Welcome to Earth

I just watched the Daily Show. Tonight they had Stephen Colbert's ever popular "this week in God", a segment in which he pokes modest fun at religions all over the world. Tonight he touched on scientology - a religion I've heard about only in the last few years, but never bothered to learn anything about. I felt compelled to read up on it a bit tonight, because all Colbert really did to "poke fun" was to give a quick summary of the scientology belief system. There was something he said about aliens being chained to volcanos and then nuked with hydrogen bombs, eventually becoming ghosts that inhabit all humans (except for the scientologists, who are, of course, the only ones capable of eliminating said ghosts). Now say what you want about other religions... but I thought he was joking. I thought scientology was a sort of semi-religious group with ideas that were more philosophical. Turns out the "science" in scientology stands for "science-fiction". That's because it was created by Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction author.

Now I'm not one to go around poking fun at people's beliefs, so I think I'll take the Colbert approach. I read a little bit (and I'll get some of this wrong, it's off the top of my head) but apparently they believe that several million/billion years ago there was a intergalatic king or ruler of sorts named Lord Xenu or Xanu or something. He got pissed off at a race of creatures called "thetans", so he decided to banish them to Earth (which in scientology is given a nice, Star Trekky sounding name), strap them to volcanos, then blow them up with hydrogen bombs. This explosion caused their bodies to seperate with their souls(?). ANYWAYs, long story short, we as humans have been reincarnating for trillions and gajillions of years, and we have thetans in us now, which is bad, so we have to pay the church of scientology tens of thousands of dollars to relieve us from these thetan things, so that we can reach our full potential.

I'm sure that's not dead on, but it's close enough. Colbert wasn't kidding. Honestly, I've only scratched the surface here.
As I said before, I'm not one to poke fun at people's beliefs, but - this is some pretty trippy stuff. I think it may seriously have something to do with the rapid increase in the number of crystal meth labs popping up around the country.

If you are a scientologist, in other words, you are either drugged out of your mind or a complete idiot. Not to poke fun, of course. Why this is becoming popular is anyone's guess. My guess is that if Hollywood wasn't painting it as the new "cool", none of us would have heard about it.

Not sure why I felt compelled to write about this... I guess I was just shocked that people are actually going for this stuff.

:arrow: Rizzo

Pittsburgh has gone apeshit for hockey in the last little bit, despite last year's NHL lockout, lagging NHL ticket sales and the Steelers' dominance of the sports market in this town. The reason for all this starts with the Penguins having won the #1 overall pick in this year's draft, which allowed them to secure Sidney Crosby, a 17 year old whiz kid from Nova Scotia who many claim could be the next Gretzky. The fans are excited to see Crosby play side by side with Penguins legend Mario Lemieux, who is likely set to retire soon (he's in his 40s). They should make a great team - turns out that Crosby has the second highest points per game average in the Canadian Junior League history - he's beaten out only by Lemieux himself. It'll be cool to see these two players playing underneath the new set of rules. I'm not even a hockey fan and I'm planning to make at least a couple games. Regardless, people from San Diego to Australia are buying season tickets, so it's pretty clear that this is a big deal.

In other sports news, Alex Smith (#1 overall in the NFL draft to the 49ers) was given a contract in San Francisco worth nearly $50 million... the largest ever for a rookie. What pisses me off is that this kid will have made more money by the time he's my age (23) than I will in a lifetime. Bastard.


(Is it just me, or are his eyebrows a little too... uh, tweezy? This kid will get sponsorships from Garnier Fructis and Abercrombie before he gets anything from Nike or Gatorade)


One final note - to anyone who is criticizing Jerry Rice for staying in the game is an idiot. Leave the guy alone, yeah he's old, and he should probably retire for his own good health, but it's obvious that it's not about the numbers and it's not about the money. He just likes to play football, and he's earned his spot. And he's so much less of an asshole than Moss or Owens.

Oh, those of you who don't care about sports? Update from the personal side, I didn't get any of the jobs I applied for. Thousands of dollars of debt for school, and I'm as unemployable as I was when I was 16. Whoopee!
:arrow: Rizzo

I had an interview scheduled for today, but apparently the guy that was supposed to interview me called in sick. Anyways, I blew right through the police exam... out of about 60 or so people, I was the first one finished. Whether or not this is a good thing I'm not sure... I've always tested quickly, whether I did well or not. It was pretty easy though, I think the main intention behind this one was to weed out all the idiots that can't do simple math. There are some more tests ahead, some of which might by pretty tough. The physical exam will be easy, it's the polygraph and psych tests I'm not so sure about. Although I consider myself a pretty good, stable, person (never got into drugs, smuggling slaves, organized crime, or anything like that) you never know what they'll find out when they plug you into these machines. Another thing that has me worried is whether or not I'm big enough. At 5'10, I guess I'm average height by some standards, but the majority of male state cops I've been seeing are absolutely huge - and I don't mean fat. The guy sitting next to the recruiter had to be about 6'6, with arms the size of my head, and I have a pretty big head. I guess I'll be the guy taking fingerprints at the office. Regardless of how it goes, it's going to be a long time before the final selections are made. It'll take a month and a half just for this test to be processed, and the recruiter cited a timeframe of 6 - 9 months before anyone can expect to attend the academy, which in itself is another 6 months. Wow.
I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.
In other news -- did anyone see the Pink Floyd reunion performance at Live8? Freakin awesome.
:arrow: rizzo

Well things are finally starting to move forward for me. After a good year of accomplishing next to nothing, I'm finally getting somewhere. Had an interview this morning for a rehab/case management type of job... not sure how well it'll pay, but sounds much more interesting than my current line of work. Tomorrow morning I'm taking the initial exam for the Pennsyvania State Police - the first of many devices employed over a span of several months to weed out the mentally and physically unfit. Monday I'm going in for an interview for a management position. And they say there's no work to be found in this town. Regardless of what happens, it seems likely that I'll be getting a half-decent job before long.

I do hate these personal, journal-type blog entries, but this is one for the extended family, because they do read this thing. I'll think of something witty to write about in a while (because I'm not going to be doing the daily stuff anymore, I don't have enough mental material left). Peace till then
:arrow: Rizzo