Do me a favor and crucify yourselves, please?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,471764,00.html

At least I said please.

The true meaning of Christmas

It's the time of the year again, where people don their festive suits and have a gathering, but many has mistaken the true identity of Christmas. Some preach that it's the celebration of Christ's birth, but history has a different take on it.

For example, a simple google search for the origin revealed this site which has almost all that you want to know about the origin of Christmas. To be fair, it's a jewish site instead of an atheist one.

but in summary, the details are like this:
1) No biblical references has an account on when Christ was born.
2) Historians and Catholic researchers have different opinions, most think he's born in September, but some says March.
3) Christmas was celebrated for other reasons;
- i) St. Nicholas (aka Santa Claus) - which I think should be a better reason to celebrate than the birth of Jesus
- ii) Roman Pagan Celebration
- iii) Celebration in accordance to the winter solstice
4) Irrelevant to this post, but apparently Jewish people has been "mistreated" by on Christmas day on many occasions. Which is interesting because I never knew that before.

Then, many other deities from other religions/myths claims Dec 25th to be their birthday. Hmm.. I smell a conspiracy of some sort. Link

And reason explained: To encourage conversion from Paganism to Christianity, Pope Julius 1 declared Christmas a day to celebrate the birth of Christ. Link: more background on Christmas.

some allegations and explanations from the bible (if it were any indication of anything true at all):
Luke 2:8 explains that when Christ was born, “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” Note that they were “abiding” in the field. This never happened in December. Both Ezra 10:9-13 and the Song of Solomon 2:11 show that winter was the rainy season and shepherds could not stay on cold, open fields at night."

But as a person of no religious affiliation, what does Christmas really mean?
Christmas, is a secular holiday, decreed by the Pope and Castro alike. Cuba, an atheist nation, has the allowance of letting her people celebrate Christmas . However the same gesture was not reciprocated amongst fundamentalists who insisted upon remembering Christ and not Santa on Christmas day.

Christmas is a day to celebrate generosity, instead of cruelty and religious dogmatism.

Christmas is more than a day to remember Christ, it's a day we can all celebrate, regardless of our religion (or lack thereof). Its meaning is simple, as Christmas is really a day to get together and relax, and we can all enjoy the Christmas spirit, without a hint of religion.

To all non-Christians friends, hope you had an enjoyable Christ-less Christmas. To Christian friends, hope you don't think Christmas is for Christ alone, and hope you had an enjoyable Christmas too. To my jewish friends, hope you had a good Hanukkah. To my African-American friends, hope you have a good Kwanzaa. To my pagan readers, hope you had a good Osiris, Horus etc day. To my Hindu friends, hope you had fun celebrating Krishna's birthday. And if I left anyone/anygod's birthday out, Happy Birthday!

Monkey Bailout

Link << the author of the blog post said he found it on some chain mail

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and
announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys
for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He next announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announce d that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.’ The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars.

They never saw the man or his assistant again, only
lots and lots of monkeys!

Now you have a better understanding of how the
WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN WILL WORK !!!!

Happy Holidays..

Have a good Christmas, you pagans.

Sometimes it ticks me off when dumb people say dumb things

"better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt" - Abraham Lincoln

Whenever I say that I predict a 9 win season, yes, it's optimism, but it also reflects a lot on how far the team has improved. It also has to do with strength of schedule, and recruits, and generally, the condition of the team.

Although I might change my mind since the season is still 9 months away, the prediction is based on what I see and what I know right now. Especially after the spring game, we can gauge first hand on what to expect from the football team. If you watched last year's spring game, you would KNOW, this year is going to be quite tough.

There are many who would just dismiss whatever I say, and retort sarcastically "yeah right, we'd be great to have a winning season." That's just indifference and ignorance. They gauge their prediction based on this year's squad, and that just not right.

1) We're Michigan, and anything short of a BCS bowl would be a disappointment, this year included.
2) We didn't hire Rich Rodriguez to bring down this program, he has built programs from the ground up many times, and has proven himself as a money coach.
3) We didn't have the personnel to run the offense this year, it will change next season, probably.
4) Defensively it's a disappointment, no doubt, but things are being fixed.
5) Generally, transition years are tough for head coaches, and that's a trend that doesn't change at all.
6) We have most of the rivalry games back at home, Penn State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State. Does help the chances.. a lot.
7) Strength of schedule? First four games are gimmes, we got western, Notre Dame(they're not gonna beat us at home), Eastern, and Indiana. Iowa and Purdue are semi gimmes. We could win if we take care of business, and that's 6 already. Chalk up 2 of 3 from Penn St (home), Illinois, and Michigan State, and we have 8 wins. Plus we probably could win whichever school that's taking the open. And though it's really tough to win against Wisconsin on the road, and probably hard to win against Tressel and his Corvette, we could still muster a 9 win season, without too much difficulty.

And I am really not chalking up a lot of the win for us. seriously, only 2 of 3 against Penn St, Illinois and MSU? In recent memories, they're considered our personal punching bags. They're not that good, and will sink back into the background, faster than you can say "mediocrity".

It all doesn't matter, I would think we could at least muster 7 wins, that's the 6 gimmes and the open slot. even if we lose to all 3 swing games, PSU, Illini, and MSU, we still could get a winning season and go to a bowl game.

k this is cheating but whatever, I haven't posted in almost 2 weeks, I gotta do something to keep my readership up, right?

lyrics?
lyrics

Lyrics:
We were both young when I first saw you.
I close my eyes and the flashback starts:
I'm standing there on a balcony in summer air.

See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns.
See you make your way through the crowd
and say hello;

Little did I know
That you were Romeo; you were throwing pebbles,
And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet."
And I was crying on the staircase,
begging you, 'Please, don't go.'

And I said,
"Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone.
I'll be waiting; all there's left to do is run.
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess
It's a love story - baby just say 'Yes.'

So I sneak out to the garden to see you.
We keep quiet 'cause we're dead if they knew.
So close your eyes; escape this town for a little while.
'Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter,
And my daddy said "Stay away from Juliet,"
But you were everything to me; I was begging you, 'Please, don't go,'

And I said,
"Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone.
I'll be waiting; all there's left to do is run.
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess
It's a love story - baby just say 'Yes.'

Romeo save me; they're tryin' to tell me how to feel.
This love is difficult, but it's real.
Don't be afraid; we'll make it out of this mess.
It's a love story - baby just say 'Yes.'

Oh.

I got tired of waiting,
Wondering if you were ever comin' around.
My faith in you was fading
When I met you on the outskirts of town.

And I said,
"Romeo save me - I've been feeling so alone.
I keep waiting for you but you never come.
Is this in my head? I don't know what to think-"

He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said,
"Marry me, Juliet. you'll never have to be alone.
I love you and that's all I really know.
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress;
It's a love story - baby just say 'Yes.'

Oh, oh.

We were both young when I first saw you..

nifty web trick

If you are using slacker.com and you want unlimited skips without having to pay then:

1) whenever u want to skip a song, just switch channels.
2) then switch back

then the song that was previously playing will be skipped.

This worked on Firefox 3.0.1

I might be renovating, but it's still years too early...

On the subject of Charlie Weis getting another year, another shot at being the Head Coach of the Notre Dame football. And why he deserves nothing less than a humiliating exit from his alma mater.

First read this

Now, I said: "I feel sorry for Irish fans, for they have to endure fat Charlie for another season", someone told me this "Don't throw bricks if you're living in a glass house". I beg to differ.

- He's been there for 4 years now, the first two years, he did pretty well, going to BCS bowl games on Ty Willingham's players!! And when his own recruits came in and tried to play, he went 3-9 and 6-6. And then he had the audacity to blame Ty for leaving the cupboard bare.

- And then, he published a book at the end of the 3-9 season, titled "No Excuse" and said "We'll beat Michigan and listen to their excuses" and the infamous "To Hell with Michigan". No doubt, he later retracted it, but it's no reason for firing, really.

- Two years back, after his narrow loss to USC, he was awarded a 10 year contract, with an undisclosed buyout amount. It has been reported to be higher than usual, and some said it was in the 15 million range, which is not plausible.

Quote ESPN columnist Pat Forde
"After that last-second, three-point loss to Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush, Weis declared that anyone expecting him to be happy with a moral victory would be wrong. After losing by 35 here, Weis sounded like a guy begging to be granted a moral victory. "I think one of the biggest aspects of today was whether we're going to play with passion and emotion," Weis said. "From the beginning of the game to the end of the game, we played with passion and emotion."

Very well. He deserves to go, but rumors say that his buyout is too expensive for him to be removed. He had worst record than Ty, had more talent on his roster, and yet he still failed to perform. Plus he had time for his scheme to set in. I guess, it's not plausible to run a 7 year plan on 4 year student athletes.

Now on Michigan

- Now, Rich Rodriguez has always asserted that the on-field performance of the players reflects the preparation of the coaching staff, and he said everything that has to go right has to start with him.

- 2 his contract states that he'll have 6 years, with 4 million buyout, with decreasing buyouts from year 4 onwards (2.5 million and 500 grand less every consecutive years). If you don't realize, if RRod doesn't do well for 4 years, he'd be out the door with 2.5 mil. If he does bring Michigan football to new heights, he'll be offerred probably better pay and a longer contract at the end of his 3rd year. That's planning, not a 10 year contract on an almost win against USC.

- Now. He is only in his first term, with virtually no talent at important positions. It's not Lloyd's fault so many players left, but these things are somewhat expected.

- So ND lost to syracuse, we lost to Toledo, I call it a tie, but with such difference in context, we can only call Weis a flop, and Rodriguez an occurrence. I am not saying this term is a success, because it isn't. Any year that we don't beat OSU isn't a success.

Now, if you tell me we should fire Rich Rodriguez after his first year, you got to be kidding me. YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. No glass houses here.

Microsoft Windows Update

Is amazingly lousy. First they wanted me to install whatever genuine advantage blah blah blah, then I used it to install the new SVGA card driver, and then you know what happened? It completely disabled my video card.

Hey, geniuses at Microsoft, thanks for nothing.