Going green

I would consider myself an environmentally conscious person, in many respects. I have many beliefs, but rarely do I act on them. I was a vegetarian for about three months, but that didn't work out. It wasn't because I couldn't do it, but more because my parents thought that I would get sick and die from it, and really it's probably one of the reasons that I have anemia right now, but that's not that big of a deal.
Anyway, I really like to help the environment in any way that I can; I turn off lights at my house and am starting a compost pile at my house. I try to buy only green fabrics, such as cotton and I watch the food my family buys. One of my only slip-ups is that I am incredibly wasteful of water; something that I am trying to work on.

Someday, after I graduate college, I plan to join the Peace Corps. Now I know that this is something that everyone says in a feigned way, but I am serious; I have been looking at it for years. I know that this probably goes against what most people would envision out of me, because I seem a bit high-maintenance, but I can adapt. And besides, the opportunity to help the world in any way that I can is something that I am always up for.
Recently, I was introduced to the website Earthle by a friend. It was formed by Google in 2007; a mirroring site with one major difference--it is black. Here is Earthle's mission statement:

Help Save 750 Megawatt-Hours a Year
Earthle was created with the idea in mind that if we as humans ALL join together and make the smallest of changes in our daily lives we can have massive impacts on saving Mother Earth. If humans around the world were to start using Earthle it would save an estimated 750 Megawatt-hours a year.
When you search using Earthle, the results are powered by google.com so the search results provided by Earthle are the same as what you would get using google.com (the best search engine in the world).

Essentially, there is no easier way to help our environment. Although I realize that I do not get nearly as many users of my blog, I have decided to convert the page to black with gray font, if you haven't already realized this. I hope to do a little more to help the environment with this school project.

You know the economic times are tough when it hurts me

This may sound a little like something that I have written on this blog before, an article entitled 'A place so much fun it deserves its own planet' primarily because I took the inspiration for it from here. This is the editorial that you will find from me in the March issue of the Torch, which comes out next Friday.
My job is troublingly akin to a carny’s; slumped atop a precariously placed barstool, I sit every Sunday afternoon, watching six bumper cars circle a track. I hold a big, yellow controller with two buttons labeled ‘START’ and ‘STOP’; it’s a ride so simple a sleep-deprived chimp could probably run it.
Nevertheless, my manager comes around every hour and reminds me of the importance of my position while correcting me on button-pushing technique. I try to remind him that I have been working in this minimum wage hell they like to call Planet X for the longest eight months of my life, but he looks confused and walks away, the words “Thank God you don’t work at Hy-Vee, you’d never make it there!” hanging from his lips.
Our neighbor Hy-Vee, the great money-making giant, is strangely resented around there. They don’t have to dress up their walls with tacky NASCAR posters and it never smells like puke in there. Hy-Vee isn’t overrun by sugar-rushed first graders and they can afford more than 15 employees. But most of all, they are important.
My managers have only recently come to begrudgingly accept the fact that people need to eat, but not necessarily to play laser tag. They walk over to the grocery store from time to time, attempting to sway busy moms away from the produce section and bribe children with the lure of mini golf (although I warn them of anti-creeper laws prohibiting this) because, when it comes down to it, Planet X-onomics show that the more parents are paying for broccoli, the less they are spending on fun.
Iowa’s economy has been, as of yet, in a virtual bubble; primarily cushioned from the nation’s recession, but as the Planet X-ers will tell you, our entertainment (if that’s what you really want to call us) industry is beginning to feel the pinch, along with everyone else. Now I’m not about to pretend like I know anything about the economy, like some of the Torch staffers do, because, truth be told, I am clueless. However, I can say that as the strains of the recession begin to reach the lowest end of the totem pole, the teenage worker, it is time to buck up and face the times.
It is no secret around Planet X that I don’t place much importance on my job, in fact, I often seem as though I am legitimately trying to get myself fired. However, now as talk has shifted at work, from whose turn it is to sleep in the games to potential layoffs and price cuts, the fact that paychecks are constant has become a selling point for many applicants. So, I guess I can count my lucky stars that I actually have a job in these tough times, no matter how pointless it is, because as the economy tightens around us, even the role of a glorified carny has become sacred to me.

Oh yeah, probably going to Hell now! (part 3)

Oh my good golly, bashing Christianity is getting so tiring, however, I believe I will digress with my discussion. This is a continuation of two former blog posts, 'Oh yeah, probably going to Hell now!' and 'Oh yeah, probably going to Hell now! (part 2)'.
(and you didn't think I would leave you without reading music, did you?)

9. Why are there more than one religion? If God controls all of our minds, why wouldn't he just brainwash us to all believe the same, correct thing. If he really did want the best for everyone (aka the passage on to Heaven) why am I not a Christian? Does he just like watching disputes between the Catholics and the Protestants? I mean, I guess it must get boring hanging up there in Heaven for forever, literally. Maybe wars and genocide and feuds are like his TV. He just likes watching crazy Tom Cruise try to influence all of Hollywood with weirdo Scientology. I bet that's what I would do if I were God.
10. It bothers me that people put so much weight on God. They just thank God all the time and then they talk about how God helped them and they just pray all the time, but their lives still suck. 'What if God were one of us?' and 'What Would Jesus Do' plague the minds of crazy Christians all the time. So what if God hung with me? It would definitely be slummin' it and it just wouldn't work, because God is just a rich Republican, spitting on him. I mean, legitimately, I know that I probably touched on this point before, but doesn't it bother you when you're driving down the highway or whatever and you see those homeless people hanging out by the underpass with his sign that says like 'Look at me, life has been so sad, but God is helping me through, and then some weirdo Bible passage'. Guess what bucko? As I throw a dollar at your sad feet, it isn't God that's helping you, it's me! So why don't we just stop pretending like the Lord had anything to do with this, and realize that your life still sucks, and if by some slim chance it turns around, it's not going to be any heavenly force.
11. Who is in God's family, because this is pretty tough to figure out. I've never read the Bible, except for in my short stints of Sunday School as a little girl, but seriously, I don't think that they should make this religion so confusing.
...once again, don't worry, there's more, because I honestly have nothing else that I can pull out of my ass (whoops excuse my language!) as well as this.

Oh yeah, probably going to Hell now! (part 2)

This is the continuation of another post, 'Oh yeah, probably going to Hell now!'.
(and some slightly offensive music from a musical about God to start you off)

5. Why doesn't Christianity ever want me to question God or Heaven? I can only imagine that any self-respecting, truthful establishment would want smart people as an integral part of it, and smart people think about things before they fully commit to them. However, Christianity takes the Bible as the law, why? Who even wrote the Bible, because as far as I know it was just some crazies that thought that God was talking to them. Anyway, the idea that I am supposed to blindly follow anything is mildly retarded, not going to happen.

6. God must be the biggest douche bag of ever. He takes credit for everything good that that people accomplish, and he is something that we can blame our problems. So obviously, people just use them as their emotional crutch, aka their way to not have to feel responsible for anything negative in their life. 'Why did little Johnny fall down the well and die? Well it must have been because it was God's time to take him to a better place now. Oh yes, he's in a better place now,' we try and perpetuate stupidity like this all the time. Guess what, Johnny fell down the well because he is stupid and played around a well! He isn't in a better place now, he's dead and under ten feet of dirt, unless your house was so shitty that a grave is a better place, in which case, I can come up with other reasons as to why Johnny killed himself, (excuse me, I meant fell) in the well. So, really, we just don't want to face the reality that some parts of life suck, and then you die.
7. My life is pretty tite now, so I don't need the promise of Heaven to validate my time on Earth. I'm not working toward any ultimate truth, I'm just having fun in life, and if God doesn't like that, he can fuck off. Because, really, the idea that all Christians have going in their life is that soon they'll be done with it, that's kind of sad. Maybe people turn to Christianity because of severe depression, I don't know.
8. Does God have magical powers? Because otherwise I think it would be a little tough for him to have made the world in seven days and such (because that Big Bang theory is just so dumb right?). But wait, I thought that Christianity condoned magic, anyone remember the Salem Witch Trials? And I mean one could make the argument that only God has magic, but maybe those witches were like Jesus. I hope all of those people in Salem went to Hell because they drowned Jesus' cousins.
...Oh, this still isn't over. I finally found something that I can aimlessly yammer about!

Oh yeah, probably going to Hell now!

This post, I thought I'd make it simple: I'm tired of writing so I'm just going to go ahead and ramble. There will be no elaborate stories or imminent truths, just me talking about stuff. So, here are the reasons that God isn't real:

(to begin, a little mood music)

This post, I thought I'd make it simple: I'm tired of writing so I'm just going to go ahead and ramble. There will be no elaborate stories or imminent truths, just me talking about stuff. So, here are the reasons that God isn't real:
1. Where exactly is Heaven? because if it can't be pointed out on a map, how am I supposed to believe that my soul goes there. And furthermore, where is Hell, because it's a little silly to expect me to believe that there is a place beneath my feet where little red-horned men are hanging out among pits of fire.2. In anatomy, which part would I label my soul? I mean, I probably don't have one because I'm not a Christian, but most people should. How am I supposed to believe that my soul makes a spirit and goes to this elusive Heaven when I die if I can never find my soul? I feel like this is the only thing that Christianity has going for it; the promise that you get to go to Heaven when you die if you've been devout or whatever. So if they can't even definitively promise that to me, why would I hang with them.
3. Who in the heck is God, like where the heck is he? How did he get Mary pregnant (okay that part isn't important at all, but still perplexing, the idea of immaculate conception is way creepy!)? But if I can't even count on God or Jesus or whatever (the distinction between which I still don't understand) what's the point in blindly believing. Yeah, let's all just drink the Kool-Aid why don't we?
4. If God does control all that happens in the world, why is there suffering and famine and junk? I feel like people try to rationalize this by saying that there is some big, master plan and we are all supposed to be humbled by or learn from these experiences, but if I remember correctly, Christians get murdered too. Why wouldn't God just make Earth a total utopia? And if he is real, he's obviously a sick guy, why would I ever follow a guy who gets off by seeing famine. The worst part of this too is that those AIDS victims in Africa, they pray every night that their mom won't die. So Christianity means to tell me that God's just up in Heaven jacking off to this or what? I don't understand why he would prolong the suffering of so many people, because I'm pretty sure that not even the devil is sick enough to devise genocide.

...This post is over, but don't worry, this subject isn't!

Hippie Jesus-looking freaks

Driving to work yesterday, in my daylight savings haste, I was cut off. Some asshole who looked like Jesus and had a peace sign on his license plate gave me the finger and then waved me out of his lane. It reminded me very much of a song I once heard:

Son, look at all the people in this restaurant
What do you think they weigh?
And out the window to the parking lot
At their SUV's taking all the space

They give no fuck
They talk as loud as they want
They give no fuck
Just as long as there's enough for them

Gonna get on the microphone down at Wal-Mart
Talk about some shit that's been on my mind
Talk of the state of this great nation of ours
People look to your left
Yeah, look to your right

They give no fuck
They buy as much as they want
They give no fuck
Just as long as there's enough for them

Son, look at the people lining up for plastic
Wouldn't you like to see them in the National Geographic?
Squatting bare assed in the dirt eating rice from a bowl
With a towel on their head, and maybe a bone in their nose

See that asshole with the peace sign on his license plate?
Giving me the finger and running me out of his lane
God made us number one because he loves us the best
Well he should go bless someone else for a while
Give us a rest

I actually happened to be listening to this song as I was cut off on the road, which made me chuckle, but it all made me think. I had to wonder about arrogance and superiority, and it's a long drive to work, so I came up with a lot.
I realized that I am bothered by hippie jerks, that's what I will call them for lack of a better term. You know the type, the ones with WWF stickers on their backpacks and who carry PETA signs and red paint in their trunk.
It's not because one cut me off and gave me the finger, because then I would hate old men and moms in minivans, and it's not because they constantly try and push their values on me that I hate this demographic. I guess I don't like them, because of the superiority complex that they seem to carry. I am an American, and thus a consumer; we are a nation of materialistic consumers, and I am happy to fall in line with that. Sure, I try and do my part to help the environment, I mean I recycle and I buy cotton, but I like driving and bottled water. And as Ben Folds sang, 'God made us number one because he loves us the best'. So, these Jesus-looking hippie freaks can preach to me all they want and can yell at me for wasting food and causing global warming, but I don't care. I act on things that I am passionate and concerned about, but I don't try and push my values on other people, and neither should they, and don't even get me started on the stupidity of vegetarians, because that's a topic for another day.