Warning! Explicit Content

Whenever I put something on my blog that I think may offend some people I always put one of these "Explicit Content" warnings first. So now you are forewarned. The special Christmas video in the post below contains cursing and some, what might be called, "crude humor". So if you think that might offend you then don't watch it. If you watch it anyway and it does offend you then please don't send me explicit E-Mails full of cursing and some, what might be called, "crude hatred". And also I know that probably nobody reading this has ever watched Yugioh in their lives, but the video still is funny. If you watch it and enjoy it let me know. If you were offended then don't. So anyway, have a very merry and explicit Christmas!

A Christmas present just for you....

If you've been paying attention then you'll know that I love Yugioh:The Abridged Series. And so while planning up a special Christmas post I could think of only one thing special enough to put up as a present for you. Not a picture of myself this time. But the Yugioh Abridged Series Christmas Special! Yay! Hope I don't offend anyone. Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading my blog!

The Duel Report! (And I promise I'll write lots more interesting stuff later about stuff that actually interests normal humans)

As you may have guessed from that super snazzy picture yesterday I went to a Yugioh tournament and now I'm going to tell you how it went. Do you remember last week? I lost, but I did it with style. My opponent's had for every inch of ground that they eventually did take from me. And I did win a few battles, but not the war. Story of my life...But anyway, now you want to know what happened this week. Well first I'll give you the setting (don't you love suspense) this time I had no cheering fan club to back me. Anneli didn't come, and believe it or not she was missed, but don't tell her that. The reason why she was missed is not because she helps me win, far from it, she distracts me, but because together we make the ultimate comic duo and it's a lot more fun to lose when you're laughing. So I was late by a few minutes, but it was no problem because I made it an even number so I had an opponent waiting for me looking bored. Remember how Yugioh works? Best two out of three. Well I didn't win one all night. Well that's not true. I finished with one guy early and so we had a few friendly matches and I won one of those. In the end making it 3 wins to him and 1 to me. So basicly I lost horrendously. It wasn't my fault though. I just had tough opponents. So anyway, that's it really. Though I did fight admirably. For anyway who knows Yugioh, I did 4000 damage to his Life Points on my second turn. Now if you think that's impressive then you'll be even more impressed by the way I lost on the next turn, his second turn, when he did 8000 damage in one turn. Scary. So anyway, now I'm off to the Methodist bible study after a long day of babysitting. So until I blog about interesting things, Cya!

I haven't blogged in a while, but maybe this will help you understand why I DO blog now and then...

Toilet seat, good idea! I'm totally gonna do that to someone.

La, La, Lasagna!

Guess what I cooked yesterday. Wait a minute, correction, TRIED to cook yesterday. That’s right, LASAGNA! I’ve made lasagna before, and last time it was pretty good, and I was very happy with my cooking skills. But last time I didn’t use meat. My recipe was for vegetarian lasagna so that’s what I made. But this time I felt adventurous, I thought I should chuck in some meat and make this a good carnivore lasagna. So armed with instructions from my dad (who is the master cook in our house, despite the sexist idea that only women can cook, it is my dad and I who do about 99% of the cooking) I pulled out all the ingredients and got to work. Despite my little brother being constantly underfoot and making me splash sauce all over myself I was doing pretty good. I browned the meat until it was perfect; the smell of it could have driven a pack of hungry teenagers to the brink of insanity (though most are already there). Then I mixed it in with two types of sauces and stirred nicely than begin the repetitive cycle of “Sauce, noodles, cheese. Sauce, noodles, cheese. Sauce noodles…” but after the first layer I noticed I didn’t have a whole lot of sauce. So I grabbed two more jars and stirred them in with the meat and laid down more noodles and cheese, then as I was spreading sauce I noticed I was low again. So I grabbed my final two jars of sauce and once I had finished this layer of sauce noticed I now didn’t have room for another layer of noodles. Well, I guessed I’d just have one less layer of noodles than normal. So then I took this rather full and heavy dish and put it into the oven to cook. Half and hour later I took it out and put some nice cheese on top, three different kinds! I was like the cook master! Three cheeses! I’d never done that before. So 15 minutes later I pulled out my masterpiece of cheese and sauce and stuck in a spatula and began to serve. It was about this time that I realized that my master was nothing more than cheese and sauce. I had created lasagna soup. We at it with bread, and when my mom came home she wouldn’t eat it at all (people are always so appreciative of my cooking). We’re probably going to use it with spaghetti or something, because it’s a great sauce I created, it’s just not a great lasagna. So just a hint, if you’re ever cooking lasagna, don’t use 6 jars of sauce with two layers of noodles.

So that was an interesting start to me night last night. But as with everything I took it in stride because no use crying over spilled lasagna soup. The I went to the corps and got a nice surprise. Several surprises actually. One is that Nadia came to the corps with Elis (which surprised me after Elis told me not to scare Nadia away with “all that God stuff”, which I answered by standing up in our crowded tram stop and yelling “REPENT, SINNERS!”) and the other was that during youth group, Rebekka and Kerli showed up with 3 little girly friends! Yay! You know the song “Girls” by The Beasty Boys? I love that song. “Girls. Yeah all I really want is girls.” The only problem is that when I say “little girly friends” I mean they were all little. But then again so are Rebekka and Kerli. Why is it that no one ever brings their 17 year old, single Christian friends to meet me? Why do they always either have to be guys, or satanic, or really young? My friend Keit is under the impression that the dark haired one kept looking at me. I might be more interested by this news if she was roughly 5 years older. Anyway, that’s 5 girls who all left with applications for winter youth camp in January, so let’s hope they come. Though we really, desperately need more guys. So far I count 5 guys that I know for sure coming. And I know there’s going to be girls. There’s always girls. And as I said I want there to be lots of girls, but not too much or else the house will start to smell too nice. We need more of us men to stink it up.

Anyway, I’ve probably given you all nightmares of smelly men now so I’m going to go before I do any more damage. Cya!

I am so totally the Yugioh master...almost. (written yesterday)

Today was the long awaited (by me) Yugioh tournament. So last night I checked all my cards, made sure I was invincible and had everything I needed and then went to bed so as to be well rested for some nerd butt kicking. Then I woke up and spent the day in anticipation, babysitting and cleaning and reading to pass the time (which made my mom happy that I should choose to pass the time that way). Then at 16:00 (4 pm) I strapped my deck in and headed out. Have any of you ever seen where I keep my deck? I always have it with me so you should check it out sometime. Just like Mai has that cool deck holder strapped to her leg (how was a character as hot as her allowed on children’s television?) and Yugi has his cards in that cool deck belt (how was a character who has been described as looking like a bondage slave allowed on children’s television?) I have a cool little pocket on my bag where I can snap in my cards. I’m sure it wasn’t originally meant for holding cards, in fact I think that what I use as a messenger bag was meant to be a women’s purse. But anyway, I’m WAY off the point. Next thing you know I’ll be talking about my facial hair again! So I strapped my cards into my oh so smexical (better than smexy) deck pocket and headed to the library, where I was going to meet Anneli at 16:30 (4:30 pm). I’d had this whole hour planned to the second. Get to the library early because of course Anneli would be there early, she’s the one always fussing about others being late, then be to MegaGame by 16:45 (4:45 pm, do you really need my little time translations? Please comment yes or no, it gets tiring…) and enter the tournament and spend 15 minutes meeting other players and perusing their cards so I knew what I was up against, while keeping the contents of my deck a deep dark secret. Then at 17 (5 pm) unleash the madness of my skill upon an unsuspecting string of opponents and walk out victorious. Sound good? I thought so too. I don’t know about in your life, but for me things never work out as I plan them.

So Anneli was 10 minutes late and I had literally been about to leave without her when she walked up saying something about how just as an “academic hour” is 45 minutes girls have an “academic 10 minutes of lateness”. Dang it! That girl has an excuse for everything. So we walked briskly for 10 minutes and arrived at 16:50 (4:50 pm) just 5 minutes behind schedule. The only problem was that I didn’t see bunches of duelists lining up for me to beat. I saw a bored looking girl behind the desk reading a book. So I broke the dark spell of her boredom with a question. “There’s a Yugioh tournament in 10 minutes right?” “Yes, we sell Yugioh cards” Was her reply. I’d hoped that the book would counteract her blondness, but apparently I had yet another blond to deal with. So I spoke slowly and eventually found out it wasn’t until 17:30 (5:30 pm) and that she didn’t know anything about it. I knew they should have hired me. I would have totally been great at that job. But I think they wanted to add a feminine touch to nerdiness so they hired bored girls. So I stood and chatted and joked with Anneli and an old…more acquaintance than friend, Martin, who decided to take a break from his “CG madness” or in human language, computer games, to come say hi to me. I was truly honored. So we passed the half hour fairly quickly. But I still didn’t see anything resembling a tournament starting. So at 17:35 (5:35 pm) I went and asked my helpful blond friend what was up, was I just delusional in thinking anyone would still want to play this game with me? No, but I had missed the first round. My blond friend was a little out of touch with what was going on in the other room. The tournament had already started, and because I made player number 7 it made sense for me to just get an automatic win because of a lack of an opponent. That’s what happens when you get uneven numbers of players. So I got it all figured out and registered and paid my entrance fee and then waited for another 10 minutes or so while the first round finished. Then finally the duel finished, the apparent organizer of the tournament looked at me and said “you face him”.

An electric thrill of excitement shot through me as I eyed my first challenging human opponent in over a year (I’ve played against humans that aren’t that good, and against computers that are good, but not as good as me) I was finally getting the challenge I had been waiting for. We sat down, shuffled our decks, rolled a die to decide who went first (me) and I drew 5 cards and the game began. It was painfully close. To those of you who don’t know how Yugioh works (all of you) in a match is a set of 3 duels, best 2 out of 3 wins. The first duel I was on fire. Every move my opponent tried I countered. Every move I made brought my opponent one step closer to defeat. He was gone. But I still needed one more win. The next duel was close, too close. I lost. The third duel, the deciding duel was over too quickly, and once I again I had lost. No problem, I still had one more challenge ahead. We sat down and basically the same thing happened. I won 1, he won 2. But again it was far to close. I could taste victory sweet on my tongue. But I lost it. But it was not replaced with the bitter ash of defeat, it was replaced with a different kind of sweetness. Those two matches were extraordinarily close. I’ve been playing this game for 5 years and have never had a pair of games that were so close. I’m usually either against a loser who I mop the floor with or a champion who spits on my cards. And the thing that made it truly sweet is that every other player there knew how close it was. The other two matches had ended quickly while my opponent and I were still at it tooth, nail and flaming fire balls. And so we had a 6 person audience (the four other competitors and Anneli and Martin) while I lost by a few points only after pulling of some extraordinary moves to protect myself and damage my opponent. You might think watching a card game is like watching paint dry, but my skill, my moves, my strategies, my deck got some oohs and ahhs as I put up an amazing fight against a worthy opponent. I lost in the end, but I consider it amazingly worth it just for those appreciations of my skill. And also I got a new card. At the end of every tournament even if you don’t win you can still win a consolation prize, in this case one limited edition card which I’m sure has great collectors value, so if you want it I’ll sell it. I don’t need it. But I’m still happy to have gotten it. I’ll probably trade it for something better suited to my strategy later, but for now I’m happy letting it represent my initiation into the dueling community here in Tallinn, where there are weekly tournaments every Wednesday and Sunday. I’ll only be going on Wednesday s, but still.

And one final thing before I spare you any more nerdiness. Next week I will win! I am confident in my skills and my strategy. Next week they WILL lose. I promise you that. I’ve revamped my deck and now am truly unbeatable. But now I must go, tomorrow is Thursday, the party day. Not really, but it’s a day like any other, and I need sleep for every day. So good night, and please forgive my nerd ways…

Another Get Fuzzy comic about my blog...

You know that everytime someone makes me angry they shake with fear knowing that though I may not come right out and call them a jerk, I will gently insinuate it in ways only a select few will notice. JERKS!!!

Is Satchel writing a Blog?

I thought you might enjoy this little comic that is oddly reminiscent of my blog. "Some would say my lack of complication is refreshing." Amen brother, amen.

Decisions, decisions...

Life is full of choices, and choices are irritating and difficult. Tomorrow is Wednesday, normally a free night for me. A night to chill, a night to rest, a night to not go to the corps, a night to do whatever I want. But as I’ve already said, Christmas parties are trying to ruin my Christmas. Tomorrow night is some annoying Tallinn Salvation Army employees Christmas party, and since my parent’s are employees here in Tallinn they have the privilege to get to go to this party. And as their child I have the privilege to either stay home and babysit my three year old brother and cook supper or go to the party and force a smile as I shake hands with everyone and to force down over cooked food and have conversations in broken Estonian. See what I’m talking about? Such hard decisions. And neither of these is what I’d LIKE to be doing. I never did get around to blogging about what I know causes groans from loads of people who think that the fact that I still do blog about this proves my immaturity and that I should be locked in a cage until I’m 42. The thing I’m talking about of course is Yugioh. I’ve been playing (more like dominating) Yugioh since I was 12, and I’ve never gotten tired of endlessly reworking my strategies and facing new opponents. Some may think it’s immature of me to love a children’s card game but may I remind you that many men love playing poker. And I know some of you spend HOURS on solitaire on your computer. Or at least that computer repair guy the street does. Every time I walk past that's all he's doing! So you guys go bet big money on your “adult” card game while I go enjoy mine. But anyway, I don’t know if you remember my search for the perfect deck? In an attempt to discern God’s will I prayed for months that if it was his will for me to go to the MegaGame store in downtown Tallinn and play Yugioh and enjoy myself while making friends and inviting the to corps then that he would help me find and buy the “Zombie Madness” deck and use it to make myself all powerful. And if it was not his will then being omnipotent he would make it not be in any store I visited. So for a whole year I searched stores across two continents for this deck, and I never found it. They’d have every other Yugioh product ever made, but not what I needed. So I accepted it just must not be God’s will, and that I should just focus on studying and applying to college and everything. And as you know I got accepted and will be Houghton College next year. And on the same day I was accepted I also found the deck. I bought it a few days later and using the cards made myself the best deck I have ever owned. And so how does this story tie in with tomorrow? Yugioh tournaments here in Tallinn used to happen on Sunday morning when I was at church. So after returning to Estonia with my new deck I checked the MegaGame website (www.megagame.ee) and found that apparently Yugioh tournaments have been changed to…Wednesdays. And I didn’t make it to last week’s tournament because I hadn’t checked the site yet so that means that tomorrow at 17:00 (5 pm) will be my first chance to go dominate the Estonian dueling scene. But this party is at 18:00 (6 pm), and so if I need to either babysit or be at this party then I won’t be able to go to this tournament.

It’s a hard life I lead. Such choices I face. So I’m hoping and praying that tomorrow everything will work out for the best, because going to this tournament would make me very happy. But if my parents need me to babysit then that is first priority. And if my brother and sister go to the party and if I don’t will I be insulting everyone? Well, what will be, will be. I’m resigned to my fate. I chose the life of a GOOD (emphasis) officer/missionary kid and I guess I’ll just have to live with the work and impositions on my social life that that choice makes. So I’ll let you know how everything goes tomorrow, but for now I’ve gotta go take a shower! Cya!

What I've been doing lately.

As you may have noticed I’ve been on a bit of a blogging frenzy over the last few days, pumping out roughly 1.5 posts a day. So it must have surprised you when I didn’t blog yesterday, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t Saturday either. But now I’m back, with yet another bunch of words thrown together in such a way as to waste your time. The last few days were kind of interesting, on Saturday night Elis called me out to hang out with her and Nadia, and Anneli joined us eventually. And we did what we always do when we hang out in old town. Walked in circles, got bored, sat in Viru Keskus critiquing the fashions we saw walking by (quoth the Anneli “That guy is so I.T.” “She must be Russian, only a Russian would wear half a dead tiger with that much make up”), wound up all going home hours later with the soles of our shoes wearing thin to watch “Home Alone 3:Chickenpox Kid Vs. Idiot Secret Agent Spy People”. It was all quite fun, except that stupid movie. The original Home Alone is cool, the sequel was interesting, the 3rd and 4th were a waste of film. I wish I could outsmart international criminal masterminds using a toy car and a telescope. So anyway, that was my Saturday, I got home around 8 only to find that my dad was sick. Now of course my dad is the only one who ever does anything around here because my mom and I are always too busy blogging and FaceBooking. So this was a problem. So yesterday my mom and I went to the corps alone and made everything work, which wasn’t a problem for people as excellently skilled as us. And now it’s Monday, December 10, 2007. Wow, Microsoft Word just wrote that December, 2007 thing for me. That was nice of it. And because it’s Monday, December 10, 2007 (I love Word!) it’s back to work for me. I need to get my schoolwork really rolling again, because I want my transcript at the end of the year to look awesome. I’m going to read some Geoffrey Chaucer stuff and maybe that will make me a better writer, or maybe by reading “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” I’ll learn how to get “husbands meeke, young and fresh a-bed” which is just what I need. So I’ll be off now, Cya



P.S. those of you who are my friends on FaceBook should now know that my blog easily accessible through my profile through the “As Seen On…” application. Now if you’re on FaceBook you have no excuse not to read my blog!

A quick Bible verse...

A friend of mine wrote a nice little post on his blog and FaceBook about his thoughts on the movie and book "The Golden Compass" and because I had only written from the view point of anti and he was very pro so since I know very little about the subject and he knows very much I thought I would opy his thoughts and post them here. Then I realized something. While we're so busy fighting over some stupid movie that won't really convert anyone to Satanism people around the world are living in sin and dying and going to hell. And there are children starving to death. And there are women and children being sold into sexual slavery. And there are lots of REALLY BAD THINGS! We are totally in need of a priority check up. If a movie is more important than a starving child then you've got issues. I'm sure you're thinking "Well I care about those things too..." but you're missing my point. Why waste so much energy on throwing around negativity and hatred that will (rightfully so) get us less converts and more people writing books like "The Golden Compass"! There's so much more out there! Anyway, that's my little rant. I'll leave you with a Bible verse and then I'm going to sleep.


2 Timothy 2:23-26 "Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will."

So, my position on "The Golden Compass"? Neutral, I've got bigger fish to fry.

Do you ever just feel irritated?

Just like the whole world is against you and you should do something like write an annoyed blog post to get revenge? Well that’s how I feel, allow me to explain why. Yesterday, Friday, one of my seven favorite days of the week, rather than going to youth group and spending time with my friends and being all super duper I spent 7 hours in the car. Then I spent 5 hours at the annoying officer’s Christmas party (not sure whether it was the officers or the party that was more annoying). So that was 12 hours of my day wasted! 12 hours I will never get back. It like someone just said “we were going to wait to kill you, but now we’ll kill you 12 hours earlier. I just lost 12 hours! And it wasn’t worth it at all. The one thing that made me want to go was blood sausage. Good Estonian blood sausage. Blood sausage is an essential food during Christmas here that I absolutely love. It may be an acquired taste, but I have acquired it! It’s great, as long as it’s not burned. I was so excited I as I grabbed some nice looking blood sausages and plopped them on my plate, so happy as I cut off a generous portion and raised it to my mouth expecting it to taste bloody good (play on words), then crushed by disappointment at the almighty “CRUNCH” that could be heard for miles. I was eating charcoal. This Christmas delicacy had been burned beyond all recognition. The torture was horrible. I still had 2 ¾ sausages to eat, and I had to be polite so…I spent the next 10 minutes crunching and washing it down with some juice and over seasoned ham. It was really the one big thing I have been looking forward to for months, and the only reason I had gotten up at 7 to sit in a car for 3 ½ hours with a fussy 3 year old. I was so disappointed. So now I’m writing this blog post. Just to get out all my sadness. I am so disappointed. But I still have something to look forward to. Sometime before Christmas we will have a corps Christmas party, and for that one of our amazing ladies will cook up some superb and not even slightly burned blood sausage. So, to the future!

The other reason I feel irritated is because as I said in an earlier post my aunt and uncle are coming for Christmas. Now I’m not irritated because they are coming, I’m irritated because of what a pain in the butt it is to get them here. Not by any fault of ours or theirs (that I know of) we have had so much trouble getting them tickets and visas and all that necessary junk. One reason is that my uncle is Russian, and Estonians don’t want to let Russians over the borders because in the past when Russians came over the border they brought tanks. And when we try to get tickets for them the website is undergoing maintenance and bla bla bla! It’s really annoying! I think it’s all a conspiracy to make me unhappy, first you burn my blood sausage, then you make it hard for my family to visit for Christmas. What more could you do to me? No wait, don’t answer that. Anyway, I’m gonna go before something else happens to annoy me. To late, it’s raining. So I’m off, Cya!

Don't you love chain mail?

The other day I got ANOTHER chain mail E-mail. You know the kind I’m talking about. Irritatingly innocent looking E-mails from friends and family that were not sent to you personally but as part of a mass infection of everybody on this person’s address book. They are usually full of sweet quotes like “If you have more friends than you can count on one hand then where’d your other fingers go?” and “A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying ‘now look what you got me into, you little jerk!’” and this E-mail was no different. So as I read down the list of crappy recycled quotes from anonymous people who are always feeling warm, fuzzy, and friendly one stuck out at me. One of those relationship advice ones. Now I’ve pretty much gotten girls figured out by now, they are a pox on the earth (Please note that that comment is, like most of this post, sarcastic), but I read this anyway. It said “maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before we meet the right one, that way we’ll be more grateful when we meet the right one” after reading this I leaned back for a second and pondered. And the result of my pondering was this simple statement. “Maybe God wants us to chop off one leg and one arm so we’ll be truly grateful for the other arm and leg.” Are these quote making people idiots!?! It would seem so. I am so sick of this chain mail full of fallacies about life. That’s pretty much my whole rant. But just a reminder, if you don’t copy and paste this and send it to at least 50 million people within the 30 milliseconds then you’ll get stabbed in your sleep by ninjas from Mars. Have a nice day!




I hate chain mail.....

I've finally done it...

We all knew it was only a matter of time before I just snapped. Before I went mucho loco on the worldo. It’s finally happened. Accidentally of course. But it still happened. No, I haven’t killed everyone by decapitating them with playing cards (Supposedly it’s actually possible to do that if you can throw the cards fast enough! I bet SuperMan could so totally do it!). I haven’t finally melded my brain with the computer so that I can rule cyber space. I’d just get deleted anyway. And then once I was in the recycle bin someone would double click on that and then right click on me and click “delete”. In other words, they’d kill me. But back to the point. What is it I’ve finally done? Does anyone know what slave labor I’ve been doing for roughly the last 3 years? The thing so horrible that my little brother has promised to sacrifice himself and take my place once he’s old enough? That’s right, it’s my chore to do the laundry! NO!!!! Isn’t that horrible? For years I’ve slaved away making sure my family has a clean supply of clothes, and now I’ve finally gotten my revenge. I’ve broken the washing machine! I grabbed a baseball bat and smashed it into tiny pieces! Not really. Actually I overloaded it with far too many clothes. Something my dad was always warning me about before. But anyway, I had put in a rather large load of water absorbent and heavy clothes and about halfway through (as I was in the middle of writing my last blog post) we all heard an almighty CRACK! We all went and stared as the washing machine bled and died. It died in my arms, my old friend with whom I’d spent far too much time. Not really. I went back to blogging and let my dad figure out it was broken. So now I’m guilty of murdering a washing machine. Will you ever forgive me? Let’s hope it gets better soon. Because as shown by hundreds of Estonian teens, it doesn’t matter how clean your body is, if your clothes are dirty you’re gonna smell. Doesn’t that stink? Haha. I made a joke.

Anyway, I really do hope our stupid washing machine isn’t broken. This isn’t my favorite job, but it still needs to be done. But now I’m sure you’re all wondering what’s going on here in the little town of Tallinn. Well, all our snow has melted, causing the same uneasy feeling as an enemy army retreating. Why uneasy? Because you know they’re out there somewhere regrouping, planning a renewed assault that will be 10 times worse than the first. That’s winter in Estonia. And also I hate it being cold unless there’s snow. It’s like having the discomfort of being covered in paint without the beauty of a finished painting. Where do I get these weird analogies?! I mean it’s nasty cold but not blindingly beautiful, and I want double or nothing. Tonight is songsters, bible study, and NELK (Women’s club), two of which I’m hoping to skip. Guess which two? That’s right, I want to go to women’s club, that’s where they give me free food. I’m joking, I want to go to bible study. During women’s club I usually go upstairs with my friends and we all try to laugh as quietly as possible so as not to bother the women downstairs. We usually do end up getting too loud eventually, but then my mom just sends me a kind and loving SMS saying something along the lines of “SHUT UP!” but tonight I may do something different. My friend Anneli has told me there is an awesomely cool bible study for college age dudes and dudettes at the Methodist church, and since some German guy goes they already are translating into English, so why not check it out? So I may or may not, I’m still deciding. You know those Methodists, gotta be cautious around them. And once again I’m joking, I love the Methodists, and Anneli is probably going to hook me up with one of the Methodist chicks at the bible study. Sounds great. Anyway, that’s all the news from home town of Tallinn, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. That’s a joke from Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion”. Anyway, I must be off now. I must take up my babysitting duties in half and hour and I can hear Peter screaming, so best use this next half hour getting him calm so I don’t have to do it later. Anyway, Cya!

The Golden Compass. A story about killing God?

Because I'm always up to date with what's hip and in (yeah right) it has come to my attention that The Golden Compass, a movie with trailers that look like a cross between The Darkness is Rising and The Chronicles of Narnia, is causing quite a stir among Christians and Athiests everywhere. So now I'm going to blog about it. Because though I know very little about it I still would like to add my little bit of input. Correct me if I'm wrong but The Golden Compass is the story of a girl and her Daemon, (or demon, or familiar, or giant satanic pet, or what the movie says it is) the physical manifestation of her soul. The big bad in this story is simply "The church", a sinister group of misled religious enthusiasts serving a deranged, evil, weak old "God". And why "The Church" is so evil is because it has been trying to seperate the children from their "Daemons", their souls. And so she goes on some fantastic adventure including fighting polar bears and a golden compass that rather than pointing north tells what is truth. Very exciting. But some kind of freaky terminology. The honest truth is that the church is trying it's hardest to seperate everyone from their demons! Not their souls obviously. The reason why Pullman has the Church as the big bad is because he was raised by his pastor granddad. And as the son of two pastors I can say that one of the best ways to make an Athiest is to have him be raised by Christians. I'm not an Athiest. But I can see how easy it would be to become one. As a PK (or OB) you see the church from the inside out, not outside in like everyone else. And it's hard to see things like that. The church looks much better from the outside. Most things do. This movie does. From the outside it looks like another rather lame children's movie about a kid who saves the world. But as Pullman tells us, his books "are about killing God". Not a nice topic for a children's movie. And though "The Golden Compass" is book the book where God dies, it is the first in the series where he finally does kick the bucket. Though I just want to point out that in my opinion if anyone ever were to kill God the whole universe would collapse inwards upon itself and be destroyed, meaning there wouldn't be anyone left to enjoy Hell. Because of course Hell is total seperation from God, so that's what we'd get. Let's thank God that he is Omnipotent and therefore would be devilishly hard to kill.

Devilishly? That brings me to my next point. In one Christian article (http://www.dare2share.org/culturecommission/the-golden-compass) I read it said that in the books God is portrayed as "an old, weak, evil angel masquerading as 'The Authority' and setting up churches to exercise His control over others" and to me that sounds like a description of who...Hint, he is red, loves heat, has pointy horns and always carries a pitchfork. No not Triton! That's right, Satan. I think that the sentence works better like this: "Satan is an old, weak, evil angel masquerading as 'The Authority' and setting up churches to exercise his control over others". Dang, that sounds about right. I don't know that much about these books or the movie, because I only started caring about them a few hours ago. But to me this sounds like a story about fighting the devil. He's trying to seperate us, body from soul and soul from God. And so we have to fight back with the truth, the ultimate truth that we have through God's word, or as it is better known "The Bible". Now I know this isn't the story Pullman was trying to write, but from what I've heard of it it sure sounds like that! An angel masquerading as "The Authority" is exactly what we're up against.

Anyway, that's my thoughts so far on "The Golden Compass". I would love to do some more research though, because just because some Christians are going on a nutty witch hunt doesn't mean something's bad. Like Harry Potter. I love Harry Potter. That satanic practitioner of witch craft rocks. I'm joking, but I do like Harry. Anyway, these are my fairly uneducated thoughts about "The Golden Compass". If I've got it totally wrong please forgive me. Until next time, Cya!

I'm in love with Paramore! (Pictured)

Now, when I say that I don’t only mean that I love their awesome guitars, their sweet sound, and amazing vocals. No I’m mean I’m IN LOVE with Paramore. Or more specifically their lead singer, Hayley Williams. She’s 18, she’s a good singer, she’s got cool red hair that may or may not be natural (I’m hoping natural, I hate dyed hair), she totally rocks, and most importantly she is the first famous true love (Sorry Amy Lee and Tarja Turunen) to openly and honestly profess her faith in Christ. She’s a Christian. Now I’m hoping that it’s obvious that when I say that I’m in love with her I’m using hyperbole (is that the right word? I believe so). I’m not really madly in love with a girl who I’ve never met, though she did sing me to sleep last night. But Hayley, if you’re reading this for some bizarre reason then hat doesn’t mean I COULDN’T be in love with you. I’m sure I would love to meet you and get to know you. Maybe we could hook that up sometime. If you ever tour Europe…I’ll probably be at Houghton by then, so go there instead. Or do both. Doesn’t matter because the chances of you reading this post is zero to null. Anyway, let me explain how and why I’m in love with Paramore. Last time I was in America I heard their song “Misery Business” on the radio over, and over, and over again. And I liked it. It’s actually a song that kind of bugs Hayley because she breaks the 5th commandment in the lyrics. That’s what she thinks anyway, I could argue, but whatever. The fact that she notices, cares about, and blogs about these things on her band’s website is awesome, and one the reasons I love her. Now where was I, oh yes, last trip to America. I had heard them on the radio repeatedly but never looked them up. So I came home and forgot my true love. Well I didn’t love her back then. But she’ll forgive me for that. Then I went to America again, and heard them rockin’ the airwaves again. And knew I just had to find that voice. So I came home to Estonia armed with a small recording of them from the radio to use to track them down through the lyrics.

And upon arriving I saw in the pile of junk mail my new copy of Breakaway magazine (http://www.breakawaymag.com/) and yanked it out and started pouring love and attention over it. And one of my favorite places in the magazine is always the back page, High Voltage, where they talk about music, movies, and TV. And this day when I flipped back I saw a picture of a rather odd and out of place looking group. 4 guys with roses pinned on their shirts and looking slightly bored as the girl in the middle blows a kiss as her hair matches the roses. I was like “who’s that?” so I read the article entitled “Worth Joining Paramore’s Riot?” in which I found out that it is very worth it. Because they rock, and a few of them are Christians. And after reading Hayley’s thoughts on her own song and it’s meaning in her spiritual life I knew it was love. So I know I’ll probably never meet her, but here’s to you Hayley, the most rockin’ famous chick I know of. If you’re ever wishing there was a good looking Christian guy you could talk to you may want to look else where. But if you just want a Christian guy to talk to then I’m always available. And my E-mail, MSN, even phone number is available all over my blog.

Anyway, there’s my fantasy about marrying a Christian rocker. I know it’s extraordinarily unlikely, but if I can find a Christian girl who likes Paramore it’ll be just as good. When I told my friend Anneli that I was marrying Hayley she said she’d marry one of the guys in the band. So that’s cool. But anyway, I need to get going now, I’ve got some stuff to go waste time on. Stuff like maybe school work or something. I always find something. Anyway, Cya!

An apology to all you Taoists out there...

I made a mistake in my last rather misogynistic post. I said something to the effect of women=yang=evil or something. But I was wrong. To copy and paste from my Encyclopedia “Yin is the feminine, passive, weak, and destructive side of reality, while Yang is the masculine, strong, and constructive aspect of reality.” Not only does this prove that Taoism is slightly sexist, it also proves that I was wrong. Women=yin=evil=destruction=weakness. So sorry for the confusion. And I also want to just clarify that though my last post was, as I said, rather misogynistic (a word I love because it just sounds so cool. “Misein=To hate, Gyne=Women”) I still absolutely love women and have a very important want add I would like to put on my blog in that hopes that since it is so publicly accessible that someone might just find it.

Wanted!

Wife of Noble Character

Must Be Worth More Than Precious Rubies

For Full Job Description Please See Proverbs 31:10-31

If You Think You Fit the Job Please Contact Me At

chrisjohnclark@juno.com

You have no idea how long I’ve been dying to write that. You may think it’s kind of early to be writing adds like that, but by the time anybody replies to that I’ll probably have gray hair, so I say it’s not to early at all. And that applies to a girlfriend of noble character too. But anyway, that is just one of many things that I wrote in my phone while in America. I need to go through sometime and find everything I wrote down and blog about it. Most of it is songs though, so I’m not quite so sure that’s something I could blog about. One thing I wrote down on one of the best days I’ve had in a long time is “God blessed me in every area of my life that day. Except I still don’t have a girlfriend, but sometimes I think that’s a blessing too.” On that day I found out that I had kicked butt and totally pwned the SAT on my second try and that I was accepted to Houghton! And I know there was other good stuff too. Like maybe I ate pizza or something. I don’t quite remember. That was a great day.

Another thing I have written down is from back before I went to America. Back when I was standing at Stockmann this lady came and took down the Apocalyptica poster and put up a Marilyn Manson poster. And I stood there in my uniform collecting money for God’s work and I stared at him. And he stared at me. And we kept staring at each other. There weren’t any people around so I could afford to spend time narrowing my eyes at a poster. And I just thought “now there’s a vampire if there ever was one” and as I said after watching Van Helsing I am now a vampire hunter. So if I ever get the chance it is my sworn duty to stick a grade A angus steak up his nose. Though my friend who’s going to his concert would be rather upset so I guess I should hunt him down. I’ll just wait for him to come to me.

Anyway, that's it for now. Though I'm going to go write about Paramore in a minute, because I think I'm in love! So Cya!

How do I survive?

Jet lag is torture. Torture with torture on top and with a side order of torture. It’s really bad. Really, really bad. And I hate it. I did quite well with jet lag when I was going to America. It just felt like I was staying up really late, which is something I excel at because I like mimicking Dracula. But now that I’m in Estonia I have the opposite form of jet lag. I feel like I’m forcing myself to wake up 7 hours before I’d normally like to. Therefore I also am going to bed 7 hours to early. Going to bed in Estonia at 11 pm is 4 pm my American time. And I’ve never been much of an afternoon napper. So now it’s been almost a week and I’m still being tortured by jet lag. I can’t sleep at night. I just lie in bed, cursing jets and all their lag. And when I finally do fall asleep (usually a few hours after midnight) I don’t sleep long, because my body says to itself “I’m sleeping, but I’m pretty sure I should be up doing things instead, because it feels like that time of day.” So it drags my tortured soul back to consciousness and I lie awake at 5 am (Estonia time) wondering “why me?” this his been going on ever since I got back. I’ve tried all sorts of different things to try to help. I downloaded a bunch of stuff from NPR to listen to on my MP3 player, because I had thought that of course anything from NPR could put anything to sleep. But I was wrong, it’s all too interesting. Who’s this Ahkmadinigad guy they keep saying is hot anyway? President of where? But anyway now I sit here very tired, and rather cold too. I had been warm an hour ago, but thanks to my parents who seem to think warmth and comfort are deadly sins 8 and 9 I am now wide awake, with a slight sleep deprivation headache, and an overpowering desire to grab a sledgehammer and put myself back to sleep. It’s not nice.

Anyway, as I already said Christmas is coming, the goose bla bla you know the rest. On Saturday we decorated the corps. And as always with doing things that are meant to be fun and festive it was about a million time more work than (I believe) it was worth. When people turn my Christmas into work that’s a bad thing. Jesus didn’t work on Christmas, he was too busy letting all the donkeys and things sing “Away in a manger” at him. And now yesterday we decorated our apartment, which was also much more stressful than it needed to be (stick 5 jet lagged people together and try to get them to work together and the results usually aren’t happy) so I’m glad that over. I just wish Santa would hurry up because I want some more junk. I was a bad boy last year but go good stuff, now I’ve been a good boy this year so…I’ll get even better stuff? We’ll see. Whatever happens I’ll be happy because my Aunt Mary Kay, Uncle Sasha and little baby cousin Sashenka are all coming for Christmas, and I can’t think of any present I’d like more than that. Maybe my very own personal space ship with lasers and missiles and big guns and written on the side in dripping blood red paint the motto “We come in peace!” But I doubt I’ll get one so I’ll just settle with what I can get. It’s funny thought, I really did see once in a Toy R Us this giant mech toy with giant guns, and an impressive array of missiles, and little army guys with knives and weapons of math instruction…erm, MASS DESTRUCTION. And in big bold red letters a sticker on the mech said “Our mission is peace” my mission is peace too, and if you don’t believe me then you’re gonna eat lead. And it tastes horrible so you better believe me.

So yesterday I watched Star Wars Episode II:Attack of the Clones (which when I first heard the name before it came out I assumed meant that Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda and all the other good guys had been cloned, and just like in that weird Pokemon movie they’d have to fight and kill their own clones. I’m still not sure whether or not I’m disappointed by the truth.) and, as always, it made me think. What is it that made Anakin fall to the dark side? His pride? His anger at losing his mother? His love of, and fear for, Padme? His good intentions gone wrong? I’m sure there are many other ideas people have, and I know the paths to the dark side are wide and varied. So it could be any, or all, of those. But it seems what really pushed him to the edge is Padme. His forbidden love destroyed him. This is a scenario I’m not unfamiliar with. I have come to the conclusion (that same one I’ve been coming to for roughly 1 year, 1 month) that women are the absolute most dangerous things (don’t like me calling women things? Neither do I, nouns, people, places, things, take your pick) ever to have ever existed, and ever to exist. Now that’s not quite true. But I’d still much rather face a puff adder than an angry girlfriend. A puff adder will forgive you. So anyway, I think I kind of lost my original point there. Women=yang=evil. Got it. And I know it is probably pretty stupid to say all this because I’m pretty sure the majority of my readers are female (must be my animal magnetism) but whatever.

Girls have actually been on my mind a lot more than some might think they should be as I’ve been thinking about college. I know I have a small group of fans who is hoping that once I’m free of parental tyranny I’ll go crazy, have sex, do drugs, and write about it all here. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you but it’s not in my plans. That was another thing that went into my college decision. A place where I wouldn’t be the only one not having sex and doing drugs. I’d have that nerd across the hall who nobody likes because he smells. And me and him would make a great team. I’m joking. But when visiting both colleges I eavesdropped on conversations (sorry if that seems creepy) and watched the way different people acted to get a better idea of who I’d be living with. And in the end there was a definite difference. So it has been on my mind. Not because I’m looking for a girlfriend, but because I don’t want to jump into the middle of a college society where mindless dating is essential. And I’m not. And also I’m hoping that I’m not walking into a group of girls all desperate for a boyfriend and as one of my good friends just said to me recently “Some guys have great looks but no personality. And you have great personality.” (I’m not sure whether or not that’s a compliment or an insult. Is it like “you’re ugly, but you’re nice”?) will all jump at a guy with a “great personality”? Because when it comes to comparing myself to other guys I’m not going to be very humble. I’m a pretty good guy, don’t smoke, don’t drink, single and celibate on purpose, polite, loving, respectful. I rock! But I don’t want to be swarmed because I’m the first good guy they’ve ever met. So I was looking for a college with a lot of other good guys. Because back to my Anakin thing, what does it take to bring down the most powerful Jedi, the one who would bring balance to the force? A beautiful woman. That’s all. So what could it take to bring me down…as I said, I’m single for a reason.
Anyway, that post is much longer than I’d planned. And I hadn’t planned to write that whole bit about girls, but what’s on my mind usually winds up on my blog so there it is. But now I must go do some laundry because I’ m a weirdo enjoys wearing clean clothes. Cya!

I'm horrified! Someone thinks they can scare me into shaving! NEVER!!

I'm home! (NB:This post was written on Nov. 29th but was delayed due to technical difficulties. Happy B-day Lewis and L'engle!

Well, it’s been a while since I blogged I think. When my I’m so sleep deprived my memories get hazy. But at least I still remember how to blog. It’s like riding a bike, though you can forget, if you did than would do whatever it might take to get that wonderful feeling of wonderful freedom back. But anyway, I haven’t forgotten, so I have no excuse for not blogging. I’m just lazy. So now I’m fighting off my laziness long enough to write you this post. I have so much to write about. From my disappointment at NightWishe’s newest musical offerings (I miss you Tarja!) to my fear of the future that I can’t escape, because no matter what I choose to do with my life, whether it’s Salvation Army Officer or Super Secret Agent Assassin from Mars, That’s still going t be in the future. Unless I become the inventor of the world’s first time machine that is available for the general public and not just for things like assassinating JFK. So rather than blog about all the many interesting things I’ll just blog about coming home to Estonia. That’s right all you self-absorbed American punks who don’t believe I could “abandon” my “native” country. Estonia and home are synonymous for me. One and the same. When we landed and I looked out the window at the beautiful light powdering of snow covering everything in a very nice Christmas card style I was overcome with joy. When Andrus and Toivo met us at the airport I was so happy to be with these slightly quirky people who I love so much. And walking through Old Town, going to the corps, going to the library and watching The Mummy Returns with Anneli and Evelin…I love this place! I don’t know how I’ll ever leave. I guess all good things come to an end.

But anyway, I’m having lots of trouble blogging, not because I don’t have anything to blog about. Quite the opposite. I’ve got subject overload. So rather than the think I will do what I do when I want to produce maximum writing for minimal thought. Sit back, get comfortable, put on Bomfunk MC’s “Freestyler” and just lose myself in everything. Because of course it is only when I’m lost that I can truly find myself. So now I’m good and lost in the mystery of “what the heck do his lyrics mean? Celine Dion? What!?” as he rocks the, rocks the microphone (sorry, you have to be familiar with the song to get the joke) and am ready to get started. Okay, here’s something. I’m currently in the middle of a hugely important and monumentally significant project. I’m uploading last year’s HollyWood Night videos! I’ve already got up the tryouts of Naruto Uzumaki, Tanel Padar, and Avril Lavigne. All of which are played by either me or Anneli and are all hilarious. I’m sorry but they’re in Estonian. I provided translation though, just look in the video description. But don’t worry even without translation they’re still funny. Though I’m expecting negative comments from fans of those we mock. But I’m used to that now. And we all know what they’re trying to compensate for when they insult us on YouTube anyway*…

Anyway, Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat. I like eating turkey but I’ll never eat a cat! I need to nickname some girl “goose” and then when I say “the goose is getting fat” I can laugh inwardly at how funny my little joke is. Hilarious. But since Christmas is coming I need to get ready. I’m trying to decide on my Christmas present to all you, my readers! I think I’ll probably stick a video into one of my posts. But what video? It has to be funny…and un-offensive. Which is quite a hard combo it seems. But I’ll see what I can do. It really stinks that I’ve got such horrid writer’s block. I think maybe a good night’s sleep might fix me right up, but I doubt I’ll be sleeping well tonight, if it’s anything like last night. Last night was torture, wanting to sleep, but not. Just lying in bed feeling tortured. Torture, torture, torture. Anyway, I think I’m done now, I just want to say that this post is brought to you by the combined efforts of my mother, C.S. Lewis and Madeline L’Engle along with The Writer’s Almanac downloaded from www.npr.org. Happy Birthday Clive and Madeline! You are both such wonderful inspirations! And now, good night! (I hope…)



*This statement is proof that I’m far too obsessed with Yugioh Abridged. I’m talking about Seto Kaiba in Episode 24…