The Jones Zone

On Batman Villains

2009-02-20T19:52:00.000-08:00

I've had a few conversations recently about future Batman movies and the possible villains that may be used and who would play each one. I can't decide which villains I want to step forth first. I like the idea of a Harley Quinn, but it would seem perhaps repetitive of the Joker. The same could end up happening with The Riddler. So if you want a for certain different feel, distinguishable quirkiness, you'd probably go with Penguin, Catwoman or the unknown to the general public Hugo Strange, who they could possibly use Coleman Reese as (because he knows Batman's identity and wants to steal it...you never know).
There have been three prevalent rumors out there about three major villains being already cast. One is Johnny Depp as the Riddler, which would be fine, but well, it wouldn't be anything new. It would be a type cast. Part of the reason Heath Ledger was so good as the Joker is because you could not see Heath Ledger behind the Joker. I think you'd see Depp inside of the Riddler from a mile away. Another, which I am a fan of is Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin. I think that would actually be pretty sweet. He's not well known for being a completely insane villain in action movies. The other however, makes me want to puke...Cher as Catwoman. Now I'm sorry, but what has Cher ever been in? The answer Moonstruck, 22 years ago. I'm sorry this woman is not a good actress and is not even a good singer. Casting her as Catwoman would seriously make me consider never seeing the movie unless she dies in the first 10 minutes.

But onto the list:

The Riddler
Good Possibilities:
Michael Emerson (Ben from Lost)
Michael Emerson probably portrays the single greatest bad guy I've ever seen. I think he'd be fantastic and he really needs to be introduced to the entirety of the world.
Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly)
He is a very talented actor and could do things with this role that nobody would see coming.
Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office)
That would just make me laugh instantaneously.

Who not to use:
Johnny Depp (see above)
Jim Carey (duh)
Robin Williams (I think he actually turned down the first Riddler job.)

Penguin
Good possibilites:
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
I think he'd do a fine job, interested to see where that goes.
Michael Emerson
Again, just a great bad guy.
Andy Serkis (the voice of Gollum from Lord of the Rings)
Seriously, can you imagine his vocal talents behind Penguin. It'd be sweet.

Who not to use:
I don't have any real stern warnings here.

Catwoman
Good possibilities:
Morena Baccarin (Inara from Firefly)
I'm not sure how agile she is these days, but I think she could handle it and she has a very nice seductive quality. The problem is, I'd rather see Catwoman and Batman have positively no sexual encounters just because it has been so overdone.
Evangeline Lily (Kate from Lost)
She would have the athleticism, but I'm not sure she has the range to be as evil as she needs to be.

Who not to use:
Cher, duh.
Nicole Kidman, duh.

Harley Quinn
Good possibilities:
Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Forgetting Sarah Marshal)
If you've ever watched Deadwood, there are a few episodes with Kristen Bell where she plays a fairly evil role and she does a fantastic job. I think she could pull off the insanity and heartlessness behind Harley Quinn.

Christina Hendricks (Saffron from Firefly)
She probably would never be able to pull off a solid big screen performance of this magnitude, but she has many psychotic looks down to a science.

Who not to use:
Helena Bonham Carter
At first glance you are tempted to. She'd certainly fit the profile, but let's be honest, chances are, despite any of my bickering, the Riddler is going to be Johnny Depp. Do we need another Depp-Carter psychotic movie? I think this new Batman series is too good for that, even though I love Helena Bonham Carter.

Poison Ivy
Good possibilities:
Rebecca Mader (Charlotte on Lost)
The red hair helps, but she's a talented actress who would look quite good alongside Kristen Bell (Harley and Poison Ivy are best friends).
Alyson Hannigan (Buffy, American Pie)
She's been typecast far too long as the quirky, semi-innocent girl. I think there is evil somewhere in there.

Who not to use:
Uma Thurman (yikes)
Molly Ringwald
Nicole Kidman
Drew Barrymore
Lindsay Lohan

Anarky (a young anarchist in the comics, starts at age 12)
While I'm not sure anybody could truly handle what it would take to play this role at age 12, here are some
Good possibilities:
Malcolm David Kelley (Walt from Lost)
If this were a few years ago I'd say absolutely, but he's now 16, time is running out to use him before he's 8 feet tall.
Nathan Gamble (Commissioner Gordon's son in The Dark Knight)
Already being in the series, it would be an interesting twist to have Gordon's son run away on him and become such a crazed villain. In the comics, Batman does typically considered Anarky a force for good. I think it would be a solid move.

I think that is enough for now. Perhaps more will follow as I study up on the villains a bit more.
Can you tell I like Lost and Firefly?

Brett Favre/New York Jets Poll

2008-08-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

Vote on how well the New York Jets will do on the latest Matt and Andy podcast poll here: http://www.polldaddy.com/p/846095/

Why the Seinfeld Finale was Good

2008-07-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

The Seinfeld Finale episode aired when I was in 8th grade. I remember watching, and I can say that it was more than likely the only episode of Seinfeld I watched in its entirety on its debut date. My parents didn't like the show, so I didn't grow up with it, and the buzz about the finale was absolutely unavoidable. I remember watching it and being confused, but laughing quite a bit. Then the media just bombarded the show with disappointing reviews and I was quite surprised. It has been just over 10 years since that finale episode aired and I can say that I officially have now seen every single episode in its entirety (thank you TV on DVD). And after watching the finale again, I think I can give a better review of that show that I could as an 8th grade kid.

People complained that the show was a clip show finale, after the show previous was another clip show. This is a fair assessment. Nobody at that time (to my knowledge) had done a two-hour long finale episode. This would have been ideal for the show. Showing the first hour of the trial (with a few clips here or there) then showing the final hour with nothing but hilarious clips all over would have really made me smile. It would have showcased nine years of pure genius more effectively and would have ended on more of a high note than the actual finale did.

But when all was said and done, the Seinfeld finale did something that no other show could do that was very true to its form. It interwove the storylines of so many people all together for one episode. There are two main reasons Seinfeld itself is the best ever, one...it's the funniest, two, the interweaving of characters throughout one singular 22 minute episode.
Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld took that principle and adapted it to fit all 90 hours of the shows previous story lines. These truly were dispicable people by all normal standards of human living, and showcasing all that they had done for the past nine years was done brilliantly. There are nearly 14 minutes of deleted scenes on the DVD for the finale. Some of those scenes are hilarious interactions between characters that never had a chance to meet before. Peterman and Puddy, Uncle Leo and Kramer's Mom, Mickey and Bania. It is most unfortunate those scenes had to get cut because they were great.

But I think the reason why most people were angry at the time is because they didn't know what was going on and they couldn't. Honestly. If those show was delayed 10 years in the history of technology. Everybody and their mother would have had the show on DVD when the finale came out. Nobody would have missed anything. They'd be watching the shows on the web and all caught up on everything that had ever happened. That was not possible in 1998. The final season came out within the last year, it just wasn't possible for people to know who everyone was. They were inevitably going to be confused and unappreciatory of the genius that was at work.

The most clever thing was the final lines of dialogue between Jerry and George about the second button on a button up shirt. It was from a conversation they'd had in the pilot episode way back in 1989. How many people could have possibly caught the genius of those lines at the time. No wonder they were disappointed, they didn't know what it was about.

Truly, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld created a show that was absolutely brilliant and a finale that was nostalgic and unexpected. It was completely a true fan's finale and any of those 90 million pepole who tuned in who hadn't watched the show from beginning to end, were not going to get it, much like me 10 years ago. But now, as people can watch all of the episodes in all their glory, they can perhaps see why the Finale was indeed a good show.

Al Gore Hopes to Help Jupiter with Global Warming Problem

2008-05-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

It was recently discovered the Jupiter now has three raging "Red Spots." Scientists believe the initial spot, the "Great Red Spot" if you will, is a massive hurricane-like storm that has been brewing for perhaps more than 350 years. It is three-times the width of the earth and the largest storm in the galaxy, not counting the perhaps mythical "Hurricane Ditka."
Some scientists believe that these other two spots of red are due to Jupiter's Global warming problem. More heat means more wind and more wind means giant red hurricane spot.
Al Gore announced earlier this week that he intends to travel to Jupiter by the end of the year.
"If we as Earthlings cannot stop global warming, how can we expect the Jupiterians, who probably don't even know that it is getting hotter there to stop it. I mean, there's no way they get the Internet, which I invented, up there," said Gore.
When asked how he would prevent global warming on Jupiter, Gore responded, "Well it is obvious to me that we are not dealing with greenhouse gasses here, the Jupiterians must have a huge dependences on forms of redhouse gas, hence the redness of the spots."
Gore continued, "People should really take a lesson from Jupiter, if we don't stop the use of greenhouse gasses, there will be a giant hurricane hovering over us, and it will be green."
This immediately prompted Gore and fellow environmentalists to stop "Going Green" and start "Going Clear."
More to come on this interesting development.

Bumper Stickers Deserve Fines

2008-05-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

I cannot tell you how annoyed I am by people who have bumper stickers on their cars that are so absolutely outdated. The most obvious example of this are the Kerry/Edwards '04 or the "W" stickers for Bush/Cheney. Give me a break!. The election was almost four years ago, at least get an Obama, Hillary, or McCain sticker for crying out loud.
I believe that the police should fine people for having expired bumper stickers, just like they fine people for having expired license tabs. It is disgraceful.
I say $50 fine for an offense less than a year old. $100 for more than two years old, and doubled for each year from there on up. These jokers will soon be owing $400 bucks. I think that'd be a great way to help our struggling economy. Taking money away from idiots who don't know what election is coming up and giving it to the general public. Well not really, but I still think the fines are necessary.
As I posed this to my wife earlier, she said "What about those Wellstone bumper stickers?"
For those of you not from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone was a US Senator from Minnesota who died in a plane crash in 2002.
Those are honoring a dead person (at least I hope they are), and I'm not about to fine somebody for that.
Oh, and these "My Child is an Honor Student at any school USA." No thanks. Those things should have a month and a year on them and the moment your kid graduates or moves on to another school or fails a class and isn't an Honor Student anymore, you should be forced to remove it.

Rating the Jedi Masters

2008-05-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

After recently watching all six Star Wars movies, I got into a debate with my wife as to who was the most powerful Jedi Master or Sith Lord. We disagreed and I found that I was undoubtedly choosing a very unusual winner. I do not have much experience with Star Wars other than watching the movies and listening to nerds, so if there is somebody from a fan-fiction book or whatever, I don't care. I'm only using people who actually make appearances in the six movies.
So without further ado, here is who I believe are the most powerful Jedi Masters or Sith Lords.

10. Luke Skywalker
What a whiney punk. Luke doesn't really complete training and so can't be nearly as good as most Jedi from the previous age. I don't care how strong the force is with him. He was not strong with the force.

9. Ki-Adi Mundi
He's the old guy with the giant head that sits usually on Yoda's right side. He's only on here because everybody else possible sucks.

8. Qui-Gon Jinn
I like Qui-Gon, but he only had two viewable fights with a Sith Lord (Darth Maul) and he first ran and then got his butt beat.

7. Darth Maul
So he killed Qui-Gon, but it only took Obi Wan 20 seconds to kill him after Qui-Gon was out of commission.

6. Darth Tyranus/Count Dooku
Dooku is interesting. He defeats Obi Wan and an idiot Anakin, but then loses to Anakin later. He's pretty great to have survived Yoda though.

5. Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker
Another anomaly, he loses to Dooku then defeats Dooku, saves Obi Wan's skin again and again, but gets massacred by him at the end of Episode III, then mercy kills him in Episode IV. Then kills the Sidious when all is said and done. Whatever.

4. Obi Wan Kenobi
He defeated Anakin in the most important battle, that's why he's above him, though Dooku handled him pretty well. And Yoda says that Obi Wan can't handle Sidious.

3. Darth Sidious
He's pretty tough, a draw with Yoda and killing lots of Jedi when Windu comes to arrest him, but Windu had him. Windu won the fight. Windu should have killed him. Only a meddling Anakin stops Windu from destroying him.

2. Yoda
Yoda is the only one that never really loses in any way shape or form. He has draws with lots of people, but we never really see him kill anyone either. Hmm.

1. Mace Windu
Yeah, I know, comment away, but a few things make Windu top the list.
a. The line from Anakin about Obi Wan "He's as wise as Master Yoda, and as powerful as Master Windu" the order might be backwards, but it seems Windu was known to the Jedi as the most powerful.
b. He defeats Darth Sidious. Yes Anakin interferes, but in a fair fight, Windu wins. That's a #1 cause for sure. Yoda couldn't do that.
c. Out of my element a bit, but if you've ever scene Clone Wars (the cartoon network production) Windu has a great scene where he just destroys thousands of drones. It is amazing.
d. Samuel L. Jackson. I know this shouldn't matter, but just the overall gloriousness brought to the character is enhanced greatly by Jackson's presence and physique.

FreeCreditReport.com = SCAM!

2008-05-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

As you meander out into the world from college or whatever, getting your first job, first credit card perhaps, trying to payoff school loans, maybe getting a car loan or even a home loan, you may wonder what your credit score is.
Well, that's all fine and good. I know I was curious, and I found out, but it cost me 14.95 from "Free" credit report dot com.
It always bothers me when companies that actually have intriguing commercials turn out to be scam artists charging you for something they claim as free. All they're actually doing is monitoring your credit and well, who really needs to have their credit monitored every month. I'd vastly prefer a flat fee and call it quits, I can recheck on my own in another year or two if I really want.
So take it from me who will be down a case of beer because of this crooked "free" website: Don't fall for the hype!

The Top 10 Reasons Seinfeld is the Greatest Sit-com Ever

2008-04-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

Now there aren't too many shows that can even lay claim to be "Arguably the best sit-com of all time." Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Cheers, Friends, MASH, I Love Lucy, and possibly someday The Office. They all have a claim of some sort, but I'll give you my reasons for Seinfeld being the greatest of all time.

10. It is perfect for syndication

Obviously sit-coms work better for syndication than dramas like 24 or Lost, but Seinfeld's material is so seamless from season 1 to season 9. It all fits together beautifully and nothing but the characters' hair styles give away what season you're watching. The show didn't need to change too many things because its concept was so revolutionary that it just gained popularity as people caught up with the times.

9. It used current events brilliantly

The best example of this was "The Non-Fat Yogurt." Not only because there was actually a non-fat yogurt scandal in New York City; furthermore, the show aired the Thursday after the Tuesday election. They had to film two versions of the episode depending on who won. The TV gods were out that Tuesday when Rudy Giuliani won in an upset over Mayor David Dinkins because Giuliani agreed to be filmed while Dinkins said no.

8. It Served as the Jumping Board for an Amazing Number of Actors and Actresses

Courtney Cox (Friends), Kristin Davis (Sex in the City), Peter Krause (Six Feet Under), Patrick Warburton (Rules of Engagement), Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle), Jane Leeves (Frasier), Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives), Lisa Edelstein (House), Michael McDonald (Mad TV), Debra Jo Rupp (That 70s Show), Kathy Griffin (Suddenly Susan), Debra Messing (Will and Grace), Janeane Garofolo (The Larry Sanders Show), and Bob Balaban (various Christopher Guest films) all had a role in some Seinfeld episode. Typically if I recognize an actress, it's usually because they once dated Jerry or George on the show, not because they starred in their own show.

7. Quotability and Vocabulary

Perhaps you don't use Seinfeld in your everyday life as much as I do, well how could you? But there are lines upon lines of just hilarious stuff that come from Seinfeld, and maybe you don't even know it. "No soup for you!" is the most famous and overused. The one I use the most is "That's a shame." Or perhaps you're a fan of "Serenity Now!" or "George is gettin' upset!" or "But I don't wanna be a pirate!" or "Get Out!" or "Giddi-up."
It also extended the vocabulary of the entire country using such phrases as re-gifting, refunding (referring to puking after a meal), anti-dentite, mimbo (male bimbo), two-face, man-hands, pig-man, jerkstore, sidler, and undoubtedly more than I can name.

6. It's Edgy

No, it does not contain the edginess of an HBO or Showtime series, but for network TV throughout the 90s, there isn't much to compare to Seinfeld. What other show had two characters like Kramer and George that could catch all of Larry David's absolutely ridiculous story lines and make them realistic. Eating food out of a garbage can, moving a TV show set into your apartment, having a masturbation contest, dropping a junior mint into a guy during surgery, and goodness knows how many more ridiculous things that would not work on any other show.

5. The ability to make characters famous in a very short period of time.

The Soup Nazi only appeared in 2 episodes (The Soup Nazi and the Finale) and yet people recognize him all the time. Names like Whatley, Bania, Mickey, Uncle Leo, Cousin Jeffrey, the Virgin, the High Talker, the Close Talker, the Low Talker, come from 0-10 episodes of greatness and are now recognizable to any Seinfeld fan. Even Newman only appeared in about 1/3 of the episodes made, which is hard to believe considering that role made Wayne Knight famous.

4. Its Revolutionary Comedy

Admit it, having an episode of television with no scene changes is brilliant. I'm almost shocked there aren't more shows that have done it. The Chinese Restaurant was a great concept executed with only one flaw I believe and that was not having Kramer in the episode. I mean that really was a nothing episode and it was still funny. No fast moving, just straight-forward, real life waiting that almost every television viewer can relate to. It really was/is a show both for common people and for comedians alike.

3. Julia Louis Dreyfuss

I know, it sounds stupid, being Jason Alexander and Michael Richards are so hilarious, but let's face it, most shows live or die by the female presence and balance on the show. The reason I don't like Friends all that much is because the female presence is so weak. The only reason to watch is to not fall asleep when Chandler and Joey aren't on screen is to argue whether Jennifer Aniston is hotter than Courtney Cox. The same is essentially true of Cheers. I mean Carla is great, but no other female on the show made me laugh ever.

2. The Weaving of 4 Story Lines

Seinfeld's complexity does truly add to its wondrous beauty. I mean seriously, trying to figure out which character's story line the episode is named for is hard enough, especially in the later seasons. For instance, in The Merv Griffin Show, obviously, Kramer takes the Merv Griffin set out of the dumpster and puts it in his apartment, but then Elaine has the crazy sidler guy, so we could have gone with The Sidler. Also, George runs over some pigeons and a renegade squirrel that he has to then take care of, so maybe, The Pigeon Deal, or The Squirrel. Furthermore, Jerry is dating a woman with a fantastic toy collection, so The Toy Collection is even a possibility. Every character crosses path in some way as Kramer invites Jim Fowler to the show and George wants him to take a look at the squirrel, Kramer exposes Jerry's drugging of his girlfriend on the show and Elaine comforts Jerry's ex to get at the Mickey Mouse gumball machine for the Sidler to avoid aggravating Mr. Peterman's memories of the voodoo water torture. Wow, how can you pack all of that into a 22 minute show? Amazing.

1. It is the funniest

I know, simple straightforward and obvious, but it's the truth. I laugh more watching Seinfeld than any of the other shows. The comedy is cutting edge, brilliant and worth every minute.

5 Tips for Grooms to be

2008-04-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

If you're a guy and you are getting married anytime in the near future, please take the following recommendations to heart. If you're a girl and getting married, show this to your male counterpart and give him some patience. It may take his brain a while to wrap around these concepts.

1. Refrain from using the phrase "I don't care."
I know that on a basic level, you probably don't care if there is blue or white tulle for decoration; or whether the bulletins are in Times New Roman, Myriad Pro, Arial, or anything else. Nor do you care if the groomsmen's ties are tropic, pool, oasis, cornflower, marine, regency, peri, blue velvet, aruba or any other color of blue that David's Bridal has invented, but I can guarantee you this: saying "I don't care" is the wrong thing to say. Positive spins, such as "I would have to see what they look like to help with the decision." or "I would be happy with any of these colors" or "tropic, marine, and cornflower would be my top three" can help your bride to be make the decision and be happy about the decision. Because if you "don't care" she'll be mad and have a hard time deciding. Being positive even if you don't care is just much better for everybody at hand. Don't lie or be dishonest, but be tactful and positive.

2. Help in any way you can
Wow, how basic, yet unconventional. The industry is saying that this day is for the bride and for the bride's mother, and I don't believe that, but even if it is true, you still need to help. Even if it is with something as elementary as looking up addresses on the internet or in the phone book or buying the stamps for the invitations, or anything else. By all means do it.

3. Pay Attention
Your wedding will be a giant production most likely with between 75 and 300 people costing between $5,000 and $25,000. Your bride to be is undoubtedly thinking about the wedding a lot, and if things will go smoothly, if she asks you to pick up the marriage license, you better freakin' pick up the marriage license. I don't mean to say that we should spend that much money on things, but you most likely will be so don't let things fly by without you enjoying them and knowing what is happening. You'll appreciate the wedding a lot more if you know how much work has been put into the decorations, flowers, and everything else.

4. Be Flexible and Thankful
Things will be forgotten, stuff will go wrong, last minute runs will need to be made. Be ready to adjust and re-adjust numerous times. It is no small task putting together such things as a wedding. Thank your bride, her parents, the caterer, the Minister, the photographer, the musicians, your wedding party, your guests, your parents, and your bride again and again for their hard work in bringing this day together.

5. Keep Smiling
In the words of one of my old friends which he says to all grooms right after the ceremony "If you play your cards right tonight, you may get lucky." So you can smile about that.

Now obviously these will look different for the type of bride you have, but following these things will help, maybe not as much as other things in certain circumstances, but these 5, should be employed.

Ideas I Cannot Use

2008-04-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

It seems that very often, when I get brilliant ideas about something I want to blog about it and tell the world. Then I realize how stupid that would be because what if somebody happened across my idea and then stole it before I could put it into practice. Which is very likely to happen since I have 8,000 ideas and about four of them are actually completed. So it would make sense that I will share ideas that I have no way of putting into practice and simply hope that somebody else sees them that can put them into practice, and then they will, so here we go.
College Football: Currently in the six best conferences three have a conference title game (Big 12, SEC, ACC) and three do not (Big 10, Big East, Pac 10). This is totally unfair. In the 2007 season, without a conference title game, Missouri would have been in the national championship and LSU would have never gotten in. With one, Ohio St. may have lost to Illinois, USC may have lost to whoever (UCLA, Oregon, etc.). Just decide one way or another, either all conferences have a title game or none do. just pick one.
Beer: Miller, you have bought Leinenkugals. For the love of all things sacred, put their Amber Light back into production. It is the greatest microbrew within 1000 miles of me. Please mass produce it and release it to the world.
Kleenex and Hallmark should really think about merging. I mean seriously, the design on Kleenex boxes are so fancy, they should be on greeting cards, and when do you need tissues, around the same time you receive a card for whatever reason (funeral, wedding, bar mitzvah) so why not some catchy sayings on the Kleenex box.

We'll see if I come up with anything else in the near future.

Podcast, "The Matt and Andy Show"

2008-04-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Also, my friend Matt and I delved into the greatness of podcast last year for a while. We tried to keep it clean (which is extremely hard while talking to somebody who you don't watch your language around normally) but most shows we ended up swearing and then just letting things fly, which was much more therapeutic, but I have no idea how many shows actually got posted to iTunes. We made one last month about March Madness that was a success, but both of us are so busy, that getting together is hard enough to do once a week and trying to fit in a 20-30 minute podcast is no easy task when we only have a few hours to hang out and catch up and argue, which is basically what we do on the podcast, so perhaps it wouldn't be that tough.
Matt has an iBook now so editing is much easier. If you can find us on iTunes more power to you, I have the RSS feed and I can't figure how to copy the URL, so I guess you'll just have to search on your own.
I've been thinking about starting something on my own in addition to "The Matt and Andy Show" but of course Matt is the technical guru, not me.
Mainly, I just love my radio voice. I like my writing skills well enough, but there's just something about the feeling I get when I am speaking for radio/podcast/announcing anything in general. It feels so natural and fluid. I even enjoy listening to myself, when I'm feeling a touch self-absorbed. We'll see if this computer can handle such ridiculousness. I doubt it highly, but one can only hope.

Twitterfest

2008-04-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

In the recent months, a few of my friends have finally convinced me to start using a form of social media besides Facebook. Essentially, ever since I graduated, I've used any form of instant messenger about never, I never even signed up for G-talk. I haven't blogged in over a year and for the most part have neglected everything I used to use the web for with the exception of sports. I posted a few things on my ESPN blog and I wrote a few articles for Sports-Central's website, which has been ok so far. You can check that out here

I simply am a person who tends to get bored with things after a few weeks. I go through weeks of committing hours of time to things that essentially waste my time. Everything from flash games to TV on DVD to reading a series of books in a very small amount of time. Most of the time it is nothing overly helpful for my life other than it helps me to relax, but even that is somewhat of an illusion because I tend to obsess slightly, and therefore it becomes a giant competition and I get stressed out because I am not getting any better.

Well, I think I've found something that I can use that doesn't require a ton of time and is a bit more than a fading fad. It is called Twitter. It is a form of microblog that only allows you to type 140 characters at a time and is mostly good for informing your friends what you are up to or allowing them to see links to hilarious or helpful things on the web without sending out stupid email forwards. I was skeptical, as I always am, but it really has helped me to stay in touch with a few people, that I never would have otherwise on my own, so I am indeed a fan. You can check it out at http://twitter.com/. I'm C3POJones if you care to follow my updates.

Playoff picture

2007-01-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

The Denver Broncos, Tennessee Titans, and Cincinnati Bengals, all fold into mush as the Kansas City Chiefs win their way into the playoffs by dismantling a very good Jacksonville Jaguars team that also folded in the last three weeks of the season. It must have been a bit surreal for the Chiefs as they saw Pittsburgh, the defending Super Bowl Champions play to a mere .500 in order to defeat one of the greatest rivals, the Bengals in overtime on a simple 10 yard pass that turned into a 60+ yard pass. It was perhaps no surprise that the New England Patriots could put an end to the upstart rookie Vince Young and remind him that he was no longer playing in college as a longhorn against Matt Leinart and Pete Carrol, but he was playing against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, which is worlds tougher. But nothing my friends was as sweet as watching a second overtime game, a rematch of Super Bowl XXIV, only without any stars whatsoever (save Frank Gore) in which the 49ers deflated the hopes of young Jay Cutler, who everybody thinks is so dang good. Jay Cutler has a better chance of getting the Broncos to the Super Bowl according to Mike Shanahan, but what good is that if your defense has been exposed and no matter if you have John Elway back, you're still going to struggle. I watched in absolute joy as San Francisco returned to glory, blocking Denver from achieving their goal. Not that it would have mattered much. The Patriots would have destroyed the fading Broncos secondary worse than the Colts or the Chargers so expertly did.
Look for the Chiefs to run Larry Johnson 35-40 times against the Colts ridiculously worthless run defense and gain 180-200 yards in the process, with three touchdowns. If the Chiefs can run Johnson that often and control the ball and keep it out of Manning's hands, they should pull off a 35-31 thriller. It's a game that will come down to mistakes, as it often does. If Johnson doesn't put the ball on the ground and Manning doesn't get pressured into throwing picks, it is a real toss up. I think Manning will choke first, he always does.
Look for Brady to learn a few things from his loss to the Jets earlier in the season and for the Patriots to come out on top, against the ever unpredictable Pennington.
The NFC sucks so much that I don't even care who makes it to the Super Bowl to whoever comes out on top in the AFC (Either Baltimore, San Diego, or New England).
I do know this, look for the Bears' starters to choke on two weeks rest against whoever gets to dismantle them.
I'd say Reggie Bush versus Lawrence Maroney would be a good rookie show down for a Super Bowl, though I doubt that will happen.

The Broncos Still Still Suck

2006-10-30T21:07:00.000-08:00

"The true test of who is best in the AFC will come in week 8 when Denver and Indianapolis finally meet." Greg Holz
Well ladies and gentlemen, it is decided, Indianapolis is the best team in the AFC according to Greg Holz. Though I completely disagree, the challenge to see who is the best will come down to week 9 when the Colts play the Patriots who just dismantled the Vikings, but on to the real topic, the Broncos sucking.

Right now Denver has allowed 79 points and scored 110.
San Diego has allowed 109 and scored 216.
Who is the best in the AFC West? You decide, I say it is not Denver.

In the meantime, the Broncos, who never allow touchdowns, allowed three to the Colts and I hate to break the news to you Greg, but if you can't stop one of the two best teams in the AFC you still won't make it to the Super Bowl. The season is not even half over, and time will still tell on where the Broncos will fall in line, but it is becoming obvious that the Patriots and the Colts will have the #1 and #2 spots and get first round byes. Yes we still have eight or nine games to play, and a lot can happen and injuries can plague teams, but it would be at least an even money bet the Colts/Patriots are a one-two punch in the AFC, not necessarily in that order.

On Anniveraries

2006-10-12T17:14:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention more frequently now than ever before that couples are celebrating their so-called "(arbitrary number) month anniversaries" well let me just tell you what I think about that.

Let's first go to a most reliable source, The New-American Webster Dictionary. An anniversary is "The annually recurring date of a past event." We turn the page to see that annual is defined as "occurring or reoccurring once a year." There you have it, celebrating an anniversary can only occur on an annual, or for you big idiots out there, a yearly basis. Therefore the use of anniversary to describe that somebody has been together for any amount of time ending in something other than a whole number year is impossible and stupid. So knock it off.

All right nature

2006-10-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today, it has snowed. Now don't get me wrong, I like snow, but give me a break. It's barely fall and many trees still have leaves of green. Nature seriously needs some rules so I do not go crazy trying to guess what the whether is going to be like.

A. It should be illegal to snow unless all leaves are off of all deciduous trees.
2. It should be illegal to tornadize or cyclinate before all the snow is melted.
D. It should be illegal for any bad weather to take place during sporting events or really good TV shows, because that is just unfortunate.

The Broncos still suck

2006-10-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last night the Denver Broncos defeated the, at the time, undefeated Baltimore Ravens 13-3 and for some reason everybody and their mother has decided that the Broncos are the team to beat in the AFC. Well let me tell you why they are not the best team in the AFC. The Denver Broncos as far as points allowed are concerned have the best defense in the NFL, allowing only 34 points. However, this is only in four contests. The Chicago Bears have allowed 36 in 5 contests, so their defense is indeed better. The Chicago Bears also have the highest number of scored points (156) in the NFL. But of course they're in the NFC and Denver vs. Chicago won't matter until February. Here's why the Broncos suck, they have the absolute worst office I've ever seen. The only two teams with fewer points are the win-less Buccaneers and Raiders. Holy Cow a team with a grand total of 49 points in 4 games is the best team in the AFC. No way. They lost to St. Louis for goodness sake.
You want to see a team that's better than the Broncos in the AFC, well let's look at the records. The Colts are 5-0, maybe they're better. Also, maybe the San Diego Chargers who have the same 3-1 record as the Broncos, have a whole 36 points scored on them compared to the 34 the Broncos have and guess what? They also have more than double the offensive points with a whole 103.
The only reason one can argue the Broncos have anything is because they handed the 4-1 Patriots and the 4-1 Ravens their only losses on the year.
The Broncos will lose 5 more games and end 10-6 to possibly sneak in as the wild card.

Personal Foul or Personal Assault?

2006-10-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

In the complete blowout today between the Dallas Cowboys and the Tennessee Titans, the only thing that occurred that really deserved some attention as far as football is concerned is the first start of Rose Bowl M.V.P. and potentially amazing rookie Vince Young. Unfortunately it was overshadowed by two completely stupid instances that truly have nothing to do with football except that the invalids at hand were football uniforms on Sunday.
Terrell Owens earlier in the week took too many pain pills and the Dallas police showed up and deemed he attempted suicide. Then he called them liars, fabricated some crap, and everybody for some reason believed him. This game marked his "return" even though he missed literally no time.
But the worst of this P.R. hay day was that Titans' defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth stomped on Cowboys' center Andre Gurode's face causing 30 stitches above his left eye.
This occurred after a Dallas touchdown, far after the play was over and let me just say that not only was that uncalled for and deserving of a fine (that will probably only be $25,000), but also, what occurred on that field on that play was in fact a crime and the league should not only suspend, but expel Haynesworth from the NFL. If this were to happen in everyday life it would be deemed second or third degree assault and Haynesworth would serve at least one year of probation for his idiocy.
The NFL needs to take a stand and say that this is unacceptable and set a precedent for illegal activity inside sports arenas.
I think hockey has it right. Fights can occur, but very seldom do they get out of hand and if you commit a penalty that results in great injury, you are severely punished with fines and suspensions and the league straight up hates you for being so ridiculous in your behavior.
Haynesworth should never be allowed to put a football uniform on again.

The Tigers' Downfall

2006-10-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

Now in all of the 2006 Major League Baseball season, all 162 games, one wouldn't expect the last game of the season to mean anything. Yes in the relatively short 16-game NFL season, the last week usually does mean a lot. When 12 teams make the playoffs in the NFL, there are usually at least 15 teams still alive somehow to make the playoffs. But in the almost six-month baseball season, one wouldn't expect there could be anything done in perhaps even the last week of the season. One especially wouldn't expect the Division leader for approximately 90% of the season in the AL Central to blow five straight games to end the season and lose the division to a team that on August 7 was 10.5 games behind them. The Minnesota Twins proved in the last four months of the season that they are potentially the most exciting team in major league history. With a pitcher who leads the league in strikeouts, earned run average, and is tied for the lead in wins, Johann Santana is a lock for the Cy Young; Joe Mauer fought off the ever pesky Derek Jeter who would be better off as a male model for the batting title; and of course the should be M.V.P of the American league Justin Morneau. But this is not to mention Francisco Liriano, a rookie phenom who would have challenged Santana for the Cy Young and would have been a no-brainer rookie of the year if it wouldn't have been for a season-ending injury to his elbow.
Then of course there were the amazing breakout seasons for Torii Hunter, Michael Cuddyer, Nick Punto, and even Jason Tyner and Jason Bartlett, the amazing eight and nine hole guys who both batted over .300.
I like the Twins chances to make the World Series even though, the biggest challenge will be the potential seven-game series with the Yankees in New York. The Twins need to beat Oakland in four games (which will be quite the task) to insure that Johann can pitch the opener against the Yankees and be ready to pitch three of the potential seven games.
The National League is weak. The Mets are the favorites and even they are in trouble, plagued by injury at every turn.
I think I speak for the entire world minus New York City, when I say, a subway series would be terrible for baseball and I would not watch it.
Here's to the Twins, may they go far and bring back the title that's been missing for 15 years.

Advertising (Good Lord)

2006-08-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

So recently I've been paying more attention than usual to advertisements on TV and radio and have come to discover that some are so ridiculously pointless that I cannot understand why they are aired ever.
By far the worst has to be for the product Head On, which I guess is some type of headache curing gel or something. I don't really know because the commercial is so worthless. Here it is:
"Head On, applied directly to the forehead. Head On, applied directly to the forehead. Head On, applied directly to the forehead." That's it. Wow, how stupid. The picture simply shows a person applying it to their forehead. It says nothing of what it is, where it's available. I just want to shoot the TV every time I see this commercial.
On the other hand, it saddens me that the Minnesota Twins are planning to switch their radio provider from AM 830 WCCO to AM 1500 because WCCO has some pretty clever advertisements for Twins baseball. One such advertisement speaks of Francisco Liriano-no (yes that's what they call him) and one line is: "more people have waved at his nasty slider than at the Aquatenial Queen".
So why is it that the good gets ousted and the bad gets all this air time? Has anybody in the entire world ever bought Head On? If they have, were they expecting what they got or were they expecting some type of brain enhancer that you just need to apply to your forehead and it will make you all the smarter?
Furthermore, Concordia has outsourced its advertising and in one magazine I saw of a CSP advertisement with a woman in medieval armor and a weird black and yellow coloring (which are not our school colors) and no mention of us being a Christian University.
Ultimately, I cannot see how advertising works for people when they do it so poorly. Why don't they forget advertising and spend the money in places a little more useful.

Twins Pitching

2006-08-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

Over the season, the Minnesota Twins after tonight will have started 9 different pitchers. Of these pitchers, Santana is the obvious ace and the most reliable. Radke has picked it up lately and pitched well. Liriano the absolute phenom is currently out for an indefinite amount of time (let's pray it's only the 15 days required) and quite frankly Liriano barring injury would have made one heck of a case for the Cy Young title. Currently, Santana is still making a case, leading the majors in strikeouts and staying in the top 5 throughout the season in wins, earned run average, and innings. Radke and Santana are the only two pitchers who have stayed in the rotation throughout the season. Liriano didn't start in it, and is now injured. Carlos Silva has been there for most of the season, but got demoted for a while because he couldn't throw strikes whatsoever.
The other pitchers who've been in the rotation have just plain been horrendous. Kyle Lohse finally got let go, Scott Baker has an e.r.a higher than record setting earthquakes on the Richter-scale. Mike Smith got a whole 2 or 3 innings of work in the majors, Boof Bonser's name is Boof which means he's worthless. Tonight a newbie takes the mound, Matt Garza, who has seemed to run through the minor leagues on a terror, so hopefully he'll live through more than 2 or 3 starts in the big leagues.
But still, now the fifth spot in the rotation belongs to Boof because Liriano is injured. So the question begs, when are the Twins going to realize that they need to sacrifice one of their amazingly successful bullpen pitchers and put them in the rotation.
Currently the Twins bullpen is the best in the American league, and it is obvious. Joe Nathan has blown a whole one save all year and has the second best e.r.a for a closer, not to mention tons of punchouts. Dennys Reyes may be the best left-handed reliever in the game, he's amazing. Rincon, Crain, and Guerrier have all been pitching quite well through the season. And then there is the newly aquired Pat Neshack, who last night struck out two batters in 6 pitches after Carlos Silva got blown apart by a heavy hitting Toronto offense.
It is time to think about it. Neshek is lights out and he's not a closer or a one out a game guy. He can pitch three innings already no problem.
This guy deserves his shot in the rotation with four good pitches and an abnormal pitching motion, he could be as phenomenal as Liriano if given a shot.
Send Boof back to AAA and put Neshek in the rotation already for goodness sake.

The Jones Zone (of a different kind)

2006-08-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

For those of you attending Concordia University-St. Paul this coming school year, there will be a new option for being involved with Campus Ministry and Spiritual Life on campus. It is called of course, the Jones Zone (or at least that's the plan thus far).
This endeavor will be a late night relationship building and fellowship time for any students who wish to participate. It will take place Monday-Thursday following evening chapels. (10:30 or 11:00 pm until Midnight). Each day will feature a different topic and there will often be a guest speaker or leader for the evening. For example: Early on there will be various days to explain the numerous acronyms of Concordia. I'm hoping sports teams will be able to come in and promote their sporting events a bit. And once we reach a certain stride we'll cover topics relating to the gospel in strange and somewhat unorthodox ways. For example, relating the gospel to the Harry Potter series or Star Wars etc.
The late night format will hopefully allow for times in which we can head to Perkins or even the bar (God forbid) to relax and just enjoy each other's company and conversation. It will also be something that one can attend or not attend and it won't be a big deal. I'm hoping this will be something that the exact same group of people never attends. I hope there are people coming in and out all of the time. I hope to post the agenda for the week both on the Campus Ministry web site as well as in the Campus Ministry Newsletter, which you may actually want to read parts of it now. And I don't see why I shouldn't post it on this form of the Jones Zone.
Look for the posters soon to be up in the tunnel and all over campus.

The best movie ever?

2006-07-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentleman, there is a movie being released very soon that has the potential to be the greatest movie of all time. It is going by the name of "Beerfest". Now the name in itself would make it wonderful, but when you realize who is behind this movie, you understand the potential for greatness increases exponentially, they are known as Broken Lizard. For those of you who are unaware, those are the guys who created the wondrous comedy hit known as Super Troopers and also the strange horror comedy Club Dread.
Beerfest is the story of an underground beer drinking competition that exists internationally. It is like the world cup of beer drinking.
The best part about this movie is that it is set to come out in August and I for one am going to see it as soon as possible.
Will this be the greatest movie ever, probably not, but nothing with this much potential has been released since perhaps Super Troopers itself.

Please Squirrels, I implore you, take back what is yours

2006-06-23T23:42:00.000-07:00

I think it is no surprise to any of you who have been around Concordia University this past spring and into this summer that we have a severe problem on our hands. If you've ever been to Concordia University in the past I'm sure you were greeted by one of our many thousands of squirrels who have normally been thought as dangerous. Well my friends we have bigger animals to fry. The rabbit population has been increasing like...well...rabbits. Freshman year if I saw one or two rabbits a year, that was it, now I can't walk anywhere on campus without seeing half a dozen of them prancing around. I even saw one chasing a squirrel the other day (no I'm not making this up). The rabbits have become an invasive species to this campus and I'm afraid they have no natural predators save one, The Jones Family. As many of you are aware we Joneses are expert rabbit hunters. True we do most of our work around Easter, claiming back that sacred holiday for Jesus and not plastic grass, candy, and a bloated bunny.
Now many of you are thinking well rabbits are harmless compared to squirrels, but I beg to differ. According to Seinfeld, Elaine should not be afraid of a dog named Snowball because he's like a squirrel; therefore, we should not be afraid of squirrels. Also, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there is a flesh eating rabbit! Hello people. He kills Gawain, Ector, and Bors. Arthur has to dispose of him with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. So it is clear that rabbits are more dangerous than squirrels.
What shall be done about this infestation, well my friends, that is obvious. We must hire out the Jones family to dispose of these wretched creatures. At least get Isaac in here. He's the most successful at the sacred art of hunting anyway.
So here's to the squirrels, taking back the campus from those pesky rabbits.

God vs. the boogie man

2006-06-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

I recently read an away message that said something to the effect of "teaching kids that God is bigger than the boogie man..." I have pondered this thought and decided it is a great way to illustrate how people can hear Law or Gospel from the exact same statement.

Law - If the boogie man is scary and God is bigger than the boogie man, wouldn't that mean that God is bigger and scarier than the boogie man. We are taught to fear God, but why fear him as a really big boogie man.

Gospel - If it is obvious to those being taught that God is good (which it is not obvious to anyone I do not feel) then I suppose God can be used to fight off the boogie man because he is bigger and stronger and all that type of thing.

You may ask, "How is it not obvious that God is good?" I ask, how is it obvious? God is all powerful, all knowing, all everything, so if I weren't on the side of this God who is in control, I'd be afraid and if I didn't know how to get on his side or that he already is on my side, I would not see him as good. I would see him as somebody who is able to inflict punishment on me for my shortcomings which is a conclusion I think most people come to.

If I were relating God to something, I'd make sure I first related God to something good, that's what parables do. They say "the kingdom of heaven is like..." then they speak of this good thing and the point is, God is even better than that. God is even better than the treasure in the field, or a pearl of great price, or a mustard seed that grows into a tree, or a Mickey Mantle rookie card. Getting across that God is good first and foremost is important, then showing how he can defeat the enemies is the next step.

Now I'm not saying that teaching kids God is bigger than the boogie man is wrong, I think in the proper context (which I'm sure this was) it may be a nice way to look at things. I'm just saying, if you don't know your listener, you may lead them to law when you intend gospel.

The Drummer

2006-06-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

Today while eating lunch with the students who were at CSP for their New Student Orientation, I talked to a father of a really sweet young lady for quite a while about a few things. Our conversation started about the crappy electric drum set in the upstairs storage closet of the chapel and in some way it transformed to being about Muslims and this man's intolerance and hatred for them. I've never met a man so unafraid to speak his mind about how he hated democrats and the war in Vietnam, yet was all for the war in Iraq and he essentially said he would have blown the entire country of Iraq off of the map if he were the president. This man made everybody at the table (except for me and a friend) leave because of his blatant disregard for where anybody was on the political spectrum.
Then he complained that President Holst in his opening address had said that this was a Christian University, yet Muslims were welcome. I'm sure President Holst said anybody was welcome as well they should be. This guy asked me about that and what I thought about it. I said just because this is a Christian University, that doesn't mean we exclude all others from learning. There is no test to pass on how Christian you are. We aren't forcing our beliefs so to speak, but we're still teaching what we believe and confess.
Without listening to me this guy said that Muslims aren't Christian and I was sort of lost. Of course they're not.
This guy had a thought in his head that all Muslim people, regardless of their individual uniqueness, were purely evil and deserved to be bombed off the face of the planet.
I don't know how this guy could consider himself a Christian. The harshness of life and things of that sort had caused him to harden his heart against this people. I wish he would have come to regular chapel today instead of the NSO chapel, which gave us the Gospel in its simplest form. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." But God also so loved the world that he sent his only Son to die for all people regardless of what their ancestors have done, regardless of all other people in their religions and died to forgive their sins because he loves them, even though they ignore him and do not believe his Son, Jesus Christ was truly God. He loves everybody even if they haven't heard the good news.
I am not one to tell politicians what they should do because the complex world of foreign affairs is far beyond me. But I am one to say that if we just killed all the Muslims because they were Muslims, how would that make us better than Nazi Germany who killed the Jews for that very reason? If we cannot talk to people who are not of Christian faith, how can we extend the kingdom? If we do not accept people who aren't Christians into Concordia University, then we're not reaching any of those who truly are lost and need to be reached.
Muslims believe Muhammad was another Son of God and I believe that all people are children of God whom God loves and deserve love from others as Christ has taught us to love all, even if they are friend or enemy.
I hope I get to talk to this girl more when she starts attending and eventually her father again. I didn't get out what I really wanted to get out about the situation. Maybe I should just have him read my blog.

Road Trip Canada

2006-05-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

My sophomore year for Greg's 19th birthday. We made an excursion to the great nation of Canada, so we could buy alcohol legally or something like that. I don't know. It was a poor idea, but it was a crazy road trip with four crazy friends: Miller, Beck, Griep, Holz.
Now this trip was notable for many reasons. Firstly, it is where Greg and I invented they "dewbe" I really can't remember why we called it that and I'm sure that's not how Greg spells it in his mind, but it is a combination of really bad beer (Labatt) and Mountain Dew. Mind you this is far before we were beer drinkers of any real repetition. We were rookies.
Also this road trip was the first time I'd ever been in a car when it got pulled over by the police. Matt Griepentrog received a ticket in North Dakota for going 7 mph over the speed limit. It cost a whole $35.
But most importantly, the Canada trip was where the most famous three-way kiss occurred between Griep, Miller and Beck (yes two of these people are male). The best part is the kiss was mostly just between the two idiotic males who both just wanted a piece of whatever they could get. Sadness, but yet, hilarity.

Wii?!?! WTF Nintendo?

2006-05-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure many of you know, Nintendo is coming out with a new gaming system. It is supposedly called the Wii. This is an interesting gaming system to me. From what I have heard. One will be able to download former Nintendo system games onto this piece of equipment and play them. This is obviously a good idea, slightly piggy-backing on the PlayStation capabilities. I've been told that the controller for this game will look like a remote control essentially and it will have a sensor in the control much like the gun in duck hunt so you can shoot shiz on the screen arcade style. Obviously a good feature. When I was told about this, I thought to myself, ok, this thing has some potential, but what it truly needs is a way to hook up old time controllers from previous systems, like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and Game Cube and plug them right into the "Wii" controller. I think this would be amazing. That would automatically make all of their old systems rendered useless and this piece of equipment an absolute must have. Also the cost of this item is only supposed to be like $200. Comparing that to the Xbox 360 or the soon to be released Play Station 3, which are both running or going to run at like $500, that's pretty good. This will immediately cater to poor college kids and to parents who want to buy their son or daughter a new system but don't want to spend an entire months wage on it. I do say though, what kind of a name is Wii for a new system. Is that Japanese for Americans are retarded or what?

On food fights

2006-04-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

Over the years at Concordia there have been a couple food fights that were notable. Most of them take place at the midnight breakfast each semester, which is seemingly odd to me because in previous years, that was the time when there were the most faculty and staff in the dining hall, that has since changed, but still.
The most memorable food fight for me happened one lunch period between the most unlikely combination ever, well maybe not, Matt Griepentrog vs. Stephanie Malzahn. I don't know what happened exactly, I was too busy laughing to realize what brought about this fight, but it escalated quickly. In the end, Matt dumped an entire plate of I believe part muffin and part rice all over Malzahn and Griep was hit with an entire plate of something similar.
It was purely hilarious because neither was in any way apologetic about what had happened, they were both just pissed off, feeling no remorse for their actions toward each other.
I look forward to another Matt Griepentrog food fight in the near future.

On Holiday Traditions

2006-04-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

As Easter has come and gone I was reminded of the numerous holiday traditions that many families have developed and how odd my family is in comparison to the average family. Most families probably have turkey on thanksgiving, open gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and get candy or paint eggs on Easter. Of course my family partook in these cliché traditions as well as went to church multiple times around these holidays (at least Christmas and Easter) to celebrate their true meaning in the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But when it comes to the Jones family, there are a few extra things that take place when it comes to holiday time.
Thanksgiving usually means turkey and football, both watching and playing. In later years, playing hasn’t happened quite as much due to age and lack of people. Ten years ago on Thanksgiving Day on the front lawn of the Jones family farm, 15 blonde Jones boys were running around rampant, wearing life preservers (normally used for fishing expeditions) as protection from each others’ fierce tackles.
The point of the Christmas season that the Jones kids look forward to most is bringing out the stockings. For most families this would be because Santa was coming to stuff the stockings with candy and hopefully your favorite movie on DVD. This is the most anticipated time for my family because of the grotesque, hideous appearance of my stocking.
When I was 12 years old, my older brother broke my original stocking, which was a present for my first Christmas from my Godfather. To make amends for this injustice, my little sister, who was five years old at the time, sewed a new stocking for me. It was a touching gift, but it remains the ugliest piece of craftsmanship I’ve ever encountered in my entire life. My name spelled incorrectly in glitter on the top, a strange brownish-burgundy color which simply looks out of place with the other scarlet red stockings the rest of my siblings have. So whenever my stocking makes its appearance at Christmas time, my entire family bursts into laughter at the unshapely stocking.
By far my favorite and most controversial family tradition that my family holds in place happens around the Easter holiday. When my dad was ten years old, he ventured out early on an Easter Sunday morning and stumbled upon a bunny rabbit. Luckily, he was carrying a shotgun and decided to shoot this rabbit as it was scampering away. He brought the rabbit back to the house to show his four year old brother, my uncle. My dad proceeded to tell him that he had shot the Easter bunny and there would be no candy or Easter egg hunts for any of the kids because the Easter bunny was dead. Of course my uncle went off crying for fear that candy would not abound anymore at Easter.
My dad told me that story when I was eight or so and ever since it has been tradition that from the moment we get home from church on Good Friday until we go back to school the following Monday or Tuesday, it is rabbit hunting time. Whoever shoots a rabbit first wins. I’ve only won one time in this slightly disturbing family contest. Usually my little brother succeeds early on Saturday morning, but everybody has gotten their turn. In fact my mother, who will never fire a gun, won last year by destroying a rabbit on our driveway with my car.
So I would encourage strange family holiday traditions. They’ve provided me with ample material to reflect on and scare away females with. So if you’re about to start a family in the near future, think about how you want your family to spend holidays and discuss it with your spouse. You never really know what unique, slightly dysfunctional traditions may have been practiced in their childhood. Happy Easter.

At Elizabeth's house

2006-04-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

In honor of Elizabeth Wehr's birthday, I'll speak on trips to her lovely home.
There were a couple times when us crazy freshman kids invaded the home of the Wehrs and did some crazy things. We played signs pretty much every single chance we got so that was fun once when we did that, but what I most remember is when Aaron and I went out into the street with random objects, I believe a broom, hockey stick, shovel, and a couple sporting balls were used to hit around in the driveway. The game had no point, no object, no winner, no goal, nothing to it really. I only remember it because it was at Elizabeth's house.
So this pointless post is in honor of Elizabeth Wehr and her birthday, today, April 18th.

Pajama Day

2006-04-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

Sophomore year, students were still able to go into their outlook and send an e-mail to the entire campus from the e-mail address known as students@csp.edu. It won't work any longer, sorry. But while it did work, Matt Griepentrog sent an e-mail to all the students telling them that the next day was officially Pajama Day and all students should wear their pajamas to class. This wasn't during homecoming or snowfest or anything like that. Simply a random act by the random Griepentrog. The second best part about the pajama day is that people actually dressed up, most notably Mike Nielsen...aka "homeless". The absolute best part is that Matt Griepentrog himself who orchestrated this craziness did not wear pajamas. After this incident Mr. Griepentrog got a formal letter of warning from IT head Jonathan Breitbarth saying that if Griep did this again without authorization, he would be punished and would lose his computer privileges. He laughed hysterically and that was that. Good work Griep.

Spring Fling 2003

2006-04-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

Spring Fling 2003 was most memorable for what I believe was the start of the moshing ritual to ACDC that has since occurs at every dance we attend. I'm not sure if we did that at Winter Formal the previous semester, but I remember the mosh that day very well. Mainly because massive Kevin Steinke and Tony Zerwas participated and threw us around the room.
Another memorable part of that dance was the midget toss t-shirts that the fantabulous four as we came to be called wore. Since then I may be the only one whose t-shirt isn't lost or ruined, but nonetheless the insanity of that dance with Greg in Rastafarian dreads and God knows what else was pretty much amazing. Good times indeed.

Winter Formal 2002

2006-04-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

The first dance I ever attended at Concordia was the Winter Formal of 2002. This was a lovely evening with a gift exchange between friends and a lovely spaghetti dinner made by five chef-like males for five crazy females. The dance was fun and great and retarded, but the thing I can remember most about it was when Greg Holz, my crazy roommate ran up to Allicia Keefe on the dance floor and pretended to make out with her (he put his hand over her mouth to prevent actually making out) This was so funny I fell on the floor and the rest of the guys were dying laughing and the girls were all yelling at Greg as if this was the worst thing he had ever done. To this day I can't think of a more entertaining event or more horrified looks on people's faces than when that occurred. Well done Greg.

April Fool's Day 101

2006-03-29T21:58:00.000-08:00

This is what appeared in the most recent Sword Issue. Might I add that I still haven't decided if the illustration of me is an April Fool's joke or not. Elizabeth Wehr is the photo editor, and I'm not so sure she can be trusted. Unfortunately I have never spoken to the girl who actually drew the illustration, Jess Tewes is her name I believe. Anyway, here it is.

If you’re anything like me, you enjoy a good prank, especially when you’re the one pulling the prank. Over the past four years I’ve helped to orchestrate a couple pranks that have been controversial, but in my opinion of course, just plain hilarious. As I’m sure every one is aware, April Fools Day is just days away and this is the day above all other days when pranks are expected to happen, which is good and bad.
April Fools Day is a good day for pulling pranks because pretty much no matter what you do, short of committing a felony, you can get away with it. Nobody is going to get overly upset with you for pulling a prank on them. What they’ll probably try to do is get you back and work a little revenge, but with only the rest of the day to think of something, they’re in trouble. And of course you’re going to be expecting revenge acted out upon you, which is why April Fools Day is a bad day for pranks. Granted not all people are going to be on their toes, but if you pull a prank on somebody on any other day of the year, they’re not going to expect it at all.
I’ve been gotten numerous times in my day on April Fools, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it. For instance, when your mother decides it would be a good idea to place every clean pair of underwear you own into the freezer, your only option is to steal a pair from your little brother, if she didn’t throw your brother’s underwear in the freezer too.
I’ve gotten my mom back for the underwear incident, but I didn’t try and think of something that day. I decided it was best to seek my revenge the following year, when I was at college and she didn’t have access to any of my clothes. A simple phone call with a well placed lie about an engagement to or pregnancy of a girl your mother doesn’t know generally will do the trick, but don’t worry, it’s April Fools, she can’t get too mad. And what is she going to do, call you back and try tell you she’s pregnant, a little unoriginal don’t you think. All she can do is wait until the next year and try and come up with something better in a phone conversation and so long as you’re on your toes and know what day it is, you’ll be aware.
One only can hope that nothing bad actually does happen on April Fools. I feel sorry for the people who get into car accidents and have to call their family or friends to tell them about it. They probably wouldn’t be believed if they were a regular prankster.
So go forth and enjoy this holiday dedicated to lying to your friends and family, it’s probably the only time you can get away with it without too significant of consequences. So call your mom or dad and ask them if they’re ready to be a grandma or grandpa again, but if your dad has a heart attack, don’t think he’s seeking revenge. He probably hasn’t had enough time to think that far ahead.

Cameron the freshman

2006-03-21T21:44:00.000-08:00

Tonight's executive board speeches brought up memories of great campaigns that have taken place over the years here at Concordia. Who knew that Cameron's campaign to join student senate his freshman year would lead to his being president just two years later.
I'm not sure which of his posters from that campaign are being used in this year's. I know the duck hunt gun one was from that year as well as other crazy and inappropriate ideas thought up by Cameron, Greg, Griep, Aaron, and myself. Thankfully Cameron dropped us four idiots as his campaign managers and went on with more qualified strategies.
I was indeed at least one of the people who put "Cameron the freshman" on slips of paper to elect this young ambitious kid to student senate and I think he has come a long way and done some fantastic things.
More to come about campaigns in the upcoming days.

A touching article on Senoritis, kind of

2006-03-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

This is for those of you who read my blog so often you'll see this before the Sword comes out and for those of you who don't read the Sword, so basically this is for everybody on earth.

Appearing in the March 16th issue of the Sword.

The other day, while I was trying to figure out what to do with the next year of my life, I made the comment to somebody that sometimes I wish I could stay at Concordia for another three or four years, and sometimes I wish I would have been done with Concordia three or four years ago. It seems to me that Concordia is a lot like the three possessions I have come to be most known for in my nearly four years here, my back pack, my recliner desk chair, and my green sweatshirt.
I got my current back pack about two weeks before freshman year started. I just wanted something a lap top and books would fit in and didn’t really care about how cheap it was. By the end of freshman year, one of the straps was hanging by only a couple of threads and I couldn’t go two days without somebody telling me, “hey, your back pack is about to break” well guess what people. It is still working effectively.
I find my experience at Concordia is similar to my back pack. It seemed at some points that I was hanging by a thread here, and a strong enough tug would have rendered me useless, but I pressed through, like my back pack.
I also am owner to one of the finest reclining desk chairs on campus. This chair got abused in its time. People would come into my room, see the chair was the most comfortable spot, and sit in it with such frequency that I had to at one point make a list and post it on the chair so people knew who was allowed to sit in it and who was not. Because when the wrong people sit in your chair, it just messes up your groove.
My experience at Concordia was also similar to my chair. At times it seemed as though people would take advantage of me and mess up my groove because they found some sense of comfort in it, without recognizing the lack of comfort I was feeling. Balancing friends and relationships never really works out as easily as one would hope.
If you’ve ever seen me on campus, chances are about 90% when you saw me I was wearing my green Paynesville Bulldogs hooded sweatshirt. I am still described to people who don’t know me as “the kid in the green sweatshirt.”
Concordia University is also like my green sweatshirt. It is at times a source of comfort, something familiar, something I know I can put on that instantly gives correct identity. But one can’t keep the same sweatshirt or stay at the same school forever. Sometimes it’s time to retire the sweatshirt or retire from the school. And yeah, maybe you can squeeze another good year out of it, but why try when you have a perfectly good new sweatshirt waiting for you. Some can’t wait to get their new sweatshirt and move on to their vocation or other schools, but some prefer to keep wearing the old because they like what they have, and they don’t know if the new is going to be as comfortable as the old, as warm as the old, or as perfect as the old.
These are the things I consider in what is expected to be my final year here at Concordia, and it’s safe to say, I still don’t know the answer to the classic question. What’s better, what you know as the old, comfortable, and safe; or what you don’t know, the new, exciting, and mysterious?

The First Tecmo Tournament

2006-03-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

Freshman year we were big into regular Nintendo. Our favorite game was probably Tecmo Super Bowl, then again Paper Boy did have its moments. The first tecmo tournament consisted of just close friends and obvious huge fans of tecmo. People I remember in the tournament were myself, Aaron Gehrke, Greg Holz, Matt Griepentrog, Seth Gehrke, Corey Grunklee, and I believe PJ Stohlmann. There may have been a few more in the original I can't recall.
I was eliminated early on in the tournament, but that was all right because my favorite part was announcing for the games while sitting in PJ's bed and messing up his groove.
Anyway, the championship game comes down to Matt Griepentrog and Seth Gehrke, two well versed pros. Seth was represented by the New York football Giants and Griepentrog by the Buffalo ever failing Bills. Now the game was a close one and I don't even who recall was winning, but with a couple minutes left in the closely contested epic battle genius Aaron bumps the Nintendo and it freezes. We had to restart and try and count down to see who would win the game. It was a crazy thing to witness, but in the end through our creative way of solving the frozen Nintendo problem, Seth won in the restart and I would venture to say the score was 16-13, but I cannot be sure on that. It was over three years ago.

Ehud

2006-03-14T11:22:00.000-08:00

Freshman year Griep, Aaron and I were all in the same Old Testament class with Big Papa Stohldog. We were required to do three different group presentations on different Old Testament stories. The first project we did was on the great judge known as Ehud. Ehud was a left handed man who snuck into Eglon, king of Moab's quarters and stabbed him. Now Eglon was quite fat and Ehud's sword went in all the way through Eglon's body and went out the back and Ehud's sword's handle was closed in Eglon's stomach.
Matt Griepentrog was Ehud and wore a Ken Dorsey Miami Hurricanes jersey.
Aaron Gehrke was Eglon, the fat bastard.
I played the rest of the intangibles.
P.J. Stohlmann also helped out with the project along with Greg and Moses.
Having P.J. help was just plain hilarious to Dr. Stohlmann (PJ's beloved dad).
Now this movie was pure hilarity and ridiculousness and if people in our class weren't so stingy we probably would have gotten 100% on the project.
More to come about OT projects.

The Wedding

2006-03-08T21:49:00.000-08:00

Now don't be fooled, the wedding of which I speak occurred one Thursday night 2 years ago at a coffee house on tier 2. It was the union of Matthew Griepentrog and Amanda Busby. After Greg Holz decided that I should be an ordained minister on some internet church, I decided my first wedding ought to be Griep and thus it was. This was also witnessed by at that time prospective student Adam Koglin who had the fortunate luck of staying with Matt and Greg, only they didn't have a suitable couch so he had to sleep in my and Aaron's room.
So here's to Josh Huber (Busby's boy) who only knows this because I told him last week.

Who would do such a thing?

2006-03-07T17:39:00.000-08:00

Freshman year in Wollaeger Hall numerous floors posted bios of their residents with picture and random information. Well somebody took Abby Fink's picture I believe early on in second semester from the wall. She immediately blamed us (me, Aaron, Griep, Greg) we all tried to pin in on Greg because well who else would do such a thing besides Greg Holz.
In the first AA cd Impromptu and Infomercials we sang about this crazy incident in "Who would do such a thing?" track six.
My favorite line from this song is sung by Aaron.
"why do you believe every thing we say, because we just lie and lie and lie and lie every day"

Bocce ball

2006-03-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

Not so long ago (August 2005) I was playing Bocce ball with a group of friends and we were going all over the place on the knoll and around Hyatt and God knows where else. Well, at one point the target ball was thrown fairly close to the street known as Hamline Avenue and me being the fantastic player I am, threw one of my balls out into the street, where it was soon run over by a bus and rolled a ways and when I finally found it and picked it up, there it was completely demolished. The insides of this ball were all gone and it was nearly flattened. I was playing with Cameron Heiliger amongst others and he took the ball and placed it in the Senate office with a note saying that I got the ball run over by a bus, which you can go and see to this very day.

Naps

2006-02-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

It used to be the highlight of the day to take a nap and do nothing for an afternoon. Sophomore year I would try and take a nap pretty much every day if I could, and when I say nap, I don't mean this 7-17 minute crap. If a nap couldn't last 2 hours, it wasn't worth it. I remember on numerous occasions taking naps for at least 4 hours. It was a hell of a life. Wake up at 7:41, shower, go to Greek, chapel, some class, Mariokart, lunch, choir, sleep, dinner, other stuff.
I suppose I had other classes at some point in the day, but it didn't really matter.
We generally find things to take up our time. Some people actually put their time into class, sports or extra-curriculars, but I find there's always time for a little something else. Whether it be a video game, blogs, facebook addiction, LOTR craziness, writing TV shows, Seinfeld, the land of Narnia, and even once in a while chasing girls. But for a few solid months sophomore year, naps were all that mattered. If I would have studied Greek for even half the time I was taking naps, I would have been fluent in the language.
Now as it stands I don't believe I've taken a nap all school year. But the memory of 7 hours of sleep a night followed by an average of a 3 hour nap each day is quite the memory.

Vernacular

2006-02-24T17:27:00.000-08:00

Throughout my college career, one of the most interesting things I found was the words and phrases that got used. Some got on like wild fire, others were only used for about two days and everybody forgot about them. Let's just remember some of the greats we came up with throughout the years that get a little less use nowadays.
Knocked down - something good
Off the chain - generally delegated to Dr. Shannon Smith, the tightest prof at CSP by one Tootie Martin
Hurkey - just a touch better than knocked down
Upward Table - pretty much the best thing you can get to
You be Wilin - another phrase generally said to Dr. Smith (I have no idea how you really spell it)
Sex it up - yes it's true, there was a phrase before tap about sex that got used just as frequently

The ones that have stuck are used in our (well my) everyday language
Tight - a range of meanings but never as good as upward table
Gihugen - created by Aaron Gehrke to rival ginormous which was being overused due to the Elf movie
Tap - as I said before, this honestly didn't take off until maybe the end of freshman year, mostly it was a sophomore year term that was so good it extended its way into life itself and pretty much became our ultimate focus.

There are no doubt numerous other phrases I am forgetting, but that is why you are allowed to comment, so you can tell me the phrases I've missed.

NHL Hitz

2006-02-23T20:01:00.000-08:00

Generally each semester at Concordia is defined by which video game you play. Spring of freshman year was no doubt, NHL Hitz for Xbox. I think between the 4 of us, we played close to 500 games. I think Sophomore year, Griep quit band just so we could play more. It seemed like every day we'd come back from class at 2:55 or so and he'd be on his way out to band and never wanted to leave.
NHL Hitz for those who don't know, is a lot like NFL Blitz, only hockey of course. And like Blitz, scoring is quite rampant. I think Griep once beat me 27-21. You generally end up with a football score, not a hockey one.
Hitz became the defining aspect of our lives. I spent more time in a day playing hitz than in a week doing homework. It's amazing how a video game brought us closer together as friends, in competition, insanity, and fun. Video games, the life blood of most normal college students.

The start of AA

2006-02-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

Freshman year, it became a tradition for the fantabulous 4 to order pizza each Wednesday night after fish and then call infomercial people. It was a hell of a time. For Christmas that year, Aaron gave me a handheld recorder so I could make notes to myself on it. This because I was a huge fan of the movie Dirty Work and Norm tends to do that in Dirty Work a few times.
Well, one night after fish, instead of calling these infomercial people we decided we should just improv some songs and put them on my recorder. The quality of the recording wasn't all that good, but it was still fun to do. Then we decided, why don't we combine these two things, impromptu and infomercials and make an album out of it. So, we did, and AA was born. Obviously Impromptu and Infomercials was the perfect name for the album so we released it, Valentine's Day 2003. It was a huge success featuring such AA hits as DJ and GGW, Mario the Homo, and of course A Tribute to Vanna White.
So there is our basic early history for all you kids who weren't at CSP yet when we first hit it big.

Facebook should...

2006-02-21T18:16:00.000-08:00

In conversing with Matt, we've come to the realization that Facebook still needs to make a few improvements before it is 100% perfect. Well, at least one improvement that we talked about. Often times in your life you are out of the loop as far as other people's relationships go. It seems perhaps that you are the last to hear. I think that when the relationship status of one of your friends changes, Facebook should notify you with an e-mail.
For example: Jake has just ended his relationship with Lindsay and Jake is now engaged to Aaron Singleton. Or, Matt has just ended his open ended relationship with Andrew and is now married to Alicia.
This would be the most effective improvement that Facebook could make at this point because honestly, who wants to hear over a week later from the biggest loser on campus,? "Hey did you hear that Randolph is now dating Frankie?" Nobody does.
So get on that Facebook, all right.

Ezekiel Quickies

2006-02-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, freshman year, fall semester I took Old Testament with Big Papa Stohldog. We did group projects and one of them was on a story in the Book of Ezekiel.
For one group, Aaron and I were asked to help out. This group was Kat Schaefer, Steve Weispfennig, and Tara Johnson. In helping basically we just had to sit there while Tara and Kat pretended to be whores and hit on us. (Read Ezekiel around chapters 20-25 for more background, especially 23:20.) In the midst of this, Tara I believe posed a question that was something to the effect of "who else can I have as a lover?" Immediately, without hesitation, Matt Griepentrog's hand shot up in the air as high as I've ever seen it. The look on his face was priceless and I was rolling on the ground ready to die. I wish I could freeze that face and posture of him in my mind because that remains top 10 funniest things I've ever seen.

Upgrades

2006-02-20T16:07:00.000-08:00

In the past week two of the five things I consider unique to me as a college student disappeared off of the map. Firstly, my computer died and had to get re-imaged. In doing this I lost the oldest version of AOL instant messenger known to man. I got the newest version there is I think and I'm pretty sure I could get an older version and get rid of this one, but I haven't been able to quite yet. Beyond that my cell phone, which was over three years old, with no color and nothing fancy about it finally croaked this morning. That was just a shame. I feel more naked now without it than I think I ever have. Only three things remain: the green sweatshirt, my backpack, and my chair. The backpack can go at any minute and has been that way since the end of freshman year. The chair seems pretty sturdy. The green sweatshirt could withstand anything, pretty much, period.
It seems that my life is just in need of an upgrade. I think these things failing on me might be telling me it's time for an upgrade, but I am way ahead of myself on that in the fact that I have stopped wearing jeans completely and have switched to 80% khakis 20% sweatpants/whatever works.

Borkhus, Get out of my Bed!!!

2006-02-20T13:26:00.000-08:00

In the past two years, Jake Borkhus has mastered the art of taking a nap in Aaron Gehrke's bed. He took one yesterday for over an hour (don't worry Jake, Aaron doesn't read the Jones Zone). However the first time Jake got to sleep in our room was actually my sophomore year. Jake the interesting freshman, who along with Sam Seefeld turned into a nocturnally crazed lunatic.
One night Jake set up a deal with me to sleep on our couch because Sam had visitors or something like that and I'm like yeah whatever just come over and I'll let you in. So I wait until like 1 AM or so and he doesn't show, so I figure, stupidly, he's probably just going to sleep in there. Well come 3:45 AM and somebody is knocking on my door and I think to myself, WTF? Who would be knocking on my door all quietly at this time of the fricken night? And there's Jake, just waiting. He comes in and zonks out on the couch.
Now it's a daily occurrence that he comes to the room, plays mariokart, watches Deadwood and takes a nap in Aaron's bed, how wonderful.

Griep and the heart monitor

2006-02-19T16:49:00.000-08:00

Sophomore year, Matt Griepentrog was having some health problems involving verberations of the heart. Granted, I was partially in fear because this was the first real health problem any of us had ever had, but Griep wearing this thing was quite interesting. One time when it was raining out we decided it was time to run outside in the mud and play some Frisbee, now taking your shirt off for this is wise so you don't have quite as much dirty stuff when you get done, but Griep having the heart monitor on, wouldn't do that then. But whenever he'd slide on the ground his monitor would fall off and be all unhooked and I remember him trying to hook it back up to his abnormally translucent belly. Then watching him slide on the slick grass trying to catch a Frisbee, priceless. So here's to Griep, the heart monitor, and the translucent stomach.

Silent Night...Deadly Night

2006-02-18T23:09:00.000-08:00

Freshman year in the midst of the Tecmo Tournament (for a later post) Jessie Brinkley (now Bell) was coming over to play a game against somebody. When she came in, to Griep's room, we were in the midst of our horror film watching. We were watching Silent Night Deadly Night, a hilarious film about Santa Clause killing people. She walks in right as Santa makes his first kill and she turns around and sits outside the door and says, come get me when you guys are done watching this. This may have been the first time I ever saw Griep absolutely ashamed of what had happened in his midst, even though it wasn't his fault. It all worked out for the best, but for that split second of horror on all of our faces as Santa made his kill.
Well, there you go, not really too funny tonight, but what do I care?

On being taken and single

2006-02-18T00:19:00.000-08:00

Interestingly enough, in the lives of myself, Matt Griepentrog, and Aaron Gehrke, we have never all three been taken at the same time, nor all three been single at the same time, since we've known each other. It started out those two taken me single, then just Griep, then me and Griep, then just me, then me and Aaron, then just Aaron, then me and Aaron, then Aaron, and it pretty much has stayed just Aaron since then.
Eventually many think we'll all three be taken and all that crap, but I think that the last two years have been a pretty good depiction of reality, me and Griep single, Aaron taken. It works, it is the best formula for getting things done.

I know you're Andy...

2006-02-16T23:08:00.000-08:00

Sophomore year marked the first of our true endeavors into the world of drinking. The only dance we ever decided to skip was Winter Formal that year and let me tell you, it was worth it. For the most part it was me and Griep watching Greg just get sloppy drunk. I remember we tried to record him saying some of his funny lines as he approached his maximum capacities. To this day I remember him saying, "I know you're Andy 'cause you got green sweatshirt" and laughing my ass off. He also mentioned something about ice skating in the bathroom with his slippery socks and well, God really knows what else. That was my first true blue memory of a hilariously drunk Greg.

Griep Gone Wild

2006-02-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

For a fortunate few of this Concordia campus, there is a video that was made sophomore year in which Matt Griepentrog wears a shirt and skirt belonging to one Jodi Beck. It was absolutely disgusting and hilarious and you're probably glad you weren't there to see it. I just discovered this video the other day and was absolutely amazed at its contents.
The amazing part was that Griep planned on wearing this outfit golfing the next day and he put it on, but decided not to wear it when he golfed. I think he was afraid his back swing would be compromised by the tightness of the skirt to his area.

This was not the first and would not be the last of our experience with cross dressing for hilarity's sake.

Griep and Perkins

2006-02-14T14:27:00.000-08:00

So after we'd discovered that Griep wasn't in fact a loser (which may be another memory later) we decided we should go with him to Perkins Family Restaurant. We sat in a corner table that was round with weird lighting. The entire time he talked to us about Jeffrey Dahmer and how he was from the same city (Milwaukee of course) and that he'd been to the hotel where Dahmer cut a guy's hip flexers folded him up and put him in a suit case. It took a while for us to recover from this insane display, but eventually, we decided to hang out with him again.

Greg and Bowling Shoes

2006-02-13T09:10:00.000-08:00

At the end of our freshman year, Greg Holz horked a pair of bowling shoes from Flaherty's Bowling Alley up on Snelling and County Road E. He decided he needed them because they said "Fab" on the side and well, he considers himself to be a gettofabulousguy as he puts it. So he wrote Getto or Ghetto or some crazy thing like that on there with the Fab and wore them from time to time.
Well then came the first day of sophomore year and he saw a young lady wearing a pair of the very same shoes and Greg without much thought, but with encouragement from his good pals goes up to this girl and says hey, did you steal those from Flaherty's place, because I have a pair just like them. The young lady replies, no I didn't steal them, that's my dad's bowling alley.
And Greg embarrassed walked away as Griep, Aaron, and I laughed our asses off at this turn of events.
Yes, that's how we first met Rachel Flaherty.

Remember when remember...

2006-02-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

For the duration of the year here at CSP I will be featuring a remember when thingamajig all about things that have happened here at Concordia in my previous years. This site will then serve as a function for you to comment and say your thoughts on the subject or write your own memory. So let's start with something spectacular.

Remember when Aaron was on the top bunk in our sophomore room and he reached down to type something to Fink on AIM and he couldn't get back up into his bed right, so instead of waking me up he screws around for a while and then finally slams his rolling chair into my bed and does a back flip off of the bed and hits his ass on his desk and plummets down to the ground.

Wow.

Super Bowl Rigged?

2006-02-06T08:26:00.000-08:00

On a previous post I made, numerous people have stepped forward to claim that indeed there was a predetermined outcome to the Super Bowl. They say we are in fact now in the age of rigged Super Bowls, rigged sporting events period. Let me just put my two cents in.

As I said before, the betting line was the thing that really made me wonder more than anything else. How the AFC number 6 is the favorite over the best team in the entire NFL was completely beyond me.
In the Super Bowl itself a few problems have been raised. One, the Big Ben touchdown. I would say that if Ben was or was not in it was within a half an inch, it was a pretty dang close call and I agree with the head referee, if there is not conclusive evidence, you can't overturn.
Two, the offensive pass interference call. Somebody posted on my previous post that Michael Irvin did it all the time. I say to that, so what, Michael Irvin is now the example of what we should follow, um, hell no. Not to mention Mr. Irvin hasn't played in 5 years or so, and the offensive pass interference calls are becoming more prominent. The fact remains that on a call like that in the end zone, with nobody else anywhere near the dude, he didn't need to push off to get the touchdown, and if he was going to push off, he shouldn't have done so with that extended arm. Receivers like Cris Carter were great at using the push off as much as they could without being overly blatant with it. On a call like that, I hate to say it, but if no call would have been made, a bigger stink would be being raised right now.

Something people who posted haven't quite thought of yet. Late in the game, Matt Hasselback was called for a fumble that the Steelers recovered, after review, the call was reversed. If this game was really rigged, don't you think they would have taken advantage there as well.

Also, this was quite the boring Super Bowl, don't you think that whoever decides to rig these games would make them a little more exciting than a 21-10 bore me to sleep fest with 2 good plays the entire game. If I were going to rig a Super Bowl, I would have made sure it was closer than it was.

Also, if the Super Bowl was truly rigged, Jerome Bettis would have had a bigger role to play in the game and would have been cast as the MVP. The hometown boy that I got so sick of hearing about did not have that great of a game and I am honestly surprised he was not called upon more often. The rigging would have occurred on a Jerome Bettis near touchdown, not a Big Ben near touchdown.

One poster raised the question do the players even know if it is being rigged? If indeed it is? I would have to say no. If the players did know, even some of the players, there is no way that it could be kept under secrecy, it would be out, or will be out very shortly.

Here's your true test to a rigged NFL system. If Brett Favre comes back for another year and leads the Packers to another Super Bowl victory, start raising your eye brows. I know when John Elway ended his career with the two Super Bowl victories, I for one grew immediately suspicious.

All in all if the NFL is rigging these games in some way shape or form, we'll find out eventually as the fans, because there is no way that all the players involved, coaches involved, and referees involved will be able to keep their big mouths shut about it forever.

No computers, what?

2006-01-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

In the life I've had at Concordia University I've been able to take notes on my computer for pretty much every class. I didn't in Old Testament because I had the worst computer alive and I wanted to pay attention, and I was enjoying Bransford's psychology without a computer and was still used to the whole notebook concept from high school. But after a while I realized, wow, I can type at like 150 words per minute and I can write at about 10 words per minute, maybe I should take notes with my computer. I also got used to overstimulating myself with all the things available to me on the Internet that a computer became a necessary class tool and no teachers really had a problem with it. Until now. In my general education requirement history class "Historical Inquiry" we are not allowed to use computers and I am forced to write in a notebook. Now I don't know about any of you, but after over three years with the computer at my fingertips I honestly expect red lines to show up under my misspelled words and have a hard time getting used to actually thinking how to spell things.
I've had to write enough when it came to Hebrew and Greek preparations, but that was in another language and they don't exactly have the best Hebrew and Greek fonts available on these computers. I think it is essentially ridiculous that I can't use a computer at 8:30 am for a General Education required class that I just don't care about. I'll do my work, I'll pass the tests, just let me not pay attention, please.

The Super Bowl

2006-01-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

Over the years I've been a big fan of football, especially the NFL. I've seen some interesting games and some great players rise to the occasion and some fall into the abyss.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have went from a number 6 in the AFC to being the Super Bowl favorites over the number 1 in the NFC, the Seattle Seahawks.
Over the years I've always called into question the reality of the NFL's outcomes and whether or not it is indeed "rigged". The Steelers vs. Colts game really made me wonder what was going on in this game. The referees make a couple extremely questionable and flat out wrong calls. Bettis fumbles on the one, Vanderjact misses a chip shot field goal. I wonder what truly goes on behind the scenes.
I do not think Bettis fumbled on purpose. A good hit was made on him and he fumbled.
The referees, well, maybe they were effing around, but they could have done a worse job. I honestly think that the referees were just that bad, not cheaters per say, but just ignorant and worthless.
Vanderjact (or however you spell his idiotic name) now there's a guy who has deserved to be fired for years. Big mouth, big talk, not walking the walk. Missing a chip shot to send the game to overtime, he should not get back into the NFL ever if you ask me. Guys may have big mouths: i.e. Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, Terrell Owens, Warren Sapp, Ray Lewis and many many more, but guess what, they've had generally successful careers and have gotten what they deserved for the most part. Owens kicked out of Philadelphia, Moss now with a terrible team, Sapp old fat and stupid, well Lewis didn't go to jail for murder, but who really knows what happened there.
So what are the chances that this Super Bowl is rigged. What are the chances Pittsburgh can beat basically the best 4 teams in the league on the way to being Super Bowl champions? I don't know, but I'm going to watch and be entertained whether the outcome is rigged or not.

The Year in Review for Matthew A. Griepentrog

2006-01-23T20:27:00.000-08:00

Today is the birthday of the greatest thing to happen to CSP since sliced bread. Matt Griepentrog turned 22 years old today and as is tradition we will review his year, highlights, and lowlights.
Matt started the year off right, getting crunk at every opportunity in celebrating the 21st year of his life. He especially enjoyed numerous gin martinis with olives of course, not to mention drunken games of catch phrase, check no check, and who'd you rather bone. He was selected as a top candidate to be a Director of Christian Education intern in Clio, Michigan where he has served since August. He enjoys life there along with the Vicar there who looks younger than he does and has a more girly voice than he does.
Despite what many people say, Griepentrog has remained tap free throughout the past year. I know it is hard to believe, such an attractive man could fight off all of those women, but he did it.
He enjoyed numerous games of golf with people who were way better than him.
One of his highlights was when his good friends visited him in October and he finally got to drink with somebody that he could swear at and speak to about neurotic trivial crap that nobody cares about.
He also thoroughly enjoyed the amount of Seinfeld he was able to watch throughout the year with the release of Seinfeld seasons on DVD, not to mention the amazingly high amounts of syndication.
He even read more books this year than ever before in his entire life.
He went out of country for real for the first time, all the way to Mexico.
He took a historical trip to Lambeau Field, which is his personal favorite.
And of course, saddest of all, he had his final show as a musician on May 1, 2005 at Knollapalooza. No longer will we hear the astonishing chords and amazing voice of this young man who should have turned pro years ago.
I think I can speak for all when I say we look forward to the next year of Matt Griepentrog's life, for it is always exciting, always amazing, always entertaining.

The Price is Insane

2006-01-20T08:55:00.000-08:00

I have been a fan of the show The Price is Right pretty much since I could understand what that box with the colorful screen really was. I enjoy it for many reasons, one of which is because of the absolutely ridiculous people that they find to be on the show.
Generally it seems if you are involved in the military in some regard, you'll be on the stage. If you are there with a group of weird college kids, somebody in your group will get on. And if you are absolutely insane, that might help as well. On one website there is a flamboyant dude who is just going absolutely nuts and swinging his arms saying he needed a dinette set. I once saw a very large black woman get so out of control that Bob had to leave the stage and have security calm this lady down. Just today there was an old lady who couldn't hear anything who was wearing purple Shakespeare glasses. And the dumb broad won.
It pretty much doesn't make any sense to me that normal people cannot make it onto the show.
From what I've heard from one of my neighbors who was actually on the show about 10 years ago, the people conduct interviews with each member of the audience and the more questions they ask you, the more likely you are to be on the show. So they pretty much hand pick who gets in, it is not a random thing. They know which 9 people will make it to contestants row during a show.
I also think that since Rod Roddy has died the showcase showdowns have become absolutely retarded, which leads me to believe that Rod had a hand in writing them, because this new guy is worthless.
It is my prediction that when Bob Barker dies, whenever that may be. It will all be over. How could the show possibly continue without him. If they really wanted it to continue they would be currently training a dude to eventually replace the aging host.
And when Bob dies, that will be a sad day. For the greatest game show in history will cease to exist.

A la Peru

2006-01-14T14:45:00.000-08:00

For you avid readers of the Jones Zone who might actually read this before I'm back in los Estados Unidos, here you are.
In Peru there are many things quite different than America, perhaps my favorite is the water balloon wars they have throughout the summer months. Instead of black history month, they have water balloon wars in February, but most of the kids turn in into a 3 month long festival de mucho agua.
In the city of Chiclayo, Peru, there is rain pretty much never, the last time it rained here was February 14, 2005. They have sunshine at least 360 days of the year and the wind has blown from the south every afternoon that this place has been in existence, which I think is pretty awesome.
I'm not quite sure why this place hasn't taken off as more of a vacation zone. But there are very few resorts or anything resembling a want for tourists to come and just enjoy. The houses are all absolutely connected. Your yard is the street and that's about it, and I currently am enjoying a nice bedroom on the roof of the house.
Chiclayo is known as the city of friendship, as well it should be known. People are very friendly nearly always willing to help and always willing to smile and say Hola Gringo.
The Peruvian boys are infatuated with our American women, I'm currently in a battle for one or so the Peruvian boy seems to think.
Unfortunately I'm not immune to the Peruvian mosquitoes as I am to the Minnesota ones. So I do have to use bug spray after getting bit on my hands like 12 times.
Last night we did "home stays" and T1 and I got to sleep on a bed that was less than six feet long and we couldn't lay on it width wise without touching each other. And of course we had a cerveza.
The past three days have been the best three. We visited an archaeological site north of Chiclayo where there was an ancient civilization discovered from between the first and third centuries AD. Yesterday we jumped off of a sand dune for a couple of hours. And today was the water carnival.
Also in the afternoons leading into the evenings we have actually had a missions conference with the three congregations we are working with here in Chiclayo. It was pretty amazing to see the people's faith here grow and how they have helped our group grow as well.
Ask me about it sometime, I'm pretty sure this takes the cake as best place I've ever traveled to.

What makes a good Christmas movie

2005-12-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

Now in the past week or so I've been in numerous arguments as to whether or not Catch me if you can is a Christmas movie and no one has quite been able to persuade me against and I've been able to persuade too few to be really worth my while.
Some say the point of the movie has to be a Christmas theme or the word Christmas must appear in the title. Others say things must take place from a certain time period in the movie, which is bunk. I say if the climax occurs on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, you have yourself what just may be a Christmas movie.
I.e. -
Clark gets his Christmas bonus Christmas Eve - Christmas Vacation
Ralphie gets his red rider ... bb gun on Christmas Morning - A Christmas Story
Kevin kills the bad guys Christmas Eve and meets his family Christmas morning - Home Alone
Now both Catch me if you can and Grumpy Old Men have climaxes on Christmas Eve so maybe I should just add Grumpy Old men to the list and get rid of one of the other ones.

What I guess I can't believe is that nobody was upset at the Mary Kate and Ashley Olson flick included in the list, they just complained about Leo and Tom Hanks, obviously I am friends with guys and lesbians I guess.

Now as to why White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life were left off the list, well that's easy, because they suck.
A: they're too old,
2: they're not funny
d: they try and teach me a lesson and make me feel good

If you want to make me feel good, make me laugh, don't give me this sappy story about why I have to exist for the world to work or whatever, have somebody get hit in the face with an attic ladder, somebody stick they're tongue to a frozen metal pole, or maybe just show Will Ferrel in tights. The point is, make me laugh, if you want to slip in a message I won't pay attention to, fine, but don't make the point of the movie the message, make it hilarity.

Jones picks (Christmas movie style)

2005-12-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

I was guided to a website earlier today that showed the supposed best 13 Christmas movies and well, 3 of the 13 deserved to be on it at all, the other 10 not only sucked but 2 or 3 weren't even Christmas movies. So here we go, Jones picks (going off of the Seinfeld episode with Gene and Vincent picks for those of you idiots who don't watch Seinfeld).

13. To Grandmother's House we Go
This great classic with Mary Kate and Ashley Olson definitely needs to make the list, hello caller.
12. Bad Santa
Though ripped apart for its terrible language, this movie is hilarious and no worse than any normal crude comedy as far as crudeness goes, people are just idiots and expect something all nice and good since it is about Christmas.
11. The Year Without Santa Clause
What can I say claymation rocks my face off.
10. Santa Clause
Tim Allen in a huge beard gaining 50 pounds instantly, pure genius.
9. Rudolph
When the Abominable snowman loses his teeth I laugh for about an hour straight.
8. Frosty
There are a few of these, but as Griep put it, the one where he melts in the greenhouse is the best one.
7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon style of course)
Dr. Seuss, how can you go wrong. Cartoon, even better.
6. Catch me if you Can
Though Leo should have been replaced by somebody tighter like Edward Norton or Matt Damon it is still pretty sweet. It also contains the greatest knock knock joke of all time.
5. Home Alone 2
Most instances of injury that would have resulted in death in any movie to my knowledge.
4. Elf
The best Christmas movie to watch on a date. A romantic element with a taste of pure innocence, not to mention pure hilarity, come on Will Ferrel in tights, priceless.
3. Home Alone
"Fuller go easy on the Pepsi" oh my, this movie might be even more quotable than the two which I placed as better than it. "Buzz your girlfriend, woof" HA!
2. Christmas Vacation
A true story of Christmas, everybody gets together and hates each other, relatives that seem like my own, 25,000 lights, a squirrel, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This movie has a pretty good recipe.
"Bingo"
1. A Christmas Story
The most classic of all Christmas movies, with characters you can just fall in love with. This movie is non-stop hilarity, suspense, thriller, drama, and romance of a boy and what he wants for Christmas. "Randy lay there like a slug, it was his only defense."

So if you have any disagreements, I'll read them, but refute them because all those sappy feel good Christmas movies that have no humor are worthless, that's right you heard it straight from me. Griep, how would you evaluate? You're the only one I care about anyway.

Literal kiss of death

2005-11-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

Today I caught wind of the story below from my friend and drinking buddy Cameron Heiliger.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051128/ap_on_re_ca/canada_deadly_kiss

So this girl kisses her boyfriend who has just eaten peanuts and dies. Holy wow. How's that for the ultimate guilt trip for an adolescent boy. I don't know that I'd ever be able to kiss another girl again, much less find a girl who would kiss me after they heard about the last girl I kissed who is now dead.

I feel sorry for this guy and sympathize with his plight. I also am sorry for any adolescents out there who are allergic to peanuts for if this story gets out, your parents won't let you be hanging around boys ever, not for fear of you getting pregnant or impregnating somebody, but for fear that you might die.

Also, how passionate do you think that kiss was, or do you think it was just precisely after the eating of the peanuts? Do you think it was intentional, I mean that'd be a pretty fricken amazing way to get rid of somebody you know, eat something they're allergic to and then make out with them. Yikes.

My book

2005-11-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

I've decided that I will some day write a series of books. Most likely of an allegorical style coinciding with the Gospel message. Here is my opening line I hope you enjoy it.

"If once upon a time, most good stories about lands far away and creatures strange beyond belief started with once upon a time, then hopefully this story qualifies.
If you think that stories beginning with once upon a time are tasteless and daft then you can take comfort in that this story began with if and hopefully you’ll stick around for the ultimate then."

There are a lot of great things about this opening, but I can't reveal any of them because I haven't quite figured out how to put them, but this is the first chunk that I know will be in it when it is finished in another oh 10 or 12 years. I'll send you crazy readers a copy if you ask for it.

Nerf Tag (once again)

2005-11-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

If you are an avid Jones Zone reader, you may remember posts I had about nerf tag in the previous year. In those posts my main focus was on how T1 was just plain the most amazing player and how the game had some benefits. But now, it has grown to be a bother and I'm more anti-nerf tag than one can possibly be. Don't get me wrong, I love helping people who I like and screwing over people that I dislike, but people take this game way too seriously.
I can testify to Nerf Tag ruining at least 4 relationships last year (if not ruining, seriously injuring for months) and that is just ridiculous. Perhaps it is not the game, so much as the hype that we at Concordia have given this game. People are so incredibly competitive that they can't handle being eliminated and just go crazy.
I don't know if I'll ever forget the Greg Holz vs. Tom Sewing episode of two years ago or the T1 Mike Miller incident of last year, both are prime examples of the game just being too intense and causing people actual harm, both physically and emotionally.
It also shows the idiocy of some people in the heat of the moment. (Seriously the only people that should try and tackle T1 in a hallway are linebackers and defensive linemen on our football team, and they never would because they're just smarter than that, this is our star running back people.)
Nerf tag encourages people to skip class, especially when the professor allows people to come into the class from outside of it and get people that just want to go to class and learn.
It encourages people to skip meals because the dining hall is the best place to eliminate people.
And it discourages people from going to chapel because they're afraid that when they walk out they're going to be absolutely dead.
Anything of a normal function is completely out when it comes to nerf tag. Paranoia, ridiculality, and idiocy take over and even people who aren't playing the game aren't themselves, because they get caught up in the deceit, lying, and will to know everything that is going on.
Nerf tag is no doubt a rush, but isn't there someway we can get rid of the negatives and just focus on the adrenaline aspect.
Good luck to all who are in nerf tag, I hope you all get eliminated quickly so life can be back to reality after Thanksgiving break.

The Jones Zone turns 1 year old!!!

2005-11-11T08:51:00.000-08:00

Today my friends is the one year anniversary of the Jones Zone. What a ride it has been.
The things I've taken you incredibly odd readers through are absolutely amazing.
In the past year 1393 different people (well computers) have visited the Jones Zone, from all over the world. Numerous hits came from Israel, Thailand, India, Singapore, and New Zealand, not to mention all 50 states.
The Jones Zone has been through numerous major events. The death of Pope John Paul II was probably the biggest. You've learned so many Jonesomatic theories and concepts and hopefully you'll continue to watch and learn from them.
I've had to deal with you nay-sayers who think your opinions are so superior, but this is the Jones Zone and there will be no spinning, so why don't you spinners go read some online journal piece of crap.
I know my life is entertaining and people should make a TV show about it, but my mind, which you see here, now that is perhaps better, but my heart, hopefully that remains none of your business, because that is not entertaining.

I would mostly just like to thank all of you who hate homework enough to look at this blog and be entertained by it for 5 to 10 minutes every day. Boo homework, yay alternatives.

Analogies for Women

2005-11-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

In the past I have drawn analogies to women as such.
Women are like parking spaces, the good ones are all taken, and the rest are handicapped.
Obviously inside of good there is the adjective close. To be good as a parking space you have to be close, the same is true for girls, if you are too far away, you're perhaps not as good as one which is close, but too close equals handicapped.

Now onto a new analogy.
Women are like Facebook. They are the best thing and the worst thing that could happen to you.
Facebook is amazing, there is so much to do on there that I could look at it for days nonstop. But it completely ruins my life because I can't do anything else because I'm so addicted and consumed by it.
This is how women operate in the lives of men. They are great, wonderful, a blessing etc. But we are stupid and for some reason always want to be with them (like we want to always be on Facebook) and generally, when I indeed do like a girl I could spend days nonstop with them, but it would completely ruin all other aspects of my life. Friendships with the boys, homework, talking to my family, getting my life together, etc.

The key in both of these is to find balance.
How much can I use Facebook while reaping its benefits while still getting my homework done and maintaining friendships?
How much time can I spend with this girl without driving her crazy, ruining my friendships, and failing out of school?
Same concept, only with Facebook, unlike women, you never have to worry about it rejecting you.

The Jonesomatic theory of AIM profiles

2005-11-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

Many people include similar things in their AIM profiles.
1. quotes from their friends, songs, or the Bible
2. links to their Facebook, blogs, musical pages etc.
and what we will be talking about this evening
3. something to the effect of "put this in your profile if..."

Now the first things I saw about this were about knowing people who have had cancer. Also I saw them for people serving in the military.
Then I saw one that said "... if you know somebody who is fighting, has survived, or died from pirate attacks."
Now at first I thought, well that slightly belittles cancer a bit, but is still funny because it is about pirates, so I let it go. If it would have been about ninjas, it would have obviously been even better.
But now in light of the recent pirate attack that has occurred in reality, it is safe to say that this pirate attack thing in profiles ceases to be funny.
When it was ridiculous enough because nobody has really ever experienced such a thing, I was able to laugh, but now, this is no joke. Pirates are taking over and we need to look out.

The second point of the night is this. If you are seriously a pirate, somebody who holds ships hostage and robs them, what do you wear?
Do you wear like a military outfit and pretend to be just checking it out and then be all sneaking and pillage the thing. Or do you just go in your t-shirt and jeans and rob them because they're going to be so stunned that this would happen. Is there really a need to hid one's identity in this endeavor?

If I were doing this, I'll tell you right now, I would dress up like a pirate with my crew, I would wear a pirate on my shoulder and have at least one guy with a hook for a hand. I would fly a skull and crossbones flag and I would allow no real English on my ship, only pirate English. This would shock those who we were robbing so much they would have positively no idea what to do. They'd probably think it was a joke and I'd whisper something like, play along to the captain of this other ship and say we'll return the stuff it's just a gag. Then never come back. People would have to assume this was just part of the cruise wouldn't they (assuming this is a cruise ship of course). I don't think anybody in their right minds would try to loot a military ship of any kind as a pirate.

Any thoughts, you weirdo pirate sympathizers out there, I know who you are, I check AOL profiles at least 14 hours a day.

The Jonesomatic theory of head massages

2005-11-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

Now if you've been into my room there are probably a few things you remember from your experience.
1. I yelled at you for sitting in my chair
2. washing your hands was definitely a highlight because bath and body works rules
3. the song we serenaded you with was absolutely amazing and ridiculous
4. the shrine to Griep makes you want to drive to Michigan right now
5. Andy has a sword (enough said)
and finally
6. If male - Head massages from Aaron G. are pretty much the closest thing to heaven that can be experienced pre-death.
or
6.1. If female - head massages from anybody make me want to scream and never come back into Hyatt E11 again.

Now, why is it that there are such opposite reactions to what should be a lovely, enjoyable head massage.
Well, you get your head massage with one of those metal head massages they sell in the kiosks of most malls, and for some reason. Girls positively hate them, and guys love them with a passion.
Why is this?
At first I thought it had to do with amount of hair, but Steve Weispfennig tried it with long hair and liked it, and T1 still enjoys it with no matter what kind of hair he has. Greg also thinks it is amazing with his permed retardedly long hair.
Then I thought, maybe it is just Aaron, he can't make it work for the ladies. And this is obviously the truth, but even T1 can't massage girls heads, and we know he has the magic, so that theory died on the table.
But as it stands, here is the nonsense I will offer for explanation.
Girls are more ticklish than boys, or at least are worse at hiding that they are ticklish than boys. Therefore, when something of the head massage nature touches their head, they go absolutely wild for a few reasons.
Reason one, they all use condition which makes your head more sensitive and susceptible to being ticklish.
Reason two, their corpus collosum (the thing that connects the two halves of the brain) are better than males, for this reason, the sensation on the head is amplified, whereas with boys, there is less connection so the feelings on left and right remain separate.
Reason three, males are used to (or at least hopefully used to) females running their fingernails through their hair and giving them head massages, which is very comparable to the head massaging tool we have in our room.
Females are not as used to this, they're more used to the male fingers, which are fatter (hopefully again) and have shorter nails. So they've been trained to enjoy the male head massage and they can't enjoy the female style if you will.

Yes this is absolute, crap, but hey, the Jones Zone is here to entertain, no provide world changing ideas, thoughts, or views.

The ridiculousness (ridiculality) of my mind

2005-11-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

Let's place ourselves in the hypothetical situation of my actual life. I'll use myself as an example because I know this happens to me if not to the entire universe of the male population.

Andy likes girl.
Andy is afraid to talk to girl.
Why is Andy afraid to talk to girl?
And is afraid because something inside of him tells him that this girl is too good for him and hence won't talk to him.
Does this make any coherent sense?
No.
Why not?
Because if this girl is good enough to be too good for him, she would talk to any guy to at least be friendly.
So is Andy really afraid that he is too good for her?
No, because if he were too good for her, he would have no reason to like her.
Is Andy afraid that she is not as good in real life as he has made her out to be in his mind?
Exactly, when we overthink these things instead of just acting and getting to know people, we make them out to be the epitome of what we are looking for, complete perfection, which is unattainable for any person.
Solution: Andy has to talk to this girl before it is too late and he should just find out who she is. Then he won't have to worry about if she is too good for him or vice versa. Things will just calm down and reach some sort of comfort level.

Pajama Jammy Jam

2005-11-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

As many of you Concordia Students know, the Pajama Jammy Jam was held this past Saturday night (right after the Concordia Golden Bears whooped up on what Winona State calls a football team).
At this event, people from outside Concordia's borders were invited and showed up. Rough statistics I got was 70% of the people in attendance were not from Concordia.
And not much to my surprise things got out of hand, fights broke out, police officers showed up, shots were fired even. Now I'm all about parties and having a good time, but seriously here, let's think about a few things.
Firstly, of the hundreds of people who showed up from outside Concordia, why did they come? Concordia is a "dry" campus, so they had to get crunk before they came. Now I didn't go, so I guess I don't know what the huge attraction was, but I was told that people could hardly even move up on tier 2 toward the end of the evening (about 1 am). So even if there were a ton of gorgeous girls up there, you couldn't even see them.
Maybe there were just some mad beats going on that everybody in a 10 mile radius couldn't resist.

I'm unaware of any other party that exists at Concordia in which hundreds of people not from Concordia show up until all hours of the night causing a wild rumpus of activity.

Solution, don't invite people not from Concordia to Concordia for parties.

I guess this just seems so completely obvious to me, maybe other people don't see it that way, but I don't think anything like this has really happened at any other Concordia functions because there aren't hundreds of people from the community showing up at those other events, so eliminating them seems like the logical thing to do if we wish to not have more disturbances of this nature.

Bullet

2005-10-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

This song has been in my head all week:

This is a bullet from a gun called "WTF"
if I standing in your shoes I'd throw my hands straight up
and start explaining at the speed of sound
how the words get some coffee came to mean get down

and all the king's horses and all the king's yen
couldn't stop the abracadabra that invites these me
and all the alleyways in Amsterdam could not compete
against the Wall Street speed with which you leave your feet

Oh yes this song is a joke
funny like our house going up in smoke
funny like a bomb between my teeth when we kiss
you pulled out the pin with your own sweet lips

Every time the phone rings you get there first
and when the pizza man comes you always run for your purse
now I'm the son of a banker I know just what the deal is
if you wrote it out in braille I wouldn't even have to feel it

Oh yes this song is a joke
funny like our house going up in smoke
funny like a bomb between my teeth when we kiss
you pulled out the pin with your own sweet lips

Funny how goodbye can sound so sad sometimes
today it sounds happy like a nursery rhyme
and you're not Cinderella so don't forget your shoes
I've never been as lonely as when I was with you

Oh yes, this song is a scream
funny like our loving doused in gasoline
funny like a bomb between my teeth when we kiss
you pulled out the pin with your own sweet lips

This is fireman McNeil from the Hennipen line
we got the call around 10 we couldn't get there in time
there was a drive way leading to a whole in the ground
I got the heebies bone deep and turned the truck straight around

Oh yes this song is a joke
funny like my fingers in your bicycle spokes
funny like a bomb between my teeth when we kiss
you pulled out the pin with your own sweet lips

Mason Jennings, amazing.

Holy Facebook

2005-10-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

As most of you who would ever bother to read this blog would know, Facebook has swept the Concordia campus as well as I'm sure every other college campus that exists. This is completely insane to me because in the last week, I have been in contact with more of my friends from high school than in the previous three years. How retarded is that? And the person I've talked to the most is a former girlfriend who is now married.
I hate Facebook for taking me away from reading Aquinas, Aristotle, Luther, Augustine, and Kant, but holy wow is Facebook better than paying attention in Public Speaking or any other class for that matter.

All that I need to do now is somehow get more friends than Aaron even though he added every Gehrke that exists on Facebook which was only 78 people. I looked and saw 121 Andrew Joneses. There was a mere 1 other Aaron Gehrke. It saddens me that I am so not particular like Aaron.

So here's to Facebook. You help make college more bearable, but not as much as beer does.

Guinness commercial

2005-10-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

A new Guinness commercial depicts the two standard cartoon idiots at a Green Bay Packer's tailgating party. They notice that it's a local custom to wear cheese on one's head, so they pull out some hunks of Limburger, brilliantly. And it shows the Pack fans running away.
May I just say what is on all Minnesotans minds.
Yeah right, those cheesy freaks would be all up on those guys gnawing on their heads.

Big ad

2005-10-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

For anybody who is anything like me, you'll appreciate this site, and be sure to turn the sound up, it's a musical rendition.

http://www.bigad.com.au/

p.s. bonus points for anybody who can name the song they're covering in it.

Flooded Room

2005-10-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

Since pretty much everybody has heard already I should give you my opinions on the situation and I suppose information updates as well.

Our room flooded because a rain gutter was not properly flowing towards a workable drain.
Thanks to the great minds of Abby Fink and her man, who happens to be my room mate, who is finally starting to read my blog thanks to his hatred for Facebook, the water stopped running into our room and into a drain.
I, with appreciated help from others, laid down towels and tried to get as much water off the floor as possible so it wouldn't spread any further down to other rooms.
Then we got a wet vac and proceeded to get more water out more efficiently. After maintenance finally came. They told us they'd take care of it and shipped us off to camp in Hyatt A.

Now that room smells worse right now than Greg's feet (and let me tell you that is terrible). And I'm hoping they just replace the carpet, otherwise, it's just going to smell like ass in there until the day they tear Hyatt down (which should be like next year).

Camping is fun up here, besides the fact that I don't have any clothes up here and my clothes are going to smell worse than turkey crap by tomorrow.

On the plus side, nobody can pound on my window to get into my room anymore, unless of course they can jump like me.

Facebook

2005-10-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

It seems that this whole Facebook thing has so overtaken the campus that only a few remain untainted. I in fact have a user name and password and already people are trying to get in contact with me and be my friend, but well I'm not adding any picture or information about myself, and I don't think I really want to add any friends either. I think I may delete myself off of it if that is possible, who really knows. There are some advantages to this thing, but well let's face it, I don't want everybody to know my life's story, why can't they just talk to me like normal human beings. This thing apparently is more addicting that cigarettes, beer, sex, heroin, coffee, and picking your nose combined, so I don't think I should really get involved too deeply.
Any suggestions on this, I'd like to argue with somebody about this.

On Wisdom Teeth

2005-09-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

For those of you college students who had your wisdom teeth removed in high school, congrats, you are accounted as way more mature and wise than I am. For the truth being told, I have not even so much as felt my wisdom teeth starting to grow in to my over-sized mouth. This I feel must be genetic because my mother received her wisdom teeth one at a time, one for each child she gave birth to. Since I'm never going to give birth, I think I'm safe and will probably never even get my wisdom teeth, unless of course modern science turns me into an experiment, then of course, I might be in trouble. This is of course why I cannot understand anything written by Plato or Aristotle, for wisdom has not come to me in the form of teeth. I should wait until I get them in to take this class, but that may be never. Never take philosophy, sounds good to me.

My Chronicles

2005-09-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

I've decided it is imperative for me to write a book of similar style to the Chronicles of Narnia, only with my twists of theology included. In order to do this, I'd have to think of a land to call this place. I would also have to think of what the main characters would be, perhaps human, perhaps wild beasts, perhaps tamed beasts, perhaps fish, perhaps who really knows.
One thing I do know is that in the first of the books I will introduce the Satan character as a squirrel and not a snake or serpent. For it is evident to me that squirrels are way worse creatures than snakes.
I obviously could not have a lion as the Jesus figure for copying purposes, but I would not want one anyway. Let me lead you through why I wouldn't.
Part of the reason why the Jewish people (especially the leaders) did not accept Jesus as Messiah was because he did not look like what they expected. They expected a deliverer, like Moses who delivered them from Egypt. They expected this man to deliver them from the Roman oppression. Jesus came to save them, not from the Romans, but from their own sin.
Therefore, I would like a character that does not look at all capable of saving from oppression as a lion would, but rather a character of humble nobility, with great voice, and obvious mercy. I'm still contemplating that aspect, but that's what's running in my head thus far.

Oh the luck of the Irish

2005-09-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

At Kieran's Irish pub there is a band I've enjoyed watching a few times who plays Irish, Scottish, and just plain crazy music as they so please. Of the three members, none are Irish. Two are Jewish and one is Lutheran. Their talent level is amazing, especially considering the amount of alcohol they throw down. They play some Simon and Garfunkel stuff, but change the words to make it hilarious, for example, to the tune of Cecilia. "Making love in the afternoon with Big Jonnie up in my bed room, when I get up to wash my socks..." Well I couldn't quite make out the rest of the words, but you get it.

I liked these crazy guys the first time I saw them, but the second time when they played the greatest Tenacious D song in the world which is inappropriate to put in writing, I almost died. If I could go watch them every night I probably would.

When does pseudo dating turn to real dating?

2005-09-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

When posed the question: What can I do to move a relationship from pseudo dating to real dating? The answer lies within the greatest word since tight, which is undoubtedly "TAP". This is the one thing that truly separates pseudo dating (otherwise known as seeing, it's a stage in which you go on dates, but there is no monkey business quite yet) from real dating.
True some people skip the dating part and just tap a bunch, well if there's no dating element this is obviously not dating or pseudo dating, it's just plain tapping. There have been instances where a couple has tapped, then pseudo dated, then dated. But usually in those instances it is simply tap, meet again, tap, tap, tap, tap. No real dates involved.
So if you are going on dates with somebody, and then you tap after a few, you've officially begun dating. Dating by definition is going on dates while simultaneously tapping. If you're just going on dates, you're not dating yet. If you're just tapping it's not dating yet. You need both elements.
Some may say that even if there are dates happening and tapping going on that it is still not truly dating until both parties consent to the title, and that my friends is false. I don't care if you don't like labels, you're dating, and everybody around you knows it.
So if you are in fact pseudo dating and want to turn it into real dating your only option is to tap.
Don't try and have a conversation about changing into a real dating couple, conversations don't make it official by definition tapping does.
The rejection of a conversation is way worse than the rejection of tapping (so long as you have some idea what the hell you are doing).
For example, if I am turned down when attempting to tap, all that will happen is the girl will get up to go to the bathroom while we are watching a movie or something, then come back and sit on the opposite side of the room as me, no harm done. If I try and have a conversation about advancing the relationship, I can't stop once I've started. It's over once I even bring up the subject. That rejection will result in the awkwardness of friendship for the next 2 years at least. So don't do it.

Aaron Gehrke and Abby Fink ENGAGED!!!

2005-09-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

On the evening of April 15th what perhaps was inevitable became reality when Aaron finally bowed a knee to propose to Ms. Fink. The proposal was met with an obvious yes. Though a date has been set I can't reveal this information because who knows who is going to read this blog anyway.

"I feel as if my life is about to start in my relationships because since my friends are getting married and I'm not, what the hell I gotta get married soon too, I gotta tap, strap, and do all kinds of stuff to my woman and get her a ring," said an enthusiastic Aaron Cawthorn.

Matt Griepentrog replied, "Well it's about (explitive deleted) time."

And I say all of the above. Good work Aaron, good work Abby. Happy Wedding!!!!!

Datable boys vs. datable girls

2005-09-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

Today the question was posed to me: How many datable girls are there on this campus? As any good philosopher would say I asked: What does datable mean? The person questioning asked me to define it so there would be no confusion. I replied with something to the effect of, datable means that if a girl was interested in dating me, I would indeed date them. So that was/is settled. I then replied by saying that there were 5 actual truly datable girls at Concordia.

Then I was asked to speak as to who they were, which is never a good idea to reveal things of this nature. But it got me to thinking, why are there so few girls who I consider datable? Are there this few guys for girls my age?

The answer lies in the following. Yes it is true many boys and girls who would be datable are in fact taken, which makes them not datable, that becomes more and more of a problem the older you get. However, it is true that more girls than boys come to college with a boyfriend. Since this is true, they become automatically undatable, even after a breakup occurs. You may ask why this is, but I do not need to point that out, it is just obviously observable for me. So that is one disadvantage boys have.

There are a few others that are a bit more detailed intricate and not worth writing so we'll leave those be for now.

What puts me at a disadvantage though I think is rather obvious. Last year, hanging out with Griep and Greg pretty consistently, I was probably the best looking one of the bunch. So if you wanted a crazy, completely nonsense type of guy, I was the best choice. But now, hanging out with T1 more consistently, he is obviously a better choice than I am, so I get pushed back into the wood work and nobody even knows I'm here, because T1 is just so damned good looking.

Another disadvantage (I feel) is the whole being pre-sem aspect. This makes girls who are not Christian and even perhaps not Lutheran nearly undatable. (I'd hope that not Christian girls would be undatable for most Christian males, but you never know). Also a disadvantage for me is my campaign managers. No offense to these people because I like them and all, but they just have no clue how to get me women (not like I do either I suppose). But Abby Fink and Aaron Cawthorn are doing a terrible job of finding me datable women. Their leads lead to nothing but insanity and impossibility.

So what are the keys to getting with these datable people are: find good campaign managers, do not be in church work, and hang out with ugly people. That works for me, I'll see what I can do about those three and the answer is absolutely nothing. Oh well, I'll have to convince one of the 4 or 5 girls I think is datable that I am datable, but that won't be for a good long while.

To complete a Seinfeld line

2005-09-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

In one of the greatest episodes of the greatest show ever, George Costanza, after stuffing his face with shrimp, is zinged with the line, "Hey George, the ocean called, they're running out of shrimp."

George doesn't reply because he is befuddled by this line. When he finally thinks of the comeback, which was, "Oh yeah Riley, well the jerk store called, they're running out of you."

George flies to Ohio to zing this guy and after he says his line, Riley retaliates with "what's the difference, you're their all time best seller."
George responds with, "Yeah, well I had sex with your wife." And is promptly told that Riley's wife is in a coma.

George then thinks of the proper line to retaliate with after he is practically home, but the show never says what the line is, so I am going to speculate as to what it was, here we go.

"well Riley anybody would be in a coma if they were having sex with you"
"don't worry Riley, I brought her out of it, when I had sex with your wife"
"that's how in shock she was after having sex with me, a coma, wow"
"I'm sorry did I say your wife, I meant your mom"
"can you have a baby when you're in a coma?"
"that explains why there were nurses cheering me on"

That should do it for now, if you have any good ones let me know.

Mario 3 video

2005-09-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

This site is one of the greatest things I have ever seen. If you've ever played a video game, especially Mario 3 for original Nintendo and you thought you were any good. Just watch this piece of amazing footage.

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=moSMB3.wmv

Where is Griep?

2005-09-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

Lately it's been brought to my attention that Matt Griepentrog is no longer attending this school. He has not been found in our room at all for the past two weeks. Where could he have gone? Since this is the case, it is much more difficult to entertain large groups of people without him at my side always able to think of something that was ridiculous enough to entertain people without any trouble. Since he is apparently not going to be found any time soon, I've decided I am going to try and entertain people with something. Unfortunately I don't have a gimmick like him. If nothing else he could just start playing a guitar and singing and everybody would erupt in laughter. I can imitate voices, but so could he, so that wouldn't be really any good. I need a gimmick. Sure I can dislocate my shoulders, but that gets old and not everybody thinks it's cool. In fact most people think it is disgusting. So what can I do to entertain anymore. Is it even possible. I try to pose standard what's better? or would you rather... type stuff, but how long can that really last. Any suggestions...

LOTR races turned into football teams

2005-08-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Imagine if you will with me that instead of middle earth being a land that has to function and work in mostly normal ways that it was nothing more than a football league. In this league, each race of animals/people is a different team. Each would have their strengths and their weaknesses. So let's just start and show what the teams would look like and who would be their leaders and how good they would be etc. etc.

Elves - The elves would be an incredibly tough team. They are always having fun it seems. They have great vision, are quite smart, and are so light footed that they may just slip by you without your knowing.
The elves would be led obviously on the offensive side by Elrond. He'd be the quarterback for his wisdom, vision, and relative toughness. Legolas would be a wide receiver, so quick, light footed, amazing. Also, Legolas would return kicks and punts and be way better than even Dante Hall. Galadriel would lead the defense from the free safety position. Perhaps you are thinking "What?!?!" But think about it, she is all about protection. She holds Lorien incredibly beautiful and has great range. Remember her helping Frodo up from afar when he falls after escaping Shelob, that's range my friends. Arwen would be the greatest cheerleader ever because she is good for nothing else but looking at.

Ents - The ents many would think would be unstoppable, huge and strong, pretty much impossible to tackle I would think. But remember that ents are never hasty (except for Quickbeam if you've read the books) Quick beam would have to be the Quarterback, otherwise nobody would ever be able to decide what play to call or what count to snap the ball on. The ents would be notorious for receiving delay of game penalties. Treebeard could easily be a solid running back. He could hold Merry and Pippin with zero fumbles and is the oldest therefore the toughest I suppose. He would be no good on defense because, well as the books show, he lets Saruman go from Isengard, so he obviously can't guard anything for too long.

Wizards - The wizards in the days before Saruman's betrayal would have been the greatest team I believe, but only if they could use their staffs. If not, they would suck ass. They are nothing but old men who would get run over and probably break all their bones over and over. What they would have going for them is they could see into the future with the Palantir and know what plays were coming etc. But what could they do about it. They couldn't stop anybody. Too old and feeble.

Hobbits - The hobbits I think are obvious one of the worst teams. They smoke and drink way too much to be athletic in any real way. Hobbits rarely reach the height of four feet and never wear shoes, obvious disadvantages. Merry and Pippin would be the defensive ends of the team, because they are the only ones who could really contest with any of the quarterbacks of the other teams (and it's really no competition). Sam defeated Shelob so he can play middle linebacker. Frodo carried the weight of middle earth, so why not the weight of the team and be the Quarterback in an option style offense, running for numerous yards, as well as possibly passing for a few.

Men of Gondor - I've split the man into a few categories for obvious purposes. The men of Gondor we will consider them from the beginning of the movies so Strider can stay with the Rangers. They are unfortunately led by the unpredictable Denethor, father of Boromir and Faramir. He is their leader and quarterback and still has a solid veteran arm, but spends too much time watching film. Boromir is tough and carries the offense like a horse as running back. It took many arrows to pierce him and would take many defenders to bring him down.
Faramir would lead the defense as the wise middle linebacker. With great vision and study he would direct the teams as best he could.

Men of Rohan - This team would function around the one-two punch of running backs Theoden (before a career ending injury known as death) and Eomer. Almost like Tiki Barber and Ron Dayne except that they both would be pretty good and have similar styles. Eomer's would just be a little more violent and perhaps not as smart. Since they're so used to riding around on horses, they might be in a little trouble when it comes to footspeed against some of the other races. Eowyn would be the quarterback. Underneath the mask, a great fighter, leader, and beauty.

Rangers - Led into battle by the greatest human warrior, Aragorn son of Arathorn, heir of Elendil and wielder of Anduril formed from the shards of Narsille. Aragorn would be the Brett Farve of the league, except he would make fewer mistakes, but so long as he is on your team. You know you have a chance to come back and win. With Aragorn at quarterback, he would make the rest of these scrappy players even better than they should be. He'd never miss a game, much less a down. And never be afraid to fight the gihugen dragons, trolls, eagles, spiders or ents.

Southrons - These are the thugs of the league. Though I know none of their names, it seems to me rather obvious to relate them to a team that should be good on paper, but completely sucks in all reality (New Orleans Saints). Riding around on oliphaunts, they are basically screwed when alone. To many piercings that would get ripped out and no real great leader to step forward.

Oliphaunts - These huge ass crazy looking things would be tough to stop, but as you saw I'm sure, it is possible, it may take some really hard work, but it is doable for Legolas. These creatures would be offensive geniuses, but defensively, they'd get called for way too many penalties of stepping on top of people and thus crushing them. They'd be the kings of personal fouls, many of those perhaps by accident. It would be pretty dang hard to get a pass off though, unless you were one of the larger races (obviously).

Dwarfs - The dwarfs are natural sprinters as we all know, therefore their game would be one of run and gun. A west coast offense of sorts I think would be best. They'd have a solid defense, but they'd have trouble with tall opponents (at least the corners and safeties would) The line and linebackers would be pretty solid though. They would be led of course by Gimli son of Gloin who would lead as quarterback in this rough and tough west coast offense. He'd be like Steve Young I think (except not Mormon).

Orcs - The orcs are a dirty group who would have trouble keeping clean without be led around by Sauron, but since he has not yet taken physical form. Their leader would be the mouth, who is just plain disgusting but not really perhaps all that talented. They are so overtaken with evil that who knows if they could really complete against many teams (besides the crappy hobbits) but we saw in the scourging of the shire that Hobbits defeated these orcs with a better game plan. Orcs are not smart, so they'd have trouble, a whole lot of it.

Wolves - The wolves are an interesting category. They can chase dwarfs into trees and strike quickly and ferociously and they amazingly coordinated in working together with unknown leaders. They would be tough indeed, but I don't think any match for certain other races like ents, elves, or wizards.

Horses - These would be led by the greatest of all horses Shadowfax. You could not tame him and he would be able to outrun numerous opponents. He'd be a solid running back (so long as somebody could get him the ball). He's tough to catch for even Eagles or Nazgul. He would be helped by Haselfur, Erod, and Brego (the spellings of some of these may be way off). I think the horses would be tougher than most would realize.

Trolls - These ugly creatures are generally led by orcs or something worse. They amongst themselves generally argue about stupid things and are quite stupid. As is noted in The Hobbit, since they couldn't figure out how to eat the dwarfs and Bilbo, they turned into stone at first light of day. This not only means they're retarded, but also means they could only play night games, which may cause forfeits from time to time. (Yes of course orcs would have the same problem, but they'd just hate the light.)

Dragons - Dragons are an interesting species I believe. They are greedy and focus only on riches. They would probably try and hold out longer than Terrel Owens and expect more money. Also since they are so self-centered they'd have problems deciding who got the ball on what play. Probably to the point that the center wouldn't even snap the ball because he wanted to keep it. And even if he did, the quarterback wouldn't give it to anyone for any reason. There is a complete lack of teamwork and even if they are quite good players, it would never show.

Eagles - The Eagles would be a good team. They are wise speedier than most any other species and tough as nails. Gwaihir would lead them into the battle on the field. I think he'd be a Kordell Stuart type athlete, except he wouldn't suck. He'd actually be able to throw a pass and do all the other things, like run, catch, punt etc. The eagles would be a tough team, perhaps outdoing all others, but then again, maybe not, they have to have a weakness.

Ring Wraiths - These creatures and obviously hard to defeat for no man can destroy their leader. So the teams that could stop them, must have a woman come to the rescue or a hobbit with an Elvish blade. So the Men of Rohan would be set, as well as the Elves, and who knows about the women of the other races. The ents though would be screwed, because they cannot find the entwives so, good luck to them. I hope they don't meet in the playoffs.

Nazgul flying beasts - These creatures would compete with the Eagles pretty much toe to toe, but in the end, the eagles are just plain tighter and don't need black undead things to guide them. They may stink so bad that nobody would dare come near them. And they just plain are scary in every other way, but I don't think they'd be much over .500.

Spiders - These would be led by the notorious Shelob, and are pretty dang scary, with traps of webs and things, but I'm sure using webs or stingers would be considered a personal foul so they might be screwed. Either way, a measly hobbit destroyed their leader and many others of them, so what chance do they really have if they can't beat them.

This concludes the post, if I think of more I'll tack it on to this, but in the meantime, I think I'll figure out what characters are most like what football players and teams are like races specifically, etc. So you can look forward to more of this.

No Winner?

2005-08-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

Who the hell was my 10,000th hit, you didn't say so if you were. I'm disappointed in you. You could have had free beer. Your loss I guess.

beer as a condiment

2005-08-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

A great idea has seriously just entered my brain. Instead of adding to Ramen noodles, why not add beer. Granted warm beer is terrible, but when absorbed into these noodles, I think it has the potential to taste absolutely amazing. It enhances the flavor of bratwurst, why not noodles?

Anybody else with a good idea for beer being added to other foods?

To have or not to have (a phone)

2005-08-26T23:40:00.000-07:00

In past years we've always had a phone in the room, last year we even had two; however, last year we did not set up our voice mail seeing as this is of no importance to us. If anybody needs to contact us they can e-mail us or if they really need us, they'll have our cell phone numbers. If not, we don't want to talk to them more than likely. But it was brought to our attention by the king himself of all prank calls that the only reason to have a phone is to make prank calls with, not for receiving calls. It's all about dishing it out. So we've consented and decided to get a phone, but we don't know the number and quite frankly, will not tell you because as we've seen from previous posts, you never know who looks at this stuff and posts their opinions, it may be a girl who looks like Mimi, Jack Black, and Roseanne combined.

10,000th hit

2005-08-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

The Jones Zone is about to celebrate it's 10,000th hit. In celebration of this, I would like suggestions, anybody. Ok, you have until tomorrow or so. Ok, enough. If you are my 10,000th hit, mad props, and let me know.

To the guys

2005-08-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a pair of pants that you wore with a certain pair of boxers and no matter what you do, it just feels like your fly is down, even after you check numerous times, you still have to keep checking? I hate that feeling. Anybody else.

Aaron's car

2005-08-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

As many of you know Aaron's car got stolen. As many of you may not know, he found it today.
Being parked in Roseville at some gas station, dented badly with the steering column all effed. I'd just like to point out the idiocy of thieves that they didn't even try to get to the trunk and get what was in there, which were his lovely golf clubs.
I guess I don't understand why people would want to do something of that nature, stealing stuff, wrecking it, and ditching it. Getting whatever quick cash items exist. Stealing laundry detergent, but not dryer sheets.

If anybody is a thief, please explain it to me.

For those of you who weren't here two years ago

2005-08-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

Two years ago when Mission Improvable was here, they did the same type of stuff of course, but it was a bit funnier. For instance. They actually did the exact same joke sketch with shampoo. 101 Shampoos walk into a bar...
But, it was much dirtier last time.

Paraphrasing a guy who gave a joke last time:
101 shampoos walk into a bar and the bartender says, hey, why doesn't one of you come home with me so I can use you to wack off.

Something to that effect, blunt, dirty, hilarious.

A lot of the stuff just lasted longer and was slightly funnier, but it was a good show anyway this year. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope they come again.

Tips for girls on how to tap

2005-08-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

As if girls would need tips on this with all the guys around who are willing, but here it is anyway (mind you these are for tapping and dating, since under at least one definition they are the same thing).
1. nearly all boys have a point in which they would pretty much tap anything, find boys at this point, you'll be set
2. wear clothes that make you look good, it's a no brainer perhaps, but too many girls wear stuff that doesn't work for them, if you don't know, ask an honest blunt person
3. enjoying sports is impressive if it is not fake
4. don't be fake, ever, boys who are worth anything hate that
5. enjoying beer is also impressive, but being a drunken slut is dangerous (you may get tapped, but holy wow, who might it be)
6. having an approachable family is nice
7. you can't tap if you are shy, it just won't happen, be outgoing, have some fun, woo hoo.
8. knowing more about the male body than a male, might work out to your benefit
9. being fit is attractive, guys who like girls who are gihugen are just plain weird
10. BE YOURSELF (maybe that's part of not being fake, but it is important)
11. being able to hold intellectually stimulating conversation is important for dating, maybe not tapping, but girls with no brains just are an annoyance
12. you have to enjoy tapping to tap, if you don't enjoy it, why are you even reading this
13. impress boys with stuff you are good at that they will care about (singing, dancing, sports, video games, whatever you can do to show them you have talent, if you don't have any, meh, good luck to you)
14. hair, well, just so long as you have it not too short, and not down to your ass, it should be ok
15. don't talk about shopping
16. don't make us watch chick flicks unless you are not expecting to watch them
17. can you be funny? is it possible? if you can, boys will be all around you (or at least they should be)
18. um, be nice, girls who are mean are not dateable or tappable
19. try and get to know the guys (the guy you're trying to tap's friends) they'll respect you much more if you do
20. if you can tell dirty jokes and gross guys out you may be a little too much for some guys, but I'm sure others will be impressed
21. being innocent is a good thing
22. being able to cook and bake might be more important than anything else, depending on the hugeness of your tap partner
23. longevity of looks is important, so hopefully your mom and grandma are good looking (for their age of course)
24. faithfulness, oh is that important
25. Jesus, yup, Jesus, know him

I think this concludes the tapping and not tapping tips, we'll see what we can cover later this week.

Tips for girls on how not to tap

2005-08-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

As requested from my high school friend Cody, tips for girls.

1. refer to your month long periods
2. wear so much make up that you will get glitter all over the guy
3. act like you're offended by everything the guy does (we hate that)
4. always wear sweatshirts and loose pants (what we can't see, we won't pursue)
5. don't shave your legs
6. don't shave your moustache
7. pretend to be uncoordinated and completely unathletic (or maybe you don't have to pretend)
8. mention STDs that you have
9. have a sign up list on your door (though this may have the opposite effect)
10. don't drink alcohol ever and get mad if other people do
11. hit guys in the nuts
12. answer phone calls from former boyfriends when tapping is inevitable with the new guy (guys are 98% of the time jealous)
13. be a big time lib
14. have mono for like 10 years
15. believe in sodomy
16. fart or refer to large craps you've taken (this may not gross out tight guys like T1)
17. have cases of midol sitting out in the open
18. make fun of the person's lack of lips
19. think dislocated shoulders are gross
20. pierce everything you can find, any more than like 4 things pierced, it's trouble (multiple ear piercings do not count toward this)
21. hang out with single girls who are more attractive than you, you'll never be noticed
22. mention how you love to castrate farm animals
23. always want to do stuff the guy doesn't like (dancing, watching chick flicks, you know)
24. being able to kick a guy's ass is not attractive, it is scary
25. don't like Jesus

Perhaps tips on how to tap for girls will come next, but not until after I travel about 1500 miles or so.