How many of you have visited The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks (henceforth referred to as "The Blog")? I peruse it frequently, especially when I need to be distracted from homework or just need to laugh at others' lack of proper punctuation.

A few months ago, over Christmas break, I was visiting my sweet Grandma in her Waterloo retirement facility. They had a sign up that immediately made me think of The Blog. I took a picture on my phone and emailed it to myself for submittal later. Sure, it was cold and icy outside, and it was a facility for older folks, so I can understand why they would tell us to use caution. It appears as though they weren't sure what type of caution we should use, if any real caution at all, so they did what any self-respecting sceptic would have done in the situation; add quotation marks!

Just today I received an email from Bethany saying she used my picture on The Blog! Thanks, Bethany!

For the post on The Blog, click here.

Tags: Blog, Quotation Marks

This afternoon, as Caitlin, Moses, and I sat down to Lunch in Chuck's, something outside the large glass windows caught our attention. Something was swimming in the waters of Cedar Lake. From our perch on high, it was hard to make out exactly what it was; to me, it appeared as though it was a snake swimming in the water, sticking it's head above the surface every few minutes, just to look around. Moses admitted that she had seen it a day prior.

The "thing" appeared to have glossy rubbery skin that was difficult to look at because of the suns bright reflection off it. I guessed that it was black, or at least very dark gray. When it first caught our attention, I thought it was a piece of plastic bobbing in the water, floating to the surface every once in a while. But Moses told me she had seen it on the other side of the lake yesterday and earlier that day. After watching it slither (or so it appeared) through the water, I was next convinced that it was a snake. This assertion made Moses angry, because she kept pounding her fist on the table insisting "it has a fin!" Finally, we realized from our far away position, behind glass, we weren't going to be able to figure out what it was. We decided to clean up our dishes and go down to the water to check it out.

We strolled out of the SSC and up to the water's edge at about the same time that Alberto (henceforth referred to as Bertrude) arrived on the scene. He threw his bike on the ground and joined us lakeside. We all stood there for quite some time observing the finned creature; Moses was right. It was no snake. It certainly had both a fin at it's "rear side" and along the top of it. It looked like a shark, I now thought. Quite honestly, it was about the size of a baby shark. Bertrude made an offhand and completely illegitimate claim that the monster was some type of "carpe." What does he know.

We had three major suspicions. Either it's a baby shark, a dolphin, or the Loch Ness monster. Our only doubt was that we weren't sure if the Loch Ness monster had a fin on it's back or not. Upon consultation of a far more reputable source, Jenna Woestman, we learned that "the Loch Ness monster could have a fin. It pretty much looks like whatever people want it to look like when they think they see it."

I still think it's a baby shark. No matter what it is, consider yourselves warned ... the Cedar Monster lives in Cedar Lake, and it actually ate Bertrude while we were there (may he rest in pieces in it's tummy). Clearly, this must be the cause of the apparent "climate of fear" on our campus, because I can't think of anything else that would be causing it.

At one point as we stood on the grass beside the lake, a group of four girls was walking by on the sidewalk behind us as we stared in awe (crossing ourselves after Bertrude had been eaten). One of the girls said to the others, "Look at the size of that thing! What is that? A fish?" I turned around and looked at the group. "It's not a fish. It's a shark." One of the girls got such a terrified expression on her face that I nearly felt bad for saying it.

Tags: Cedarville, Jenna

Remember back when NBC got a little too full of itself a while back and decided to yank its shows from iTunes? They pressured Apple to increase the prices of songs and shows that were more popular in order to make more profit; thankfully, Apple refused to cave. NBC threatened to not resign their contract renewal with Apple for their Digital Media. Apple one-upped them; they pulled all NBC shows and music immediately, proving they didn't need NBC to survive (though NBC does hold a large portion of the television side of the iTunes Store.

I've been waiting for NBC to come crawling back like a baby. Of course, NBC had to think of a way to do this without looking like a complete idiot. Coincidently, NBC didn't even try to bring up the pricing problem again. This time they said they would be OK with Apple's pricing policy, but before they would return their programming to iTunes they wanted Apple to incorporate some form of anti-piracy measures.

This could be both good and bad, as I see it. NBC wants to take advantage of the DRM Apple already incorporates, except they wish to expand it. They would like everything in your iTunes library to have the DRM written to it, which could get really frustrating and, to me, is a huge invasion of your own music rights. However, I don't deny that I think Apple will probably agree to this.

After all, I think it's only a matter of time before the FCC and RIAA crack down like mad on the internet. It will be the day when all internet freedom disintegrates and Big Brother constantly watches over your shoulder; a day I shudder to see come. Since the internet is most frequently viewed in the comforts, and privacy, of your own home, I believe their shouldn't be any type of ISP or government restrictions on it. Sure, if a corporation or parent wants to add filters for various things, that's completely legitimate. But we want the internet, our music, movies, and all types of media (yes, I'm talking to you, Adobe) DRM FREE!

Tags: Television, Apple, Internet, Music, Movies

I thought it would be interesting to report the site statistics since relaunching AlexLaird.net (finally) on February 17th, 2008 with a new look and feel. I also switched servers on my blog, instead of hosting via blogger at blogspot.alexlaird.net, the blog is now hosted via Surpass Hosting (as is the rest of my site) and managed directly by ... Myself :D. No more limits! I can do whatever I want with it now.

Two whole months have elapsed, and I finally got around to checking my site meter. Here are the fancy-pants statistics.

• There have been over 2,500 unique page visits to AlexLaird.net/blog. Even more have read from the Feed, so that would be all you faithful Facebookers and Google Readers out there who read it the lame way without actually visiting my site.
• Surprisingly, over 6% of these visit last longer than an hour!
• Over 400 of these hits come from Cedarville University's campus. There also appears to be a large cluster of readers in Virginia State, San Fransisco, Germany, Australia, Canada (sorry about that one post, guys ...), and Amsterdam. I don't know how I acquired such a reader group, but thanks for showing interest.
• I'm proud to report that 40% of my visitors view this site with a Mac. Only 38% use Windows, and, sadly, only 0.2% have viewed while on Linux.
• Still, and going to show that Safari is not the most popular browser on Mac, only 27.4% of you Mac users are using Safari. 31.8% of visitors use Internet Explorer.
• The largest amount of Search Engine references for me comes from, you guessed it, Google!
• From other sites, Jenna is my biggest supporter :). I get the most referrals from her blog. I also get quite a few viewers from Ben Berberich's blog, Facebook (both Notes and on my Profile), and Ashley's blog.

That's all for now. Thanks to all the viewers of the site and readers of the blog in just these two short months! Hopefully I'll be able to post more when school's out and beautiful Summer has set in!

On a final note, if you use Google Reader or some such subscription service to view this blog, the name of the blog may still appear as "Define 'Cool'" when, in actuality, I have changed the name to "Alex's Musings." You may have to rename it manually since some RSS readers update only post feeds and not the name of the feed.

Tags: Internet, Jenna, Cedarville

Am I the only one who notices that Cedarville loves telling us how much the buildings cost? The new BS building cost $14 million to build. The Gym cost $15 million. The SSC cost $23 million.

Most of this doesn't even come out of our pockets, as many students like to whine that it does. In contrast to this whining about expenses and rules, I and my nine demerits (this semester) would like to point out a few reasons Cedarville rocks ... Compare this to, say, Bob Jones.

• We can watch movies rated "worse" than G. Granted, we can't watch R-rated movies in the Residence Halls, but that's not all bad, and if you really have a problem with that, just go to the DMC and watch it; that's not a Residence Hall.
• We're allowed to go to movie theaters.
• We're allowed to dance. (Look in the handbook, guys. It says nowhere in there that we can't dance.)
• We can listen to basically whatever music we like, including such immoral, hip-moving music as Jazz, Rock, and Christian Contemporary (Heaven forbid).
• We can play T and E10 rated video games. Question: What the heck is an E10 rating? I've never even heard of it ...
• We just have to be in our Residence Halls past curfew ... Not in bed with the lights out.
• We have open internet access and our emails aren't screened by Big Brother.
• Girls can eat a banana anyway they like. (If you don't get this one, don't think too hard about it ...)
• We're allowed to choose the Church we go to on Sundays, if we go at all.
• We (guys too) can wear necklaces.
• We can wear Abercrombie & Fitch.
• We can play Poker, just not for money.
• We can socialize (and date) in coed groups without a chaperone.

If you aren't aware of the current Cedarville "situation," I won't bother enlightening you too much. You can enlighten yourself by going here or here for Cedarville's opinion and here for the outsider's opinion. There's also some good information here from an anonymous point of view. I especially like this blog because they don't always give an opinion, they just state the facts (and cite their sources, unlike the outsider's opinion ...)

Cedarville has been getting some publicity as of late (thanks, Dayton Daily News and Columbus Dispatch)! On the front cover of the Dayton Daily News paper on Sunday, March 30th, there was a large picture of two Cedarville girls walking on a sidewalk. The headline? "Bible Profs Fired, 'A Climate of Fear at Cedarville U.'" Personally, I liked this rendition by David Sizemore all the more. I was shocked to read this article for two reasons. 1.) This happened at the end of last year and somewhat over the Summer. The Board of Trustees voted in January, making their firing decision final. It's over, people! 2.) I'm not afraid. Nobody's afraid. What "climate of fear?" You'd think that, well, since I live on this campus, I would notice if everyone were crying themselves to sleep every night.

Another irony is the fact that, when the newspaper was on campus, they were escorted by Dr. Ruby, and he had to answer all their hard-hitting questions. The reporters were under strict orders that they were not allowed to take photographs, but they could ask as many questions as they like. So, please explain to me how this article has a huge picture, front-and-center? Some people who are anti-Cedarville in this fight like to blame Dr. Ruby for the fact that pictures were taken, but I'll bet you one thing: They didn't take them while he was around! There are people on this campus all the time taking pictures; nobody stops you! All they had to do was come back later. But I'd like to speak to the reporters for a moment. Question: If you were trying to capture an image that would represent your "fearful" title, why did you choose to print a picture of two girls laughing and smiling, walking along happily with each other? Very fearful ...

The author of the article is apparently a Christian and felt it was her duty to write the article out of concern. She claims she wrote the article based on an "anonymous phone call." Your credibility is skyrocketing in my mind. I didn't see her interviewing me, though apparently she stayed on campus "researching" for four days.

There's two main groups up on Facebook, where all proper debates should take place. There's the "I support Cedarville" side and the "I want Cedarville destroyed" side. Some fans of the latter group may jump all over me, telling me all they really want is "the truth," not to destroy Cedarville, but let's think about the logic. What are you accomplishing by sticking your nose where it doesn't belong? Absolutely nothing! And as Cedarville Faculty continues to deny you any facts, and third-party sources keep making up stories to feed you, you just get more and more angry towards Cedarville. And for what? To satisfy your curiosity?

On the anti-Cedarville Facebook group, they proudly sport the banner under their description, "Opposing views are welcome but individuals will be removed from the group who are known to have no connection to the situation and/or who base their authority on anonymous sources." Interesting statement. It's false. I joined the group and posted on the wall, explaining to all the members that, no matter how much they kept asking, Cedarville would never give them "the truth" that they wanted due to simple ethics and legal confidentiality. I also explained that, no matter what, I supported Cedarville and didn't want to ask questions because I trusted Dr. Brown and the Board of Trustees. It's their job to work with these types of decisions, not mine. Only a few hours went by before my wall post was deleted and I was sufficiently blocked from the group. A further message from the group's creator informed me that he was glad I was "very informed [and had] read everything Cedarville has communicated to [me]." I replied and thanked him, of course. And, yes, it's true, I've read everything Cedarville has fed me. I've also read all the other information I can get my hands on to try to make sense of it and, quite honestly, I can't! Interestingly, the admin of this anti-Cedarville group is a Cedarville alumni who graduated last year. Guess what that means? He doesn't even live on campus anymore! I'm glad one of the people who has the most adamant voice against Cedarville in this situation isn't even in the middle of it anymore. Not surprisingly, most of the anti-Cedarville articles and information is from off-campus sources. That seems really credible.

What I find ironic is that this group and all its members are demanding that they deserve to know why these profs were fired when, in reality, they have no right. They say the firings were unethical and this gives them the right to know. (Really?) Apparently what they don't understand is that their demands are equally unethical, if not more so. I would say more so because the administration here at Cedarville obviously had a reason for doing what they did, and this group has no viable reason, except gossip, for their demands. They argue that Cedarville is hiding things from us and that they won't let us see all the facts. Ironically, however, this very group itself is hypocritical in that manner since they aren't accepting outside opinions either! And when an opposing view comes onto the wall, they are quick to delete it and block the user. Hmm ... Doesn't that sound suspicious to you?

I have now made my home at the pro-Cedarville group and am no longer afraid of being blocked. But I can tell you this: I've never felt so proud of being blocked from a group :). It made my week to know that I hit such a sensitive nerve that they didn't want what I said to get out. Heaven forbid people actually know the truth. The only truth they're very going to understand in this situation because, let me say this one more time people ... Cedarville will never, EVER give you this information!

Did I miss the memo saying Cedarville was a perfect college? Oh, wait. There wasn't one! There's no such thing as a perfect college. Turns out every college has issues like these. (I know, who knew, right?) I've about had it with people griping about the school. What happened to Philippians 2:14 "Do everything without grumbling or complaining?" Or what about Romans 1:29-32? "They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenenat-breakers, heartless, ruthless. Although they fully know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them." (Please don't take this as I think you should die ...) People hop all over our President for having a book on Postmodernism on his "Books to Read" list. Why is this a bad thing? Additionally, if we have a Chapel speaker come who has a very Postmodern point of view and, perhaps, isn't even 100% in line with the Cedarville's doctrinal statement, this doesn't mean we're ready to go to Hell. Cedarville isn't about spoon feeding it's students a worldview and saying, "Get out of here. Figure the world out yourself." Cedarville is all about presenting the truth from God's word and allowing us to mold our worldview based upon that guide. This way, when we get into the real world, we know how to react to situations on our own, we aren't dependent on a prof to tell us how to react. The anti-Cedarville groups want to the the truth about this so-called "faculty exodus" at Cedarville, claiming it is leading us down the path of Postmodernism, when in reality, the professors were probably fired for violating the Faculty Handbook. The administration at Cedarville has told us the firings were not based on a Theological issue, so they were probably based on misconduct and abuse of authority. Yes, that can get you fired. We really have no reasonable reason to think this isn't true, so making things up and demanding to know the "real" reason for the firings is just ludicrous.

In conclusion, I would like to say this publicly to Dr. Brown, the Board of Trustees, Dr. Ruby, Dr. Milliman, and everyone else in the administration taking all the heat for this: "I love you guys. I appreciate you guys. I respect your decisions, and as far as I'm concerned, this is a 'closed case.' I'm sorry the media and people off campus are printing slanderous things against you and defaming you verbally, but since when has the media actually given a proper representation of something? That doesn't sell stories ... So stay strong! I'm praying for all of you."

Feel free to post any arguments you have with this post. I'm quite open to all points of view, and I will not delete your comment. But no matter what you tell me, I will continue to support our administration. But to those of you who enjoy griping about the rules and expenses associated with Cedarville University and constantly trying to find the schools Biblical faults (and making them up when you can't find them), I wonder ... Why are you coming here?

Tags: Cedarville

Nah, I'm not running for any political office here at Cedarville. However, I am currently attempting to get more votes than Barack Obama and John McCain (I'm not even worried about Hillary) on a poll, so you should go vote for me! It'll take two seconds.

Just click here and cast your vote on the right! That's all there is to it :).

Tags: Jenna, Politics

"Is this smart? Or am I being an idiot?"

This question, among many others, appears impossible for Freshman males to ask themselves. Granted, I am a Freshman, and a male at that, but I'm one of the few who at least partially grasps the concept of being polite.

It's simply ridiculous to walk into a laundry room on campus and see the mounds of clothes strewn about the floor. My sheer frustration with the laundry room has led me to point out so simple etiquette rules that, quite honestly, aren't that hard to follow, guys! But somehow, people still manage to get into silent screaming matches with each other, throwing other's clothes on the floor to "spite" them.

So, let's begin:

Washing Machine Etiquette

• If a washing cycle has not completed, do not remove the clothes from the washer. Of course, by "completed" I mean the washer is completely done, not just almost done. Allow me to be a little more clear; if the washer still says "1 minute" or "2 minutes," this does not constitute as "close enough" and give you permission to pull the wet clothes out and throw them on the floor!
• If the washing cycle completes and there are other people in the laundry room, before pulling the clothes out and throwing them on the floor to collect the dirt back on them that they just washed got off, open your mouth and ask, "Does this washer belong to anyone?" That way, someone else can claim the clothes and empty the washer for you.
• If no one is in the laundry room, or no one claims the washer as their own, do them the simple courtesy of moving the wet clothes to an open dryer. Obviously, you would like it someone saved you this step, so why not do it for them?
• If there are no open dryers for you to move a load of wet laundry into, put them in a basket. Throwing them on the floor completely contradicts the point of a laundry room.
• If by some chance you forget your own detergent, it's not entirely ethical to use someone else's that they left in the laundry room for safekeeping. If there are other people in the laundry room, chances are you could ask and someone would be more than willing to let you use theirs.

Dryer Etiquette

• If a drying cycle has not complete, do not remove the clothes from the dryer. Of course, by "completed" I mean the dryer is completely done, not just almost done. Allow me to be a little more clear; if the dryer still says "1 minute" or "2 minutes," this does not constitute as "close enough" and give you permission to pull the still wet clothes out and throw them on the floor!
• If a drying cycle completes and there are other people in the laundry room, before pulling the clothes out and throwing them on the floor to collect the dirt back on them that they just got washed off, open your mouth and ask, "does this dryer belong to anyone?" That way, someone else can claim the clothes and empty the dryer for you.
• If you move someone else's clothes from a washer to a dryer, start the dryer
• If you move someone else's clothes from a washer to a dryer, put one of your own dryer sheets in with it.
• If there are no open dryers to which to move a load of someone else's wet laundry into, but there is a dryer that has completed it's cycle, unload this dryer and use it.
• Before purloining any open dryers, make sure those dryers are not already claimed by another in the laundry room. Washers and dryers both are on a first-come-first-serve basis, so if someone has been sitting, doing homework in the laundry room for the last 42 minutes, waiting for a dryer to finish, you're a complete jerk if you dash into the laundry room, grab your clothes from your washer, and shove them into that very dryer before the rightful owner of it can. Don't be that guy!
• When unloading a dryer of someone else's clothes, don't show them the same respect you would show your own (because we all know how guys treat their clothes), show them the respect a girl might show their clothes. This means do not pull the clothes out of the dryer and throw them on the floor! Find an empty laundry basket to put the clothes in.
• If you cannot find an empty laundry basket in which to put someone else's clothes from a dryer, place the clothes on top of something else, like a washing machine. (NOT the garbage cans, guys.)
• Never, on any circumstances, should you put someone else's clothes from a dryer that you want into a basket full of other clothes! Mixing clothes that do not belong to the same person is just stupid and irresponsible.
• If by some chance you forget your own dryer sheets, it's not entirely ethical to use someone else's that they left in the laundry room for safekeeping. If there are other people in the laundry room, chances are you could ask and someone would be more than willing to let you use theirs.
• Additionally, if you are taking clothes back to your own room, make sure you use your own laundry basket, or a laundry basket marked "Laundry Room." If the laundry basket has a name written on it, or even looks like a nice, unmarked laundry basket (unlike the one's provided by the laundry room) that someone actually purchased, do not take it back to your room with you! We understand, of course, that you mean to bring it back to the laundry room; no, you would never steal it. But we all also know that you'll forget to take it back for about a week, and you're causing the true owner of the basket large amounts of undue grief.

Honestly, guys, it's no wonder girls say we're incompetent as males.

Tags: Cedarville