Dan Man

Testing

2005-08-05T14:31:00.000-05:00

This is test because my blog seems to be down and I can't figure out what is wrong, disreguard this if you are reading this...which i highly doubt because the only people who actually read this are people I say, "Hey read my blog please!!!!!!!" And chances are that you are not one of those people. Anyway...Testing!!!!!

Offically Offical!!

2005-05-03T11:22:00.000-05:00

It is now offically offical!! I am out from under the rule of the man! I am now a free agent and can choose to write about whatever I want to. No longer will any of you have to read my lame attempts to anaylize arguments in my English book. No longer will you have to suffer readings things that don't make any sense because you are not in the class. NOW, YOU WILL ALL HAVE TO SUFFER MY UNTAPPED POWER TO TALK ABOUT STUPID STUFF!!!! I mean, really, how bad could it be. Who wouldn't want to read my thoughts on how jello would be fun to swim in, or how I think that ants could rule the world and they are just biding their time. I will now be able to dive deep into the things that keep me up at night (no really, ants are creepy and they are everywhere!). So to the brave readers who decide to continue coming to my blog, beware, crazy people post here!!

Blog Assignment #12 (Sliced Bread)

2005-04-18T10:23:00.001-05:00

Our society has truly grown from what it began as. Today, we surrounded by things that make our lives easier. The computer is an example of this. While it isn't easy to use at times, indirectly we are constantly benefiting from computers. Some might even think of the computer as a testament to our civilization. I say no. I say that what really shows that we are progressing as a species is sliced bread. Yes, sliced bread. This is one truely amazing thing. For those nay-sayers out there I will explain why sliced bread is truely a thing to behold. Sliced bread is convenient. When you want to make a sandwich you simply get the sliced bread and pick how many pieces you need. You do not need a ridiculously sharp knife to cut the bread; you only need a dull non-lethal knife to smear whatever you desire onto the bread. There you have a sandwich! This kind of convenience is not to be scoffed at. When dealing with loaves of bread much more work is involved. If you look at other civilizations that are not as developed, you will notice that they do not have sliced bread. They are not there yet. Sure they have deadly weapons of destruction and scientist working to discover a cheaper means of transportation, but they have not yet arrived at a place where they can truly appreciate the marvel that sliced bread it. Sliced bread could have a huge effect on the world. If people didn't have to go through the extra work of cutting the bread every time they wanted a sandwich, then maybe, just maybe, they would not be so angry at the world. People would get along. People would have time to care. They would let their differences past and enjoy their sandwiches and toast much more deeply. This might even be the reason why the French don't play well with other countries. They have French Bread which you have to cut. If you walk into a grocery store you see those long loaves of bread and they are never cut. You have to take what is known as a bread knife (very lethal) and do your best to cut the bread as even as possible. Its no wonder the French are irritated. What needs to be done is for the countries with sliced bread to send as much sliced bread to the countries in need of this calming miracle bread. With all these benefits that sliced bread provides us every time we need it to be there, sliced bread has earned the a spot in the history books. As civilization advances more and more, sliced bread will be a constant. Technology and intellect may fail but the concept of sliced bread will live on.
*Dear Mr. Fornes,
I tried and tried to related sliced bread to English 101 but I was not able to think of any way that English 101 can be compared, related to, or referenced with the marvel that is sliced bread. I only hope that you will be content with this:
"Yay!, I sure am glad the semester is ending, but I sure will miss English 101...*cough*"
Sincerely,
Dan

Blog Assignment #11(racing and jumping)

2005-04-14T08:02:00.000-05:00

In the case of any class, I view each of them as a race. In the beginning you are full of energy to you have stored up during the summer and are willing to do anything. In the middle you realize that you are getting tried and have to pace yourself if you are going to have a chance of finishing the race. By the end you are kicking yourself for ever entering the race and can only think of the time when it is over and you are able to soak your feet in some warm water. That is what english is to me. Right now I am at the stage where I can't believe I ever entered this english course and I want it to end so very badly. You see, I am a math person. Math has definite rules. Math is also flexible. Math makes sense (to me). English on the other hand has what I consider to be 30 billion rules and each one has an exception. There are different styles with more rules and exceptions to them. When I think back to this course (English 101), I think of how much english really means to me. English is that huge gap in the greater race toward graduation that we are all in. But throughout the course of the semester, english has made more sense to me, I still don't know how to use a comma, and I will always have verb disagreements but I do think that my writing ability itself has improved greatly. While many of my paragraphs are still unclear in some of the papers that I have written, I feel that I have come to understand english a more. That gap has become a little smaller for this math major and I believe that I will land on the other side it on firm ground...I think...

Where did the funny go?...

2005-04-02T23:27:00.000-05:00

A person of great importance has recently died...for all of you who know what I am talking about this is a very sad time for all of us. One of the funniest people on Earth died on March 30. Yes, I am talking about the one and only Mitch Hedberg. I first learned of this on April 1 which made me wonder if it was true or not. After two days of denial I am now realizing the true. He really is gone and will never be able able to spread his brand of comedy to the world. In short, we will always remember the tears that he brought to our eyes when he would start his stand up bit. He will live in our memories as the man who spoke in bursts....so long Mitch...we will miss you...

If it isn't broke, don't fix it. (Blog Assignment #8)

2005-03-28T23:44:00.000-05:00

My view of families is very broad. I figure that whatever works, works. If the children grow up to be good people then I think that their family situation worked. Of course there are all kinds of exceptions to this but I don't really feel like going in to them because its late and I am just trying to get this assignment done. From some of the readings that Mr. Fornes is making us read, everyone has a their own idea of what a ideal family should be. I personally don't believe that there is a family out there that doesn't fight or is without its quirks. All I have to relate to is my own family as an example as what I consider to be a good family. I was fortunate to have both parents and the loving support of my entire family when I was growing up. Its not like we don't fight with each other but we don't really stay mad at each other for very long. Some however don't have that and still turn out to be very good people. I guess some topics that interest me are the different types of families that are out there and how effective they are in relation to certian examlpes or situations.

Anything but shopping...

2005-03-15T10:53:00.000-05:00

To me, shopping is one of the worst kinds of torture. Whenever my sister ever mentions going shopping with a happy face, I get a sense of fear that she will want me to come and that might cause me to end up shopping too. This fear is enforced because I am probably the worst shopper ever. My sister once sent me to get a bunch of stuff for her so she could make a red-velvet cake. I had a list and everything. As I walked into the Bi-Lo in Aiken I realized that I had no idea where anything was even though I go there pretty often. I think that I spent the better part of two hours seaching for the stuff on my list. Naturally, when I walked into the store I didn't bother to get cart or basket even though I knew I would be getting a bunch of stuff. Once my realized this (at that point I had milk in one hand, eggs, in the other, and I was staring at the flour and sugar trying to figure out how to reach for them and not drop the eggs) I had to break down and go all the way to the front of the store to get the cart. At that point I was annoyed not only with the fact that it was taking way to much time and effort to get the stuff but also becasue I didn't know where half of the stuff was and I had already searched the supermarket once. I do admitt that I wasn't helping by searching for the stuff as they appeared on the list which made me constantly walk from one side of the store to other to get one item before I realized that I was just looking at the section which contained something else that I needed. After about 3 phone calls to my sister (concerning what to buy) and 2 phone calls to my home (concerning what we already had) I finally arrived at the checkout counter. The total of all the stuff I bought ended up being 30 dollars. When my sister found out that I wasn't really looking at what I was buying and just grapping the first thing I saw that remotely matched what was my list, she was pretty upset that I spent that much money just so she could make one cake. She has not asked me to go shopping for her since that time...well, at least nothing really important such as assembling the materials needed to make a cake. That is why I still stand by the fact that whenever a guy thinks he got a deal on clothing or groceries, he is wrong and there is some woman out there that bought twice as much as he did and got it for half the price.

Case Study topic

2005-03-07T21:54:00.000-05:00

The liberalness of the Baptist Churches.

The shoes he bought were brown (Blog Assignment #6)

2005-02-22T09:44:00.000-05:00

The other day I was part of the a very strange conversation. What made this conversation so strange was what was talked about. I heard the same thing repeated over and over again. This type of conversation is not foreign to me. As some of you know, I am hispanic. Being hispanic I get to see this sort of conversation style all the time. Some of you may be wondering what being hispanic has to do with repeating conversations, I will tell you. I once observed my grandparents and my parents in a very intense conversation. For the sake of all the English speaking people and me, I will use the test phase, "The shoes he bought were brown." The conversation went a little like this:
Mom (to Dad): The shoes he bought were brown.
Dad: Really, they were brown?
Mom: Yes, he bought the brown shoes.
Grandpa (to Mom): So, why did he buy the brown shoes?
Grandma (to Grandpa): I saw the brown shoes that he bought.
Dad (to Mom): You know why he bought them right?
Mom: Because they were brown?
Dad: Yes, he bought them because they were brown.
Grandpa (to himself): So they were brown huh?
Grandma (to Grandpa with conviction): The shoes he bought were brown.
Grandpa (to Mom): I bet he saw the brown shoes and decided to buy them because they were brown.
Mom (to Grandma): The shoes were brown so he bought them.

This went on for a little over a minute. The same thing being said different ways to each other as if they had to convince one other what each one believed, which was the same thing. I don't think that they realized what they were doing until I couldn't keep from laughing and they all looked at me and asked me what I thought was so funny. After I told them what they were doing they were all in disbelief and asked me the same question over and over again as if I was going to change the story if they asked me again. Of course, my family is not the only place I have observed this manifest itself. It seems that with many "older" ones this happens. This is the type of conversation that you try your best to get out of which leads to you saying, "Okay, well, I have to go now..." at that point the other person you are talking to restates a couple of the examples in the conversation and then restates the point that he/she was trying to make. That happens over and over again until somebody sees you in trouble and bails you out or you run away. I think that what causes this is that the people who are talking have nothing to say to each other but are determined to talk to one another for as long as possible. I have no idea why someone would get into this conversation but I hope that in the future I don't find myself actively engaging in these types of conversations.

Blog Assignment #5 (sounds really deep...)

2005-02-18T11:55:00.000-05:00

The marginalization of individuals hurts everyone. When someone descriminates against a race or person because of something that makes them different, they are denying that culture from sharing with the rest of society. An example can be seen in the movie Men of Honor. Cuba's character was descriminated against just because he was black. In the end he showed some in the Navy what we know consider common sense, that just because your skin color is different, that doesn't mean that you can't be the best as Cuba's character was. In the begining you see Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character as a cook in the Navy because that was what all blacks were at that time. He makes a difference when he decides to go swimming on a Friday and outswims what we assume was the best white swimmer. The head guy on the ship is impressed with this because it goes against what he was brought up to believe. That is where Cuba's character starts to get promoted and eventually goes to diving school. Because of the marginalization of blacks in that time, he had a hard time proving to everyone that he was way better than the white divers. By marginalizing blacks, the Navy probably missed out on some of the brightness minds and greatest swimmers. We see examples of that throughout history. The Germans caused Einstein to leave Germany and go help make the very technology that would cause them to lose the war. Although that is an extreme case of the consequences of marginalization, the results are the same. Whenever a country or nation or the human race marginalizes a people, they are denying untold opportunities that would have arrisen from that race or culture had they been giving a chance and not held down because they were not the same as everyone else.

Blog Assignment #4[Warning: If you are not Mr. Fornes, do not read(really boring)]

2005-02-11T11:54:00.000-05:00

Peter Sacks (its really a pseudonym) was the author of "The Sandbox Experiment." which is a chapter in his book, Generation X Goes to College. In this chapter, Sacks describes his method os teaching in order to continue being a college professor. Sacks is arguing (really complaining) that the higher education school system is all about entertainment rather than learning. Sacks brings out the faults of the college in an attempt to make his audience (parents of Generation X and teachers) see how little students are actually learning. Sacks also justifies his course of action by saying, "There seemed little doubt that the system was actually pushing me in that direction." There he applies to his ethos (whoa I used it!!) by implying that he really didn't want to start the sandbox experiment but was forced to, so in truth he is a really good guy and we should listen to him. Sacks provides many examples that prove his point that the school systme wants teachers to hold the students hand with the example of a student named Caitlin. Sacks comes down a little to hard on her for something and she started to cry and he later had to fix that later to get good evalutions. Almost all of the chapter was evidence of the incompetency of the students and stories (examples) of him having to hold their hand because that is what the higher education system was asking of him.

Squirrel Punks

2005-02-11T08:43:00.000-05:00

I think that the squirrel is one of the bravest animals out there. Think about it, have you ever seen a squirrel run across the road at top speed? (yes, I live in the South, can't you tell, I see wildlife crossing the street) They never look both ways or even try to hear the cars coming. The way I see it is that the squirrel is fulfilling every driver's dream, to blast through all stop signs and be a honest to god rogue. Everytime I see them cross the street (causing me to slam on the brakes and yell, "HOLY!") I just image that his (other a guy squirrel could be that stupid) other squirrel buddies bet that he couldn't make it across the road and he was like, "Oh yeah!, how much? Four nuts! You're going down, you better have those nuts when come back!" What's really funny is when the squirrel crosses the street twice (only after I pass it is it funny). Its like crossing the street once before the car can get to him wasn't enough. Its either that or the squirrel actually realized how stupid he was being and got to scared to think straight.
I have seen a trend developing concerning the roadkill on the street lately (bear with me on this, it gets better...I think). I have seen a lot of dead possums on the street and yesterday I killed one that was trying to cross the road. There was nothing I could do about it. As a gritted my teeth about running over the little guy, I started to think about what motivated the slow moving creature to try and race my car (I was going 55-60 mph, he didn't stand a chance). In my mind I imagined a squirrel laughing at the slow moving possum. Yes, I believe that squirrels are also the bullies of the forest. Think about it: all the squirrels are picking on the slow moving possum and calling him names because he knows that he can't cross the street when a car is coming. Finally the little possum has enough and goes to show the squirrels who is the man...he never had a chance. As I kept driving down the road, the same one I killed the possum on, I saw another dead possum! This leads me to believe that the squirrels just going down the street and getting as many possums as they could to cross the street. The squirrels know that they have an advantage when crossing the street, they are cute and many people will swerve to miss them. Possum, however, are not cute and people could care less, the squirrels KNOW this. Possums are not the only creatures that squirrels "play" with. I have seen them taunt my dogs (I have two) from the trees. At first, they wait at ground level. As soon as one of my dogs see one, usually because I have startled it when I walked by on my way to the mailbox, they take off after it. I don't think they, my dogs, have ever actually caught a squirrel in this way, but I don't think that convince my dogs that that doesn't work. The squirrels then hop from tree to tree as my dogs follow it waiting for it to make a mistake and fall right in front of them. I imagine the squirrels laughing a taunting my dogs the whole time with that bushy tail of theirs. My final conclusion is that squirrel simply like to toy with life.

Blog assignment #3 (you know why)

2005-02-07T19:16:00.000-05:00

For our third blog assignment we have to read two very long arguements in our text book. The first was about a college professor, Peter Sacks, who ended up babying all his students in order to get better reviews, or get fired. The second was about another college professor, Roger Garrison, who was trying to explain what was the difference between an educated person and a trained person.

To me, both people are arguing about the same thing: the general decline of the education system of today. Even though they were written a good many years apart the education system has been "changing for the better" for a long time anyway. Sacks is talking to, it seems, anyone who will listen (like me!) and gernerally whines about his problems (also like me!). Garrison seems to be talking mainly to the students and is trying to convince people that college is designed to help people to grow in the way they think and to become an educated person. I really didn't like either one which is another thing they have in common. Um....I don't really like this one and I can't really think of anything else to say, I might update this later...maybe.

person1:"So what you been up to?"-me:"huh?"

2005-02-04T09:02:00.000-05:00

Ever since I started to go to college I have noticed a very strange trend developing in most of my conversations. People always ask me what is wrong with me because they see me slowly swaying from right to left and my eyes are always slighty closed. Most people assume that I am sick or that I am not feeling good, but in truth I am simply tired. So when people ask me about my "condition" I usually respond by explaining how tired I am and how little sleep I have been getting lately and how I miss watching the late night show with Letterman. This conversation is repeated over and over again during the course of a day. Usually when I talk to other college students, we go off on a tangent about how little sleep we are getting. If fact you can strike up a conversation with almost anyone by saying, "You look tired.". That only seems to work only in the morning. The thing that I can't figure out is how fast everyone walks to their next class. One of my friends and me were walking across campus and we noticed that everyone was a walking past us (he was walking at my speed), where do they get the energy! Being a short person, I know that it takes a lot more steps to get where you going. What really gets me is when someone shorter than me (to answer G-man's incoming question: yes there are people shorter than me!) "flies" past me. I know that if I had maybe two more hours of sleep I could get to that speed. Seeing all that, I am constantly asking myself, "Where is everybody getting this energy from." It can't be coffee because I am averaging about three cups a day. I know that I really don't help out my situation sometimes by staying up till 12:00 when I know that I have to wake up at 8:00 the next day. An example of one such time where I did this was this past Sunday where my siblings and I invited a bunch of people over to my house to burn stuff (wood). A couple of people that came ended up staying really late and didn't feel like driving back home that night (around 1 or 2). I actually showed some evidence of thinking a went to sleep around 12:00 instead of going with my gut and staying up with them. I later learned (around 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 5:30 when I kept waking up because of their voices) the next day that they didn't sleep at all. One of the people that stayed over (he knows who he is) got up to go to the restroom and turned on one of the lights near my room (my door was open). This woke me up again and I decided to take action against this person. My plan was to say, "Hey, turn the light off! (lame, yes I know but remember it was 5:30 and I wanted 30 more minutes of sleep, but I did consider putting the word idiot at the end of that sentence). What came out was, "ahhhh gooo ahhhh." I only had enough energy to open my mouth and force air out, my vocal cords wouldn't respond. I decided to wait the light out instead of trying to talk again...I never got those 30 minutes of sleep...Oh, and by the way, it... has... been... a... great... week... (There I said it Mr. Fornes).

Deer!!(blog assignment #2 [cause I want to])

2005-01-25T19:55:00.000-05:00

On my way to Greenwood (I have many friends there) with my sister, we saw something scary: the silhouette of a deer off the side of the road. This is cause for alarm to any driver who values his life and/or the well-being of their vehicle. The very concept that we (my brother, sister, and me) passed a deer has been known to send my sister, who was driving, into a panic. The second we passed a deer on one night, the words, "Deer!" came out of my mouth. A split-second later I realized my mistake but the damage had been done. At that point my sister started yelling, "Where, where!!" and slammed on the brakes. This type of experience is the reason why I can't understand why some deranged individual would actually put a statue of one of those car-slayers near the road! My sister and I were very upset (to put it lightly but she didn't freak out on this occasion). I am sure that the owner of the deer statue doesn't jump for joy every time he/she narrowly misses death when a deer crosses their path. Of course some of you might be thinking: "What about the deer". I, however, know that deer can not be killed by mere mid-sized sedans. In order to kill them you either need a high powered rifle, a shotgun, or an unnecessarily large truck in order to take them down. In all three of the deer vs. car incidents that I have been involved in, the deer was seen running away from the scene if the crime. Concerning the story that I started telling before I started to address the good people of PEDA, the only logical conclusion that I can make of the deer statue phenomenon is that its some senile, old man's idea of a joke. Maybe the only pleasure in life that he gets is seeing cars break and maybe even swerve a little bit at the sight of his deer statue...poor old man (well once you overlook the fact that he would of course have to be pure evil to pull a stunt like that).

Blog assignment #1 ('cause I have to)

2005-01-23T16:48:00.000-05:00

A Sprint comercial on TV showed the Sprint guy drives up to a bunch of families playing football (parents against kids). The comercial is obviously already about families but is emphasized when the Sprint guy plays off the dislikes of both the parents and the kids and shows how this new deal will be perfect for them. Everybody yells joyously as the comercial then gives further details about the latest plan (called family plan) which featured unlimited mobile to mobile minutes so you can talk to your family for free. It ends with the Sprint guy telling the mother and daughter that he was addressing that they could use all the money they save to wash clothesbecause they were all very dirty.

This comercial is clearly aimed straight at families in general. The audience in the comercial were all families and the deal was made to benefit families the most. Of course we know that not all families are as close as the ones shown on TV, huging each other and smiling, and not all families talk to each other that much, for various reasons. So specifically the comercial is aimed close-nit families who constantly talk to one another a lot and would usually get "overage charges" because of their need to communicate with each other. As families watch the comercial, it was designed to make families think "Hey, that new Sprint plan is perfect for my family. We should go get it right NOW!." Thus by exploiting the family concept, Sprint makes money.

"Hey, it worked"

2005-01-22T15:43:00.000-05:00

The coolest thing that has ever happened to me was when I "fixed" an old GameBoy. Its not so much that I got it to work again because I never use it anymore, the coolest thing was the way I "fixed" it. A friend came over and noticed the GameBoy in a little slot next to my TV. He asked me if it still worked so I told him to look for a game and try it out. He found a game and inserted it into the GameBoy and turned it on...the screen didn't come on. The power light was on and the sound was chirping out that little jingle that it plays when the Nintendo logo pops up, he showed it to me and I snatched it out of his hands and looked at it. The very first thing I did was hit it with the palm of my hand. When that failed (how that didn't work I still don't know) I then proceeded to hit it against the floor and then the screen suddenly came to life. I stopped banging it against the floor and looked at it in disbelief and then looked at my friend, he was just as surpirsed as I was. The first words out of my mouth were, "Hey, it worked". My friend and I then started yelling "It worked! It worked!" over and over again simply because, to us, this proves that brute force does solve things. It was a big victory for guys everywhere. I have recently heard a story, which I will also relate, that proves to me that deep down women also believe that hitting things will solve any problem. As I was getting out of a car of another friend, he brought something to my attention. There were little white dots all around the door handle of his car. Upon closer inpection I noticed that those little white dots were in fact little dents in his car. When I gave him a puzzled look he told me that his 4 year old daughter tried to open the door with a rock. She was to young to understand that it is socialy unacceptable for girls to believe that hitting these make them work. So for all the women who shake their heads when they see guys hitting the TV to get a clearer picture, some of your own kind do the very same thing.

Those stupid little napkins

2005-01-18T13:39:00.000-05:00

Has anyone ever wondered who ever invented the tiny napkin, more importantly, why? I was eating a meatball sub for lunch and there was these tiny, little napkins there. See, when you are eating a meatball sub, if its a good one, the sauce tends to get everywhere. I am convinced that those little napkins have to be free or really, really cheap. I knew there was going to be a problem the second I picked one up because the sauce had gotten all over me on the first bite. I use the word picked up, but what really happened was that the napkin simply suck to my sauce soaked finger as I moved it away from the napkin holder. By the time the napkin arrived to my face it was soaked with only the small amount to sauce on my hands. Those little things are completely useless. It takes about six of those things to actually have an effect on cleaning something up. The thing is that nobody will ever use that many because if they do then when people walk by the first thing they think is that you are a slob because of the sheer number of little food soaked napkins littered around your plate. Thats just a little something for you to think about the next time you see those little napkins, there are people watching you and laughing at your plight!

My attempt to stay on topic

2005-01-14T18:31:00.000-05:00

Well I guess I should tell a little more about myself now that I have time...well I always have time but now I am actually fully awake. Most people who know me well know that before 12:00pm I only seem to be awake. Usually, however, when I a fully aware of my surrounds I try to make as many people laugh as possible. That was one of my favorite things about going to school in Ridge Spring, its small so I knew almost everyone there and could usually get most of them to laugh. Most of you are probably wondering where Ridge Spring is, but its not your fault (yeah, like you would really blame yourself) becuase it isn't on many maps. My favorite things to do is hanging out with my friends and generally anything else that makes me laugh and that is why I need to take a moment and thank a few people for bringing tears to my eyes on several occasions: the geniuses at Strongbad email, Greg Dean, that guy who animates Star Wars Spoofs, Brian Clevinger at Nuklear Power, and all those comedians that I could never seem to remember. So now that I have run out of things to write about I think that I will "leave".

me

Welcome to my Blog!

2005-01-13T10:30:00.000-05:00

Hello and welcome to my blog. I do not write much and I don't really like to write and I don't hate it either. I hope that you all, all three readers, will bear through my errors and not be to harsh with my general stupidity in topics that I might choose to post about. Well, that's all I care to share.

bye!
me.