*Insert picture here when xanga stops acting up*

Whoa, whoa.

What has happened in here? I've been gone for what, 10 days and I get 178 e-mails from you guys? Last time I was away for more than 2 months and I didn’t get 17 e-mails. My guess is someone has been looking where they shouldn't have or something. There should be federal laws against Internet stalking (I know there are) and I could sue you all guys and get filthy rich. Yeah, I'm joking about the suing part.

Anyway, I have this little story to tell you guys, I know how much you like stories. I have this great friend I adore and he wasn't feeling so good before I went on vacation, so I tried to talk to him whenever I could while I was away. He always talked about me and what I was doing and how much fun I was having and whenever I asked him about himself, he replied that we'd talk when I got back home, that there were no real news and so on. I didn't push it. So, when I got back home at last, the first thing I did was visit his site (no, he doesn't have a xanga) where he used to make daily entries comprised of to-do lists and thoughts for family and friends, anyway, I went to his site to try to find out what has happened in my absence before talking to him and guess what? I found a blank page. I didn't know what to think and when I talked to him I asked about it and he said "he decided to remove himself from the Internet." And I was like wow, why didn't I think of that? He said he needed to concentrate on his life, his goals and aspirations, his real friends and spend less time browsing.

Now I have a confession to make. I always said I’d stop blogging when I stop having fun and I did for quite some time now. I’ve been way too busy and I’ve been spreading myself too thin for way too long to please everyone. I haven’t felt like updating for the longest time. The only reason I have been updating is hokie, (so it started with him and it ends with him.) I opened this blog to be able to note him, like some of you might remember, and I kept it alive longer than I wanted to because reading your notes have been the highlight of his working days. He can’t access the Internet from work and I’d copy/paste them for him. Oh, I’m sure he’d volunteer to update for me indefinitely, but I don’t want that, I believe in give and take, remember? Yes, I know most of you don’t mind my not returning your notes either, but you see, I do. Oh, and don’t get me wrong, the fact that I’ve stopped having fun has nothing to do with you, you’re the greatest bunch I’ve ever met on the Internet (except for fatcatfan, hokie and Forrest) and believe me I saw quite a bunch in my time. I won’t cite names, but you know yourselves, the ones who matter, who always mattered.

I would have unsubscribed you all, but that would have been rude, so feel free to unsubscribe, I won’t be offended. There’s nothing to see here anymore really. I won’t unsubscribe myself, but I can’t promise I’ll be visiting my xanga for now or reading any of you. Sorry. Just for the record, my soul is my own, I never relinquished it to anyone, thank you very much.

Kevin, Damian, Brian and Alex, what’s your middle name? Anyway, I don’t know which one of you it is or if it’s all of you, it’s not important, but if you’re doing it for yourselves because you’re having fun there, so be it, or else bail out.

Why am I so busy? Well, it has to do with Chris, school, (my two majors,) Chris, my family, Chris, work, Chris, my granny who’s with me for the moment, Chris, my friends. Oh, and I forgot to mention Chris again. My bad.

Anyway, if you skimmed, I have decided to remove myself from the Internet but I will read my e-mail from now on. However, I will not read the rest of your e-mails (150 of them) as I don’t have the time or the inclination to do it and my guess is they’re all about the same thing.

*Will insert another picture here when xanga stops acting up*

PS: hokie still can’t type; I’ll upload the newest version when he fixes the typos. Yes, we all love the stick figures he makes. AND I have a poster of Chris in my room too. True story.

Edit:

Typos fixed and pictures uploaded.

Happy B-Day to Forrest who turns 24 today, October 15th!!!

Oops. I forgot to post this morning.

I hope you're enjoying your 4rth of July long weekend. Happy Independence Day to all.

The Top 16 Signs You Hired The Wrong Fireworks Expert

16. Business card reads, "Sponsored by St. Luke's Burn Unit."

15. His degree, from the Wile E. Coyote Demolition Academy, is an
*honorary* degree.

14. Teaches the kids to free up their hands by lighting fireworks
in their mouth.

13. His grand finale involves pork & beans and a Bic lighter.

12. Can't launch the ol' rocket in front of an audience, if you
know what I mean.

11. Wants to synchronize the 4th of July display to Jimmy
Buffett's "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

10. The punk he keeps trying to light has orange hair and a nose
ring.

9. Asks if he should shoot off Quaker Puffed Rice or Oats when
the 1812 Overture begins.

8. Big 4th of July show ends with 50-foot tall sparkling message:
"Happy Bar Mitzvah, Howie Goldfarb."

7. He finally shows up on July 6th smelling like a refinery.

6. Theme of the fireworks display: "The Jihad Against the Beer
Swilling Pigs Begins"

5. Tied a monkey to a skyrocket "so's I can get me a grant from
NASA!"

4. Offers 20% discount if Salman Rushdie attends your event.

3. He wants to know if he can "borrow" your dog for the finale.

2. Insists on humming the "Mission Impossible" theme every time
he lights a fuse.


and the Number 1 Sign You Hired The Wrong Fireworks Expert...


1. For kicks, sticks roman candle in empty eye socket and chases
kids around.

Quotes of the day:

• He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. 
  ~Thomas Paine
• This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. 
  ~Elmer Davis
• The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation. 
  ~Woodrow Wilson
• Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. 
  ~Harry Emerson Fosdick
• Let freedom never perish in your hands. 
  ~Joseph Addison
• You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. 
  ~Erma Bombeck
• Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. 
  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
• In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. 
  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
• A statistician made a few calculations and discovered that since the birth of our nation more lives had been lost in celebrating independence than in winning it. 
  ~Curtis Billings
• This, then, is the state of the union:  free and restless, growing and full of hope.  So it was in the beginning.  So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. 
  ~Lyndon B. Johnson
• For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail? 
  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
• That which distinguishes this day from all others is that then both orators and artillerymen shoot blank cartridges. 
  ~John Burroughs
• Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. 
  ~Louis D. Brandeis
• Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. 
  ~Albert Camus
• It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. 
  ~Dick Cheney
• Liberty is the breath of life to nations. 
  ~George Bernard Shaw
• America is much more than a geographical fact.  It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. 
  ~Adlai Stevenson
• May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! 
  ~Daniel Webster
• If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. 
  ~Hamilton Fish
• I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery. 
  ~Author Unknown
• Without freedom, no one really has a name. 
  ~Milton Acorda
• All we have of freedom, all we use or know - This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
  ~Rudyard Kipling
• We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. 
  ~Robert J. McCracken
• Where liberty dwells, there is my country. 
  ~Benjamin Franklin
• Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it. 
  ~George Bernard Shaw
• It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism. 
  ~J. Horace McFarland
• The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men. 
  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
• I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom. 
  ~Simone de Beauvoir
• The United States is the only country with a known birthday. 
  ~James G. Blaine
• Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom.  The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. 
  ~Thomas Macaulay
• Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all!
  By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
  ~John Dickinson
• We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. 
  ~William Faulkner
• My God!  How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! 
  ~Thomas Jefferson
• What is the essence of America?  Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from." 
  ~Marilyn vos Savant
• How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy. 
  ~Paul Sweeney
• We need an America with the wisdom of experience.  But we must not let America grow old in spirit. 
  ~Hubert H. Humphrey
• Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. 
  ~Abraham Lincoln
• Freedom is the oxygen of the soul. 
  ~Moshe Dayan
• It is sweet to serve one's country by deeds, and it is not absurd to serve her by words. 
  ~Sallust
• Freedom is not enough. 
  ~Lyndon B. Johnson
• We are free, truly free, when we don't need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths. 
  ~Ricardo Flores Magon
• There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. 
  ~William J. Clinton
• Freedom is never free. 
  ~Author Unknown
• Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. 
  ~Thomas Paine

Puns of the day:

What would you get if you crossed the first signer of the
Declaration of Independence with a rooster?
John Hancock-a-doodle-doo!

What quacks, has webbed feet, and betrays his country?
Beneduck Arnold!

What did Paul Revere say at the end of his ride?
"I gotta get a softer saddle!"

What protest by a group of dogs occurred in 1773?
The Boston Flea Party!

What happened as a result of the Stamp Act?
The Americans licked the British!

Why did Paul Revere ride his horse from Boston to Lexington?
Because the horse was too heavy to carry!

Why did the British cross the Atlantic?
To get to the other tide!

What do you call a parade of German mercenaries?
A Hessian procession!

What would you get if you crossed a patriot with a small
curly-haired dog?
Yankee Poodle!

Did you hear the one about the Liberty Bell?
Yeah, it was a crack-up!

What would you get if you crossed George Washington
with cattle feed?
The Fodder of Our Country!

What did one flag say to the other flag?
Nothing. It just waved!

What's red, white, blue, and gross?
Uncle Spam!

What's red, white, black and blue?
Uncle Sam falling down the steps!

What kind of tea did the American colonists thirst for?
Liberty!

What was General Washington's favorite tree?
The infantry!

Which colonists told the most jokes?
Punsylvanians!

What would you get if you crossed Washington's home
with nasty insects?
Mt. Vermin

PS again:

To those who are skimming, looking for the question of the day, look no further, there isn't any. Until further notice, I will update because I have things to say, but I will not be returning any comments for a couple of reasons, mainly because I read your whole page before leaving a comment in your last entry when you update more frequently than I do, and frankly I'm rather busy right now and whatever time I have, I unfairly divide between Chris and my friends, relatives and so on... I will keep the second reason to myself for now. Don't leave a note if you expect one back, though I believe in interacting with people. (To my newest readers, you have yet to see a note from me. My bad.)