tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-107371812011-12-29T10:39:13.757-05:00The Strongest Grip On Literary MasturbationD. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.comBlogger501100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-34085677697246239052011-07-21T15:11:00.010-05:002011-07-24T13:00:48.699-05:00

I have already written at length my thoughts about the Transformers and, more specifically, about the Michael Bay interpretations of the beloved franchise. With the recent release of the third movie, I have been hesitant to write up anything about it because I feel as if I don't really have anything new to say. So, I write now with the risk of repeating myself or typing up a straight, boring

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-18093155713273505422011-05-30T17:02:00.009-05:002011-05-30T20:26:52.276-05:00

My grandfather has been dead for two years and, in the spirit of Memorial Day (he was a veteran of World War II), I wanted to relay my thoughts of his life and his death that I wrote on the day of his funeral.The modern idea of a hero is very specific and comes in two types: there is the one who wears a cape and his underwear on the outside––somehow this makes him super––and the other is the

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-54290090572093132882010-07-05T19:11:00.039-05:002010-07-06T23:08:21.059-05:00

Since Eben07 is a comic––true, it's more accurately a webcomic, but the fact remains that whether on the internet or on the page a comic is a comic is a comic (apologies to Gertrude Stein, deceased)––I would like to share a moment in my life: my first comic book. It seems too clean and unlikely a situation where my first comic ended up being 1991's prestigious and ubiquitous X-Men #1, a landmark

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-84867854654124831382009-06-29T13:23:00.007-05:002009-06-29T14:11:42.874-05:00

For the uninitiated, let me lay down an interesting fact about movies, specifically movie theaters and their methods of film projection.Until movie theaters switch completely to digital projection, films played at movie theaters are done so via prints. A print is the industry term for a single copy of a movie that is rented by a movie theater. A print is rather a rather large thing made of a

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-16091109042122279612009-05-25T04:05:00.007-05:002009-05-25T18:13:36.761-05:00

Book Referenced:The Goon: Nothin' But Misery by Eric Powellpublished by Dark Horse Comics___________________________Is it heresy to boast about a print comic on the site of a web-based comic? How about for a webcomic author such as myself to proclaim Mr. Ripley-level devotion to a print comicker? Fifteen years ago you would have heard me pine to be anywhere near Jim Lee. Luckily, the creators

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-13516190008532647972009-04-09T23:46:00.002-05:002009-04-09T23:48:51.409-05:00

As we all know, the transition from disc (or, for the old school, cartridge) to screen when talking about movies inspired by video games has been a taxing experience for fans of both games and film. While debates enrage about the few (if any) successes, we can agree that there has not yet been a The Dark Knight-level validation for movies based on video games.Many games have indeed been labeled

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-34701444569981705112008-02-16T17:28:00.004-05:002008-02-16T17:40:21.969-05:00

In the form of a song. Here is the latest hit, "Think I Fell In Love (Holy Shit!)" I set out to try and write the sweetest, dumbest love song to celebrate the day, and tried to throw in some shock value to make the narrator seem even more dumb and sweet.Friggin' epic, I know.

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-81818050329378741242007-10-18T22:11:00.000-05:002007-10-19T20:13:44.049-05:00

I remember "Weird Al" Yankovic saying in an interview for his episode of VH1's show, Behind the Music, that his career works in a progression in which he releases an album, gets everybody jazzed about it, then disappears for a few years. Then, just when that wandering thought of "Hey, I haven't heard anything new from Weird Al in awhile" occurs, he drops a new record and gets the world fired up

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-50694170618946711432007-09-02T22:15:00.001-05:002007-09-03T16:24:09.056-05:00

Everybody, I'm very, very pleased to announce that the humor web-based comic strip, titled Eben-07, opens today with its very first comic strip.For those of you who don't know, Eben-07 follows the misadventures of Eben-07, an agent of the elusive Intelligence Cleaner Agency. In the comic we riff on everything spy/action/thriller related, but from a different point of view. Yes, you may have

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-50885591898685686722007-06-21T22:53:00.000-05:002007-06-22T15:55:50.238-05:00

I followed a link to a website called Join The 300, the splash-page of which has a short video of Zack Snyder, the director of 300 (of which I boasted about a little while ago). What made me gather the gall to come over here and boast about this website was that Mr. Snyder holds to form and says the word "awesome" once in the video, thus continuing his near perfect score of saying that word at

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-13070603208807789622007-06-03T09:40:00.000-05:002007-06-09T11:44:57.620-05:00

Last night the idea of zombies fascinated me. This came after watching George A. Romero's latest chapter, Land of the Dead, which--behold!--was not even kind of bad. It was deep and affecting, not emotionally moving on the scale of Spielberg heartstring-pullers or, specifically, any of Eastwood's latest efforts, but I found it more thought-out than I wanted to believe. It made me think about

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-47903207635077150832007-04-08T18:30:00.000-05:002007-04-22T20:48:35.376-05:00

NOTE: This Boast is particularly long.Robert Wuhl produced a funny though relatively useless program for HBO called Assume the Position. What his program does is go to a college classroom to teach students "the stories that made America and the stories that America made up," calling it history. And they are indeed quips from history, but what he divulges to his students is merely trivia: the

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-63033636933349168182007-02-09T17:09:00.000-05:002007-02-10T13:32:06.986-05:00

Ret*ro*spec*tive: adj. looking back on or dealing with past events or situations.n. an exhibition or compilation showing the development of a particular artist over a period of time.-As defined by the Oxford English DictionaryI have yet to do any sort of Year In Review-type Boast, though I almost did this year, but I decided to wait until this very special day. It has now been 2 years since

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-4859946146062658862007-01-31T02:17:00.000-05:002007-01-31T02:52:25.973-05:00

I graduated from Cal Poly this last December. My senior project was comprised of two short stories. I have compiled them into a tiny book, now available through CafePress.com. The short stories are Chiaroscuro, which won honorable mention in Cal Poly's creative writing contest last year, and a longer one called Arrested Decay. The smart cover was designed and photographed by my good friend,

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-57614973574794823042007-01-23T13:27:00.000-05:002007-01-28T03:02:00.244-05:00

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."-Rudyard KiplingBarrack-Room Ballads, 1892America exists among a pair of realities: the political and the living. They exist in parallel and the world seems fine as they go along, but when they intersect we, as American citizens, are forced to stop because it feels, with no better word for description, weird.Honestly, as

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1161298703017887392006-10-19T17:06:00.000-05:002006-11-14T02:00:47.646-05:00

I subscribe to a free on-line magazine that I don't really read mainly because I don't care for a majority of the subject matter. It's a video game webmag called The Escapist that I found through my nerdly link-clicking, a path that would be mapped in the shape of a spider's web, I would figure. Anyway, every now and then, I get an e-mail saying that the new issue of The Escapist is out. I

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1158218727939384922006-09-17T02:19:00.000-05:002006-09-18T22:11:02.316-05:00

I generally like the kind of person I am today, and if I rejected the close associations I held during my formative years with comic books, console video games, and cartoons then my parthenon would just be non as it would have no pillars to hold up the heavy ceiling of adulthood.Since returning to school and taking my studies seriously, I thought that I all but abandoned my nerdy past by diving

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1157526547415943502006-09-06T01:57:00.000-05:002006-09-18T22:15:23.563-05:00

Yes, today is actually Fat Tuesday because of all the crap I have eaten. The feasts in question have been thrown in celebration of my birthday which happened today and it was wunderbar. The ceremonies were kept to a minimum and everybody was really nice, which was all I could ask for.Unfortunately, the biggest disappointment on my birthday came from me. The beloved shirt I crafted out of

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1153204868050329662006-07-18T01:12:00.000-05:002006-07-18T22:58:11.623-05:00

Hrello, kids. Once again, when filled with the void ;left behind by an in credible lack of subjects to write about, Dan feels he must opost another durnk postr!I feel that this time, though I feel taht 4everyu time I do one of these I am more and more so, I am more drunk than when I posted the last one.For anyone wondering aobut my absence from BOB, it is not because Im necessarily working on a

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1137234436390149542006-05-17T16:20:00.000-05:002006-05-17T21:40:53.860-05:00

"Do you write because you have a thing to say?""No."- from Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran FoerI've been promising a post about blogging for several months and only now am I able to finally piece together the exact ideas I have about the hobby. Surprisingly, in the last few years (it seems to be even more recent than that) the noun "blog," the verb "to blog," and its present

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1145089972720042392006-04-15T05:15:00.000-05:002006-04-15T15:48:43.903-05:00

My Brokeback Mountain post was written, purposefully, before I had seen the movie. Then I saw the film and since have come to own it--no jokes, please. I enjoyed the movie immensely though I'm still not sure what got to me more: the solid acting, the haunting arppegios of the lonely background music, or the powerful story. Despite all the jokes that have been made at its expense or the strong

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1140836926993165672006-02-24T21:57:00.000-05:002006-03-17T17:32:29.573-05:00

Pre-Script: Here's the official press release of the contest winners. Apparently, it was also in the local newspaper as well, I feel so special right now. Just a quick mumble about exciting things that I felt like sharing.I won the honorable mention in the Cal Poly Creative Writing Contest and my story will be published along with the other winning entries in the school's literary magazine this

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1137970918778495602006-02-04T20:00:00.000-05:002006-02-18T19:31:34.903-05:00

There's a free weekly newspaper that litters downtown bus stop benches and the floors of fast-food restaurant bathrooms, and it's called New Times. They're garnering a lot flack lately because of bad editing decisions over the last few weeks. As the weeks passed the quality of the affronts only became more obvious.This week the cover story on the apparent Meth problem in my podunk county guided

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1138346076045982582006-01-27T02:07:00.000-05:002006-01-27T02:14:36.063-05:00

...As it were. Interest was expressed by friends of mine (and fellow BoB readers) of owning paraphernalia adorned with drawings featured in my Boasts. So, at no cost (and no profit) to me, I have made available t-shirts with drawings on them and witty quotes on the back. So far there are only two designs, but hopefully I'll be clever and draw some more for future boasts and merchandise. I'm

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1136238734469508352006-01-02T20:11:00.000-05:002006-10-17T04:14:39.426-05:00

This boast may contain spoliers for those uninitiated into the story of King Kong. If you have no idea how it ends then, please, do not read this. Go read Hamlet or Macbeth, go see the movie, then come back here and we'll talk. Thanks-DCVBPeter Jackson said that his filmed versions of The Lord of the Rings were to be considered more Tolkein's vision than his own. For the sake argument I'm going

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1132486960427873632005-11-20T06:17:00.000-05:002005-12-27T13:23:32.446-05:00

How sad is it htat it's only been 2 months since my lastr drunk post. BUt this time, I am legitimately messed up after only one stinkin' beer at 3am.That's right: 3am. I got off of work about half an hour ago. "Jesus crap, Dan, why the piss were you at work until 2:30?" you may ask; well, thanks to a little tyke named Harry Potter we've got an 11:30pm show that doesn't get out until 2:20am. Oh,

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1128021150615763592005-10-16T02:37:00.000-05:002005-10-19T00:27:19.516-05:00

With school back in session, I feel my time at the B.O.B. will become even more limited than it has been in the past--though, I make no promises.Being an older student certainly makes me feel prematurely crochety, then again, it may just be my personality failing and not my psychology. It's bizarre to think about how young these kids around me are--most below the legal drinking age. I am at a

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1126301301619238042005-09-09T18:55:00.000-05:002006-01-25T02:09:43.430-05:00

DISCLAIMER: The Boasts of Bethel is intended to be the collection of personal ideas and comments of Dan Bethel. While this post has a religious connotation to it, Dan in no way means to insult anybody's religious convictions nor assault them. He claims to be neither an authority on the subject of religion, Christianity in this case, or in history. More than anything, he hopes to incur educated

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1125947540474939472005-09-05T14:10:00.000-05:002005-09-05T17:45:50.776-05:00

Yet another diversion. I made a t-shirt this morning; I hope you enjoy it:Its creation was birthed from a very early pounding on my bedroom door from one of my well-intentioned roommates. I had gone to bed very early that morning, having worked until 12:30 am and racing home to catch the new episode of Rome at 1:00am at my mother's HBO-infused house. I drove home after that, and when I finally

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1125735701485713692005-09-03T03:04:00.000-05:002005-09-03T03:49:52.486-05:00

Well, here I am after a successful SPiro show. WE played tonight at the wonderful Nautical Bean, a nice place, I guess though the stage was pretty much a time-out corner with a microphone. It went really well, and we played great, and the audience was great nad evnerything was just (can you guess?) great. Which is a good feeling being merely two gigs from the dreaded WMAs. Poop on them.AFter the

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1125041851542206252005-08-28T06:00:00.000-05:002006-02-07T16:07:35.003-05:00

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."-Marcus Aurelius AntoniusMeditations I had a History professor that described his craft as being "the study of change--over time," complete with pause and an additional Nigerian accent. That quote is the only information I took from that class, having failed it miserably, and it often gives me cause to devle deeper into my everyday

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1123383174062635332005-08-06T21:43:00.000-05:002005-08-06T21:52:54.070-05:00

Bathroom ART, that is. Here are some pictures I took whilst sitting on the john making a deposit. Lucky that I had a camera within arm's reach to capture the beauty that is my bathroom. Enjoy!My first attempt. Not art, but at least mildly interesting.Looking straight up from the recepticle of my waste into the skylight.Same shot, sans flash. And there you go! My duty and doody was completed

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1121871177685434642005-08-03T17:40:00.000-05:002005-08-04T12:12:40.456-05:00

I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it pissed me off. The problem is that I also loved it. So, naturally, I started wondering how the hell I could love a movie and hate it at the same time.It works like this: when I see the movie (3 times, now) I love the damned thing, but when afterwards, when I start thinking about the flick, that's when I start to lose all faith, not in the movie, but

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1121871166413770462005-07-20T09:52:00.000-05:002005-07-22T18:00:29.053-05:00

One time, when I was very young, I was with my mother visiting friends in a bayside town called Pacific Grove, a tiny 'burb basically a block away from Monterey. My mother bequeathed my supervision to the punked-out granddaughter of the family friends in order to give the adults time to drink and cuss, I guess. This granddaughter, whom I partly feared (for her looks) and admired (for her brazen

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1120251208205154322005-07-01T15:52:00.000-05:002006-02-17T22:02:24.790-05:00

Bewitched came in second place behind Batman Begins ("Why was Batman so scary?" I heard a child ask after watching) in its opening weekend, proof positive that men in pointy headgear always beat out an emaciated Aussie and her hopelessly mugging sidekick. But it still came in second place, and not a far second at that.For those of you who don't know me too well, I have worked at the same movie

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1113354236634757542005-06-15T20:03:00.000-05:002005-07-06T13:58:00.296-05:00

I really dig on movies, as those close to me know (for those that don't, I own upward of 180 DVDs). I don't think it really comes across in my personality, though. I'm not really the guy who spouts random movie quotes, or says, "This reminds me of a scene from [insert movie here]."At least I don't think so--please correct me if I'm wrong.But I do love movies, usually the long ones. I like the

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1118103365082706392005-06-06T18:42:00.000-05:002005-06-06T19:19:38.170-05:00

Sorry for the immense gap in legitimate posts, but (as is the usual excuse concerning internet thingies) my schedule has become a little packed with various extracurricular appointments (because we all know that writing for the B.O.B. is my full-time job).I do have a new post in the works, though. And I'll be (hopefully) posting it by the end of this week, or, at the latest, the beginning of

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1116823503324881262005-05-22T23:30:00.000-05:002005-06-01T00:13:25.920-05:00

Yes, I'm deciding to start a new tradition here on good ole B.O.B., a series that will be a no-holds-barred feast of non-literary insight, kind of like a slam poetry open mic. No links (unless I try really hard), no spelling corrections, no rough drafts (yup, I work that hard on my normal posts). Just stream of consciousness in concise packages.I'm watching Troy right now, being one of the few

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1115596856260143902005-05-20T12:50:00.000-05:002005-06-20T22:22:18.716-05:00

Homer Simpson is not a poet, but when someone mentions an epic poem by the great poet, Homer, to a passerby, said passerby usually shoots an awkward glance to the speaker as they picture the Duff-drinking Homer Simpson spouting rambling verse over accompanying bongo-induced syncopations.Homer was a greek poet who wrote the seminal classics The Iliad and The Odyssey. His works (a play by play of

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1115257246327762922005-05-04T20:27:00.000-05:002005-05-14T14:44:08.086-05:00

My buddy Eben found this article that reiterates nearly the exact same things I stated in my post 3 Simple Steps to Sounding Smarter. It doesn't give a publication date, but I'm almost willing to bet mine came first. Maybe I should sue. Maybe I should be mad, but, truthfully, I'm just glad the information is out there for people to live and learn by. Happy belated Constitution Memorial Day!

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1114578999690116122005-04-26T23:22:00.000-05:002005-04-28T13:28:19.666-05:00

"A crow is no whiter for being washed."-French Proverb"I'd like to play passionate women, but no one will let me."-Russell CroweI like Russell Crowe, now. It turns out he's not a full time jerk, as most people suspect, but when we see him react with his well-known "personality quirks" he's merely lashing out against people that are seriously bugging him.My newly found respect for the man did not

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1113842808125239842005-04-18T11:18:00.000-05:002005-04-18T11:56:27.880-05:00

I'm taking a class in Linguistics, or the study of language, right now. What one basically does with a skill like linguistics is listen to how people talk. So, naturally, we talk a lot about different American dialects, and how they specifically differ.Anyway, as I was browsing the list of my favorite sites today, I found this little test entitled What Kind of American English Do You Speak? and

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1113111492810106772005-04-10T00:30:00.000-05:002005-04-14T02:10:28.976-05:00

In High School, I was what some scholars would call a Japanophile, that is, I loved all things Japanese. More specifically, I loved everything about ancient Japanese culture. My interest for this history died, however, by point of the timeline marked at about 1853, when, in my opinion at the time, the Japanese story went to pot.To be even more specific, I loved all things samurai. I loved the

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1112147469121078622005-03-29T20:32:00.000-05:002005-04-04T02:06:13.880-05:00

For those of you who don't know, I'm half of the band called Spiro. I'm big into writing and playing music as those of you who know my band can hopefully tell.With music comes a certain territory, a cache of musical styles that are bound to be repeated with every musician who attempts to write. As you develop an ear for music and an ability for a musical instrument a variety of perks eventually

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1111132163440170172005-03-18T01:10:00.000-05:002005-05-27T17:56:00.573-05:00

Let me start with this: I'm registered as undeclared. Up until the recent elections did I never care about politics, and even when I became wrapped up in the insanity of the 2004 election year, I always felt like I had a bad taste in my mouth, like I really didn't like what I was being a part of. I hate politics, not a specific party. Andrew Jackson was our nation's seventh president and was

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1109730701055717112005-03-01T21:16:00.000-05:002005-03-02T01:51:11.076-05:00

I apologize to all of you who had to register before posting to my blog. Unless you wanted to do so to begin with...in which case I'm posting for no reason.I love Get Fuzzy. I think it's a brilliant comic strip, but I couldn't tell you why. To me, you've got to appreciate it in the same way you have to appreciate the Family Guy before you can enjoy it. I think it lies in the quirkiness of the

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1109218797110426772005-02-23T22:05:00.000-05:002005-05-27T17:54:09.610-05:00

I've been thinking about this for awhile, how could a perfectly average person sound like an incredibly intelligent person with as little effort as possible? Although I am not an incredibly intelligent person myself, I have dabbled in those circles and I feel I've been able to narrow down the qualities that make people seem smart, even if they aren't actually.Now, there is no doubt the easiest

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1108771604092159472005-02-18T18:55:00.000-05:002005-02-18T19:06:44.096-05:00

I spent the better part of my day cleaning "my room." By "my room" I mean the place where I do stuff, not where I sleep. Most would call it an office, but I feel none of the work I do in there is serious enough to warrant the office moniker. Like I said it's just a place where I do stuff, being the introvert that I am.Anyway, as I cleaned and vacuumed with my ever-so-powerful Dyson "powered

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1108362490163444372005-02-14T01:06:00.000-05:002005-02-15T22:16:34.686-05:00

"I never let my schooling interfere with my education."-Mark Twain I eagerly look forward to the rest of my life, because as it stands now, I really have no idea where this society will go. Call me a cynic, but I am more than a little upset at the current state of education. This is bad, considering I'm in the process of becoming a teacher.Maybe it's because I'm old...er, but I honestly think the

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737181.post-1108002421326454802005-02-09T21:01:00.000-05:002005-02-11T14:38:10.130-05:00

Let me just start off here by telling everybody who reads this that this little blog is my new internet soapbox. Normally, this place will be pretty mellow, comprising mostly of movie, music, and book reviews. But sometimes, like this entry that will officially kick off this new blog, I shall be ranting. So, welcome! And also welcome to the new year of the rooster.As a guitar player, I tend to be

D. Bethelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13789615371146830887noreply@blogger.com7