Weblog

I have to say that I love going to Guitar Center on a Saturday. Saturday is the day where the place is busy with people who come not necessarily to purchase anything but just to come and play with the nice toys. You'll get the really classy, Eric-Clapton type guitar people along with the goth, hard-core, screamer types who only dress in black. In addition, you have the country/red-neck types who play that country junk. Then, there's the folk music people who come for the banjos and mandolins in addition to the guitars. These people are similar to the country musicians except that they don't sound bad when they play. My favourite though are the blues musicians who just magically know where to put their fingers on the right strings and frets to make it sound good. Along with that, there are the kids who are ten years younger than you but they're ten times better than you, and they just come there every Saturday to play with the electrics and show up all the others.

I wish that I were better at playing the guitar. That way, I could be at Guitar Center every Saturday hanging with a diverse crowd of people. Than again, maybe I'm not that great because I don't go to Guitar Center.

O well. It's too bad that there's not one in Arkansas.

Okay, I'm an internationalisation freak. I like the whole idea of the global village of all people from all races, colours, creeds, backgrounds, languages and foods coming together and… well… sharing their food… among other things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03WjUebwc2s

I think that this commercial for Sheraton Hotels is awesome. It just warms my heart to see people from around the world being themselves, and, while they are so incredibly different, there's the view that there's nothing wrong with being different.

So, after watching the video yourself, which greeting do you like the best (besides the last one, of course)?

It's such a shame that Arkansas doesn't get the amount of snow that Colorado will. I happen to enjoy the Arkansas summer and the Colorado winter. It sucks that I happen to live in Colorado during the better part of the summer and Arkansas for most of the winter.

Christmas Eve only comes once a year, but we will be busy tomorrow, so we celebrated Christmas Eve tonight.

My family has only one binding tradition when it comes to Christmas Eve: New England Clam Chowder. The tradition started when we lived in New York. It was 1986 December which would make it my first Christmas. My family came back to Denver to visit for Christmas. However, the house that we lived in was stripped of its essentials. So, my parents were forced to borrow a pot from the neighbours in order to cook. For some odd reason, clam chowder was the meal of choice. It's now become famous that people from as far as Hawai'i and Missouri practice the clam chowder tradition inspired by us.

We also opened gifts tonight. When we were younger (and our parents spoiled us with Christmas gifts), we had so many gifts that we could actually open one on Christmas Eve. Now, we don't have so many, so we just opened them all tonight. I got the absolute best gift ever. For fifteen years, my mother had been working on a cross-stitch stocking for me. For the past few years, I've asked my mother only to finish it for Christmas. This year, she did.¹ It was so touching to see it finally complete and hanging over the fire. It's seriously going to be one of the things that I'll forever cherish.

I kind of felt like a schmuck because I got a few gifts, but I didn't give any to anyone because I'm a Poor College Student™. My sister and brother-in-law got me a six-pack of eight-ounce cans of Coca-Cola² along with a movie. My father got me a wireless card for my laptop because I broke my other one. It was an old one that he repackaged, but it's always the thought that counts with gifts, so I don't care. My niece got me two pencils which had the little clips torn off of them. It was kind of weird. I got one other gift, but I don't know what it is.

I don't know what it is because I never opened it. It was from my brother. I don't talk about it a lot³, but my brother and I are estranged. It's a complicated issue. Well, it's actually a simple issue that's become complicated. Regardless, I don't feel it proper to take a gift from someone who's not on your best side. It's become a yearly tradition for me for the past four years. It's not the way that I wished it would turn out, but it's really been hard for my parents. I feel that I should stop writing too much more about it.

Anyway,⁴ life has it's goods and bads. I'm celebrating them both this Christmas. As I was out shopping with my mother today with two-metre high walls of snow lining the roads, I realised that there is Christmas and there is the idea of Christmas. I'm in love with the idea of Christmas: the festivities, the carols, the traditional foods and drinks, the winter clothes and weather, the decorations and traditions. Christmas really is sometimes a pain for some to deal with. Still, I have high hopes that the idea of Christmas will become a reality.

1. With the “help” of a friend.
2. To go with my collection.
3. Here, at least.
4. By the way, whenever I utter the word anyway, it means that I'm done talking to you.

If you read this weblog back far enough, you might read the bad things that I have to say about Tom Tancredo, a congressman from Colorado. It's no secret that I don't like the man, but, trying to keep an open mind, I actually have to say that I'm pretty proud of his stance on a certain issue that's come to light recently.

During the previous election, a Keith Ellison from Minnesota was elected to serve in the United States Congress. The reason why his election is an issue is because Ellison is a Muslim. As a Muslim, he has decided to administer his oath of office on a copy of the Qur'an rather than on a Bible. Me, an Evangelical Ex-protestant, I do not endorse the teachings of the Qur'an. Of course, I don't expect Muslims to do the same when it comes to the Bible. However, whatever my feelings on Islam are, that doesn't change the fact that Ellison is a Muslim. We live in a democracy, and Ellison was democratically elected by the people. Whatever book he uses won't bother me.

Some people claim that since Ellison is using a Qur'an to administer his oath, he is stating that he believes that the Qur'an is above all other legal documents… including the United States Constitution. Okay, but wouldn't that mean that if a person were to use a Bible instead that that person is stating that the Bible is above all other legal documents? Hmm, you know, that's actually the way that I feel. In fact (surprise, surprise), I think that the constitution is garbage. I know that saying that will get a lot of people angry at me, but I don't really care. I know that Americans look at the authors of the constitution as demi-gods, but get a grip! They were ordinary people like you and me.

What really set me off were the comments of Virgil Goode, a congressman from Virginia.

The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.

We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.

Hmm, if I didn't know better, I would say that that's something that Tancredo would say, but, according to my source,¹ Tancredo has supported Ellison's decision. Besides, would it really be so horrible if more people from the Middle East moved to the United States? It seems to me that people from the Middle East are people too. What's ironic to note is that Ellison is not from the Middle East at all; he was born in Detroit.

It pains me that there is still a feeling that one group of people can be considered better than another group of people.

1. Which happens to be the most peer-reviewed publication on the planet.

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So, I finished finals today. So, I'm now one hour away from being a senior, but since I live in the highest rung of campus housing, what's the point if I'm a senior or freshmen?

It's been a sucky week. Good friends in the hospital. Good friends possibly not coming back next semester. Financial misfortune in ministries. It's kind of given an aura of nastyage to the week. Tonight was fun. We went to the awesome Taqueria El Rancho here in Siloam Springs. Afterwards, we head back to the duplex for an evening of watching the broadcasting majors' final projects. It was awkward for me because one of the finals was a documentary about me. I didn't feel comfortable watching it while other people were around. Funny, I usually like being the centre of attention. Otherwise, we just hung around until people started to trickle out.

Afterwards, Peter, Amy, David and I brought a table out back behind the duplex, and we played poker. It was a sight to see the four of us shivering in the relative cold December air while enjoying life. I did something that I've never done in poker before: I won… without cheating. I was quite surprised that I was able to take the pot. I owe it to just merely watching Dayton Castleman play. It's too bad for me that we weren't playing with real money but good for them.

Tomorrow, I'll be en route to the great state of Colorado. It wasn't too long ago that I was there last. Oh well.

I wish that I were normal.

I wonder: if someone completely alien to our society came and visited us in June, would he be unfamiliar with our society if he visited six months later in December? All the things about our culture that make it what it is seem to change for the last month of the year. For Christmas, our music changes from our normal junk on the radio to carols that have a long tradition and other junk that sucks only because Barbara Streisand sings it. For Christmas, our food changes from the normal daily dishes to sweeter things loaded with sugar like gingerbread, cookies and eggnog. For many of us, our religion changes as it might be the only time that many people actually practice their religion. However, even the traditions in the church change around Christmas time as the theme of the events point to the Christ Child.

I happen to like the Christmas season, but I wonder: do I like Christmas because I like the things that happen during Christmas or do I like Christmas because those things only happen once a year?

Why is it assumed that just because someone smokes, they're automatically addicted? People eat meat, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are addicted to meat even though they probably consume it every single day. Why the double standard?