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I am sprothe

Fear me

Thread by: Absol, Jan 10, 2010, 21 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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wat

Thread by: Absol, Dec 31, 2009, 5 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Hey khv

Bit of a dilemma here.

I've decided after nearly 15 years of being homeschooled that I should maybe try attending school rather than basically being trapped at home all day.

Is this a good idea y/n?

Thread by: Absol, Dec 30, 2009, 42 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Every member here should read this

Since the dawn of humanity, mankind has communicated via symbols. Indeed, it was a turning point for civilization when the Sumerians carved a GOT BARLEY? icon on a rock. (The Sumerians also invented beer, making them the forerunners of drunken texting.) Letters and punctuation are nothing but code for our thoughts and ideas. Why then do I feel all stabby when I get a message that ends with three short marks: a colon, a hyphen and a parenthesis?

The smiley and all its variants have irked me from the day I first dialed up Usenet nearly 17 years ago. Initially I didn't know what it meant, until a helpful netizen told this newbie to "turn your head sideways."

Then I saw it. Once you've seen the smiley, you can never unsee it -- especially when a large number of your correspondents use it with the gusto of a drag queen dispensing snaps at a "Project Runway" marathon. Smart people, nay, brilliant ones use emoticons. Articulate, bright, funny people. Yet when I see a smiley, my first thought is, "What are you, 12 years old?"

What is it about the emoticon that fills me with such loathing? Maybe it's the wastefulness of the enterprise, the redundancy of it, the implied lack of confidence in the writer's ability to communicate, or mine to comprehend. If you say, "I'm looking forward to seeing you tonight," I think you're looking forward to seeing me. If you say, "I'm looking forward to seeing you tonight. :-)," I think you're not sure I understand the extent of sentiment in that seven-word message. And if you write, "I'm looking forward to seeing you tonight ;-)," I think your assumption of getting laid this evening may have been a bit premature, Winky.

The emoticon evolved out of tech culture. To be fair to the geekier among us (aka My People), folks who spend a lot of time in front of computer screens aren't the most socially adept under the best of circumstances. Now take away visual clues -- the human smile, the knowing touch, the gentle, jokey jab to the shoulder that would soften a real world "RTFM, NOOB" -- and you can understand what a glorious day it must have been when man realized he could, with three simple keystrokes, put a facial expression on an impersonal medium.

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That man was Scott Fahlman. On Sept. 19, 1982, the Carnegie Mellon computer scientist sent out a message with the subject head ":-)." It was intended to clarify communication on a message board at the university, and it read, "I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-). Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-(."

The genie was out of the ASCII bottle.

I spoke to Fahlman a few weeks ago and asked his opinion of what he had wrought.

"It's survived this long for a reason," he told me. "It's handy. We're not all great writers. This is very informal, quick-and-dirty communication. You don't want to explain if it's funny or not. I send a lot of messages where I use sarcasm," he continued. "If I toss one smiley off, it'll save me a couple hundred fights, and it's no big deal."

Yet even the Victor Frankenstein of emoticons has his limits. Reflecting on the newer, preset smileys (or the zillions of alternatives mailer programs helpfully offered), Falhman said, "I think those garish yellow circles are ugly. There's creativity in doing emoticons, in making up your own now and then."

My friend Craig Ward, a typographer whose Web site is called Words Are Pictures and who shares what he calls my "deep-rooted respect for punctuation," ponders in the reverse direction. "A smiley face graphic is different, conceptually," he says. "I think in that respect the emoticon as a cluster of symbols is on its way out ... So hooray for that."

But though Ward admits, "I've used them before. A lot, if I'm honest," he also says, "I'm using emoticons less. I think they've just been overused."

Whether they're humble punctuation marks or shape-shifting, animated gifs matters not -- I loathe them in all their forms. I see a face at the end of a sentence, I start lopping off IQ and attractiveness points for the person who wrote it.

My gripe with emoticons has little to do with my fogeyism. I may be over 40 and need reading glasses to text, but who loves the smiley and its ancillary symbols more than your grandma? Unlike the cryptic acronyms and mystifying gamer terms that baffle us oldsters, the emoticon does not discriminate on the basis of age. But there is something gratingly cute about it, something breezily, notebook doodley in its nature that makes me want to smack the half circle off its stupid face.

Maybe that's because I don't entirely trust it. Of all the crimes perpetuated by the emoticon, surely the most grievous is its role in the passive-aggressive insult. There's at least an honesty to a plain old sarcastic, snotty comment. A group e-mail or Facebook comment to the effect of "Nice dress â€“ I didn't know there was a hooker convention in town. ;-)" or "I guess I'll do all the cooking again like I always do! :-)" is just bullshit. And sarcasm with a wink isn't sarcasm. More than a quarter-century into Internet culture, we can safely say the emoticon has not eradicated flaming or general online *******ry. It' s just another useful tool.

Even when the emoticon speaks truth, I submit that not every communication requires a clarification regarding how it makes you feel. A statement of action, i.e., "I'm heading in to the meeting now," doesn't require a window into your soul. If you're telling me you're stuck in traffic or that you had a lovely dinner last night, assume I can guess the appropriate psychological response that accompanies it -- or that I very likely don't give a toss. Furthermore, if you are in fact expressing how you feel, i.e., "I am so despondent," the words stand on their own just fine without benefit of a mopey icon.

Sure, not all of us are writers. If a friendly icon greases the path of online relations, where's the harm? After all, we already employ punctuation to more clearly express ideas. What is an exclamation point for if not to convey heightened emotion? What are italics for if not emphasis (or to distinguish a bon mot en FranÃ§ais)? And if I should write, "I'm blushing here," how is that so different from sending an image of a red-cheeked face?

But the emoticon is so damn needy. The smiley is the rimshot of online communication (which makes the frowny the sad trombone). It clings to your virtual leg, begging for your approval. Love me! it says. Understand me! I am trivial and light of heart even when in despair! (The mere existence of an emoticon for "brokenhearted" is enough to, well, break my heart.)

So let me meet your thoughts halfway. Leave a little something to the imagination. You don't have to wow me with your dazzling prose (although dazzling prose is always welcome). And we don't need to draw a picture, I promise. Trust that if something is making you smile, you can tell me about it and I'll understand. Trust that even though you can't see me, my non-yellow, punctuation-free face will be smiling back.
Click to expand...

Original article: http://www.salon.com/life/feature/story/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2009/11/30/death_to_smiley

hurrr

Thread by: Absol, Nov 30, 2009, 4 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Pastor prays for Obama's death

Pastor Wiley Drake preaches on most Sundays in a church tucked in between Californiaâ€™s big amusement parks, a place some people refer to as "Wiley World."

The particular Sunday I visited First Southern Baptist Church was the weekend following the Fort Hood tragedy, when U.S. Army psychiatrist, and Muslim, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, shot and killed 13 people.

â€œLadies and gentlemen,â€ Drake said as he addressed the group of about 60 gathered in Buena Park that evening, just down the street from Knottâ€™s Berry Farm. â€œIf theyâ€™re a Muslim, theyâ€™re a danger to this country.â€

Statements like these are a dime a dozen in â€œWiley World.â€ Political correctness isnâ€™t a concern to Drake. And yet, his assertions about Muslims are far from his most controversial. What has garnered him the most media attention is what he said to national radio talk show host Alan Colmes in June.

â€œAre you praying for his death?" Colmes asked Drake, referring to President Obama. "Yes," Drake replied. "So you're praying for the death of the president of the United States?" Colmes asked. "Yes." "You would like for the president of the United States to die?" Colmes asked once more. "If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that's correct."

Drake says he regrets the media frenzy caused by the Colmes interview, but he stands by his use of imprecatory prayer, a form of prayer he says is biblically mandated -- an appeal to God that is, unlike most prayers, a request not for something positive but for misfortune, a kind of curse meant to fall on those considered evildoers.

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With his gray hair slicked back and a slightly pinkish complexion, Drake sported suspenders and glasses as he explained that his decision to use imprecatory prayers stemmed from a desire to better organize his early morning telephonic prayer meetings. Drake decided praying the Psalms would be one way of redirecting these sessions. But soon, he came to Psalm 109: â€œMay his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.â€

"Thatâ€™s the one that got me in trouble," Drake says now.

The problem is that Drake began to recite this prayer, and others like it, while keeping certain people in mind. In the case of Psalm 109? President Barack Obama.

But Drake is far from alone in his use of imprecatory prayers. Pastor Steve Anderson of Faithful World Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., also incorporates this form of prayer in his worship. In fact, Frederick Clarkson of Religion Dispatches surmises that Anderson inspired one regular attendant of Faithful World Baptist, 28-year-old Chris Broughton, to show up to a speech by the president with two guns in hand when he issued the following sermon:

"Youâ€™re going to tell me that Iâ€™m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children, and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things," Anderson said, referring to President Obama. "Nope. Iâ€™m not gonna pray for his good. Iâ€™m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell."

There are other signs imprecatory prayer is growing in popularity. Beliefnetâ€™s Rabbi Brad Hirschfield writes that Psalm 109 is now a top Google search; itâ€™s even inspired a line of bumper stickers and T-shirts that sinisterly read â€œPray for Obama,â€ while pointing to the Psalm, and in particular, the passage that calls for an end to present leadership, though Gawker recently noted that CafePress, popular purveyor of homemade T-shirts, has stopped selling the items.

But what is it, exactly, that unites people who pray for the death of the president?

Mostly likely, it's a rabid antiabortion stance. Drake "prayed" for abortion doctor George Tiller, and reacted to Tillerâ€™s murder by noting that his death was an answer to those prayers.

Drake insists this isnâ€™t as evil as it sounds.

"Iâ€™m not for a Christian or anybody killing somebody," he told me. "Thatâ€™s Godâ€™s business."

Tillerâ€™s death, then, according to Drake, must have been Godâ€™s will, and his prayers simply aligned with Godâ€™s providence.

When speaking about Obama, Drake often refers to "baby killing." Anderson is also pro-life. And both men believe homosexuality is a sin -- views that fit neatly into not only certain religious camps but political parties as well.

Anderson is a member of the Constitution Party, which is, according to its own site, the third largest political party in the United States in terms of voter registration -- a party that is pro-life, pro-gun and anti-gay. The monthly newsletter, Ballot Access News, puts the partyâ€™s voter registration total at more than 400,000 or .44 percent. This is considerably less than the numbers Democrats, Republicans or Independents boast, but still greater than the numbers on record for the Libertarian Party or the Green Party. And Drake himself ran for vice-president of the United States on Alan Keyesâ€™ 2008 ticket as a member of the American Independent Party, the California affiliate of the Constitution Party.

But aside from politics, there is the question of whether people who pray the Psalms in this manner stand on any kind of solid theological ground.

Stephen Chapman from Duke Universityâ€™s Center for Jewish Studies says Jews and Christians inherited the tradition of imprecatory prayer from the Ancient Near East but used this form of prayer in a specific way: Imprecatory prayers were meant to remind the faithful of the covenant they held with God and the consequences that would follow if that covenant was broken.

Given the New Testamentâ€™s message of love and forgiveness, Christians in particular have struggled with what to do with the material ever since, says Chapman.

But Drake argues heâ€™s in good company when it comes to imprecatory prayer. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin prayed this way, he says. Still, there have been other famous theologians, C.S. Lewis for one, who found these kinds of prayers distasteful. Present-day Hebrew scholar Walter Brueggemann has tried to find some kind of middle ground by arguing that the Psalms can serve as a kind of liturgical venting -- a psychological release from the pent-up anger and frustration life continually piles on us.

The Southern Baptist Convention has distanced itself from imprecatory prayer, though Drake himself once served as the SBCâ€™s vice-president; SBC president Dr. Johnny Hunt has called imprecatory prayer unbiblical. But this is where, in a sense, Drake is right and others are wrong. Prayers calling for the downfall of our enemies can be found in the Bible, thereâ€™s no arguing that. But the question is: What do we do with the text now?

This isnâ€™t an easy question to answer. Though Drakeâ€™s or Andersonâ€™s actions may strike most of us as plainly and abhorrently wrong, same-sex marriage no doubt strikes Drake as decidedly wrong. That's yet another conviction upheld with the help of biblical text, and which is, no matter what fundamentalists argue, clearly open to interpretation. Itâ€™s a reality that not even historical context can save us from, and the danger that comes when considering a text as beautifully complicated as the Bible sacred.

But discrediting people like Drake or Anderson should remain a priority, even for those of us who donâ€™t believe in the power of prayer, because in these instances prayer is tantamount to hate speech -- an act of violence that the First Amendment makes difficult to do anything about in the United States. Drake has just recently lifted his call for imprecatory prayer against the president, but only because he wants Obama to live long enough to stand trial for treason. Drake continues to argue that Obama is not a U.S. citizen and that his claim to the presidency is illegitimate as a result. But Drake is no doubt using imprecatory prayers on others, and one look at the evidence screams heâ€™s not alone.
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Original article: http://www.salon.com/news/religion/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2009/11/23/praying_for_obama_death

It's times like this when I wish these hateful fucks would just die out already.

Discuss.

Thread by: Absol, Nov 24, 2009, 19 replies, in forum: Current Events
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Um.

Thread by: Absol, Nov 5, 2009, 2 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Holy ****ing ****

I saw Rocky Horror live.

And it was ****ing insane.

I lost count of how many men in dresses/fishnets/tutus/whatever I saw.

Dear god.

Thread by: Absol, Nov 2, 2009, 15 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Ein, zwei, drei, hammer

woooOOOO YOU CANNOT REACH ME NOW~

Thread by: Absol, Oct 30, 2009, 6 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Pyro

McLoser Lame Face has not made any friends yet
Click to expand...

Is this what you were aiming for with that name or did it just work out that way?

Thread by: Absol, Oct 11, 2009, 10 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Oh **** yes

I get to see Ben Folds on the 21st.

And the theater he's at isn't even that big, so I'll see him up pretty close, too.

:lolface:

Thread by: Absol, Oct 4, 2009, 1 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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dear god

Fall's only just started and it's already down to 42 degrees here.

brb, killing myself.

Thread by: Absol, Oct 2, 2009, 10 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Pika

Is there some sort of deep meaning to your new name? O:

Thread by: Absol, Sep 26, 2009, 61 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Well damn.

Yeah, I know how lame it is for me to be leaving so soon after being away for so long already, but this time it's not my call. A number of you already know this, but I've only been able to get online via a PSP as of late, due to my mother getting paranoid about my being on a computer. But now that way of communication's been eliminated to, so it's basically back into the cage for me. (I'm writing this on a Wii in the middle of the ****ing night.) Therefore, obviously, I'll be gone for quite a while. On here, MSN... everywhere. I'm sorry it has to be this way. I didn't choose to be born to an overprotective parent, but that's just the way it is. Frankly, there's nothing I can do about it. For now, that is. Some time away will be good for me anyway, though. God knows I haven't been particularly jolly because of this place lately.

So anyway, I'll probably be back in... 1-2 years, tops. Just have to wait until I can get a job, work for a laptop, and finally have some freedom. And when that happens, I'll be able to start seriously planning the road trip, so... yay. The revolution is coming soon.

I don't have time to write shout outs for everyone I've befriended--hell, I'm lucky to be writing this at all--but I will say the main, most important thing; I ****ing love you all so much that it's bad for me. And Wolfie, I'll never be able to thank you enough for all that we're planning to do. I don't think the road trip would be possible without you.

In conclusion, I promise I'll be back, and once I am it'll be for good. And the KHV road trip will be happening soon, no matter what. Count on it. In return, all I ask is that until then... wait for me, m'kay?

Peace, love, and all that other ****,

-Luna

Thread by: Absol, Jun 6, 2009, 17 replies, in forum: Departure Hall
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Tkm

www.kh-vids.net/group.php?groupid=105

I say, you could very well be the next Misty.

Thread by: Absol, May 31, 2009, 0 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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DO THE lMPOSSIBLE

SEE THE lNVISIBLE

Thread by: Absol, May 28, 2009, 14 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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RlLEY

TELL ME

WHAT lS IN YOUR MIND

WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART

WHAT IS IN YOUR SOUL.

Thread by: Absol, May 27, 2009, 0 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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Mike

What's going on?! How's life?

Thread by: Absol, May 26, 2009, 4 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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._.

The goddamn fluorescent light in my room keeps flashing whenever I turn it off.

Now it looks like a disco party in here when I'm trying to sleep. :lolface:

Thread by: Absol, May 25, 2009, 13 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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FlNALLY

I DlD IT

I FINALLY GOT A MESSENGER

IT'S ONLY MOBILE BUT STILL

YESSSS

Thread by: Absol, May 15, 2009, 8 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone
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So I'm making a list

...of people from here to hunt down and meet during me and Wolfie's imminent KHV road trip.

[Along with their locations, real names, and other vital tracking info, but most of that'll have to wait 'til later.]

Anyone want in?

Thread by: Absol, May 13, 2009, 132 replies, in forum: The Spam Zone

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I am sprothe

wat

Hey khv

Every member here should read this

Pastor prays for Obama's death

Um.

Holy ing

Ein, zwei, drei, hammer

Pyro

Oh **** yes

dear god

Pika

Well damn.

Tkm

DO THE lMPOSSIBLE

RlLEY

Mike

._.

FlNALLY

So I'm making a list