Looking Snazzy, as Always.

Yes, I could have written a 4,000 word end-of-the-year extravaganza post about all that 2008 has meant to me and all that I've seen and observed in the lives of others but seriously, who has time for that? I have a party to get to and you probably do too, so lets get down to the good stuff: resolutions.

I only have one big one and thats to read 35 books in 2009. This may not seem like a big number, I know, but considering I've only read around 30-40 books since I graduated high school (four and a half years), it is kind of a big deal. I'll be doubling my reading material from that period in less than a quarter of the time. Who said you do your best learning in college? I was just warming up.

Rules:
Book means it is a REAL book, not a booklet, children's book, etc.
If it's a guide book (Discover Sweden, How to Chew Custard) I have to read 2/3 of the book and skim the rest before I consider it "finished."

If you can think of anything else, post it in a comment.

I'm sure I have some other little resolutions lying around but they mostly deal with personal hygene and aren't very interesting anyway.

Bring it in with style, you know Yogi Bear would.

Jefes de Jefes

I decided to do a picture-stravaganza post to show off the cookies I baked for my family this christmas. As a disclaimer, the "creepy klan greeting" cookie comes in response to a rolled up holiday greeting from the KKK that we got in our yard on 24th. Apparently the Klan is alive and well (and still creepy) - gotta love Johnston County. I don't know what's creepier, their racist freaky hood wearing antics or the fact that they knew we were white. How did they know that? A very un-merry christmas greeting, indeed.

Took a Little More of What I Take for Granted.

After a nice productive streak, it's always a little disheartening to realize you haven't written, not just in a day or two, but in days. I don't know what I'd do without a place like this to write. I remember this summer before I'd stared this blog and after I called it quits back at WilmingSloan, I would find myself itching to punch keys and publish something but I had nowhere to do it. Every so often I just feel the need to write and I guess with all the hustle and bustle of the season, that urge just hasn't hit me lately.

Excuses aside, I had a wonderful Christmas here with the family. Tomorrow I'm going to spend time with dad's side of the family and they're always an entertaining bunch.

But all of that isn't what I'm here to write about.

My mom asked that I clean my room instead of buying her anything for Christmas. Now, I'm still living at home so cleaning my room would be of benefit to me as well and you may be thinking, "Aw, Nathan's mom is trying to help him save money at the holidays." That may be partially true, but I assure you that money played little into her request. You see, my room hasn't received the attention it deserves for, oh, probably four years. In that time I've piled junk from everywhere else I've lived (a dorm, two apartments, and 4 summers at Caswell) into the floor until there was barely room to walk or, (how does one say it?), live in dignity.

Over the course of four grueling days I have finally cleared and rearranged it into a very cool and livable space. In the process of cleaning I hooked up my old and miraculously still working NES, mostly out of nostalgia. Surprisingly, I found the first Super Mario Bros. to be quite entertaining all these years later. Now I know what must be done.

Let me explain to you something: I played this game religiously for hours upon hours though most of my childhood. Starting in Christmas of 1989 when we first lucked out by getting one from Santa, my sisters and I put that system through the truest test of operability. In all that time, I'm sad to report that I have never - never - beaten the original Super Mario Bros. That is about to change.

I hereby declare, on this day, that I, Nathan Sloan, shall conquer the ultimate challenge of my childhood armed only with a rectangular grey controller and a pink book titled, "How to Win at Super Mario Bros. Games," (which I believe was published in '93 or '94). I will beat the original Super Mario Bros. and when I'm done, I'll be sure to share the glorious victory with all of you in a triumphant blog post.

Until next time, remember to push vigorously with the plunger handle and release suction every 4-6 seconds until the clog has cleared.

Yes, it Looks Absolutely Horrible

Mall-ventures

We took our family trip to the mall today and absolutely killed it. I'm so tired right now I could collapse into a heap, (and I think shall as soon and I'm done writing this).

At some point during our adventure we passed an Orange Julius, and being keen on their "Strawberry Sensation" smoothie, I asked my parents to wait while I got one. Before I could get in line I heard a weak, strangly accented voice call out to me from some unknown direction.
"Excuse me, sir. Can I ask ju something?"
I looked around. This encouraged her and she spoke again, in a more confident tone.
"Excuse me, sir. Can I ask ju something?"
"Huh?" I mumble, finally locking eyes with a short, dark-skinned girl at a kiosk next to the O.J., "What?"
"Can I ask ju something?"
I walk up to her.
"Are ju shopping for a gift?" she asks, pulling me in closer to the kiosk.
"No ma'am. I'm actually looking for a smoothie, I'm not shopping for anyone right now so I'm afraid I won't..."
"Can I just ask you something?" she interrupts.
"Sure."
"Let me see jour thumb," she says, putting down a tray of lotion samples and picking up a strange, multi-colored block.
"Um, ok."
I give her my thumb without thinking, (it's funny the things you'll do when asked by a stranger with an overly happy expression on their face). For the next minute or so she takes to buffing the crap out of my right thumbnail, yapping incessantly and pausing only to show me the different colored sides before explaining what they do. I nervously look over my shoulder from time to time and catch glimpses of my family waiting in a huddle with annoyed looks of their faces. I try to keep my cool. In my mind I have picked out a polite but firm declining statement which I will use as soon as she releases my hand.
"Are ju ready for dis?" she asks, still buffing.
"Oh, am I ready?" I ask, "This is going to amaze me, then?"
"Um, jes," she says, laughing.
"Should I be sitting down for this?" I ask.
She stares at me for a moment, obviously completely confused.
"Ha, jes. If we had a place here, you sit on it."
Finally she stops buffing and reveals my nail. In silent horror, I observe its new, absolutely glasslike sheen.
"An ju know how long this gonna last?" she asks.
Please say a few hours. Please say a few hours...
"This gonna last three weeks," she continues, "and dis is our cuticle lotions, it makes jour cuticles more healthy and better looking like dis."
She applies the oil to my thumb and picks up the package containing all of the products.
"Now," she continues, "I want ju to look at both tumbs side-by-side. Everything I just use come in dis package. You know someone you could buy dis for?"
Still in a mild state of shock, I'm looking back and forth at my normal thumbnail and the reflection of neon lights from kiosk signs in the other.

Eventually I pried my way out of her shiny grip and procured a smoothie for myself, but not before giving my parents a good laugh at the site of my nail. I sipped and walked on, wondering how awkward the whole situation would have been if I were missing a thumb.

Why isn't the word palindrome a palindrome?

Bandages and Brillo Pads

Illistration of McKinley's Assassination. Check out the guy behind the president. If I could caption him according to his expression he would be saying, "Sweet Gravy and Potatoes!"

Ain't Gettin' Any Younger

Today is the birthday of one of my dear Caswell friends, (who shall remain nameless so as to protect her anonymity), and it's a very special birthday at that, because it's her 18th. I asked her if she planned to buy any smokes - then I realized that on my 18th birthday I did not, myself, go and purchase any smokes. This disappointed me.
My next thought naturally went to birthday anniversary #21, during which I did not celebrate by purchasing alcohol. I am left with only two age/legality milestones ahead of me and I don't foresee either of them going down the day of, now that I think about it. At 25 I can rent a car, (talk about a killer way to celebrate), and at age 35 I can be president.
To date, the youngest president to have served is the great Teddy Roosevelt at the ripe age of 42 - a feat accomplished only because old Will McKinley got a couple of caps popped in him that September. Looks like I missed out on one of the little joys in life.

Kangadoo: The poo of a Kangaroo.

Echo

EchoPrayer

So, I don't know about my other Christian brothers and sisters, but speaking for myself I know that my prayer life often slacks. Sometimes it slacks for long periods. Sometime it slacks for such long periods so as to become, for all intents and purposes, non-existant. Now, I'm not talking about blessing the food around the table or mumbling something incoherent as your head hits the pillow and finishing it with "amen," I'm talking about diligently praying for the things we say we're going to pray for.

Even in the times when my prayer-life has been at it's strongest, (usually periods of intense emotional/physical struggle or life transitions), it is still, at best, unbalanced, (me, me, me, oh yeah, and George's thing too I guess), or just all around poorly organized.
"Nathan, have you been praying for 'X'?"
"Uhhh, (frantically search my memory until I realize that I haven't thought about it since so-and-so first brought it up), no. No I haven't. Sorry."

I've seen friends, usually girls, use these cutesy prayer journals to write down all of the prayer requests they can think of. This is their reminder and it allows them to journal on how their prayers have been answered, which is cool. I've often told myself that I'm going to start one of these, but I never have. Firstly, because I forget to go to the store and buy one to get started, but also because I can't imagine remembering to take it with me everywhere, or caring enough to open it and work on it like a bookkeeper for a small business. It would be super unorganized and end up in a box full of failed attempts at pen and paper journaling, which is already about to burst at the seams in my attic.

With online journaling, however, I have been immensely successful. If only there was an online service which allowed me to make a list of prayer concerns, organize them by date written, flag them as answered when appropriate, journal on them or on my prayer-life in general, and, (most importantly), send me random or scheduled reminders via email or text message so that I'd have no excuse for not praying. That would be just the ticket!

If you even partially agree, then you should check out Echo, (www.echoprayer.com). It's a web-based tool that does all of the above and probably even more. Best of all, it's free and you don't have to install anything - just set up a private account and you can access your prayer list from any device with the internet and a web browser.

I just discovered it today and in no time I had over 20 specific prayer concerns that I put on my list and set reminders for. It's cool for getting your prayer life in order, but a neat side-effect is that in detailing the specifics of my prayer concerns, I have had my eyes re-opened to a lot of ways I can be be more participatory in people's lives. For instance, if I write out "Johnny's Temper Problem" and put something like, "Pray that I would have the opportunity to have meaningful conversation with Johnny on the topic," suddenly, I am reminded of the fact that I can make a difference in his life if I pray about it and take advantage of our time together. Just an example, but that has been my experience.

Nothing works, however, if you ignore it and I'm sure this is the case if you ignore the reminders sent to you, but hopefully I will have discipline enough to stick with it. This is no excuse for being lax in keeping your thoughts heavenward on your own, but if you stink at it, maybe it will help start the habit.

Fuller's Earth

I've been reading a good deal of Sherlock Holmes recently, (which may be why my language tends toward the 19th Century British as of late), and I have to admit, that's some good stuff. I mean, it's nothing to go nuts over, but if you want to sit and relax and read a good story, Doyle's short narratives are just the ticket. I've also taken to noticing a number of similarities between myself and Mr. Holmes, a few of which I shall relate to you here.
-Holmes lives on 221b Baker St. in London: I live on Maple St. in Four Oaks. What do baker's often use to sweeten their creations? Maple syrup.
-Holmes' best friend is Dr. Watson. My favorite family practitioner is Dr. Stanley Watson at Horizon Family Medical.
-The famous deerstalker cap of Holmes was not ascribed to him by Doyle, but by the illustrator of the stories, Sidney Paget. I, too, have had hats falsely ascribed to me by illustrators.
-Sherlock Holmes is famous for his cold logic. I am capable for using logic, even when it's cold outside.

Sseltniop is pointless spelled backwards.

Both Sides of the Crazy Isle

The Lot of Them

I decided to clean out my life - quite literally.

Earlier today I made an inventory of all the crap I have lying around which could be stored or, better yet, sold.
After several hours I emerged with a list and in no time had the lot of them posted on Craig's List.

Among the items, I placed an ad for my old Lava Lamp which has spent the majority of the past six years in a closet in my room. It is a basic, average looking lava lamp with yellow lava. I never got attached to it.

About an hour after it was posted a lady replied asking me if the lamp was still available. I told her it was. Afterward I went upstairs to find the thing and see if it still worked. I plugged it in next to my laptop a few hours ago and went away.

I must confess that as I write this I can imagine no reason why I would ever wish to part with so lovely a piece of work as this lava lamp. The happy blobs of yellow keep making there mesmerizing circuit again and again, like egg yokes moving in slow motion. It's almost like some sacred dance of illuminated spirit - rippling, splitting, and joining together in endlessly fascinating ways.

...

Yeah, this freaking thing has to go.

If I had five arms I'd label them alphabetically. My favorite would be Arm-E.

Peel You Like Balaclava

Judgement Day.

One of my friends had a dream about hell-fire and brimstone. To this I asked, simply, what is brimstone? I have no clue what this damning mineral is that rains down from the pulpits of angry evangelists the world over. We always hear about it, but when we picture it, what do we really picture?

Spurred by this conversation, I found myself turning to none other than Wikipedia for the truth behind the mystery of brimstone.

It's sulfer.

How anti-climactic is that? My imagined brimstone was way cooler than stupid black grainy crap. I imagined something much more like limestone, light in color and more pleasing in texture - unless, of course, you are being pelted incessantly by it for eternity. Just imagine all the colorful fossils that would be flying through the air. A billion year old snail here, a 250 million year old fern there. So much cooler than the stuff we mix in our highway pavement.

Rooty-Tooty Fresh and Fruity would be excellent right now. IHOP it is.

Ginger Bread Mouse

It is time for the part of the blog where Nathan acronymizes his name.

Nationalistic
Amiable
Thought-provoking
Hearty
Apple-bottomed
Nifty
Independent
Endearing
Loam

Soft-haired
Limited by nothing.
Oscillating
Anti-establishment
Nomad

Worse for Wear

Cold Paranoia

Today I spent a good deal of time at the ministry center by myself working on a personal project for a family member. I used the ministry's iMac because my laptop would take off as if propelled by solid rocket boosters and explode into the ceiling if I pushed it that hard. About five hours into my solitary task, I realized I had fated the end of my evening to particular displeasure. I parked about a mile away and didn't have anyone to take me to my car. At 7:30, it was already dark and freezing outside. Not wanting to whine to anyone and put them out for a ride, I resolved to "suck it up" and make the 20 minute walk.

Have you ever been in a situation where you are so paranoid about something bad happening, that you play out all the details of what you would do in your head? As I walked though frozen streets, scattered with leaves and graced only by dim lamp light every hundred or so paces, I imagined every possible scenario.

In the first, someone puts a gun to my head and says, "Give me your wallet, NOW!"
I hand him my wallet with a cool confidence that would make James Bond wet his pants, and the thief, now even more on edge, runs away.

My next one threw even me for a loop. The man puts a gun to my head, but this time he yells, "Get in the van!"
My imagination thinks faster than I do, apparently.
"What if this were to actually happen," I wonder, "what would be the safest thing to do?"
After all, who knows where I'd be taken if I went in the van? I could be sold into slave labor at a creepy doll factor in east asia, or worse. Eventually, this is what I came up with.
"No, I'm not getting in your van and let me tell you why," I say, looking him squarely in the eye, "because if you shoot me every cop from here to Cary and back through downtown will be combing this neighborhood within minutes, looking for you. They'll find every bit of evidence they need and you will live in fear of the day they come knocking on your door. Now, on the other hand, if you put the gun away and drive off, I have nothing to go on - I can't every tell what you look like - and you will have committed a much lesser crime. Not tonight, my friend."
"GET IN THE VAN!" he screams, pushing the barrel of the gun into my forehead this time.
"Listen, you still have a chance to make it if you leave now," I say, "better yet, park your van and walk with me. We can chat about whatever is bothering you. I may even be able to help"

At this the criminal is so taken aback that he declares me a lunatic, gets back in his van, and drives off.

In the last scenario, I entreat a vanless villian to take my iPod as well as my wallet, then ask him if he will walk with me to my car.
"What are you talking about?" he asks, perplexed.
"Well, I mean, it's dangerous out here," I reply, "and no one would mess with me if I was walking with you. Besides, you've already got all I have, which isn't much since I'm a ministry intern."
He walks with me, we talk about God, then I shake his hand and say, "Thanks, my name is Nathan."
In a moment of absent-mindedness, he responds with his name and vanishes into the shadows from wince he came. I am left with the decision of whether I want to turn him in or let him go. This is a very tough moral dilemma.

Back in the real world, I am walking and staring at the ground while thinking all of this. Ahead of me, headlights cut through the darkness and the idle purr of an engine approaching slowly creeps through the air. My heart-rate quickens, but I try to quiet my nerves. Probably just someone not sure of where they're going. But the car continues past the turn and I look up, directly at the faceless soul behind its bright lights. At twenty yards the vehicle begins to roll off course and towards the curb, right next to me. Gone is the unbreakable nerve of the fantasy Nathan and all of his clever one-liners. All I can do is keep walking forward. Maybe they're lost and need directions. Just keep walking. At least it isn't a van. Just keep walking. Why hadn't I payed better attention? Walk. Walk. Don't look at them.

I can't resist.

The car goes into park and hums a lower picth as I pass. With near-bated breath I turn to look at the mysterious person next to me on the empty street.

A girl. Two girls, both in the front. Two, kind of attractive girls, in fact - and they're averting their eyes from the strange figure passing them in the night. I take twenty or so steps and regain my mental composure.

Figures. This is why I'm hopeless with women. They tend to terrify me from time to time, in more ways than one.

And now to enjoy a Double Stuffed Oreo.

A Buttery Canvas Like No Other

Sold! Materialism's Finest Hour

This is taking a lot of guts for me to admit, so I hope you all appreciate how honest I am being with you. When I'm in line at the supermarket or at some other discount supercenter, I often allow my eyes to wander onto the cover of one of those fashion or gossip magazines for women. Honestly, I think everyone does it. Sometimes, I'll even pick one up - but it's hopeless to try and find an article before it's your turn at the register, even if the family in front of you appears to stocking their fallout shelter. Until today, these magazines have only been a passing curiosity, but that changed this afternoon when I walked into my sister's apartment at lunch with nothing to do for a few hours. There, conveniently situated in an apple box next to her comfy armchair, rested this month's copy of Vogue magazine.

I feel I should stop here for a moment and make a few concessions to be fair. First of all, I have nothing against Vogue magazine in particular. In fact, I applaud them for their fine journalistic practices - such as featuring beautiful women on their covers. I will never fault a magazine for recognizing and taking advantage of what I believe to be some of God's finest work, as long as it is done tastefully and with respect for those women. Seriously, though, they print some fine examples of journalism and art. Secondly, I realize that I may not be the most qualified person to make judgments of a magazine's intentions when I'm clearly not in the people group that is being marketed to. I am a dude and, at the end of the day, I must admit that fashion falls somewhere after preference of popcorn topping on my list of personal priorities. I could make the argument that my opinion holds a certain desired objectivity given my apparent status as an outsider, but I'll give detractors the benefit of the doubt.

Here was my experience and discovery process, related as accurately as possible.

Jennifer Aniston is a striking woman, and on the cover she is wearing a striking red dress which accentuates certain of her striking features. This is the kind of image that must make women think something along the lines of, "Oh, she's so pretty," and makes men look at the magazine in the first place. Behind her head in large type is the magazine's name, VOGUE. It is prominent, being the second thing I noticed, but it artfully takes a back seat to the lady in red. No matter what insanity may exist in the space of the cover, its strong but quiet presence is always there, holding things together.

Four different features are advertised in type around the subject with a fifth, (BONUS!), feature advertised as a banner in the top left. This is pretty standard from what I've seen. The formula seems to be a pretty person surrounded by four features of the magazine with either a banner or starburst emblem serving as the eye-catching bonus article. In this case the banner reads: "EXTREME BEAUTY The Three-Minute Freeze for Younger-Looking Skin." Who can ignore that? In my case it was easily ignored in favor of the red type announcing the cover story which read, "JENNIFER ANISTON 'What Angelina Did Was Very Uncool.'" I love it when celebrities use popular slang.

With mild shame, I admit a certain compulsion to then comb through page after page until I could find what "uncool" action Angelina had taken against the lovely Aniston. I'm not even a celebro-stalker and I was tempted. Unfortunately, finding the article, or anything specific for that matter, proved no easy task.

Have you ever lifted one of these magazines? They are surprisingly hefty - much like a baby cousin you attempt to hoist at Thanksgiving after not seeing for a year. "Woah, kid needs to lay off the yam soufflé" The majority of this bulk comes not from insightful and keenly written exposés of fashion, beauty, and celebrity life, as you might expect, but from paying advertisers. When it took me a full minute to find the first of a series of widely separated tables of contents, I started watching the clock. I wanted to time how long it took an average, reasonably intelligent person to navigate to the eye-catching cover story. Over four and a half minutes later, I found it. Along the way I was treated to a number of ads which are worthy of some notation. Here is as complete a record as I could manage in looking back.

-347 pages total, 207 of which were totally dedicated ad space.
-38 two-page spreads.
-11 mulit-page serial ads, the longest of which was a series of 14 pages for Gap.
-25 Ads for jewelry or timepieces (super expensive stuff).
-28 Ads for fragrances (I got a mild headache from the mixed scents).
-8 Naked people. Mostly Jewelry and Fragrance ads. I guess if you aren't selling cloths, why feature them at all?
-29 people whom I personally believe would look ridiculous if they were in public. Note: this does not include the 8 naked people.
-3 ads which are set in some sort of bizarre fantasy world.
-2 Flyer insert ads.
-1 Fold out ad
-1 series of Nordstrom ads featuring a girl with gigantic hair.
-1 Guy wearing a tuxedo with flannel shirt.
-1 seriously unnerving image of Paris Hilton as a fairy.

It may come as no surprise that 59.7% of the booklet was purely ad space, but what did surprise me was the way in which their features and ads have evolved in co-habitation. For instance, if you were lucky enough to have opened the magazine randomly to one of the feature pages, chances are, it would take you a moment to figure out what you were looking at. All of the lengthy articles and photo-features have been moved to the very back of the book, where they are, amazingly, nearly uninterrupted by single page ads or inserts. If you open to the more valuable front and middle real estate, however, your feature sections are harder to distinguish from the advertisements and they come only once every 3-5 pages. The ads look like the main content, and the main content looks like the ads. Of course, who's to say the ad's aren't the main content? The evidence would certainly suggest such.

Feminist and non-feminists alike have recently taken to acknowledging the way these fashion magazines and tabloids give women a false sense of self-image. I agree. I think I saw two women who would be classified as overweight for a model. One was in a Dove ad, (they have built their campiegn around featuring 'real' women), and the other was artistically featured as a part of the background composition in a Dolce and Gabbana spread. Every other woman was deathly in need of a cheeseburger and/or photoshopped more than a UFO hunter magazine. The collective image of women is, in fact, unrealistic and unhealthy.

Yet they are still popular.

The image thing is legit, but I'll tell you what bothers me even more. Greed. Materialism. Vanity. Blatant consumer propaganda. Perhaps the best example of this is a 4-page ad series smack-dab in the middle of the magazine printed on thick, easy to stumble upon, paper. These are the type of ads people pay the big bucks for. The entire series is, essentially, gold worship. The company is Only Gold and, well, I suppose they really want you to like gold. Three pages are of women just hanging out with their fancy gold jewlery on. The messages on each of them read, "Only Gold is Treasured," "Only Gold Radiates Warmth," "Only Gold is Divine." Divine? The last time that was said of gold was when some people fashioned it into the shape of a calf, or something like that. Regardless of your faith, I think we can all agree open worship of physical matter is foolish, at the very least and a tragedy of mankind at worst. Picking on the gold ad isn't exactly fair, though. This is the same message echoed throughout the publication.

In fact, I challenge you to find more than 3 or 4 pages in succession that aren't promoting some sick level of materialism in one way or another. Speaking of which, how about the Aniston article? Well, it runs several pages with a relatively low picture/word ratio, which was a nice surprise. If you are hoping that it provides a much needed respite from the allure of the glamours life, however, you are sadly mistaken. Nearly the entire first page is devoted to descriptions of Jennifer's 10,000 square foot home, complete with expensive crap that even Anistion doesn't understand the meaning of. All of this uncalled for, vain and materialistic influence - this message of complete and extravagant false need - all of it from the simple curiosity of what Angelina did that was so "uncool." If you're still curious, I'm not going to tell you. It only costs $4.99 + a pit of lies.