Lots…. I’ll post eventually… when I’m not gone 23.5 hours a day… 
Mood: TIRED!
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::sigh:: In a world filled with busy people… I fit right in…. unfortunately… Ya know, I’ve heard it said that we are never busy… that we are just choosing to prioritize wrong… we spend too much time on recreation vs. work…. …. …. to those people I say, “SHUT UP! YOU’RE JUST TOO NOT IMPORTANT TO BE AS BUSY AS US!” …. ….
Seriously, I wish I had a break from all this school / RA crap… oh wait…. I DO! In a week and 2 days…. it’s ending… for 3 months…. OOOOoooooo baby….. come to papa…. sweet precious break…..
In other news, yesterday…. er… today….. …. before midnight…. …. uhh…. basically 5/1/03 was the official 8 month mark of Sarah and I dating…. man… it’s so crazy-go-nuts to think that I’ve known her for almost a year and three months… it seems like SO much longer in some respects, then SO much less in others… Like… I am so close to her and we share so much… that it seems it’s been forever… yet, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long and it’s exciting to know we have our whole lives (hopefully) together ahead of us…. fun stuff.
K, well I must get to sleep…. I have MUCHO-TO-DO…. O…. tomorrow… and stuff… I want a new cell phone…. mine is old…. and …. big…. and I’m pretty sure it’s gay…. seriously… it prefers the company of other phones…. to be P.C….. ok…. now I’m talking about the sexual orientation of my cell phone…. time to sleep….
Mood: “Where’s OJ? Where’s OJ?” 
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Wow…. I just realized something… In 12 days…. I’ve had 500 hits…. …. HOLY CRAP! Xanga is growing… like a…. big…. plant… that can eat people… or…. a big…. mass of red gelatinous goo that rolls around and absorbs things…. until it can’t be stopped…. …. this …. massive…. BLOB! …. …… ……
Did you know that ever 26 seconds a woman gives birth somewhere in the world?
She must be found… and stopped…..
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Ahhh…. lets discuss freedom…. freedom, success, and opportunity. First the freedom part…
Today I realized that I don’t have classes on Wednesdays anymore… why? Because I worked my butt off and got my grade high enough that I can skip all further classes, the last homework, the final exam, and the last quiz in my Astronomy class… and still get an A…. not too shabby…. THAT… is freedom.
Success comes in the form of knowing that my photography final portfolio that I turned in on Tuesday (the very same photos you critiqed for me earlier) went over well with my prof. In fact, he told me three times before I left class that I did a good job… nice work… etc… He rarely says that stuff…. I felt all special… but mostly happy to know that my grade should be pretty good! AND I got back my last assignment from him today and I got a 29/30 on it… tied for the highest score of the semester… He never gives 30/30’s…. we were discussing this and he said it’s cuz then “that means you couldn’t possibly improve…. and there’s always room for improvement….” ….. so…. BASICALLY…. that means we’re all docked 8 or 9 points per semester (depending on the number of assignments)…. pretty ghetto…. BUT, what can ya do?
So finally opportunity… I’ve been looking for this stupid stylus thing for my palm pilot case for over two months… they apparently are out of stock at Palm and thus NO ONE has them online… See, I have to have this exact one cuz it fits in my hard case thing… and it actually seals the case shut…. without it dust and dirt just floods the case… and the whole protective element of the case is zilched. SO, on a whim I checked Ebay the other day and FINALLY found a 2-pack of these buggers… The ONLY 2-pack in existance on the net…. I must’ve searched thirty freakin sites and store search engine sites to no avail… and then BOOM… one day this guy Brian in Florida says, “Heh… I don’t need these… I’m gonna sell them…” So I bid. I bid like a bad bad donkey, okay? And on the final day… this little annoying pipsqueak guy keeps outbidding me by fifty cents…. so I waited… and then… OPPORTUNITY! With 90 seconds left in the 7 day auction, I out-bid him and watched the clock tick to zero…. So now I’m FINALLY getting that stinkin case fixed…. 
AND, I got my desk cleaned for the first time in about 2 months… and my LAST FINAL PROJECT is underway…. I’m workin on it…. I have 9 days…. On Friday I expect a phone call from a random number and to hear some chick say, “7 days…..” Then the following Friday some chick’s gonna crawl outta my TV and kill me if it’s not done…. so…. I spose I should finish…. …. …. cuz…. I like …. to live… and all…. ::looks around nervously::
I …. uhh…. gotta go….. I think I just….. …. wet myself….
Mood: ::makes fart noise with hands on face::
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Hey thanks for all the feedback on the pictures… if you haven’t told me an opinion yet, get it in by Tuesday at 5pm… I’ve got to turn these in at 6pm… I cleaned up a couple more of these and tried to print them today… only to find that my 2 week old ink cartridge is out of yellow ink…. …. suck. So I drove back to Wal-Mart… said, “Hi, I got this two weeks ago… I don’t have the original packaging OR the receipt…. It doesn’t print yellow….” See, but what ya gotta understand about Wal-Mart is that they are the friggin greatest store in the world… They once promoted a lady for taking back an item with no receipt that SHE KNEW they didn’t even sell…. cuz she just wanted to please the customer… Where most companies would fire her, she got promoted…. nice work Wal-Mart… Customer = numero uno. In the end, they replaced it and I got my photos printed… to the chegrin of my computer! HA! I WIN! YOU CAN BLOW UP AND DIE, RUN OUT OF INK ALL YOU WANT… I’ll still conquer you… ::Gives computer dirty look::
So Saturday night, despite the issues of my computer exploding and my room smelling like a burnt graham cracker covered in melted wires and charred dust… …. I couldn’t sleep for the life of me…. I went to bed at 12:00am knowing that I had to get up at 7:50am… I fell asleep around 12:30am… woke up at 1:30am… fell back asleep at 1:45am and woke again at 3:00am…. layed there for an hour and a half… about 4:30 turned on TV, got some water… waited… tried sleeping at 5…. but some drunken idiots across the street decided that 5am was a good time to shoot off bottle rockets… ….. called the police on them at 5:20…. They continued till 5:30…. (I’m guessing the police drove by about then…) Then they started again at 6…. stopped at 6:15…. I fell asleep at 6:30 and woke up at 7:50… Total sleep = 3 hours 35 min. I was SO out of it Sunday…. I totally felt drunk…. Granted I’ve never been drunk to compare it to… but I’m sure it was close to that… … … I went to sleep THAT night at 11pm and skipped my first class monday (an 8:30-11:30) and woke up at 10:00…. ahhh… 11 hours of sleep…. soooooo precious…..
It felt good to be back to normal functioning capacity! Saturday night I got to play air hockey on the new table that I proposed and had the building purchase… To date I’ve played 8 games and I average 10.25 goals per game… I’m 9-1…. That loss sucked…. it was tied 8-8 and Travis scored on me with 10 seconds left! Grrr…. OK, off to bed I go…. I’ve got a long day of drinking and beating the crap outta the goat tomorrow… …. I mean… …. … class… and work…. and class…. tomorrow…
Mood: NORMAL! (although the goat comment may make you think twice about that…)
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I’M BACK! Not that anyone really knew I was gone… But on Saturday night my computer exploded…. litterally…. A capacitor in the power supply blew up and left me without a computer for about 16 hous… Yes… only 16 hours, cuz me being the nerd that I am, I needed this puppy up and running ASAP. I have finals projects due today and tomorrow that are only on here! Luckily it was only a 10v capacitor that blew and not one of the 200v ones so I only had to replace the power supply and it didn’t take anything else with it via a power surge or anything, AND I’m thankful that it didn’t catch my room on fire since it was against my bed and I wasn’t home… and the inside DID burn pretty nice… my room REAKED! But, I have a friend named Evan who owns a computer store back home. I graduated with him from High School and now he employs practically ever compter nerd I know… ANYWAY, he hooked me up with a supply at his cost. Good friend to have, ya know? OK…. I think I can make this work now…. Here’s the deal…. These pics are my final project for my photography 382 class… I have to clean up some dirt marks yet, but this is the good majority of it… I am only turning in 8-10 of these, so give me some feedback… which ones DON’T fit… tell me why you don’t like them or what makes them not work… word? word.
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Ya got that? Which ones do you like, dislike, love, hate, want to lick madly? I am pretty sure I’m not including #9 since the focus on it sucks… The flower is out, which is fine, but the pollen didn’t focus well either…. bah. Let me know and wish me luck!
Mood: AWAKE after 11 hours of sleep following a sleepless night!
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Hey… If you’re Numero 3,000 let me know… I’ll …. uhhh… do something…. for you…. ….. ?
-Brent “I smoked peyote for 6 days straight” Pirolli
Ya know… I was GONNA upload some pics I took for my final project in photography…. but Xanga is busy NOT WORKING…. grrr….
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OK…. so I thought that the freaky dream I had was the end of it… nope…. I had another even FREAKIER dream this morning… Luke told me that it takes like 3 hours for your body to get to the stage where it can sleep and dream detailed dreams… Well… This was during a 2 hour nap…. so figure THAT one out… and while you’re doing that, hold on to your butts, cuz this one is flat out psycho nightmare:
I awake in my room from this noise during the night… (not really, I was dreaming that I awoke.) I knew what the noise was… I was scared to death of it…. See… I was in a haunted room… This “noise” was actually the spirit of a little girl who died years ago…. Her name was Anna (Not related to Anna for the record). This “noise” was a crash followed by a really cold wind… So all of a sudden I’m paralyzed with fear. Then the room is different… I’m standing now in what appears to be a cell block…. yet… the room is a cube with deep red walls and a bare concrete floor… One wall is missing and all I can see is a black open space… too dark to see details out there. I’m hearing some distant chanting…. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but it sounds evil and it’s coming from that dark direction…. I’m scared that I’ll get caught…. ….. caught with what??? I don’t know… I feel like I own something that if “they” see, I’ll be in trouble… So I grab this keyboard which is the only object in the room, and I start to highlight the floor by holding down shift and hitting the page-down key…. Words appear on the floor as if it is a monitor…. THIS is what I was hiding… isn’t it? What does it say? I can’t make it out… (Dreaming is a function of the right brain while the left brain is responsible for numbers and letters…. so logically I can’t read this…) I can’t read it, but I think it says something along the lines of, “They’re coming… beware… You know what you’ve done and they’re going to kill you for it…” Really freaky stuff like that… Right when I read it, I delete it instantly and the chanting gets louder….
I awake in my bed again…. my normal bedroom… not the cell-like cube… A car outside my window closes their door and the loud noise wakes me up. I climb out of bed and look out the window (which now I’m not only on the first floor, but the ground is level with the window sill.) The car was a pastel green beater car…. It sped off with 4 guys in it… I recognized one of them as a guy on my floor that doesn’t like me too well (I busted him for alcohol possession one time). Now my bed had moved… it was in front of my window and lofted so it blocked the top half of my view… They left stuff outside my window. Fireworks…. lots of them…. and an M-80 was right next to the glass and lit…. only the fuse wasn’t burning like a regular fuse, rather it was a fire like a candle wick…. I remember thinking, “Oh crap… that’s gonna explode, break my window, and set off the fire alarm!” But in no hurry at all, I put on my coat and walked into the hall… I thought, “I should get my pillow and put it on the window to soften the glass explosion, but before I could act the fire alarm started going off and I knew that it had to have exploded… I never heard it… I peeked back into my room and saw glass EVERYWHERE… but then remembered that I wasn’t wearing shoes. I had to tip-toe across broken glass to get them. I then grabbed my cell phone and called 911. I asked if this was the campus 911 line or the city 911 line… it was the campus line so I told them that Offenhauer was on fire… (Yet… it wasn’t…)
Now I am standing in the middle of the lobby… only …. this isn’t our lobby…. It was in my dream though! The fire alarm is still going off and I’m trying to get people to leave the building. I’m watching them all evacuate. The walls are blue and the floor is white… I have two stairways on the sides of me… one on the left and one on the right… they both go down, turn, and meet in the middle of the room… to make one big stairway… On the level that I’m on, I see five black guys come out and start laughing and talking…. I’m like… “Can’t you see there is a fire alarm going off?” They said, “Yeah….” I’m like… “THEN LEAVE! GET OUT!” Finally I push them towards the stairs and they leave… I see some other friends leaving on the stairway… they’re on the middle part where the two stair cases combine…. Matt, Emily, and Megan… They wave and laugh at me for having to stay… then my sister Sarah is standing behind me. She has three friends with her… they’re all laughing and talking… The fire alarm had stopped going off, but the people were still supposed to be evacuating… I asked her why she was still there and she said, “Cuz, we’re talking!” Then she introduced me to her friends… The one (I can’t remember her name now) held out her hand to shake mine, and it was all crippled…. the four fingers were curled under and looked seared together like in a horrible fire…. I told them they had to leave the building because there was a fire alarm and my sister kept telling me they didn’t have to…. The police were there now and I told Sarah that if she DIDN’T leave that I’d have the police arrest her… (heh heh heh…) She left.
I awake again in my bed… in its normal place. I’m on the 5th floor again. I think to myself that it must be about 11:30am. I went to sleep at 10:30am and I woke up randomly… But it was dark out! I checked my clock… I was right about the time, only… it was dark out! The sun was gone! I felt scared again. I was being watched. I climb down from my bed and looked into the hallway… all the lights are off and it is pitch black… (In reality those lights NEVER shut off.) I’m too scared to open the door so I try to turn on my lights… dead. Is the electricity out? The only light in my room is coming from my cell-phone’s blinking power light. I check my computer and it’s on… we have electricity… but… the screen…. the desktop is blank with one icon on the lower left side…. It says “My computer” but the last word is smeared up and to the right like ink that had been smudged…. I climbed back in bed and covered up… something was coming…. Then it hit me. It wasn’t something… it was someone… Anna. The evil spirit took me and I started foaming at the mouth… I clinched my fists on the bed and struggled to keep my focus on what was happening. I could taste bile and stomach acid and I had to fight….. I had to resist it… I started talking uncontrollably in some strange language… Then I forced myself to yell out, “JESUS CHRIST PROTECT ME!” It stopped. The lights came on. I was standing in my room…. No fear. I had a full length mirror on a dresser on one side of my room…. I was looking into it and saw a picture behind me on a wardrobe. It was a painted portrait of Anna as a child…. She didn’t look that strange… I turned around to face it directly instead of its reflection and I remember it startled me… I don’t know why… but it did…. Then, I told her that I forgave her…. that I wasn’t mad at her… that I understood her situation (whatever THAT was)…. I felt the question of “why?” I said, “God forgave me…. He loves you…. He asks me to do the same.” The room was crowded with furniture like I was moving… I walked to the door to leave and when I opened it…
I saw a hallway ver different than what I’m used to. This looked like a movie set. Construction zone even… boards and random hardware setting around… I start walking down the hall and realize it is being set up for a haunted house! Then, I see my mom. Yes… my mom. She’s working on a drill press….. HAHAHA… anyway. She’s rigging up a drill press to look like it is drilling a guys teeth mercilessly when in reality you just put your fingernail on it and it sparks…. She flips it over and shows me how it works… She says, “It’s not like it’s jaw locking or anything, you can still talk while you’re on it.” Then I started telling her about the Anna haunting… She is listening, but keeps working on other stuff… she’s stuffing these hallogen floor lamps into bases of foam rubber…. …. why? I have no freakin clue… but I keep telling her about the incident… then she just says, “Ok.”
Now I’m in my car driving. I’m trying to find Sarah (my girlfriend, not sister) desperately to tell her all of what happened. I get on the expressway and am going like 65mph… I make a phone call on my cell to her cell and her dad answers it…. That means she left her cell at home…. 3 hours away… crap! The only funny thing is… her dad won’t talk… he just answers and says, “Hello?” and I say “Hi… this is Brent….” I hear clicking like the phone is set down…. and keeps being moved… “Hello?” I ask…. more static and clicking…. I hang up and realize… I’m on the wrong highway! This will take me to Detroit not Bowling Green! I see a sign ahead, “Speed Limit 32mph.” 32? Yeah… odd number eh? ANYway, there were some steep curves in the expressway and the speed limit was 32mph. I remember there being some glass building on the outside of the curve…
THEN, I wake up for real. It’s over. Now was that crazy or what? What’s fun about that dream, besides the scare-my-outta-my-wits parts of it, is that I can specifically point out events and stuff that were pooled together by my freaky butt brain to make it… yeah… I rarely dream, but when I do…. I’m messed up! ::sigh:: oh well…. hopefully I’ll get a PEACEFUL night’s rest tonight…. no more waking up creeped out stuff…. Or dreaming to wake up… again and again….
On a total side note: CedarCreek has a new web page… it’s being refresed on all the routers this week and should be up for everyone by the end of the week… It’s a lot more functional… more events listed, more content… etc. BEST OF ALL, I don’t have to update it all the time now! It’s sustained by other people!!! ok… I gotta go do productive stuff now…. It’s date night tonight with Sarah and I have laundry to do, homework to finish, and slides to make….
Mood: Creeped out from rememberring all that psychotic stuff
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OK…. check this out… this is a picture from my Astronomy book that I thought I’d share…. don’t freak… I’ll explain…
If you look at the lower left corner, you’ll see the big dipper… now that little pink box in there is the same size as if you were standing outside and had a grain of sand in your hand… hold that grain of sand at arms length and look at it… that size is the size of that pink box. Now that box was magnified to be the second picture…. and that little pink box in it was magnified to be the third large picture…. This image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope with a shutter speed of 10 days…. yes…. 10 days…. for those of you who know photo stuff…. yeah… that’s crazy. ANYwho…. the point is this… EVERY SINGLE DOT OF LIGHT you see in that large image…. is a galaxy… NOT A STAR…. NOT A SOLAR SYSTEM…. a GALAXY! To put that in perspective, realize that our Milky Way galaxy is composed of hundreds of millions of stars and spans well over 100,000 light years wide by 1,000 light years thick. Which is like one dot on that photo. Each one of those stars in that dot has planets and moons…. NOW… this shot has hundreds of galaxies…. ok… all in ONE GRAIN OF SAND! So based on calculations… how many galaxies are in the known universe? ANSWER: Over 80 Billion.
80 Billion galaxies… each with hundreds of millions…. even billions… of stars…. each star with planets and moons…. we are one planet rotating around one star…. of 80,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars… So is there life on some other planet???? Man… it’s hard to imagine the answer is “No…” But on the other hand… God created all that to show us His power… His glory…. Is it only our gift? Makes ya think, eh?
Mood: In awe…
Music: StrongBad – Everybody To The Limit
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Warning: Uncomfortable post ahead… proceed with caution.
So I went to this speaker dude on campus as part of a requirement for my job…. (being a RA)…. This guy was from Boston University and he is a doctor who studies rapists…. He presented a discussion based presentation entitled, “The Undetected Rapist” where he showed his research from the past decade, took questions, and really challenged our stereotypical views of a “rapist.”
I guess the majority of us… if asked to imagine a rapist… would picture a guy in a black ski mask with a gun or a knife…. attacking lonely jogging women in parks or in parking garages…. Equally pictured would be a guy who got drunk one night and had little control over his actions…. it was a one-time thing and wouldn’t happen again….
Both of these are possible… but only responsible for 1% of all rapes in the U.S.
The overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by men who have a severe mental deficiency…. they lack empathy. They don’t consider themselves rapists either… they aren’t wearing ski masks after all… Seriously… it’s a creepy thought when you look at the statistics… but out of 1,800 men surveyed, (never using the term “rape,” but instead saying, “have you ever physically forced a person to have sex with you against their will?”) 77 said yes…. one time… and 46 of those are serial rapists… it is a game… Those 31 who AREN’T serial offenders can claim the “I was drunk” excuse all they want… but regardless, they lacked empathy… (I’ll explain later.) The 77 are also admittedly linked to other incidents of violence or abuse (intentionally hitting spouses, burning or scalding children, sexually molesting children… etc.) … but check out how it breaks down…. Of the 31 one-time offenders, each is responsible for harming 1.5 other people in some way…. of the 46 serial offenders…. 14 people each.
We saw a video taped interview with a college guy in a frat at Duke University…. the frat would regularly hold weekly parties where they’d “scout” the freshmen women for “targets” to “claim.” Then they’d invite them to the party… and as soon as the girl would arrive, the guy would be all over her bringing her drinks like crazy… They always had a special “sweet punch” that was spiked with more alcohol than you can imagine…. when the girl was getting “trashed” enough, they’d make a move and lean in on her… put an arm around her… kiss her… and ask if she wanted to go upstairs to “his room” to get away from the crowd (which wasn’t really his room… but a room assigned to each guy prior to the party for this purpose). Then he’d start to undress her… if she resisted, he’d pin her arms above her head with one hand… undress her… and put his other arm across her throat…. HERE is where we lack empathy. The interviewee didn’t SAY throat… he said “Chest” but motioned and SHOWED us clearly…. throat. Then he said that she was “saying stuff about not wanting to do this so soon… but whatever…. I was angry at her for playing along and then wanting to quit then…”
Now imagine you are seeing this happen…. this girl is being pinned by the neck…. terrified…. when do the tears start to fall? When does the fear in her face and words… the frozen demeaner for fear of having her throat crushed… when does all that hit you? The moment you see it…. When does it hit the man raping her? Never. He said he’d put his clothes back on and go join the party… when asked what happened to the girl… he just laughed and said…. “She left I guess….” He never sees her as a human being… but as an object…. let’s talk objecification….
ALL GUYS, can objectify women…. “Get me a piece of THAT!” “OUCH…. Look at THAT!” “Where you goin, sweet THING?” We can look at any female (don’t deny it guys, and don’t be too shocked girls…) and see her as something to be conquered…. not someone with a father…. a mother…. a life…. feelings… dreams.. goals… But the thing that seperates normal guys from rapists… is that in the moment most guys would find themselves forcing themselves on a girl… and see that terror in her eyes…. he’d be SMACKED so hard with thoughts of “WHAT AM I DOING????” When she screams in pain and terror he’d think, “OH MY GOD… ARE YOU OK?” But not rapists…. they have no empathy. It never connects….
The fact is, most rapists are NOT sex-starved individuals… they statistically have MORE consentual sex than others…. And it’s not a need to dominate women that drives them, rather a need to control the situation… if she WILLINGLY would have sex with him, then he’s fine with that… but the moment she is against what HIS plan is…. he gets angry…. and rapes her. Then in the aftermath, he isn’t remorseful, sorry, or even convicted of being in the “wrong.” Instead, he is angry that she “made him do it!”
Man…. no remorse… no empathy…. just anger… that is messed up.
I dont’ know why I felt led to post this all…. maybe just to share what I learned…. maybe as a warning to all college girls…. maybe cuz I’m disgusted by such behaviors…. but mostly maybe cuz I started thinking about how valuable Empathy is! We look at our world with so many problems…. so many issues… and Christ never intended for Christians to act the way most of us do…. The Christian faith has over 33,000 denominations worldwide… every one of them the result of a split. How is that answering God’s call for us to be united? Almost all of them were born out of anger and hostility and withdrawal between people who claimed to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. This is the SAME Jesus who prayed to his Father that all his followers might “be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me.” How would having extreme empathy and anger control have changed all of that? How would the church look today if we as Christians didn’t screw it up so bad? Man…. messed up.
Mood: Way too deep for 2:30am
Music: Edwin McCain – I Could Not Ask For More