Trying Something New
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: People


I have decided to try something new and you'll never guess what it is.

In the (recent) past I have always wanted to volunteer to do things for people who need volunteers. The problem is I don't have any money. In order to be able to devote time to volunteering, I need to have money to live off of while I am not working. So I figured that I would work and build up some money so I would end up having time to volunteer later on. Eventually working and volunteering at the same time but having a good job, from which I could take off time if need be. Sound good?

Well, it didn't work. I work here and there and that is all I can find. I have no money but plenty of time. So I am going to try the opposite of what I planned on doing. I am going to volunteer despite the fact that I have no money. I decided to volunteer time to a pool I work at developing Safety procedures. I will volunteer time to the Red Cross teaching CPR and First Aid classes. I will be volunteering my time very soon with Big Brother/Big Sisters (as a Big Brother). And I have also decided to volunteer time working with Boy Scout groups in the area, doing work with First Aid and Aquatics. I have a job guarding at the college pool in the mornings and will teaching Lifeguard Training classes on Sundays...so I have some money income.

My plan is now to do something like what I heard alot about from those religious tv shows. People who gave and gave even though they did not have anything to give. They ended up getting in return and while my goal is not to end up getting because I gave a bunch, maybe everything will turn out OK.

If it doesn't work you'll know, because the Big Blog will go under and you will never hear from he again. Sorry reader. (that's not a typo)


Happy Hunting!

BMG Music Service
Mood:  down
Topic: Services
Ever used the BMG Music Service? Well, don't. If you buy CD's from the store (meaning you're not a digital music file type person) then you would get better prices from BMG than you would from a store (via the buy one get ten for free, + shipping and handling of course). Yet, you will never find the selection from BMG that you could even from a Target or Walmart. BMG just does not have the selection that anyone who listens to music would like.

So if you don't like to leave your house, but must have physical CD-ROM disks, then BMG has some good prices, but probably not what you're looking for.

However, if you love selection more than you care about physical vs digital then go with Napster or iTunes. You'll pay about the same if you don't go downloading entire CD's. With BMG I get my free CD for $2.99 actually (S&H). That is about 10 songs for three dollars vs 3 songs for 3 dollars with iTunes. But how many of those songs did you really want to have?

You must weigh the odds. If you own the CD and make a copy of it for personal backup use only, then you always have a backup of your files. If you delete an mp3, then it's gone forever, and iTunes does not give out replacements.

Lifeguard Trainer
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: I'm gonna be a Lifeguard Trainer
Topic: Normal
Well, just 2 more days to go and I will be a certified American Red Cross Lifeguard Instructor. I am so happy. Yet I am also a little concerned. I had to take the LGI class in another Red Cross Chapter because my chapter doesn't have anyone who can teach me so I can teach Lifeguarding. So, over there, they have rules set out and speak about certain rules and regulations as if they are obvious. Where I work, certain rules and regulations are not set up.

Like this thing called an Emergency Action Plan (EAP). Neither of the pools I work at had EAPs until last year, when I wrote one up for one of my pools. The equipment we have is horrible, the rules are not written down anywhere for reference, and no one knows what to do in the case of an emergency. Its horrible.

So now that I know more about safety and emergency preparedness, I feel an obligation to make sure that the pools I work at get their act together. If they refuse to get stuff working, I will have to quit. If I am working there and something happens, and we get sued, I could be sued because I knew about the problems but chose to work there even though the problems exist. But I don't want to quit.

So you see my dilemma.

And that is the problem of the day... for Big that is. See you all next time when we discuss more things that don't matter to you, but are my life.

Big, out.

Free Speech for you, Law Suit for me?
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: .......?
Topic: Poli-ticks
I want to know what the deal is with this world. Today specifically, I want to know why something can be considered free speech by one person, but against the law by another. Here's my example:

Scientists have created these things they call "theories." Now for those of you who don't know, a theory is a hypothetical situation that, after much research, has data to back up but not prove the theory most of the time. This means that theories are not fact. Any real scientist will not say a certain theory is 100% proven. Why? Because if it was 100% proven, it would be called fact, not theory. Certain theories you may have heard of: Theory of Evolution, Theory of Relativity, Quantum Physics is mostly theory also. None of these can be proven 100%. Many scientists, however, will say that these theories must be true because the data supporting the theory is overwhelming. This still does not make the theory true. These scientists push for these theories to be accepted by all text book publishers. They also wish for these theories to be accepted by the community as a whole, because to them, these theories are the truth. Many scientists are scientists because they need things to be explained. They need to have reasons why things work. Why else would they hypothesize and then try to prove their hypotheses. That's what scientists do; biologists, physicists, chemists, all study their respective science. In studying, they propose something should be happening a certain way and then try to prove it.

So if scientists are always trying to prove things one way or another with cold hard facts, then it only makes sense that they would be the lasts ones to be able to accept abstract ideas like much art, and especially religion, which people have a hard time proving through hard facts. Consider that many people follow the Bible, or the Koran, or the Jewish Bible the same way scientists follow natural law, physical laws, and all those other theories and science laws and rules. Religion states how the world was created, how we are expected to act, it gives us laws and rules to follow as well as much good advice to live by. As a matter of fact, if people followed the Bible and how God tells us we should live the world would be a much better place. Even if God really didn't exist (I don't mean it) if people followed the Bible and believed it was all true, the world would still be a better place. You can follow everything that Science says and you won't be able to live a great life. (science says one day we might get hit by an asteroid, and the universe is collapsing, and the sun will explode; man this is great...?) So where am I going with this?

Liberals, scientists, lawyers, and judges can all say that the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory are allowed to be taught in public schools and anything else which is not scientifically accepted is not allowed. Yet, when a Christian teacher tells his students that the Theory of Evolution is in fact just a theory, and there is other explanations for the creation of man, he can easily be sued for freedom of speech. Why? Because he imposed his ideals, opinions, and religion on children who are susceptible to influence and will believe what a teacher tells them? No! People sue teachers like him because they are trying to prove a point. If I did a speech in class on the Chinese, and in that speech went over their religion briefly and how they believe the world began, there may be a kid in my class who will think that it makes sense and want to learn more. Can I be sued for influencing that kid and pushing my ideals on him? No, because all I did was state facts: that fact being that this is what the Chinese believed back in the day. So how come I can't say "this is what I believe," without the threat of a law suit. Even if all I was doing was stating that is what I believe, with the expectation that others would say what they believe and we would have a nice discussion about the differences (not forcing religions on each other, and not getting offended by each other).

The answer is, because religion is not accepted as fact because it cannot be proven. People are afraid to believe in God because they have been let down by religion before, or are afraid to believe in something that cannot be proven by hard fact. Jesus dying for my sins is enough fact for me, but others have a harder time with it. But this still does not answer my question.

For me to say "I believe that God created the earth in 7 days," is my belief. For someone else to say " scientists have shown it's possible the earth was created by the rapid expansion of the universe over a billion years ago," is someone else's belief (whether they call it "belief" or not). From an English speech point of view, these two statements are nothing but statements, or opinions. Only if I say "God created the earth and if you don't believe that then you are going to Hell!" then I am imposing my religion on other a little. But then again, if a scientist was to say that anyone who believes the Biblical story of creation is ignorant, he can get away with that. Why is it scientists can say the religion is wrong, but Christians, Jews or people from other religions can't say that science is wrong?

I will probably never get my question answered. Mostly because people from both sides do not believe the other side nor do they agree on anything.

Even the new thing that has arisen from the religion-scientists, called Intelligent Design, is not popular with both crowds. (for those who don't know, Intelligent Design says that the laws of nature govern everything we see, but something was set in motion by a creator of some sort. Creator meaning God, aliens, or some other entity. It states that there are so many complex items in nature that could not of possibly happened on their own, that someone had to start it all.)

So my questions are out there, and everyone has their own answer, so I don't expect much. But I would like to be able to talk about what ever I want to talk about (that free speech thing) without the fear of being sued for imposing on others beliefs. After all, isn't freedom the whole point of the USA? If we can't be free, and the government is going to tell us we can only talk about religion in our homes and churches and can't talk to others about our religion unless they tell us we can, then what's the point of calling ourselves free?

6 in a row
Mood:  lucky
Now Playing: I just won 6 solitare games in a row!
Topic: Normal

Ok, this may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but then again, some of the things I write may not be a big deal to anyone else either. So who cares. I just won 6 solitare games in a row. This is neat to me, so just be happy for me (nod and say "that's nice").

I had begun my nightly game of solitare (played to strengthen my mind, not for lack of no life) and I first noticed that I had won the first deal that was presented to me. As I played along, I won the second game and was a little excited at the fact that I had won two games in a row. Shoving it off as mere luck, I played another game (I either play till I lose [which normally happens quickly] or I play until I've won a game or two). I also won that game, and spread the word around of my achievement. (Yes, I do realize you can see where this is going) I got something to drink and proceeded to see what would happen if I continued, cautioning myself to not get cocky. As I played this deal I realized soon that I would have four wins behind me. "see what happens when you don't get cocky and full of yourself, and actually still concentrate and play the game," I thought to myself. This proved useful as I played through the fifth game. I was going along as smoothly as any other deal I had played before when I got into a pickle. I did not have anywhere to move anything, except for the four discard piles, but moving up there what I had on the field would not prove useful. So I moved a couple cards from the discard piles, to the discard piles and then the key card revealed itself. The game, after that, was over quickly.
Number 5! I ran to tell my brother. He was unamused because I only draw one card from the deck at a time, instead of the usual three. Hey! If they didn't want people to be able to draw only one card, the program would not have that option. Oh, by the way, I was playing the solitare that comes with Windows. Proof that I did not cheat (unless you count the one card draw as cheating).
So I am now repeating to my self not to get cocky, and instead of relying on "bad luck, good luck," I started to remind myself of what I learned in Statistics class. The laws of chance and probability. If you flip a coin 100 times and it lands on heads 68% of the time, you do not have a 68% chance of getting heads on the 101st flip. There is only two options, and on a normal coin there are only two sides (the coin having a similar weight on both side of the coin). You will either get heads or tails on a single flip. That's only a 50% chance of getting heads. So the number of heads before the 101st flip does not help determine the chance of getting heads on the 101st flip. Likewise, the number of times I won Solitare before does not determine my chance of winning the next game I play. It is simply my stats of how many games I have won versus how many games I have lost, up to that point in time. Well, book smarts don't help at all, because I lost the seventh game.
And, oh ya, I won the Sixth, but lost the seventh. You gotta admit, that's pretty neat. I won six games in a row. Six. Well, I thought it was neat.
So basically, don't get cocky about things, and pay attention in school, because I must haved missed something in stats class. That only makes sense, since I was winning until I thought about statistics. So school is useful if you pay attention, and if you (ya, you sitting there stareing at the screen) don't pay attention in school, then maybe you should cause you wouldn't lose at solitare.

Big, out.

Pay-per-Browse Part 2
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Pay per web page you view?
Topic: Technology
....
Hole #4: Downloads and Streams
So you visit Disney's official "Chronicles of Narnia" web site. If you knew the URL to the site (vs. having to browse the Disney site) there's a penny. No big. Then you have to browse the Narnia site looking at everything that looks interesting. But wait... the site is done in Macromedia Flash! Will the penny-per-page idea work with Flash sites? Something will have to be programmed to know when I've gone to a new "page." Then I browse to the downloads section (assuming the previous works out, ther's a couple more pennies). How does this work? Do I pay a penny for the page that is loaded and save the picture like normal, or do I get charged for the picture as well? Will being charged for the page that opens (with the picture on it) cause every other person who has pictures (or even other files) to open a new page before linking you to the file you want to download? If you are charged an amout per file, then how do you price this? By file size? By file type? A combination of both? I'm sure a compromise can be reached for this problem, but when I browse the site further, I run into another dilema. Streaming audio and video. How do I pay for this, and doesn't it seem like a cheap move to make me pay to visit a site that contains video that they are going to charge me for? Again, how does streaming media get paid for? How Stuff Works has a simple solution: pay-per-view (they must really like "pay-per-" stuff). But even with a pay-per-view setup who do I pay? Do I pay MSN to view it's files, Disney to view it's files, Quicktime to view it's files, and so on? There has to be a company who will handle the pay-per-view setup, to keep prices similar and payment streamlined. I don't want to pay ten different companies, on top of the 20 different web sites I will pay each month. I visit the internet alot, but I don't want people to know that.

Hole #5: Who will govern penny-per-page?
Like I just said, I don't want to have to pay 30 different people for stuff, reguardless of how much cheaper it would be to get subscriptions to web sites now. [Which is a moo point, because right now I am not paying anything at all and even though it would only be a penny to view one page, that will add up over time and I always prefer free over not-free.] Oh ya, and what about that company called ISP...? To connect to the internet I need an ISP, an Internet Service Provider, which means coughing up $20 a month, plus, just to get me connected to the internet. Then, after I am connected, I have to pay for each page I view. Sounds almost like a scam.
One way to take care of this: (as How Stuff Works points out) give the ISP $10 more and they will keep a small fee and give the rest to the sites you visited, dividing the money based on the amount of times in percent that you visited a site in a months time. Ok... I pay ISP $20 dollars now, view pages for free VS. pay ISP $30 dollars, view pages for free. Still not good, the price went up.
But who will be in charge? Who will take care of dividing the money? Who will I pay, and will I pay different sites or companies for pages versus video streams? Who will govern pricing? Will I end up paying Disney, MSN, HowStuffWorks, Yahoo!, Ebay, and Amazon separately? How Stuff Works thinks they have the solution to the penny-per-view governing problem: let the top 1,000 web sites decide. More on that later...

Hole #6: What about yen-per-page?
As you may or may not know, the Chinese have a different money system than ours. So does England, Canada, Europe, Australia, Mexico, and so on. How much do they pay "per-page?" Do we assume the penny is the standard and all other countries must calculate their money to equal one cent? By the way, money flucuates enough in one country alone, but one day a page could cost you 1.25 yen-per-page and another day cost you 1.50 yen-per-page, that is if we assumed the American cent stayed constant. So how do we adjust for the difference in countries money systems?

Hole #7: Top 1,000 sites, eh?
Ok, so How Stuff Works says the top 1,000 sites should govern the penny-per-page system. I guess that's fair, but how do we determine the top 1,000 sites? Do we go strictly by numbers of visitors to the site? Just because you visit a site once, does not mean you liked it, or meant to visit. So then we should go by number of return visitors. But still we have a problem. The only people who know how many visitors a web site has is the person or company who owns the server, or possibly the ISP. Should we trust them to send in correct numbers? Or what if Amazon, Ebay, MSN, Google, etc. got together and voted out Lycos, saying it just wasn't popular enough of a site to be considered one of the top 1,000. Maybe they just don't like Lycos. So Lycos gathers it's own 1,000 best sites and they create their own version of penny-per-page.
What about international web sites? Not Google-like sites with a Spanish version also, but sites that exist in Japan, are very popular in Japan, and are only useful to Japanese, but rake in mucho grande visitors and qualifies as a top 1,000 site. [By the way, who is deciding who is a top 1,000 site again?] Do you think American buisnesses want Japanese, or German, or Italian, or even British people deciding what it will cots Americans to view their web sites? Do you think the British want Americans deciding to use the American cent as the norm while thier pence flucuates according to the cent?
Yet, the biggest problem with this is the "1,000" sites. You realize that it says one thousand, right? That's one hundred (100) sites from America, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, Spain, Mexico, China, and Great Britain. And the theory is that they can all get along and decide on a system of payment to use for viewing of the internet. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hole #8: The Napster Generation
I'm sure you've heard of Napster, but do you remeber the original Napster? Napster (named after the college kid who created it) was a revolutionary piece of software that allowed people to do something new to the music world: get songs for free. This was an awsome idea, but it is also theft (by American Copy Right laws). Napster lost the battles but won the war by coming out with a Record Company freindly pay-per-song version of the Napster program. However, many people were getting sued by the RIAA for having 1000's of MP3 files on their computer which they were sharing on, or had downloaded from peer-to-peer networks through programs such as iMesh, Livewire, and the ever famous KaZaA.
Through these legal battles 2 good lessons were learned: (1) the world of digital media is changing the way people get music, movies, and tv shows, and (2) if it's free, people will take it. For example, there was a girl who mentioned to MSNBC that more than half the songs she had downloaded she did not even like. She simply downloaded them because they were there. If she had to pay for them, she would not have them. And this brings up an important point. For every iTunes, there is a KaZaA; for every OS you must buy, there is a Linux that is free; for every web site that starts charging users to visit, there will be one that gives information away like it's the end of the world. They may be small in numbers, but they will be there. They will be a collective that will call themselves the Free Information Web Ring, and they will not stoop to the level of the big companies that back the sites which contain the same information but charge you for it. How long will they survive: always. There is always somebody going against the grain and they are the ones we remember; the rest just looks like smooth wood.

Hole #9: Publicity, Marketing, Profits, oh my!
Let's go back to the subtly mentioned Quicktime. If you go to the Quicktime web site, you can view many movie trailers. So with the new penny-per-page system in place you will pay to see a preview of a movie Disney paid Quicktime to place on their site, so you can decide whether or not you want to see the movie. I smell another scam... I might as well just watch the commercials on TV and wait for the preview to come on. This way, if I choose not to see it I have wasted no money in my decision. But seriously, why would someone go to a web site which promotes movies or events: Publicity/marketing sites. If I really want to know what the movie is about, I could walk to the Library and read the newsaper review for free. If I am going to pay to view a web site, it must have something I cannot get that easily from any other source. Example: I cannot go to the Library and lookup the 10 most realted sites to "kite-boarding." That is something best left to Google. However, if I really want the movie times, I can look up the theater in the phone book and call the theater on my cell phone which gets free weekend calling; versus paying to look it up on the internet. I can also get the weather, news, and sports from TV, information better than that of the internet from the Library, and event times by looking up numbers in the phone book and calling the restaurant or establishment. I don't want to pay to get things I can get for free, including previews which I can already watch for on TV (even though I may pay for cable or the dish).

Little Holes
The fact that I pay for internet access right now encourages me to use the internet as much as I can. But if I was paying for internet access and on top of that had to pay for each page I viewed, I would be more careful about the number of pages I viewed. I would also choose my results from Google, or MSN more wisely than before, knowing that a link may look good but then take me on a web page viewing spree, robbing me of my pennies.

Another thing is the way pay-per-view works on cable. You may say I pay for cable and then if I watch a pay per view channel, I will pay per movie I view. Similar to the penny-per-page idea. But again, if I can find the information for free somewhere else (borrow the movie from a freind vs. paying per view) then I will go with that.

What will happen to ads? Will they dissappear, or still be used to supply free information to people who are a little slow to jump on the bandwagon? You can bet your backside that if I have to pay to view a web page I don't want to see even a small ad. That would be the only good part about the penny-per-page system; no more ads, no more pop-ups, because the money being collected should be enough to pay for the site.

Conclusion
My English teacher always said not to state that this is my conclusion with a title such as "Conclusion" but I wanted to make sure you know I'm done. - Penny-per-view: good idea or bad idea, or bad idea with good intentions. How Stuff Works points out one semi-moo point that is almost worth mentioning. If we pay a penny per page we view (it's only a penny people), coupled with the number of hits Google gets in a month, that means that Google would profit near $1 million dollars a day or $350 million dollars a year. So if web sites are going to be making from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per day, then I better see something that makes it worth my penny, or you can bet I'll be the first one joining the Free Information Web Ring.


Some items are linked to as a courtesy. Others I actually like; such as How Stuff Works.

Pay-per-Browse Part 1
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Pay per web page you view?
Topic: Technology
Sorry about this one. It's so long I had split it up into Parts.


Before you read this you should head on over to HowStuffWorks.com and read their article on How Penny-per-page Might Work. When you're done reading that all the way through, come on back so I can rip the thing to shreds.

Done? Or did you just skip it? Well, in case you didn't feel like reading the article (or got lost while reading the article) here's the low down: Someone thinks that either (a) paying a penny for each page visited, or (b) paying a fee to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) which will then be passed onto the web sites, is a good idea. Obviously, I do not think it is a good idea. Here are the holes I have spotted.

Hole #1: The Internet was born Free
The Internet, or World Wide Web (WWW), was started by a group of Universities who wanted an easy, quick way to send data back and forth. This was a simple network of mainframes, linked together to form an information database that anyone connected to it could access. The Universities were able to pay for equipment because of grants and private funds, and they did not pay an ISP (mostly because they were the internet at this time). Through message boards and early developement in data and file transfer/sharing, the WWW soon grew outside the Universities. The internet like we know it today has actually been around for most of the life of the internet. The only thing that has changed significantly is file size, picture quality, streaming and other protocols and file transfer methods (ie. Peer-to-Peer). Some websites do charge fees for their content, however, this content normally costs that much (in print form, or CD or DVD form...). But for Google to charge you to search for a keyword that may or may not give you the results you were looking for sounds a little odd. Does Google have to provide this service for free? No, but it has from the beginning, like all other sites, and to start charging now to access content that was previously free seems like a cheap shot at the users to rake in more profits.

Hole #2: What about the Users?
If Time Magazine wants to charge me to view content I would normally have to buy the Magazine to view, then I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is the people who have given us information for free from the beginning. Keeping in mind that no one must provide free content for me to view, what about such websites as Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with millions (if not more) of articles. More over, I can go into it and edit anything I want, or even add or request an entry if I cannot find a certain item or topic. Since I can go into Wikipedia and edit stories/articles then I would be considered one of the many publishers or editors of that site. Do I get a little cha-ching to pay for my time?
What about people who use free hosting sites such as Tripod? Will they be allowed to keep publishings free websites, and if so, will they ever get a penny-per-page revenue from visitors of their site, or will Tripod snatch it up? What about AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, etc.? Will you have to pay to put your profile out on the internet, and if so, will you get money for every person who visits your profile, or will MSN snatch that up from you (like Microsoft needs more money)?

Hole #3: Content Chopping
The Article from How Stuff Works is 8 to 9 pages long (depending on whether or not you look at the links, too). Considering I take the short route and go to the sites home page first, then search for "penny-per-page," then click on the link to the article and read it all the way through, including the links page, I have just paid How Stuff Works 11 cents to read one article. You might say this is no big deal. What if every web site does this, though? For this article it may be good to chop it up into smaller sections (although we don't have to pay a penny to see each section right now), but what would happen if all web sites came up with clever tricks to force you to visit multiple pages just to see or read what you were looking for? What if newspaper or magazine sites chopped articles into sections creating multiple pages for articles that would otherwise be fitted onto one page? What if sites created pages that were a bit harder to navigate to exactly where you wanted to go, adding multiple links you have to click to get to the content you want? This content chopping would rob the users of money they would normally not have spent, having been forced to view multiple pages. Despite what How Stuff Works might say, there is no one to stop companies from doing this sort of stuff, and who wants to visit each web site to make sure they are playing by the guidelines? Further more, there are greedy little men in dark conference rooms trying to devise plans for robbing you of your money that even I cannot think of right now.

Update
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: Just to let you know...
Topic: Normal
Just to let you know, most of the things I write here are really what I think. Likewise, some things I write here may not make any sense at all. The ones that sound kinda funny are most likely the ones that I do not mean, for real.

So this is suppose to be an update, ok, here's and update in my life, which you really don't care about, I know. But that's too bad.

So my brother broke up with his girlfriend. She kissed another guy or something... So anyway, he says he does not want to get back togerther with her. However, they still see each other more than I see my own feet (no I'm not fat, I just don't look at my feet all that often). So what's up with that? They are broken up, but they still hang out and call each other like they did when they were going out. Needless to say, I am confused; not to mention bored, but that's another story for another time.

So there's my complaint for the day. See ya next time. Well actually I won't see you, but you know what I mean.

P.S. - thanks to those who read my blog.

Attention Idiots
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Poli-ticks
Ok, people, listen up! No one has the right to tell you what to do. Yes you must follow whatever laws there are out there, but laws are man made and are therefore flawed. Further more, under the United States Government the courts and the judges have no right to decide laws. They have no right to create laws and they have no right to say a law means something else besides that what people have always thought it meant.

Parents have sole responsibility for their children. The courts, the schools, the government in general have no right to tell you that you DON'T need to worry about your kids and that the government will take care of educating them, especially in the areas of sexual education.

By the way, being gay is wrong!

Parents are the only ones that get to decide what is best or worst for their children! THE ONLY ONES!!!!! Do what the police say, follow laws and rules, "give to Caesar what is Caesar's" but DON'T EVER LET ANYONE FROM THE GOVERNMENT TELL YOU WHAT TO DO!!!!

There is only one finite set of laws. ONE! They are called the ten commandments. These are the only laws that anyone should always follow and not question. There is only one book that people should follow always and diligently. That book is the Bible. Follow it, read it, study it, live by it and you will be happy. Put your trust into Jesus Christ. Now and always.

Do not let people tell you what to do. Ever, unless they are your father or mother, or unless you are in fact not following the law. Remember, God told us to follow the laws here on Earth and whatever law we uphold on Earth, God will uphold in Heaven... but that does not mean that all laws should just be followed blindly.

Parents are in charge of their children, not the government. If the government has a problem with this, then they have been perverted by the hand of the devil.

Planned parenthood is a bunch of lunatics!!! They are teaching kindergartens to have sexual intercourse with each other and play and experiment. They have freakin' handbooks and pamphlets that tell 12 year old children that they should have sex, regular, oral, anal, with each other, even same sex intercourse. THEY ARE TELLING CHILDREN TO HAVE GAY SEX!!!!!

Wake up people, the world is falling apart, and you are doing nothing! The devil is taking over, and you are letting him. Tell the freakin' politicians that you mean business! DON'T let them tell you what you should tell your children! DON'T let them pervert and cloud your childrens mind with sin and smut. Take a stand before it's too late.

True Talent or Stupid Kid
Mood:  irritated
Topic: People
Ok, there is something that bothers me about teachers. Basically, they do not look for students who show original talent. Instead they look for students who can mimic or "appreciate" what scholars call "true art." Example: The following poem I wrote in the 6th grade.

Ode to this Poem
Write a poem
about what
so many things
to write about
I don't know where to start

So many Places
So many subjects
Should i make it rhyme
or not
frustrated I am
to much to think about
that's it! I quit! I'm done!

Ok, granted It's not something you hear from Shakespeare, but come on. Look at the poem. Read the poem. Try to use your brain and figure out how the words are suppose to flow. I agree the arrangement lacks, and it does kinda throw you off a little (even considering that I know how to recite the poem and it still catches me). But what does that say about the poem? There is more than one way to recite it, and there fore different people could get a different experience from reading it.

Let's forget the arrangement for a second and focus on the wording, the poem itself. It may not be classic poetry, and it certainly is no Poe, but look at what it does have.. for a 6th grader. First of all, the title. "Ode to this Poem." How ingenious for a kid to decide to write a poem about the poem he is writing, or trying to write. Then the poem is about what to write the poem about, not just about the poem. Then there's the line "frustrated I am." Everybody has seen Star Wars, and every body knows that Yoda liked to talk in reverse. My class knew I was the biggest Star Wars fan ever and none of them caught this... Plus this was another smart move by me to fill a line I had no other filling for. Most of this poem, like a lot of my poems I had to write for that stupid teacher, used this broken form, in which I created phrases or said things in an odd way. Considering I did this a lot, wouldn't that be my style, just like every other poet has their own style? Not to mention the multitude of other poets that said things in odd ways... and no one is their poetry.

Anywho, I'm not tryin to toot my own horn, but I think it's a little unfair that the better grades went to the kids (remember: 6th graders) who basically mimicked what they saw in the text books, as where I, who got a rather lame grade, made my poem totally from scratch and actually came upon this unique idea (Ode to this Poem...idea) after thinking about a great many other things that I could write about. My writing process led me to write this poem, about me deciding what to write this poem on. That's creativity.

Well, you can all think what you want, and I don't think this poem is worth a penny, however if you would like to buy it, I'm selling it for $4000.

Leave comments if you can.... please...

Big the Tiger, over and out.