I am an opinionated, Christian writer. Find out more about me and the topics I write about.
The three hundredth comment on this blog was posted today. There are 50 more comments to go before the contest is over. If you haven’t already entered, you can enter just by leaving a comment. The contest works just like a raffle, with your comment being your entry.
One lucky commenter will receive a $50 gift certificate from Amazon.com. Find out more about the contest and the rules.
I would like the troops to get out of Iraq. A year ago I wouldn’t have said that. Six months ago I probably wouldn’t have said that. But enough is enough.
I agree with why we went into Iraq. We took out a horrible dictator who was a sympathizer to those hostile to the U.S. We went to establish a democracy in Iraq. The Iraqis voted. The Iraqis set up a constitution. And they’re still blowing the hell out of each other and our troops. Continue Reading…
Do you think that there should be religion in public schools?
My friend sent me an interesting link about the guidance regarding prayer in public schools. I just wanted to share some interesting facts (with my own opinions of course) regarding religion in schools that I found in the guidance. Continue Reading…
My friend (who shall remain nameless) told me a story about a church he went to. The pastor explained rather matter-of-factly to anybody within hearing distance that people are required to give ten percent. The reason is because the Bible says to. Huh?
I’ve already beaten this horse to death, but I’ve thought of a few more arguments why the tithe (or 10%) is an irrelevant amount to give. Continue Reading…
I read an article on Fox News today that had me shaking my head. Apparently, Nationwide Insurance has an ad that shows Kevin Federline’s character as a rap superstar. As Federline’s character suddenly comes out of a day dream, the person realizes that he is no longer a superstar but a fast food worker. Having not seen the ad (c’mon YouTube!) I can’t comment on the context of the commercial.
However, the commercial’s premise brings up an interesting topic for debate. The Nationwide commercial is comparing life as a rap star to that of a fast food worker. I suppose the comparison would be that being a rap superstar is a glorious and glamorous life, and being a fast food worker is not. Now does the commercial go further and insult all jobs that have nothing to do with rap super stardom? I think not. The commercial does bring the question up about what are undesirable jobs. Continue Reading…
If you have frequented this site before, you may be noticing something a little different. My layout is a lot wider.
The reason is because I’m testing out a new script I wrote. I’ll update this post with more details later. Continue Reading…
I hope everybody got a chance to vent now that Peeve Week is over. It’s now back to normal business, whatever that may be.
Peeve Week was a great success. Overall, there were fourteen peeve posts written.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the contributors:
It’s better to owe taxes than it is to collect a refund.
Are you scratching your head over what you just read? You’re probably not the only one.
Last year I owed the United States Government several hundred dollars in taxes. When I told this to one of my friends, my friend looked at me and said, “You must be doing something wrong.”
“Doing something wrong?” I asked. “How is that?”
“You’re not getting any money back.” My friend explained.
“So why is getting money back a good thing?” I asked, hoping for some insight into my friend’s thinking.
“Because. You get to go on a spending spree.”
“So why not get that money up front instead of waiting a whole year to use it?” I asked.
I received a blank stare. My friend didn’t get it. Continue Reading…
Cetroyer contributed this article for Peeve Week.
Ever get frustrated by all those credit card offers in the mail? Not only does it take up valuable space in your trash can, but each one of those envelopes has the potential of helping someone steal your identity (or at least a credit card or two opened in your name). Speaking of your identity, do you stay up nights worrying if it will be stolen? Take heart, help is near. Continue Reading…
Bes Z. contributed this article for Peeve Week. Please check out his website: The Reasoner.
I wonder if one should feel sorry for paper calendars. Not only are more people depending on online calendars, many people simply know what day and month it is based on the big “SALE” signs at almost every retail store. A “Clearance event” usually means it is winter, a “Biggest sale of the year” sign means it is July, a “50% off” sign says it is the time after Christmas and before New Year’s, and so on. You see these sales signs everywhere and I think they are put there by retail stores to help you get rid of your paper calendar. Regardless of the reason, the sales events are always around at retail stores, and you will always find every item at a discount throughout the year. Continue Reading…
Cetroyer contributed this article for Peeve Week. Please check out one of his favorite sites: World Mag Blog.
Have you flown the friendly blue skies recently? Or the not so friendly skies if you happened through Denver around Christmas time. There seems to be one major complaint when it comes flying: airline security.
You may be thinking, “Right on! Security is such a joke…and those TSA agents…(so on)”, but that’s not where I’m going with this peeve. No, I peeved with the average flyer who gets upset when going through airport security over removing his/her shoes, or having to take his/her laptop out of his/her bag. Has everyone forgot what occurred over 5 years ago that prompted these measures? Continue Reading…
One brisk morning I went to the local grocery store to go buy some donuts. It was fairly early in the morning, so there was hardly anybody in the store. I gathered a dozen or so donuts and made my way to the register. The only lane that was open was “self-checkout.”
“Oh brother.” I thought to myself. I bit my lip and looked at the box I was carrying the donuts in. I glanced around and saw a managerial looking guy at the customer service counter.
“Is there a cashier available?” I asked in almost a yell.
“There’s self-checkout.”
I again bit my lip. In my experience with self-checkout, it was always an option — almost a convenience. This store was trying to force this “convenience” upon me.
In protest I responded, “I want a real cashier.”
The manager sighed heavily and walked over to a lane. He proceeded to ring out my donuts with a rather peeved look upon his face.
I walked out of the store, satisfied that I had pissed off a store manager who wanted to make his customers do the grunt work. Continue Reading…
Bes Z. contributed this article for Peeve Week. Please check out his website: The Reasoner.
Human beings have for a long time depended on tools to achieve goals faster. From cars to computers to watches and cell phones, we all use some tool that helps us do things more efficiently. With advancements in technology, however, more focus has been put in the last decade on adding glamor to things instead of improving those things. Here is my list of 3 small technological advancements that were intended to help people but at this time are simply not doing as much good as originally hyped by their respective industries.
This is a randomly chosen list, so if you can think of any other tool or piece of technology that you think is not living up to its promised standard, please let me know or share it here via your comment. Continue Reading…
Whether it’s contacting a webmaster, site owner, tech support, submitting an essay in a contest, or enlisting the help of a blogger, e-mail is an incredibly unreliable form of communication. From my experience, e-mail is slow, and delivery isn’t guaranteed. This article will focus on my peeves with e-mail as a communications medium. Continue Reading…
Nathan Kennedy contributed this article. Please check out his website: The Tennessee Valley Angler.
Let’s think about this gadget thing for a minute. Gadgets are there to make life easier for us all, right? Certainly. But shouldn’t we draw the line when gadgets actually don’t make life easier, and yes, even infringe upon the rights of others? Take the following (hypothetical) events:
You go out for lunch to Senor Jose’s Muy Caliente Budget Burrito Barn. Predictably, on arriving back at your place of work, you feel some imminent intestinal discomfort taking shape. So you casually (well, as casually as you can possibly manage under these circumstances) walk down the hall and around the corner to the restroom. You take a peek inside to make sure you have some privacy for the devastation about to ensue. Good, it’s all clear. You take a seat in the big stall at the end and go about your business. Suddenly, and without warning, the automatic flusher decides it’s time. You do a little half hop, half squat thing to avoid the horrid back-splash from the industrial, 10-gallon per flush toilet. Just as you’ve recovered your composure, you hear the door open. You hear footsteps pass the four empty stalls and come to a stop at the stall right next to yours. The door opens, you hear unbuckling/unzipping sounds, and the guy sits down with a grunt. “Great,” you think, “but maybe I can wait him out.” That’s when you hear it. That annoying, cell-phone walkie talkie sound. Drrrrdrrrt! Drrrdrrrt! “NO! Anything, but that! Maybe he’ll just not answer it?!” No such luck. “Yeah, man. I’m here at work.” Drrrrdrrrt! “Still havin’ those colon problems?” Drrrdrrt! “Yep. You wouldn’t believe the…” Just then your toilet cheerfully chugs through another flush cycle. You probably say a few curse words this time while doing your little squat-hop thing. Drrrdrrrt! “Hehe, this guy next to me…hehe…his toilet just flushed when he didn’t want it to…hehe…looked like he was doin’ some kind of squat-hop thing to keep from getting wet!” Continue Reading…
R. Hunter contributed this article for Peeve Week.
There’s an epidemic that’s sweeping across the country. The cause is laziness and the desire to look like a moron.
Signs of the disease start with a few symptoms:
What could this epidemic be? Is it a tumor growing out of someone’s head? I can hear Arnold Schwarzenegger screaming, “It’s not a tumor!” No, it’s a bio-electric nightmare known as a Bluetooth headset. Continue Reading…
Bes Z. contributed this article. Please check out his website: The Reasoner.
Having a cell phone is a necessity for many people today. We keep in touch with our friends through our cell phones, and we also check news through it. We text message our friends via the phone, and we also take pictures through it. With a trend that is outpacing itself from other trends like wearing a watch, there are more and more annoyances everyday that need to be addressed when it comes to using cell phone around people. Here is my list of 3 annoying habits that some people cannot seem to avoid when they use their cell phones in public.
There’s a common phrase among somebody that’s clumsy: “I’m all thumbs today.” In modern times, being “all thumbs” means that person is either a crack-Berry addict (a play on BlackBerrys), or loves to text message on a cellphone.
There’s nothing wrong with those that like to text message. I don’t mind when one of my friends can talk to me and text message at the same time. I don’t mind when people open up their ultra-bright cellphones in a dark movie theater. I don’t mind when I hear a loud jingle and a chuckle in the stall next to me in the restroom. I also don’t mind when people text message me.
I do mind, however, when my cellphone company (co*Verizon*ugh) decides to charge me ten cents for every message. Sure, I can sign up for three hundred messages for five dollars extra on my plan, but I’d be wasting about four dollars of that. I don’t receive a lot of text messages and I never send them out. Continue Reading…
Bes Z. contributed this article for Peeve Week. Please check out his website: The Reasoner.
A website is like a house. We usually know the house owner before we visit them. Online, however, we usually get to see a website first and then come to know the author. This is a good thing, for it allows us to break away from the chains of stereotypical discrimination and instead look at someone based on their achievements in the form of their website. Having such a mentality online helps us in real life also. However, just like in real life, we usually discriminate others without realizing it many times. If we can get used to not discriminating on the web, we will be hesitant before discriminating in real life. I will summarize below two forms of discrimination that exist in the real world and also online. Continue Reading…
I recently watched a Disney film called Glory Road. The movie is about a basketball team (Texas Western) in 1966 that is one of the few teams in the south to have a lot of black people on the team. The team made history when it was the first to play only black players throughout an entire game. During the same game, the team won the NCAA national championship, which also made history. Back then, it was a big deal to have an all-black starting line-up. People considered blacks not intelligent enough to function with the pressures of an NCAA championship. Don Haskins, the couch of the Texas Western team, wanted to prove the nay-sayers wrong; and he did.
Back during the height of racism in the U.S., people of color needed to prove themselves to their white counterparts. They had to prove that they could drink out of the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus, vote, own a business, play in professional sports, and run for elected office. I feel that the time of having to “prove” one’s race or gender has passed. Racism is no longer systematic. In other words, the foundation has been ripped out of our country. In order to fully eliminate systematic racism, our country needs to rid itself of the acknowledgment of race or gender holistically. Within this article, I will go over some of the peeves I have regarding race and gender. Continue Reading…
Today is the start of Peeve Week for this blog. I will post the first entry later today.
I encourage you to participate, whether it is leaving comments, or writing your own post. You can e-mail me at ron@ronalfy.com with your post concerning a particular day’s theme. If you do wish to write your own post, please e-mail before 1600 Central Time on the day you wish to have your entry posted.
Here are each day’s themes:
Being that Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, I think it is appropriate to lay out the pet peeves of certain areas around racism and/or discrimination. An example could be how women are treated at car dealerships.
Do I need an explanation for this one?
Peeves that deal with technology and gadgetry might consist of rants against a technology company, product, or gadget that everybody seems to use.
Example peeves could be parking lot clashes, long checkout times, cashiers, and more.
Example peeves could be about credit card companies, spouses, and more.
Back around early December, I entered an essay contest over at Weblog Tools Collection. My entry was rather controversial to say the least. As of this moment, there are twenty-five worthy entries. As pessimistic as I am at winning, I still can’t help but cross my fingers. The contest ends in a few hours.
I thought I would share the five essays that I really enjoyed and hope claim the final prize.
An essay about being open with your readers.
An essay about how to use humor in a blog entry.
An essay discussing the problems when bloggers receive corporate freebies.
An essay talking about how stupid spammers are given the wonderful anti-spam tools that most bloggers have.
An essay talking about why CAPTHAS aren’t necessary or useful.
I finally got around to watching the third installment in the ‘Final Destination’ series. For those who haven’t seen the movies, the plots more-or-less center around a group of people who have cheated death. Since death doesn’t like to be cheated, it comes back for each person one by one.
The movies are gory, shocking, and sometimes disgusting in the ways that they show how people die. I walked away from the third movie just shocked at what I had just seen. I thought to myself, “Wow. I’m glad it’s not really like that.” Continue Reading…
After discussing with several readers of this blog, the comment contest rules have been updated. The contest will end when 350 comments have been reached rather than 500, which significantly increases the odds. Comments no longer have a word limit. Trackbacks must be 100 words rather than 200.
Find out the rules and/or details at: The Great Comment Giveaway.
Next week is Peeve Week at this blog. I’ve had several requests from my readers to write about certain topics that deal with pet peeves. To satisfy my readers’ demands, I will write five posts that deal with personal peeves of mine.
I’d like several of you to join in, however. Each day I will have a certain theme and I encourage you to write your own post about it. Please see the details below. Continue Reading…
This may come as a surprise to those closest to me: I am still a cigarette addict.
I have been been an off-again, on-again smoker since I picked up my first dreadful cigarette when I was fourteen. Back then my best friend smoked, and I thought the look of smoke coming out of someone’s mouth was cool. As nasty as the cigarettes tasted, I persisted and eventually found I could not live without them.
Being fourteen and a smoker is not a good thing. You always have to bum cigarettes or beg people to buy packs for you at the store. Sometimes I stole my packs when I couldn’t find a buyer. I was that addicted.
I was fired from my first job in Fairbanks, Alaska for being an underage smoker. My boss caught me smoking behind the building and terminated me on the spot. Yet I still continued to smoke. Continue Reading…
A Texas-Based Pizza Chain called Pizza Patrón is now accepting pesos.
Some of the arguments against this move are as follows:
All of the above arguments are either red herring, appeal to emotion, appeal to patriotism, or straw man. In other words, the arguments have no logical merit and are not even worth discussing.
Let’s look at the history of Pizza Patrón and see why accepting pesos is just part of a smart business decision. Continue Reading…
My first job in the continental United States was at grocery chain called Vons in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was sixteen at the time, and made a whopping $4.25 an hour. Soon after that, the minimum wage was raised to $5.15. Since Vons wanted to pay a little more than the minimum wage, Vons gave me a pay raise to $5.35. Why do I bring this up? Because I know what it is like to be on minimum wage. I know what it is like to work forty hours or more during the Christmas rush and only have about three hundred or so dollars to take home and call my own.
I have since moved on from my retail days, got few college degrees, and am now a professional. I make a good deal more than I used to during my “minimum wage” years. I am thankful for my lower-earning years because it helps me respect those who have yet to climb up the pay scale. I also have great sympathy towards the single mothers on minimum wage. My mother was one of them.
However, from an objective standpoint, I have to say it’s about time to ditch minimum wage, and not raise it. Here’s why. Continue Reading…
One of my friends living in my old high-school town called Springfield, Colorado sent me these pictures of the recent snow storm. They were published in a few Colorado newspapers. I thought I’d share some of the pictures.
According to my mom (who lives forty or so miles from Springfield), the area is still hard to get around in. Continue Reading…
A special day,
To run and play.
To have dinner and flowers,
And evening showers.
A happy day,
When she’s gone away?
Celebrate disaster?
Pull apart this plaster?
Is this day defined,
By what’s intertwined?
Or is there revenge,
To cure the distance binge?
Celebrate together,
To run and play forever,
To have dinner and flowers,
And evening showers.
Have you ever heard a song on the radio and thought about how happy the song was? Or, perhaps you thought about how depressing the song was?
I found myself shaking my head when I heard a really up-beat love song and thought to myself, “Yeah… That feeling won’t last.” As I further contemplated my thoughts, I realized that the song had captured a “feeling”, or a moment in time, and was sharing it with me. I was shaking my head because the song shared that moment with me and I didn’t feel the same way. However, I felt thankful that moments in time can indeed be captured by something as simple as a song.
Within this post I will go over several ways to capture moments in time and ask for your thoughts on the subject. Continue Reading…
The New Year is always a time to reflect upon what one has accomplished, what one has yet to do, and what one has wished he hadn’t done.
During one cold, snowy evening, I found myself contemplating what I would do if I were to return back to fourteen years of age knowing what I know now. I fantasized about righting my wrongs, and avoiding the girls I should have avoided. However, my thoughts kept leading me to one conclusion: I would be miserable. Continue Reading…
The contest ended on 02/07/2007. Thanks to all who participated.
Anybody that comments and/or trackbacks on this site will be eligible (with certain exceptions) to win a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate. See below for the rules. Continue Reading…
