"...Time....is on my side...yes it is..."

It's amazing how often I procrastinate on those things that matter most, only to delay the inevitable. I often find myself finishing those little tasks like cleaning the apartment or doing dishes, when more important things require my attention (don't even get me started on my thesis). I found myself doing this very same thing just hours ago. I have a large paper due that is worth a significant portion of my grade, and instead of rushing to finish it...I decide it's a good time to shave all the hair off my chest.

Now before you go deleting me from your phone book or removing me as a friend on facebook, allow me to explain. I don't normally shave my chest (*Coff* Luke Burger *Coff*), but this was a special circumstance. I had gotten sun burned all over my chest, arms, and back two weeks ago and in the past week the skin has been pealing off my body. When I get in the shower (warning, this is gross), the skin peals off and clings to my Brawny Paper Towel Man chest hair. This makes me look like I just stepped out of the radioactive Chernobyl, not the effect I want if I am going to the pool. This at least solves that problem. Yet don't you think this could have waited.

It's not just me, The author of "How to eat a frog" talks about how, in every one's life, there are those things that influence most the impact of one's life. They represent in importance around the top in the list of the things we plan on getting done. Ironically the majority of people spend 90 percent of their time on those tasks in the bottom of that list and only 10 percent on the top. If I devoted the majority of my time to what was truly important... such impact would be noticeable. Think about it. Oh, and have you recognized yet that the quote from the title is from a song, "tiiiiiiiimmmmmeeeee, is on my side...yes it is". Don't recognize it? It's also sung by Azeal in the movie Fallen with Denzel Washington (good movie).

the problem with self control...

Behavioral psychologists agree with the statement while psychoanalysts scoff at it. Humanities idea of “self control”, is considered by some to be an immeasurable internal force which allows us to show self restraint. Behaviorist suggest instead that we are a product of our reinforces and believe that proposing the idea of a construct inside us to explain internal motivators actually takes control away.

Many are familiar with the famous experiment involving Pavlov’s Dogs; how he was able to elicit salivating in dogs to a unrelated stimulus of a bell ringing. In a similar way we are reinforced everyday by a process called the A.B.C method. An example of step A (Antecedent) would be the phone ringing. An example of step B (Behavior) would be picking it up. An example of step C (Consequence) is someone answering. In this situation we have a example of unconscious positive reinforcement. If the consequence was pleasurable, the person is likely to repeat such behavior. Another example of reinforcement is hitting the snooze button. In this situation we have a negative reinforcement; the annoying noise was taken away.
It get’s interesting from here. If we continue conditioning theses neurological process for a sustained portion of time, the axons become hard and permanent. When this happens, the only treatment to undue this is brick therapy (bash em in the head with a brick). So here is my problem with pornography. If someone has a history of looking at a certain type of porn for example, they can retrain what they are actually sexually stimulated to (depending on what they are using as a stimulus at). Perhaps it’s no coincidence the majority of known pedophiles have a shared history of looking at pornography.

It must be noted that this simple conditioning with reinforces is much more complex in humans, probably more than behaviorist care to admit. A fellow named Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs that we attempt to fill, and any number of our behaviors can be unconsciously driven to meet one of these needs.
So if you your tired of making promises to yourself that seem to be broken as quickly as they can be made, alter your behavior through simple behavioral modification. Were all unhappy in some fashion with the frequency, duration, or intensity of one or more behaviors. Such modification will involve altering these factors: response effort, environment, and reinforcements. Regardless if this mentality may seem fatalistic, it is important to remember that in every opportunity we can still turn towards goodness. The problem is with each selfish decision we make, were more likely to repeat that process again.

the impact of your bro's and hoe's

Isn't it interesting in life how people can make all the difference merely by there presence. If there involved in your life, they influence it, and hopefully in a positive way. It makes you wonder if heroes and villains in our everyday struggle are simply characters in life responding to their supporting cast. The funny website "Garfield Minus Garfield" is an example of this to some degree, without the character...Jon is a crazy person... the comic is funnier to.

we have the ability to make a difference ...

Now more than ever we can make a difference in the word on the behalf of justice. Those who are against poverty can now put there money where their mouth is. The micro lender Kiva (www.Kiva.org) allows you to micro loan money out to impoverished people to make a better life for themselves. To under stand more about the process, check out "Banker to the Poor" by Muhammad Yunis.

I have been given much

A man was driving his Lexus from church one Sunday, praying on his way home. He prayed that he would get the promotion, that time of to take a vacation to Hawaii, and be able to pay off the loan on his car. just then a car pulled out in front of him, forcing him off the road. The next thing the man knew, he was waking up in heaven. Finding himself just outside the pearly gates, he shouted to those inside, requesting if he may meet with Jesus. Jesus soon came out to meet the man. The man was very grateful for all the great things God had been given him and wanted to thanks Jesus, saying "ever since I excepted you into my life, everything has been great!" Jesus paused for a moment and explained "I think you have my words confused for another. There was a reason you were given so much...

You were given youth, so that you may serve the elderly.
You were given education, so that you may teach those who need to learn.
You were given wisdom, to keep others from making wrong choices.
You were given freedom, to speak out against those oppressed.

You were given food, to feed the hungry.
You were given wealth, so that you may give to those poorer than you.
You were given health, to heal those who are sick.
You were given strength, so that you could strengthen the weak.

You were given hands, to help serve your neighbors.
You were given legs, to walk with those in despair.
You were given eyes, to see hope beyond pain.
You were given ears, to here the stories of the suffering.
You were given a voice, to speak on behalf of the voiceless.

Luke 12:47-49 (The Message)
"The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed. But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he'll get off with a slap on the hand. Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!

I've come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I've come to change everything, turn everything right side up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so...

Lesson learned #5- Vegtible Oil does not reduce smoke

I live in this unique house apartment along the river in good old Muncie, IN. I enjoy my apartment and chose it for it's uniqueness. It's an attic apartment, with a winding staircase and triangle rooms. It's actually quite spacious with two bedrooms, living room and kitchen (and bathroom), and at 325$ a month (includes all the necessities) it is a steal. Yet there are also quirks with this apartment that I have come grown used to. For one, The triangle shaped bathroom forces me to use the restroom in a sitting position. If I was to stand without leaning I would be just far enough away from the toilette to reduce to 93% accuracy. Also the shower is quite small and the shower spout is equal to my chest. For the first three weeks, before I got new shower nozzle, I had to shower in a crouched position. Another thing I noticed was that when I started using the stove, I noticed that three of the four heating coils lightly smoked. Not totally sure where it was coming from, I found I was able to eliminate the smoke if I sprayed water on the coil. This worked for the most part, except when the burner was on high. So, last week after continually spraying the largest coil, I decided a quick fix would be to pour vegetable oil on it. My thinking was that oil doesn't evaporate as easily and so would be less work. Well, as many of you know already my thinking was very wrong. I found out oil actually is worse in this situation due to it's tendency to sizzle and splatter at hot temperatures. And of course right then my ADD must have kicked in full gear because I pour water on the oil thinking it would reduce the temperature. This only resulted in the stove break out in flames. Thankfully that lasted a totally of five seconds, and immediately turning the burner down caused the smoke to subsided. Lesson learned, disaster avoided, dinner saved.

Warning.... Vista movie maker may cause violent agression

Normally I don't use my blog as a therapeutic way to vent my anger, but it's either that or break the monitor....so I'm trying to restrain myself. The situation is this, I have a year old tower with Vista Ultimate on it. I also own a windows xp laptop, and am borrowing a mac desktop currently. You might have a urge to say, "nate, do you really need that many computers"... Well... fight it..because how many computers I have is not the focus of this article. With the windows xp I'm satisfied, with the Mac (tiger) I'm quite ecstatic, and with the Vista...lets just say I would pay more for poop in a box. But I digress... the real beef I have is with movie maker. The first issue I have is that it comes up with hundreds of error message all the time, then shuts down and I loose my work. Second, I can only have music or a narrative, not both. Three, it only lets me have one line of video... Four, it's cumbersome. Five, it claims to work with a wide variety of video. Yet, try to export your video and it will come up with the bogus error message "File will not save, error: not enough space, project files may be missing, or drive may be unavailable". "Oh, really?...that specific, huh?" I mean, come on, that's like three separate problems there. Anyway, it turns out that there are a number of files that often cause problems. they are are; (Video) Mpeg, MOV, Mjpeg and divx-avi (Music/Audio) MP3 (Stills/Pictures) Jpeg. This makes me laugh...these are main types of formats, some even consider them industry standards. How could Movie Maker not notify the user of this when it lets you edit these files? How come Microsoft didn't patch this up? So, I spend 5 hours of work, only to deal with two more hours of hassle. Basically, in the end I got it to work for 5 minutes, enough to produce a very small video. Your welcome to see it (I will post it in this blog)...unfortunately it's about the best I can do. I guess the moral of the day is don't expect to eat lobster when you starting with S***,

Media's influence on Mentality...

After reading 1 Corinthians 15 I am left with questions. For example, verse 33 in the new king James states “be not deceived: Evil communications corrupts good manners “. I was wondering if this is only talking about fellowship with peers, but perhaps also media such as TV/Movies…couldn't they not also have a negative influence on an individual? It seems since the late 19th century that there is a trend in the U.S. toward obtaining pleasure, self-fulfillment, and immediate gratification. When did enjoyment became the central measure of a fulfilling life in our American experience? It is as if there is a public fascination with fashion, travel, and amusement. Part of this transformation may be the result of the flooding of our everyday world with mass-produced visual images. "Motion pictures are particularly adept at conveying the tangibility of things and their desirability as possessions" (Berger, 1972). It seems the idea of instant gratification and the freedom to obtain personal happiness have been Hollywood's tradition for generations and contemporary films reinforce this view. Our present broad socialization encourages especially the youth to follow their impulses, to do whatever attracts them or feels good. So how much impact do movies truly have? do they influence our institutions? Our family, laws, politics, or religion? I can't help but thinking that youth who are still forming beliefs and opinions may especially be impacted by this medium. Some destructive examples include the over glamorization of artistic professionals that increase unrealistic expectations for the youthful viewer. Movies portray family life as either funny and simplistic or overly tragic and Alcohol use is shown with great frequency. Few characters are shown depicted as driving recklessly or exceeding the speed limit as a result of drinking. The same unrealistic portrayal exists with sexual behavior. Sexual diseases, broken hearts in relationships (which is reported as a high cause of suicides among youth), and unwanted pregnancy seem to very rarely follow the main characters sexual encounters, and yet they all to often follow unprotected rushed real life sexual intimacy. When you put a frog in a boiling pot he jumps right out. Take that same frog, put in a pot and change the temperature slowly...the frog boils to death. The temperature has been turned up and yet we don't even realize the immorality anymore... so I guess the question now becomes how can I resist...how do I fight back?

By the way, if you wan't to see a great science fiction movie that plays on this idea ...check out "They Live"(1988)