To those of you inclined to ignore my normal postings, I ask that you read just these first few lines because it has nothing to do with my own mental vomit, but with a request made by our own Molly Donelson. Molly has asked me to pass along a prayer request for her Chinese friend Dong Dong, wishing to have greater numbers supporting what is happening with him currently, and so, further than that, I have no details or specifics thanks to the listening ear of PRC, but to those of you who think I have nothing to do with spiritual things or things that are serious, well, you're mostly right except when Molly asks me to do things like this. So, since I'm not Scott Stinson, I have nothing futher to write or say on said subject, but you all know better what to do with these things than I do, so you can ignore the rest of this because it has nothing to do with the above subject.

I realize it's been a while since I last posted, and some of you are disappointed, but maybe I can cure a bit of that disappointment with some amusement, though I'd say it's rather unlikely. Nobody says anything about our year anniversary - nobody says anything about Star Wars coming out tonight/tomorrow. Next thing you know, we're all going to forget about Christmas and the 4th of July! Anyway, I plan on seeing the movie tomorrow after I get off work. Work has been interesting lately only because I met my replacement - a guy that happened to look like an out of work porn star when upon our first encounter yesterday. I mean, the curly-mullotish haircut, the creepy mo-stache, the unbuttoned shirt with chest-hair clearly visible... Then I worked with him today, Billy's his name, and he's evidently not in the adult film industry. Well, as far as I know. But he is taking my place, and giving me quite a bit of prespective about how I must have seemed two months ago when I started. Thankfully I did not push him out of the way and do his job for him as I wanted to so many times, but I also felt unqualified to instruct him since I had so recently been trained into the job myself. Of course, now I wonder what the guy that I replaced was thinking when I showed up. "Man, how does this 15-year-old get out of high school to come to work?" "Could your hair be any more Chandler?" "Oh, there aren't any stupid questions, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots." Who knows? Sorry about the Friends quote. I've been watching a lot of old episodes since it's on twice a day around here and I only get two normal channels. Folkestad - what day will you be showing up here? If it's early enough on Friday, we should hit lunch at my store before we head up to Big Fork. Or maybe not, if it's not a workable thing. Whatever.
So my brother and I were talking about movies, and he mentioned the new Batman movie that was coming out, and that's where I want to go with this blog. Apparently, according to my kin, Quigon Jin trains the new Batman to swordfight in Tibet somewhere, and the principle from Lean on Me teaches the new Batman how to drive the Batmobile. I saw this new Batmobile, and it's the most hideous thing I've seen on wheels since the last monstertruck rally came to town. I think it's a cross between a Toyota Prius, an H2, and a porcupine on steroids (do we call that a major league porcupine now, or is there other newfangled lingo that I'm missing from a lacking connection to pop culture?). But whatever... Katie Holmes is Batman's new lady - even if she looks 35. Makes me miss Dawson's Creek just a little bit. Except I've only watched one episode since the first season came out when I was a sophomore in high school, so I don't know what exactly I'm missing. So as my conversatoin with my brother wandered on, he at once exclaimed that it seemed Jesus was one of the three finalists on American Idol (ironic as that may seem just in the title). I said I was open to a new interpretation of Revelation, and we could probably find something just about like that in The Message or the New Living or whatever else is out there that couldn't be more contemporary without writing with a bunch of smiley faces at the end of each sentence. So, either this guy on American Idol is just some long-haired hippie (speaking of, Kyle, are you back in Missouri?) trying to woo the religious right with his uncanny resemblence to the Messiah, or Tim LaHaye is full of... nevermind. I think it's not an either/or in this case, because I'm fine if both statements are true. Riding on the clouds... riding on a pop-culture phenomenon... every eye will see Him... 30 million viewers... I could see another Branch Divideon group forming out of the similarities. What happened to all the Christian cults? Do the Muslims get to be the only ones with wildly dangerous fanatics? I guess Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are plenty enough for us right now. Speaking of religious trouble, I found two books that I'm hoping to part with quickly, one of which is a copy of Pursuit of Happiness with the name Daniel Bubna sketched into the front page, and the second being the infamous Purpose Driven Life that was a graduation present and nearly got me on the track to a purpose-driven death after the first two chapters... and so I was wondering if anyone wanted our old textbook or this roadmap to religious self-fulfillment, and I'll be more than happy to give either one to you rather than have you buy these books and further the thought that they should be sold or printed. There. I think that about balances my serious and spiritual beginning so that you people don't come looking to me as someone deep and seasoned. I'm fine being stupid and mildly annoying. Much easier expectations to fill. Well, I need to be rested for the big day tomorrow. Hopefully none of you think less of me for my verbal wanderings here. If you do, I guess I'll never know, so don't worry too much about it. I'll give myself that advice.