclusion only because it was so cold I couldn’t feel my balls anyway.

Tuesday/Wednesday – November 8th-9th, 2005
So Nothing Interesting Happened

Plus I forgot to write about what did actually happen. So instead of boring you with tales of debauchery, illegitimate children, drug abuse, alcoholism, and general mischievousness… I’ll instead bore you with whatever comes to my head.

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be going along with Plan Provo. However, I received an interesting message from Nate recently that might throw those plans astray — I’ll be finding out more this weekend. Don’t know what Plan Provo is? Well, that sucks. Perhaps I’ll tell you sometime, or perhaps not!

In other news, it’s been about 2 months since my birthday, and good ol’ Rossco (affectionately referred to by my brother and I as “Ross Boner”) still hasn’t come through with his promised birthday gift. I don’t even care, actually. In fact, the only reason it’s on my mind is because I just got an email from him that said that he’s sorry he couldn’t get me anything yet — but something should be coming soon.

Why do we call him Ross Boner? Well, you may want to cover your children’s eyes, before we begin the following anecdote:

So, John, How Big Are You?

You see, a few years back, when my brother was living with my dad (his step-dad) unhappily in California, I got a weird call. It was from my brother. I can’t remember if we chit-chatted for a bit before he popped the big question, but man, what a question it was:

So, John, how big are you?

To which I responded “What the fuck?” I think my response was rather appropriate, considering. He says something to the effect of “Just tell me.” I respond “Dude… what the fuck. Seriously.” He says “Well, according to Sandy, Ross is 9 fucking inches long! That must mean you’re huge, you freak of nature!”

This had to be the most awkward conversation I had ever had, and that I’ve ever had.

“I’m not telling you how big my penis is.”

“Fine, cockbiter.”

End anecdote.

J. Durden
Mr. Knoth
AP Language and Composition
3 November 2005
Epiphany: Using the Word Evil is Evil
What does one think when one reads or hears the all-encompassing word, evil? The word evil can conjure images of nearly anything depending on the upbringing of the reader – one might immediately imagine the devil, hell, and sin, where another might quickly think of recent acts of terrorism. Conversely, evil could entice thoughts of the government, big business, and even certain countries or people. At first glance, evil seems to be a very nebulous term; its vagueness compounded because the word is only useful when contrasted against one’s definition of good, as well. Thus, evil is a relative term. The very esscence of evil is the antithesis of one’s definition of good, which may or may not have moral, ethical and personal basis.
For example, take the recent focus of the government on blighting the “evil” of terrorism from the world. For supporters of this endeavor (hereafter referred to as Christians for ease, despite the fact that not all supporters are necessarily Christian) terrorists represent everything that threatens to destroy their very way of life. Terrorists are a symbol of the destruction of (among other things) Christian ideals. The principle morals that guide these people’s lives are thus thought of as threatened by terrorism. Furthermore, terrorists tend to conduct themselves in ways that are directly contradictory to Christian beliefs. In particular, terrorists sacrifice their own lives in order to harm others, thus committing two sins in one blow – suicide and murder. Traditionally, these sins are among the worst in Christian practice; they are morally repugnant to Christians in every way possible. There is no redeeming feature of either suicide or murder in the eyes of a Christian. Terrorists are not only perceived as threatening to destroy Christian morals, they conduct themselves in stark contrast to Christian beliefs. For Christians, terrorists are essentially their moral antithesis, and thusly evil. Note that the use of the word evil to define terrorists also requires the definintion of what is good – in this case, Christian ideals.
For another example, one can examine the use of evil to describe centralized government (or in more extreme cases, a tyranical government). Lovers of freedom and liberty would call tyrants evil, and are especially wary of centralized government. To them, all that is good is also all that is free and independent. These people wish only to live their lives as they see fit, without anyone else telling them how they should live their lives. Some such people even go to such extremes as to describe all government as evil – most are content with a relatively weak central government that is able to provide basic security (ensuring protection from such crimes as murder and theft). Whenever freedom is compromised, this will be viewed as evil. Freedom is most commonly compromised by the restriction of rights, such as the right to free speech or the right to free press. Restrictions of these rights are inherently evil for people who view freedom as the ultimate good – and that is because the loss of these rights stands directly opposite to the pursuit of freedom. Evil is used here to describe something that is the antithesis of one’s personal definition of good.
There can be no universal example of evil because evil is a relative term, dependent upon one’s perception of good. Even crimes such as murder and theft are not absolutely evil, because there are those people who believe that mankind itself is evil. Thus describing something as evil can be both useful (in the case of a society defining crimes) and tremendously dangerous (in the case of religions). There are many who would go to any length to rid “evil” from the world, but refuse to accept that evil is a relative term, and that one man’s good could be another man’s evil!

Everybody knows my memory is pretty crappy — me most of all. In light of recent scientific studies (or my recent discovery of these studies) I’ve learned that this is (most likely) due to my massive sleep deprivation. So when a certain someone started making comments on my blog again, I had this weird feeling that this person shouldn’t be, according to their own words. Since my memory sucks, I had to go and verify. Surely enough, I was right!

“FYI: if a friend hadn’t told me that I was being publically humiliated on the internet I wouldn’t have read your blog anyways.“

Now, I interpret this to mean that said person didn’t care about my internet web log and wouldn’t think to check it… and especially not after what was posted, because it was clearly so full of… truth and directness?

But anyway, I was surprised to see that in just under a month another comment was already up.

“I’m glad to hear it John, it’s about time!“

Well, that encouraging comment certainly wasn’t of the tone of the previous comment! Why, what’s going on here? I figured that it must be some kind of fluke in the universe or something and decided to ignore it. But just a scant two weeks later or so comes this:

“That’s cuz you got a PC (piece of crap). I really hate to say I told you so, but…. I TOLD YOU SO!“

Clearly my universal-fluke-theory has no legs to stand on. No sir, these comments are the genuine article coming straight from the horse’s mouth! But that confuses me, because clearly my internet web log was not important enough to read without the recommendation of a friend… right?

Let me cut the cutesy crap short. Pick up and move on. If you want to make amends, conspicuously cordial and encouraging comments randomly popping up every two weeks or so isn’t the way to do it. Then again, I’m not really interested in trying to fix anything anymore — and you know that. So, move on. Thanks!
