J-Dubb's Moral of the Week

Always remember to practice good hygene.

Close Encounters

So I found this blog which updates regularly with footage of UFO and alien sightings. I thought this was a pretty interesting idea, so I decided to try it out on my blog. So, utilizing my extensive knowledge of government security from my time in the military and hiring the worlds best underground hackers, I've managed to dig up these photos from the highest classified files of several governments. These are actual photos that prove the existence of extra terrestrials. Honest*.

Here you can see a silhouetted saucer shape in the sky.

This picture clearly depicts a saucer shaped aircraft.

This one is really bizarre. It almost looks like a blimp, but if you look closely, it is clearly a flat disk with a drip shape on the bottom. Also, notice how it seems to be reflecting the mountains underneath it. Truly an amazing specimen.

This paintball tournament has been crashed by an unexpected guest.

This picture is especially shocking. Here you can see a saucer shaped explosion at the world trade center. Everyone who's flunked out of physics knows that saucer shaped explosions can only be made by saucer shaped objects. Now we know the truth about 911.

Here is footage of a spacecraft abducting what appears to be a circus clown.

Now, weird craft could be piloted by anybody. But here's the amazing part. Actual contact with alien life.

Here is an extra terrestrial being held captive by the government for shoplifting at Walmart.

Here are a couple of aliens hard at work.

Here's two more bizarre extra terrestrials.

And this is probably the most convincing evidence of extra terrestrial life.

*The definition of the word honest as used in this particular blog entry is subject to interpretation.

Superstar of the Week is Alec Baldwin

What? It's been six months since the last Superstar of the Week? Nonsense.

Legend of the Green Dragon

Check out the Legend of the Green Dragon on Jon Dodson's blog. LoGD is a comical take off of Seth Able's RPG style game, Legend of the Red Dragon. LoGD is an all text game which places you in a mysterious village which is constantly plagued by a menacing Green Dragon. The player works their way up 14 levels untill they are ready to face the dragon. Each dragon kill results in a higher rank, ie, start out as a Farmboy/girl and work your way up to warrior and centurian and so on. LoGD includes in game chatting with other players, pvp fights, several mini games, and implied sexual encounters. It's a highly addictive game, but fortunately, each player is limited in their amount of fights per day for those of us who have other things to do with our time. So check it out: Legend of the Green Dragon

New Banner: The Making of

As you can see I have a new banner for this site, so I thought it would be cool to have a making of post showing the different steps in this banner process.


Here I am chilling with a smoke while reading the Odyssy and the Iliad in my computer chair.


Here's a nice chair to sit in.


And here I am, relaxing in this nice study chair.


Here I am reclining beside a nice cozy fireplace


And here's my technical support crew.

Wait a minute, what was I thinking? That's an actual room in my house where I like to cozy up by the fire with a smoke and a good book.

New Crack Kills

Posted 5 more CK's the other day, plus I added to the intro. Once I post these old CK's they will be categorized as Classic Crack Kills, because they're pretty different from the stuff I do now days, and the new ones will be current or something like that.

http://crackkillswebsite.googlepages.com

Final Paper

This was may final paper for my writing class. I thought I'd post this one too:

Removal of Forests

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In the 1800’s, non-native American settlers began cutting down trees in the Pacific Northwest in order to make room for progress and civilization. Towards the 1900’s, people became aware of the commercial benefits of timber. In the 70’s and 80’s, people began to notice that certain species, such as the spotted owl, are linked to the old growth forests. Decades of cutting and planting lead people to believe that the development of these forests was caused by specific conditions that could not be duplicated. This lead to over a dozen lawsuits, three of which involved total gridlock, by 1992 (Northwest Forest Plan Historic Overview www.reo.gov).

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Clearcutting threatens many species such as the afore mentioned spotted owl, the marbled murrelett, anadromous fish, and many others. As well, many environmental issues such as soil and water degradation, unsightly landscapes, and other damages can occur. Since forests bring such controversy into the otherwise fun-loving Pacific Northwest, I suggest the complete removal of all trees and forests from this area. Without forests, the clearcutting problem would be solved, as there would be nothing to clearcut. As well, extinction of certain species, and environmental problems associated with clear cutting would cease to be a threat which looms around the corner. People would be able to relax, rather than living in anxiety over what the future holds.

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Forest removal can have health benefits and contribute to the well-being of society. According to ehealthmd.com, worrying is a problem which plagues every person on the planet at some point. Bouts of worry, brought on by anxiety over the future, referred to as “what if” thoughts, can be uncontrollable and devastating, leading to depression. Depression can lead to fatigue, body aches, and susceptibility to disease. These factors not only put ones health at risk, as per Mark Tyrrell of depression.com, but endanger ones employment and relationship life as well.

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Naturally, it would be wise to remove as many anxieties as possible form ones life, such as the threats brought on by Clearcutting. Being a problem which plagues the entire northwest region, forest removal would make the Pacific area a much healthier and happier place to live.

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Also, since many animals are suffering due to the destruction of their habitats, the humane thing to do would be to put them out of their misery. Removal of the forests would be an efficient way to do this, as it would leave these animals vulnerable to predators and other dangers, effectively ending their lives, and their pain. This in turn, would provide food for these predators, leaving animals such as deer for human hunters. On top of this, with their extinction, endangered animals like the spotted owl would no longer be endangered.

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Valuable tax dollars are spent on organizations like, the Bureau of Land management, the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Northwest Forest Plan. Without these organization, our taxes can go toward other things like education and law enforcement.

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For decades, the timber industry has been frowned upon by many northwesterners with environmental views. This has brought on many disputes which interfere with the lives of your average Joe Oregon and Jane Washington. Many people, after a hard day of work, would love to flip on the news and see coverage of accidents, wars, and floods. But often times, much of the news air time is taken up by depressing things such as reports of environmental disputes. Removal of the forests would result in the relocation of the timber industry, to other parts of the nation where the population doesn’t hold as low an opinion of the timber industry as many in the northwest do.

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Environmental activists can be a nuisance, as well. Activists involve themselves in demonstrations which can impede daily progress. These demonstrations include activities such as, blocking roads, disturbing the peace, harassing pedestrians, and littering. With the displacement of the timber industry, many of these activists will follow suit in order to protest in other locations.

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Old growth forest stands in the way of urban development and human progress. In 1994, Portland’s apartment vacancy rates dropped below three percent (Woodard 22101). Efforts were made to increase the amount of apartments on the market, but the latter half of the nineties saw a growth of 25 percent. This number was greater than the growth rates of both Seattle and San Francisco at the time. Then, in 2005, the vacancy dropped below five percent. In this time, the number of households earning less than $26,000 annually have increased from 1990 to 1997, while the number of affordable housing units have actually decreased.

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According to wilderness.org, in the Central Cascade Mountains in Washington, alone, around 500,000 acres of land has changed from covered to non-covered during a 14 year period as a result of logging and urban development. Construction and logging has increased the amount of forest edge habitat, exposing them to negative impacts from the forest edge zone. As well, construction and logging has decreased the average forest patch as well as the size of the average forested core area. High wilderness value areas are almost non-existent outside of national parks and congressionally designated wilderness.

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Because of these things, it’s obvious that the northwest is in a time of undergoing great change. During these times, it is important to let go of things which have outlived their usefulness, such as old growth forests and the species which depend on them. This trend of deforestation is a direct result of the population boom that is taking place within the Pacific Northwest. This expanse in population calls for the immediate decrease in forest area in order to make room for all of the newcomers. It’s time to embrace the future of the northwest as a booming urban region. After all, the population of Portland was only 529,121 as of 2000. We have a lot of catching up to do in order to reach the level of areas like Los Angeles or San Antonio.

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Another benefit to removing the trees is to clear up that pesky sasquatch mystery. Since 1811, there have been hundreds of sightings of sasquatch, or, Bigfoot, the legendary creature resembling the Yeti of Himalayan myth (Lindemans pantheon.org). Many stories, fuzzy pictures, and out of focus videos have turned up over the years, as well, many giant footprints have been found. We still have yet to find any concrete evidence of the creatures existence, however. With the removal of forests, the supposed habitat of the sasquatch, it is likely that corpses of sasquatch will be found, finally proving that this being did in fact once exist before the destruction of its habitat. This also serves to eliminate a possible threat. According to witness accounts, this creature stands about 6’9” with footprints measuring between 16 and 20 inches. This beast, being larger than the average human, would prove difficult to subdue, and poses a possible threat, if it exists, to residents and visitors of the Pacific Northwest region.

Therefore, I propose the removal of all forests from the Pacific Northwest. These forests are the subject of much conflict and controversy, adding much unneeded drama to peoples lives. These forests also pose as a nuisance to the developing region and contain several threats. This is why I suggest action be taken to rid ourselves of these forests as soon as possible.

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Works Cited

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Northwest Forest Plan. “Northwest Forest Plan Historic Overview.” general/history http://www.reo.gov

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EHealth MD. “What is Worry?” library October 2004 http://www.ehealthmd.com

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Tyrrell, Mark. “The Physical Effects of Depression.” 2001-2006 http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk

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Woodard, Josh “Housing Boom, Housing Bust.” 22101 26 Apr- 2 May 2001
<>

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The Wilderness Society. “Cascade Crest Forests: Forest Loss, Habitat Fragmentation, and Wildness.” library < http://www.wilderness.org/>

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US Census 2000. “Portland City, Oregon Statistics and Demographics.” 2000 <http://portlandor.areaconnect.com/>

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Lindemans, Micha F. “Sasquatch.” articles 3 March 1997 - 10 March 2002 <http://www.pantheon.org/>

And Five More

http://crackkillswebsite.googlepages.com

Five new Crack Kills'

http://crackkillswebsite.googlepages.com

Commercialization in America

This is a paper from my writing class. My instructor suggested I blog it:

According to Wikipedia.org, commercialism is defined as the practices and aims of commerce and business. The contemporary use of the word tends to be derogatory, referring to capitalisms tendency to objectify every element of life in order to gain profit. Commercialization is the process in which the value of things, both tangible and ideal, such as happiness, are objectified. Public services become outsourced to private companies. If an artist “sells out”, they have become commercialized.

It’s safe to say that Americans live to buy. I’ve heard the argument over living to work versus working to live, but these statements have become irrelevant for the most part. Many Americans don’t so much live to work, as being willing to prostitute themselves to employment in order to buy the latest model of plasma screen TV.

Youssef Khodaparast, an economics instructor at Portland Community College, Sylvania, says that in order to be happy, humans must consume. Now it can be argued that no matter where or when you live, you’re always consuming. After all, you’ve got to eat, right? This kind of thinking just goes to show that these people don’t realize what they are really capable of. How often do they sit there and just start to grin for no apparent reason? Have they ever taken a minute to just sit there and think, “you know, everything’s going to be alright,”? When you can really enjoy living, you find that the only thing that is required for happiness, is nothing. Now, this of course is an extreme. There’s nothing wrong with consumption, but it is no secret that people in America tend to take their buying way too seriously.

From day one, Americans are constantly bombarded with the message that in order to fill the void, they need to posses something new. And how do they know what to buy? Commercials tell it all. After all, people throughout the history of humanity have been sleeping incorrectly until the invention of the Sleep Number® bed.

People are constantly subjected to commercials on a subconscious level. Advertising influences peoples behavior everyday without them even realizing it, because it hits them subliminally. One of the most prominent mediums for advertising is television. This is also one of the easiest ways to influence peoples thoughts. The reason for this, according to Nelson in, The Perfect Machine, is that when people watch TV, their brains switch from beta waves, where critical thinking takes place, to passive alpha waves, placing people in a trance state (qtd. in Robertson 24). When people watch TV, no matter what they’re watching, their brain activity is equivalent to staring at a blank wall. It is easier to suggest things to people on a subconscious level because people hear without paying close attention, therefore, no critical thinking.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with advertising to sell your product, but today’s advertising focuses on exploiting peoples fears and insecurities, and is detrimental to our psychological well-being. The media tells us what the ideal person is, creating inadequacies in people, until they see no alternative other than to purchase these miracle products to remedy their supposed inadequacies. There’s a company called “Double your Dating”, or DYD, which caters to men who want to improve their relationship life. DYD, owned by a man who goes by the pseudonym, David DeAngelo, began as a downloadable e-book on the psychology behind “picking up” women, factors that will increase and hinder success in this area, along with seminars and workshops hosted by DeAngelo. DYD then expanded it’s base to include such products as, “Interviews with Dating Gurus”, a monthly CD subscription Where DeAngelo interviews other people related to the “pickup” field. It is now a multimillion dollar corporation. It sounds beneficial, but, DYD advertises by playing on peoples fear, by using phrases like, “sexual insecurity shows”, and building up the anxiety just before professing to have the answer. When the victim purchases these products, they only rephrase what was said in the advertisements, leading people to continuously buy the next products, hoping that each progressive one will contain the answer.

Another method of advertising is to play off of the self-herding sheep mentality. In a flock of sheep, if one sheep moves, the rest follow. Any stragglers will be rounded up by the sheep dog. Human society is similar to a flock of sheep, with one exception: people herd themselves without the aid of a sheep dog. Advertisers know that people are afraid to straggle from the flock, or else they’ll be attacked and ostracized, and so they set societal norms within their advertising.

According to the historian, John Brewer, this phenomenon actually began in the 1700’s in England. With the outset of kings and aristocrats, a new cultural industry stepped in. These people of the new middle class owned academies, theatres, concert halls, and coffee shops. As monarchy and the old system became archaic, culture became a commodity with a price.

According to Michael Schudson, critics of American consumption fall into three camps. The first of these is known as the Puritans. These believe that mass-production has repercussions on peoples spiritual lives, ie “people are possessed by their possessions” (Pallattella par 5). The problem is not hedonism, but diminishing appreciation for the material world.

The second group is the Quakers. The Quakers objection is towards the wasteful, lackluster nature of consumer goods. They appreciate, however, the technological improvements which make goods more efficient.

The third camp is the republicans, who disapprove of the corruption of public life by the celebration of consumption. Being satisfied with products takes precedence over the fulfillment of ones potentials. Critical thinking and reflection is eliminated from leisure time.

Americans spend their lives trying to keep up with the Joneses. The Joneses, by the way, used to live next door, but they’ve bought a mansion in the rich district and are a lot harder to keep up with now days. But none the less, America is trying to keep up with them. We’re a nation full of wealthy people and depression is on the rise. When will we stop trying to buy our fulfillment?

Works Cited

Palattella, John. “Consumerism: We are What we Buy.” Pen-L 52 9 Jan. 2000
< http://archives.econ.utah.edu>

University of Oregon Campus Recycling. “America’s Crazed Consumerism.” events_topics 3 Dec. 2001 < http://www.uoregon.edu>

Nelson, Joyce. The Perfect Machine 82 Die Off qtd Tom Robertson. 24 1992 <http://dieoff.org>

Wikipedia. “Commercialism.” 28 July 2004 -23 May 2006 < http://en.wikipedia.org>

Crack Kills

What's up. I decided to take a break from not posting for awhile. I just started the webpage for my comic, "Crack Kills". I started Crack Kills when I was in highschool. When me and my freind, Jon got bored in school(the same Jon who I'm still freinds with today), we would draw comics that mostly featured people getting hit with big mallets. Eventually I started incorporating regular characters into my comics. When I was in techschool for the airforce, I drew the oyster comic, which was one of the origionals, on my paper nametag that we made to set in front of us when we were in class. My freind Jay wrote "crack kills" next to the comic. Many years later, after I had gotten out of the military, inspired partly by Jons web comic, Hank the Squirrel and a video called the Lonliest Cloud, I decided to redo all the comics that I had done on the computer and call them Crack Kills. Jon posted them on his website for awhile. Recently, I decided to make a Crack Kills website, so I'm posting five out of 40 of them per week.

Post Deleted

Yeah, uh, nevermind.

Post Deleted

Yeah, uh, nevermind.

Little Time

Yeah, uh, sorry. I haven't had much time to write my own stuff so I just copy and pasted a bunch of stuff together. In the meantime, here's something to keep you entertained.

A real event that really happened

So today I flew into Salt Lake and out of Portland at 7:30am. I had to get up at 5:30am to get to the airport on time. I usually don’t get up that early, so that was somewhat different. I was not too tired, so it wasn’t too bad I guess. It was pretty icy though, had to take it easy on 205 to the airport. We had some stuff at the place we used to live, so we went over and picked it all back up. We fed our chickens, which we had to give up(we fear the neighborhood cats would kill them) and talked to Rob some. Rob purchased a new laptop that I dub the “Toshiba Bling.” Its pretty nice.

Then I realized, the Roy rocks dude needed the rock sign, because if he is rockin to Roy, he has it up. I rap in the shower. I have, in my head a few dozen songs which I think I might record sometime. They have mostly been stuff about Christianity and death. I am not sure why those two topics have been running around in my mind lately. They are not terribly funny, nor do they make sense. But I was in a pretty odd mood last night. I think I might make some more, it was fun to write these up. It is a very interesting video, so instead of watching some T.V. show about models who try to pass as real people that get into odd situations that are too hilarious, take a dose of music history. Though I warn you, unlike the latest NBC super awesome new reality emergency room drama featuring wisecracking interns and staff, this video actually caters to a point.

And it turns out that I posted before I checked… Boing Boing. Oh well at least I did not post about my sweet new money laudering scheme I am taking part in with some cool people in Nigeria! Getting free content is not too hard, you just have to look for it. Now some might find that interesting, but if I was reading my blog, I would have tuned out after Mickey Mouse promised pro-killing nonsense.

Anyways, just wanted to step back and paint the fun picture that was yesterday. Rush our is upon us, so it was slow goings.

So our new goats name is Teresa, but I call it Goatwich. OK, now its not Goatwich as in sandwich, I am not thinking of this goat as food. If you have seen the totally rad-ass movie enemy mine, then it would make sense. OK, still doesn’t make sense and you have seen enemy mine? OK, well the alien dude in enemy mine that Louis Gosset Jr. played called the human dude that Dennis Quaid played “darwich.” So, before we had decided on Teresas name, I called her Goatwich, so to me, it stuck. Anyways, Goatwich it is.

Oh right, and if you have never seen Enemy Mine, WATCH IT! Its basically an allegory to racism, but this one has a few spaceship dog fights, laser guns, hostile planets and slave traders! Seriously, its like Driving Mrs. Daisy except with aliens and laser guns! Oh and I think we all wanted to see Mrs. Daisy get offed with a turbo-x-quasar-blaster. Anyways, Enemy Mine good, watch it.

Oh, Mike, when I was at George Fox, a janitor had a delorian. Almost everyday I would pass this seriously cool car. As far as I am concerned, they are the coolest cars ever made. If I was ever able to ride one and make it to 88, I do believe that might be one of the coolest things ever.

*All above content is borrowed from jdodson.org

Thursday

Jon's Blog

Here is an advertizement for Jons blog.

Note from the future:  This link has been inactive for a long time. (And in that time, I've learned how to use possessive apostrophes.) Jon does not wish the original video to be re-uploaded, so instead, I linked it to a video he made around the same time, featuring his friend, Rob, getting a drink of water.

Superstar of the Week is John Tyler

The Best Blond Joke Ever

Alright, I was trying to think of something to update my blog with earlier. Well, I finally found something. This is THE best blond joke I've ever heard. I was rolling so hard I almost choked to death on my #11 from Carl's Jr. So anyway, here's the link.

The best blonde joke ever

Note from the future: The original link, and subsequent links, no longer exist. Basically, it was a chain of links, all claiming to link to "The Best Blonde Joke", and then linking to the next page which claims to link to "The Best Blond Joke" continually, forever. Almost no trace of this joke, which mostly operated from Live Journal, still exists on on the internet, today. So, I've redirected the link, to an article which discusses this old forgotten meme, with a slightly different take.

Superstar of the Week is Courtney Love