I ordered a new iPod. Which, normally, would be the most significant aspect of this blog post. Alas, it is not. The more exciting story is how it got here.

I ordered the iPod, with a case, on Tuesday. They informed me the items would be shipped separately depending on availability, which was fine by me. I got a shipment confirmation email later that night saying the case had been shipped from Memphis, TN. I checked my email the next morning to find a second shipment confirmation saying my iPod had been shipped from Shanghai CN. In my naivity, I assumed this was Connecticut, which I now realize is CT. At this same time, my case was leaving Memphis, TN.

I checked later that night and found my iPod case had successfully made it to Chicago. My case, on the other hand, was in Anchorage, AK. If AK was Arkansas, this would be closer than Connecticut, but AK is Alaska ... this was when I realized my iPod was coming from China, not Connecticut. In which case Alaska was progress.

I checked my email yet again on Thursday morning to find, to my great surprise, that my iPod was “at the local FedEx facility” in Cedar Rapids already! Apparently overnight it had gone from Alaska, to Indianapolis, to Cedar Rapids. One thing I found ironic was that it didn’t get an International Shipment Release until it went from Alaska to Indianapolis ... does that mean Alaska isn’t a part of the US according to FedEx? Anyway, back to my case ... it was still in Chicago for some reason. It hung out there for a while until it was finally shipped to Ottumwa, IA and loaded on a truck for delivery.

I was pretty excited; two days later and both my packages were going to arrive on the same day. Now if I could only get my paws on them before anyone else did and made me sing for them ... :P. (In case you don’t know, if you receive a package or three letters int he same day at the camp I work at, you have to sing or tell a joke in chapel for it.)

Ben, Jesse, and I were in the shop working on ... *cough* ... something. And we saw Mr. FedEx man pull in. Though, strangely, he didn’t come all the way to camp. He stopped at the house at the front of the lane. That’s Ben’s house. Definitely not 1433 F52 Trail, which is the shipping address I specified. Ben’s house is 1426, I think. The camp is 1433. This is clearly marked with numbers on Ben’s house. Even still, Mr. FedEx man insisted on delivering to the wrong location. I jumped into the truck and drove down the lane to snatch my package from the delusioned delivery men.

I got to Ben’s house just as they were about to pull out of the driveway and leave. “I have a package here for Alex,” said Mr. FedEx man after I waved him down. “I think you’re supposed to be delivering this to 1433, which is just down the lane from here.” He looked at me for a little while, unsure of what to say, and finally said, “Are you Alex?” I took his electronic thingy and put my John Hancock on it. I traded him his electronic thingy for my package and double-checked to make sure the delivery address was, in fact, 1433. It was. Shame on you FedEx.

Sadly, this package was just the case. The iPod itself was coming on some bigger and better truck, all the way from China! I figured it would come later in the afternoon, and I knew Joy was in the office to sign for it, so I felt safe taking a nap at 2:30.

I awoke from my nap at 4:30 and wandered dizzily over to the chapel to see if my package had come. “Not yet,” Joy informed me. I sat down at the computer to look at my tracking number. To my frustration, it said, “Delivery exception: Customer not available or business closed - signature required.” 4:24. Sarah came back from her house at this time, holding up one of those door hanger things they leave if you’re not home. They had just been there and delivered to the wrong place again!!

Needless to say, I was frustrated ... two seperate FedEx men tried to deliver my packages to the wrong address. What if that house hadn’t been Ben’s house? Someone else might be holding my iPod right now! Joy called FedEx Customer Service immedietly and tried to get the truck to turn around, but the lady on the phone was rather rude and mostly just wanted to get Joy off the phone, so the call was to no avail.

To redeem the second FedEx man, he came back on Friday while Joy, Jesse and I were sitting in the office, this time he came all the way to the camp and delivered my package. At least I have both of my packages now. Still, something about these deliveries seems very unprofessional ... if you pulled up to a house that was in the driveway to a camp and the owner wasn’t home, wouldn’t your first thought be, “I’ll bet he’s at the camp ...” No. Your first thought probably should have been to look at the house number :p.

Tags: East Iowa Bible Camp, Apple, Mail

We all have to share the world with them; bugs. Those nasty, annoying, flying creatures that oh-so-love to munch behind your ears and up your nose. They have numorous advantages over us. First of all, and most obviously, they can fly! Secondly, they’re so tiny, they’re difficult to whack and kill. Thirdly, they can easily land on you and bite you before you even realize it, thus causing a scratchy bump. Finally, they generally fly in swarms, which just adds to the frustration of those of us who don’t want to be eaten alive.

I hate gnats. I try to remember that they’re creations of God just like frogs, pandas, and me, but they still bother me.

Today, Ben and I were digging up border of the playground at camp in order to put new boards in for holding the mulch. We also added some tile so the water would drain down the hill without carrying most of the mulch with it after a hard rain :P. The gnats have been terrible at camp lately (and that’s a severe understatement) due to the exceptionally wet ground. In case you’ve been living in a hole for the last month, Iowa has gotten way too much rain lately. That gnats enjoy this. Ben and I didn’t. We were their meal.

I was trying to be as manly as possible, but I failed miserably. When you have twenty gnats feeding on you at one time it’s nearly impossible to not scream like a Junior High girl. Ben was too, which made me feel a little better. It struck fear in my heart to actually see the swarm of gnats around Ben’s head.

Then there was Krista. For relief, Ben and I retreated (running and screaming) into the kitchen to construct a new plan of attack towards the gnats. It’s difficult to get any work done when you’re being eaten alive. “Do you want to try some vanilla extract?” inquired Krista. At this point, Ben and I were desperate enough to try anything. I felt a bit strange taking a wash cloth and rubbing vanilla all over myself, but it definitely did smell better than bug spray. We rubbed it all over our arms, neck, face, and, for good measure, I put some under my shirt on my stomach and back.

We each took deep breathes and headed back into the battle zone. But a strange thing happened. Not a single gnat touched us! The swarm of gnats around Ben’s head? Gone! The gnats didn’t even think about coming near us, let alone landing on us. Jesse came out after drumming to help us finish up, and we immedietly sent him to the kitchen to bathe in vanilla.

Even though bugspray is cheaper than vanilla extract (by only a few dollars), vanilla extract works significantly better ... and it also makes you smell pretty. We decided to put some into a spritz bottle for regular use. Krista potentially saved our life, and we’re forever endebted to her.

Tags: East Iowa Bible Camp

*** SPOILER WARNING ***

M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated movie?! Oy vey. Could you not think of a better way to market this, Shyamalan? The trailers were good until the most recent one was released with the narrator saying, "The director who brought you The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable now brings you his first R-rated movie." Really? Do I cared what the movie is rated? Convince me to go see it some other way ...

However, the trailers did convince me to go see it. I enjoy Shyamalan's movies and the twists he chooses to put in them, so I thought I would give this one a try too. If you haven't seen the a preview for the movie and don't at least know the synopsis, click here or here. Then again, if you haven't seen a the movie or even a preview, why are you reading my blog post that starts with "SPOILER WARNING?"

The Happening stars Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) Moore in a Horror/Thiller/Drama movie in which an event seems to be killing people in the Northeast of the United States. Initial thoughts are that the virus was released (airborne) by terrorists, but it is later understood (and even given away in the trailer) than it is a natural virus. It seems to start in city parks and then spread from there, taking smaller and smaller populations as it goes. The first stages of the virus cause you to lose speech and simple motor skills. The second stage causes you to become disoriented, and the third stage causes you to kill yourself. Though all three stages happen within a few moments of each other. Elliot and Alma along with their best friends daughter, Jess, are on the run, trying to escape the virus' fatal spread. Unfortunately, everywhere they try to run to seems to be the next place the virus breaks out.

The movie is rated R for violent and disturbing images. Which, for a movie about people killing themselves, you would think that would make sense. However, the people I went with and myself can't seem to figure out where the disturbing images were. The movie wasn't too graphic; it mostly left the goriest details up the to viewer's imagination, as any good director will. (Yah, sorry Quentin Tarantino.) There was no language, and no inappropriate sexual material of any kind to help warrant an R-rating. I don't work for the MPAA, but according to their lousy standards, I'd say the movie should be PG-13. Maybe they're trying to make up for all the movies they accidently rated PG-13 that should have been rated R.

In and of itself, the movie was alright. However, when you bring it into perspective and realize that M. Night Shyamalan was the writer and directed, it becomes far more disappointing. For one thing, there was no twist! (There may have been a twist, which I will discuss in a moment, but it's a far stretch.) This is going to be a huge turn off for Shyamalan fans. However, far more painfully, the dialog was a lot of terribly cheesy one-liners, usually coming from Mark Wahlberg's mouth. When you understand the movie is a Sci-Fi Thriller, it could be an entertaining watch without the horrid scripting.

One theory my friends and I came up with is that the movie may have been an attempt by Shyamalan to lessen to Earth's population. Since it was a movie about killing yourself, and we were all feeling horribly depressed about spending $6.50 and wasting an hour and a half of our time on it.

On a brighter note, the movie did have excellent sound mixing and creative camera shots, which Shyamalan has always been good at. I would certainly sit down and watch the movie again simply for the fact that it was well directed on the video/audio side. It's just a shame it missed the mark completely when it went through scripting. If you're into that sort of thing, watch the movie for those elements. In fact, I'd recommend the movie because it is a good movie with a shallow script. However, since the majority of people care more about the overall plot more than the audio/video aspect of the movie, I'll critique that.

Within the first few minutes of the movie my friends and I placed it was most likely going to be an environmentalist movie. It was. The "twist," if you want to call it that, may have been that we need to think carefully before infecting the Earth's plants with our pollution. They might get mad at us for it and try to kill us.

If you stretch your mind a lot, you may realize that the character Alma Moore's name is the Spanish word for "soul." Though a bit far fetched (a bit?), it may be more comforting to think that Shyamalan's twist was that everyone in the movie had lost their soul (the ability for their heart and mind to reason with each other). That the virus never really existed at all, and that the entire epidemic was psychological. At the beginning of the movie, people start killing themselves due to the alleged virus. It is then broadcast over nationwide news that a virus seems to be infecting victims in parks. They describe the initial signs and say the final stage is that you kill yourself. People freak out and begin to believe what they're hearing, then they start to believe they to are getting the virus. People love to believe what they here, even if it is detrimental to their health. (War of the Worlds, anyone?) This is simply one theory, and there are no reports that Shyamalan intended for this. More than likely he meant to have no twist at all.

I liked Filmcritic.com's comment on the movie saying, "Instead of scares [...] we get unintentional laughs. Instead of though provoking sci-fi speculation, we get the Alan Tichmarsh version of Armageddon." All too true. The parts of the movie which seemingly were planned to be the scariest end up being the parts where the majority of the theater was trying not to chuckle.

Though the movie was significantly better than Shyamalan's last ditch effort, Lady in the Water, and actually had a plot, unlike Cloverfield, he falls short of his reputation on so many levels, it's sad. I hope he hasn't completely lost his touch and can direct another fine movie in the years to come.

Tags: Movies

1. "Why did The Happening suck so bad?"
2. "At around 5:20 pm in Iowa City, IA, over Coral Ridge Mall, was there a funnel cloud or any reports of a tornado?"
3. "Can males wear earrings in the '08-'09 semesters at Cedarville University?"
4. "Who is Alex Laird of Iowa?"
5. "How does ChaCha make money?"

Ever used Google's free SMS service? You can text it questions that are understood by it's simply search application database: Questions like "Showtimes, 52328" or "Weather, 45314" to receive the showtimes for movie theaters near Robins, IA or the weather around Cedarville, OH. The answering service is simple and usually replies within a few seconds. You can text Google SMS at GOOGL (46645). It's very convenient for simple questions, but far too often you ask it more complicated questions and it replies with a "I do not understand" message. Alas, there is only so much a computer can do ...

ChaCha takes Google SMS to the next level. Everything Google's smart app can't answer, ChaCha can! Simply text ChaCha (242242) or call 1-800-2CHACHA and ask it any question (including the ones above) to receive an in depth, personally researched answer! That's right. ChaCha has an army of "Guide's" (as they call them) waiting to personally investigate your question and send you a text message answer in reply. Usually there answer will be around 160 characters, but if the answer is too long they'll send you multiple texts. This is nice because it means the Guide won't ramble on, but it also gives them enough room to sufficiently answer the question. In general, the guides to a good job of being concise and even keeping the messages lighthearted and humorous.

Here are the answers to my aforementioned questions, in the same order:

1. "I haven't seen it yet, but if the director is calling it a B movie, then it probably sucks b/c he didn't put enough into it."
2. "Could have been, no info on the web yet about it, sources say Iowa City flooding could be worse than 1993!"
3. "All forms of facial jewelry, other than earrings for females, are prohibited both on and off campus. No males are not allowed."
4. "Alex Laird is a college student at Cedarville University in Iowa. He enjoys writing and computer programming as hobbies."
5. "The company charges consumers nothing, but it says it his hoping to make money by striking deals with cellphone carries to incorporate the ChaCha service into their current 411 phone-number-look-up service. Also, it hopes to eventually include ads in the text message answers it provides."

Pretty good answers. Too bad Cedarville is in Ohio, but at least they called it a University and not just a college!

Guides get paid 20 cents every time they answer question. Additionally, ChaCha has a search engine (ChaCha Classic) online similar to that of Google. Additionally, you can call the 800 number, record your brief question, and they will text you an answer back. Anyone can sign up to be a Guide; you must take a brief questionnaire/quiz to make sure you are qualified to quickly and efficiently answer people's questions. Interestingly, all of the ChaCha services are 100% free, including ChaCha Classic. ChaCha Classic doesn't even contain targeted ads like Google's search does, so there is obviously no income for ChaCha that way. Even if ChaCha does plan on incorporating ads into the texts at a later date or making a deal for 411 incorporation with cell phone providers, that doesn't explain how they pay for their services here and now, especially considering what their Guides get paid and how many Guides they have! The only way I currently see them making money is off of their store.

Not that I'm complaining. Free always has been and shall always remain the best way to go. In the future, if you have a quick and easy question you need answered (like the definition of "inundated," movie showtimes for Columbus, OH, or the Spanish word for "cat"), Google SMS is the way to go since it frequently replies within seconds. However, it's reassuring to know you can have ANY question answered ANYtime simply with a question 160 characters or less.

Tags: Internet, Google

Well, it's happened again! I submitted a picture to The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks a few weeks back, and it's just recently been added to the site! This one was on a ramp (obviously) in a homeless shelter some friends and I were volunteering at in Dayton, Ohio. It was in the Employees Only section, so it doesn't get seen too often, but I was lucky enough to witness it :). (Aren't you glad we have cameras on our cell phones?)

As a side note, I just realized I don't even have a link to The Blog under my favorite blogs! Sorry, Bethany. I'm fixing that now!

For the post on The Blog, click here.

Tags: Blog, Quotation Marks