post 3!

For my 3rd post of the day, I'd like to thank on Sara Reid for helping me revamp my blog interests section.


L!

blockbuster video - WOW!

What a difference.

During my senior year of high school, I got my first "real" job (meaning that I wasn't paid under the table and actually had taxes deducted) working weekends at Blockbuster Video. Lots of memories in that place - like calling the check out desk from the check in desk at least 7 times and asking the same guy in different voices if "10 Things I Hate About You" was in stock. My favorite version was, "Umm, hi, I was wondering if you have that movie, something about, 'I hate you ten times...' Is that in?" Although my FAVORITE part of working there was the never smaller than a Large t-shirts and "khaki" pants I "got" to wear!! (see: below)



Since I've graduated high school and moved out of Mesquite, and I now have no family that actually lives there any more, I don't go back very often. On my last few visits, I'd noticed that the Blockbuster was gone!!!! Out of business? Really? I guess I hadn't realized the grave impact on the hard working, yellow and navy blue wearing employees as a result of the advent of Netflix and its contemporaries.

Well, today, my good friend Stephanie asked me to come eat lunch with her at work in my old stomping grounds in Mesquite. When she was telling me where to meet her and I was googling it, I realized that her company was EXACTLY where my old B-Buster had been!! CRAZY!!!

When I was talking to J-Ro about all this "out of business" nonsense going on with the video rental industry (which further proves that people are moving more and more towards not actually having to move their bodies in any significant manner), she said the following:

"Alex and I have a movie we still need to return to a Blockbuster that is now a Chipotle. We dont know what to do with it."

Love it!

those swedes!

I've always been intrigued by mental patterns and behaviors that are strange or abnormal, and my most recent interest is in that of Stockholm Syndrome.

Here's Wikipedia's explanation of the syndrome:


The name originated in the case of the Norrmalmstorg robbery, where it was rumored that one of the captives fell in love with one of the captors. This rumor is supposedly false, but who the heck knows.

The most recent case that has sparked my interest in all of this is that of the 18 year old Austrian girl, Natascha Kampusch, who just last month escaped after EIGHT YEARS OF CAPTIVITY!!! Geez!!! She's been behaving strangely since her return - really?

Lots to think about.

rod stewart

Lots of verbal praise to anyone who gets the significance/relevance of the title to this blog. GO!

troof

There's a lot of intellectual thought about the church going around these days. When I say 'intellectual thought,' I don't mean to imply that past thinkers on theology have been unintelligent, I just mean that God seems to be interpreted more in a logical, philosophical, intellectual way by a lot of friends of mine. (I'm sure that's gone on in every generation, and it hasn't just started, but I'm just now seeing it more prevelantly) And I think that's great, to a degree.

One question I've had recently though is whether or not he's being made too much into this creation that's based on our own intellect. I mean, we don't get to create who he is. He is who he is. So where is the line drawn between, "open to interpretation," and "truth." There is a truth to who God is, so that inherently means that whatever that truth is, some of us are wrong about it. And I know that I won't ever fully understand WHO God is while I'm alive with my little tiny brain, so I don't want to come across as though I'm waiting for that eureka moment when AHA! That's it! I know!

God is a lot of things. He is love, unchanging, eternal, faithful, just, etc. But our definitions of some of these words don't always match up with how God "behaves," what with wars, holocausts, crappy/dysfunctional family lives, and on and on, because we are often unable to see the big picture. Or rather we're unwilling.

One of my biggest prayers has been that I would be open to God's truth, whether it lines up with what I've believed my entire life or not. Whatever it is, I want to believe it and be open to it. I want to be humble to the fact that God's truth can mean something that makes me nervous or sad or angry. My biggest concern is that I don't want God to become something to me that I've intellectualized into existing as I want him to be. I don't want to think that I've got it figured out at 24 and that people who are older than me don't have anything valuable to say about him. I do want to hear God's voice actively in my life, and I want what's important to him to be important to me.

And that, my friends, is the troof.

p.s.
in·tel·lec·tu·al·ize:
1 : to give rational form or content to
2 : to avoid conscious recognition of the emotional basis of (an act or feeling) by substituting a superficially plausible explanation

YOINK!

what's in a name?

Becki -- [adjective]: Benevolent to a fault 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Much different result than "Rebecca," I can tell you that!

Thanks to Rachel for the inspiration.

student driver

On my way to work today, I passed a semi (granted, it was a smaller semi, but a semi nonetheless) and on the back of the truck a sign was hung that read:

"STUDENT DRIVER. DO NOT LOAD."

Now how cute is that! Semi truck drivers are students, too! One of the things I think is cuter than a lot of other things is the idea of adults "learning." I know that might sound condescending, but I don't mean it that way at all! I just picture an adult in a small desk with a small calculator.......learning things. Even if what they're learning is truck driving. I still see the small calculator.

Seeing this little tiny student truck driver (he was probably mid-forties, 200 lbs) driving along and learning reminded me that J-Ro and I once talked about "trucking" for 6 months or so once we graduated college. We were really talking about it pretty seriously.......well, as seriously as one can think about it when one does no actual research.......until we both realized we were graduating a semester apart, and our dreams fizzled out.

It's probably for the best, because through my life-draining job as one of satan's soldiers (read: telemarketing, or "teleservices" as we were programmed to say), I happened upon a truck driver who had a credit card with the bank I worked for, and I started asking him about the details of truck driving, etc. Turns out, there were a few things we hadn't factored in. For example, you have to have a truck. We did NOT plan for such an investment. Second, you have to have a trucking license.

And to think.........that could have been me I was passing on the highway.

Here's Jessica and I as non-truck drivers.


*see, Annie! I'm using the stuff you gave me!! :)

southern decadence

I friend of mine posted this on her blog this morning, and I just had to repost. She was in New Orleans, and during her visit, the Southern Decadence parade occurred.

A male attending the parade was overheard one table over by my friend, saying the following, and I quote:

“'I am pretty sure that I advertised to her that I do not like wind chimes and I do not like Thomas Kinkade; however she continues to give me wind chimes and Thomas Kinkade. In fact, I think one time she gave me a Thomas Kinkade wind chime!'

One minute later the 3 men stand up and walk out: man 1 in a leather bondage top, man 2 with backless shorts, and man 3 in gray boxer/briefs—and gray boxer/briefs alone."

Oh, Danibeth, you slay me.



*I share this man's sentiments about Thomas Kinkade, incidentally. :)