turning it inside out since 1984

Awesome Highlighter is about being awesome. you can be on any page,
click a button, and then just highlight the text that you want, ya
know, highlighted. no extensions or Firefox required.

Awesome Highlighter creates a copy of the
page, with the highlights included on it, and provides you with a link
that you can use to email, share on facebook, or twitter, or tumblr, or
your blog, or whatever you wanna do.

Nobody in this process has
to create an account or install an extension for Firefox or anything.
It’s the simplest kind of social: it works just like it would in real
life.

You should use it. Here’s a highlighted version of this very page on my blog that i made with the Awesome Highlighter:

The state of Texas is large. 268,601 square miles. 7.48816612 × 10¹² square feet.

The population of the world is VERY large: 6,602,224,175.

In 1970, the average American home was 1,400 square feet.

…

If we gathered every single person into the state of Texas, every man, woman, and child would have 1134.2 square feet to themselves. Almost the floorspace of the average American home just 38 years ago.

But don’t forget, the world has an overpopulation problem.

[and also: where would we put Disneyworld?]

today is Union’s graduation day.

i hate graduations. i especially hate them now. because for me, all graduations remind me of is that feeling. the feeling you have of just accomplishing something truly great, coupled with a hope that the future holds something greater.

and while i know that the future DOES hold something greater, it’s little more than intellectual assent. "yes," says my brain, "heaven is a place to look forward to." but the rest of me just hates where i am right now.

which is INCREDIBLY STUPID, considering the fact that i’m surrounded by some of the most amazing people that i’ve ever met, and most of them happen to like me. i have a house, some fun animals, a job, security, and a loving wife.

and yet i still hate it. every day is a struggle to get to bedtime.

i don’t even know why i’m telling you this. back to regularly scheduled programming.

i just responded to every Wall post i got on Facebook on my birthday.

i feel like that was the most productive thing i did all day.

i think this might be my dark period.

Kony wants to know if i’m hating on feminists and environmentalists by my scare quotes in the last post:

on a related note: have you ever noticed that people that support a “woman’s right to choose” also tend to support things like animal rights and “save the earth” propaganda? we call that ironic.

short answer: i’m certainly not hating on them.

i think i use the "scare quotes" because the phrases people use to describe their positions are often more about politics and PR than actual substance. for instance, if a person is "pro-life", they probably care very little for the lives of, say, the near-extinct. in the same way, say a person supports a "woman’s right to choose", then they probably care very little for the choices of the female fetus.

the glossiness of such terms sickens me a little.

i would also argue that being a feminist does not necessitate support for a woman’s right to choose. i’d consider myself a feminist in every other regard (not counting the fact that i’m not a female).it’s a minor point, and a semantic one at that, but i thought it worth mentioning.

here’s a strange twist: i recently realized that supporting abortion can be a reasonable belief.

imagine for a moment that you believe animals have souls. would that change your eating habits?

it would mine.

but as it is, you probably don’t believe that they have souls, and you probably have no problem eating a juicy steak or chicken sandwich.

my point is that everything hinges on that original belief. on the subject of abortion, if i could convince myself that the newly fertilized were nothing more than a soulless blob of tissue, than the right to abortion is easier to stomach (there are still arguments against it, i realize, but that would certainly take a lot of wind out of the sails).

don’t get me wrong. i’m not switching sides. but i think it’s a good idea to look at it the other way every once in awhile.

on a related note: have you ever noticed that people that support a “woman’s right to choose” also tend to support things like animal rights and “save the earth” propaganda? we call that ironic.

but isn’t it also a little ironic that people who purport to recognize the value of every piece of God’s creation, no matter how recently conceived, also tend to have the least regard for animals and the rest of creation?

Have you seen the terrible video of our new house yet? Here it is:

Some of you have asked about our wedding video (from oh so long ago). I thought I’d go ahead and link to it [UPDATE: and here's our reception].

How dull this blog has become.

listen: that poem from the other day was written by emily dickinson, not yours truly. i simply forgot to credit her. silly.

also: at the request of the indefatigable kony kim, i now officially tag her to respond to the weird chain-mail-forwardy-type post. as i said then, i would tag others of you, but then you won’t respond, and i will cry in my sleep.

it has now been officially 2 months since i have been gainfully employed. more than that, even.

——

i’ve always been one to come late to the party.
i didn’t sprout a chest hair until after my 18th birthday.
didn’t kiss a girl until i was in my 20s. i didn’t even WANT to kiss a girl until then.
couldn’t drive on my own until well after my seventeenth birthday.
never had a girlfriend until i was 20.
didn’t see a lick of porn until i was 19. didn’t want to again for a long while.
there are a number of other examples. but i think you get the point.

and somehow, at 23, i’m married, own a home, and am having my quarter-life crisis a little more than a year early.

some guys have all the luck. i just have the heebie-jeebies.

what if you have no purpose in this life?

i’m being serious here.

look, we happen to believe that we live forever. FOREVER. that’s a long time, y’all. and in case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of us.

isn’t it possible that a few of us are created for a purpose that won’t be realized until after the new heavens and earth are revealed?

i mean, i’d like to believe that God has this huge master plan for the limited amount of time that he allows the earth to exist, and he assigns every single one of us a role.

but somehow, i just don’t think that’s true. certainly, there’s a master plan for the old earth. and yes, we all have a purpose for existence. i’m just not sure that the two coincide on every instance.

i guess what i’m getting at is this: maybe it’s not such a big deal what we do here. there are so many mindsets to get lost in: i’m going to “save the sinners”, i’m going to “change the world”, i’m going to “be successful”, i’m going to “live life to the fullest”. and certainly none of those things are bad ideas in and of themselves.

i’m just concerned that we get too caught up in them. and we just end up disappointing ourselves.

or maybe it’s just me.

as lightning to the children eased
with explanation kind,
the truth must dazzle gradually–
or everyman be blind.

hollywood died in my arms yesterday.

she’d been having epileptic seizures over the weekend. we took her to the vet and he prescribed some seizure medication.

less than 24 hours after she started her meds, she had an extremely bad seizure that lasted for several minutes. she rolled around on the couch, almost as if trying to find a position to stop the pain. i held her as gently as i could while still preventing her from rolling off the couch. her heart started beating fast, at a speed more appropriate for an animal half her size.

then suddenly, without warning or any yelps of pain, the seizure was over. and she stopped breathing.

denial: i called the vet. “what can i do?” “nothing, she’s gone”.
anger: stupid vet and his stupid prescriptions.
depression: i keep getting flashes of her face just after she died. she was still looking at me, those sad, pathetic, “you-don’t-feed-me-enough-table-food” eyes.
acceptance: not quite, but soon i’ll be ready for another.

four out of five, i guess.

all this just 5 weeks after finally getting her back.

i will miss that dog. thank God there are dogs in paradise.

goodbye old friend.

that was an april fools joke y’all. i was trying to think of something that would guarantee some clicks.

if you haven’t clicked on the link from last post, please do. especially if you’ve never been rick roll’d before…

also, all the other link are perfectly legitimate and link directly to mp3’s of music on my server. take what you want…

Thanks to those that have supported my silly musical endeavors over the years. But since I haven’t sold a copy of either of my albums in nearly 3 years, and because I believe that recordings of music have lost most monetary value anyway, I’d like to make the following available, for free.

First off, my never-before-heard song Why I Hate My Family.

And now for the rest of my work, in downloadable MP3 format…

newest stuff:
Fall Princess
gravity
sparkling stars

from “and i break”:
[aagh! i can't find it on my computer right now...i'll get these up soon...]

from “get real”:
Before I Do
Little Big Time
Friendly Funny Guy
Hypocrite
Mask Parade
Upside Down Inside Out
CoffeeCoffeeCoffee
Sibling Revelry
Sometimes Love
Waiting For Eternity
Snuggle Close / Lullaby

so i quit my job today.

long story short, my boss and i disagreed on a number of issues about how a business should be run.

the back-breaking straw for me was our latest project, which involved an ethically “grey” issue surrounding intellectual property rights and international reciprocal patent protections. heady stuff, but not something i was comfortable with.

in the end, we mutually agreed to part ways.

UNFORTUNATELY, this came at a really bad time. amy and i are up for a home loan, and if i don’t find a good job soon, we might lose out on the house. boo hiss.

i trust God to do what’s best, but obviously i want everything to work out soon. i’ve got a couple leads, but if you hear of anything opening up in Jackson, TN in the very near future, please let me know ASAP.

jackson friends: i look forward to living in your town again soon. pray that God will provide a way for that to happen soon.