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jenks
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04/22/2008 18:02 #44105

scientology is wack
Ok, I finally found the original email I got, which is the source of all my knowledge of scientology. It's a craigslist post, in which some guy says he bought a box of books at a garage sale that included lots of scientology stuff, and this is what he makes of it.
and here is a list of some of the abbreviations- long, but some real gems in here:


This is my favorite part:
"But there is also one of these types of aliens that I kind of like. They are mentioned in one of the courses along with some other aliens. There is also a whole bulletin about them and from the wording you get the idea that this is current stuff. They are called Blinkers. It says that they are like little cats and you can only really see them if you have eliminated your reactive mind. Once again, that is something I do not completely understand about Scientology. What they do is hop on your head and hurt you. It says that they never like to go on the floor which is kind of like a real cat. They jump on you and then they jump on someone else. Sometimes it seems like they jump and in one lecture it says that they can teleport or something around. Maybe the last part is why they call them Blinkers? They have an incident where some of these Blinkers show up attack a whole room full of people and never once does even one of them touch the floor."

tinypliny - 04/23/08 20:58
And of course soylent green is made of people.
jenks - 04/23/08 17:49
jon, that's what I don't get. L. Ron Hubbard was a sci-fi writer, first and foremost. I mean really... this is War of the Worlds stuff. He made up this insane 'religion' that apparently goes back 75 QUADRILLION years (yes, much, much longer than anyone believes the universe has been in existence)- at which point alien king Xenu's planet was overpopulated so he put the extra aliens on AIRPLANES and sent them to Earth (aka Teegeeack). He put them in movie theaters to brainwash them, then put them in volcanos, which he blew up with hydrogen bombs. Litttle bits of their alien spirits went into the air (or something) and are now in all of us, and our ultimate goal in life is to shed ourselves of these evil spirits.

[yeah, sorry, I got a little wrapped up in wikipedia yesterday...]

I mean COME ON.

that's like george lucas saying "oh, by the way, star wars is REAL people- so join my religion and pay me lots of money or the wookies will get you."

oh yeah and if Fair Game scares you, check out Operation Snow White and Operation Freakout.
ladycroft - 04/23/08 10:19
cats with blinky eyes jumping on people's heads and attacking them. awesome! that's so fucking cool. seriously i want to be in that sunday school class when they have this lesson! hahahahaha.
ajay - 04/23/08 10:03
Scientologists are scary; don't underestimate them.

I knew a girl who lived near their "church" downtown. You could see the roof of their building from her kitchen.
She used to walk her dog, and ran into one of their guys a couple of times. She just told him her first name; nothing else.

A few days after her latest contact with the guy, she gets a call on her phone.
It's him (remember, she didn't give him her number).
He says, "come over to your kitchen window".
She goes over. From her kitchen window, she looks out. She sees him standing on his church's roof, waving at her.

So, just by knowing her first name, they were able to figure out where she lived, what was her phone number, etc.

Scary cult.

And the City of Buffalo welcomed them with open arms. Bunch of idiots.
jon - 04/23/08 09:16
Cat aliens... totally awesome. These bits of info would if compiled together would make an awesome B sci-fi movie.

However, here is one of the scary ones from that list, Jenks...

"Fair Game, the notorious Scientology policy of how to deal with critics; they may be "Sued, tricked, lied to, or destroyed," as per policy. A more recent policy has banished the WORDS "Fair Game", but the policy of what to do to them cannot ever be cancelled." ...yikes.
paul - 04/22/08 18:08
And you are questioning why I would not want one of there big whig recruiters on the site for whatever ulterior motives he would have. P.S. I didn't delete his journal like that sales guy from South Carolina that we all agreed had to go, I just told him I don not welcome him or his scumbagtologist friends here.

04/20/2008 14:16 #44066

For jason...
Since I can't put pix in a comment....

Don't worry, I'm not knocking the glasses.
This is [a shitty pic-of-a-pic of] my family, circa 1989.

Apparently my bro was still too young for Ray-Bans.

image
paul - 04/20/08 15:18
You guys are missing the 80s neon pink/lime/yellow nose zinc stuff to block the sun, lol.

04/19/2008 12:14 #44054

79 degrees
woohoooooooo!!!!!!

It's so beautiful out I don't even know where to start.
Maybe I will wash my car.

When I got home last night, I went around and opened all the storm windows and all the windows, and they have been open since. yay!!!!

I had a fantastic idea... I was going to make margaritas in my new super-blender (http://www.willitblend.com/ awwww yeah!) [my dad gave it to my mom for christmas- well it backfired- she was PISSED- so he snuck it into my car while I was home and I didn't know it]-
Anyway I was all excited to drink margaritas on the back porch... but I have no tequila. dammit.

So today I went out and bought tequila, rum, and pina colada mix- for a cool $70. Why is hooch so damn expensive?!

BUT, I'm on call today which means no drinking, so it's sitting there teasing me.

ok, time to get off the computer. Feel better paul!!



metalpeter - 04/20/08 12:06
Hey if there is to much of that stuff to drink I think my phone number is in my profile call me up and I would gladly help you drink one at least I'm sure you could get plenty of (e:peeps) to help you out.
zobar - 04/19/08 14:49
Dude!! Those things can blend anything! Hasn't she seen the videos?

- Z
paul - 04/19/08 13:34
thanks, seems like Dr Forbes? did a great job.

04/12/2008 10:03 #43988

en route...
Wow, I am tired and sick of travelling. My friend that I was staying with had a flight to denver at 6:30 this AM. My flight isn't til 9, but I had to take the free ride while it was available, so I got up at 430 and now am in the airport, super-tired. But the airport has free wi-fi and a thousand coffee shops, so I'll be ok for a while. My flight is delayed already, of course, but supposedly I'll make my connection.

Anyway...
I have to say- Portland is pretty cool. Very green and liberal, which isn't really me, but I can handle it. ;)

And the hospital is freaking amazing. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's a good place to work blah blah blah- maybe it's all just eye candy- but still.... Here's the view from the hospital.

The mountain you can see towards the right is Mt. Hood. You can also see Mt. St. Helens, but I didn't get it in this pic. They also have this really cool aerial tram that leaves from right where I was standing, and connects to the outpatient hospital building at the bottom on the hill.

More pix when I get home.

Hope everyone's doing well. I am so ready for a good night's sleep!

image
lizabeth - 04/12/08 12:54
Oooh, pretty. (e:john) and I are going to Portland in July - I'm excited, I've never been to the Pacific Northwest before!

Hope you get home without any more airline drama!
jbeatty - 04/12/08 10:20
Thats a great view. I hear that Portland has a really happening restaurant scene as well.

04/09/2008 19:46 #43965

chapter 2...
But first, I totally forgot the OTHER best part of yesterday.
(Felly, don't read this)-

On the way from Buffalo to Chicago we were

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!!!!!!!!!

I was just starting to doze off and all of the sudden there was this huge crash and what must have been a blinding flash of light, b/c I could see it through my closed eyelids. But noone screamed or anything so I figured it must not have been TOO bad. But it was a tiny little plane, and I could see the stewardess in her little backwards seat up front, wide-eyed, pick up the little phone to the cockpit and, while trying to look calm, ask "WTF WAS THAT?"
A few minutes later the pilot came on and said he thought we had been struck by lightning.

Holy shite!!

Guess it's good to know that planes can be struck by lightning without any major consequences.

But so the clusterfuck continues today.
I decided there wasn't much point in taking a $30 cab downtown just to walk around a shop for an hour, so instead I slept super late, took a bath, listened to music, and ate lunch in the hotel. Had to check out at 2, and flight was scheduled for 7, figured I might as well get to the airport early. While waiting for the airport shuttle in the hotel lobby, I saw on TV that American had cancelled 500 flights yesterday- and 1000 today. I guess they've grounded all their MD-80 planes, which I guess is like half their fleet. (and according to some disgruntled flight attendants I met later, they said it's b/c the CEO won't pay for maintenance. But that he will be taking a multi-million dollar bonus on April 15th.)

Aww fuck.

so I got there, and it was, as anticipated, a zoo. I guess they've run out of hotel rooms (so I guess I was a little bit lucky) and people were camping out in the airport. There were a few news crews interviewing pissed off people. I tried to check in online but it didn't work, so I got in line. Someone checked a list for me and said my flight was still good to go. But while in line I looked it up on my phone, which said it was cancelled. So, while still in line I looked up flights on southwest, so I would be armed when I got to the front.

Indeed, this flight was cancelled. The best they could do was to put me on a flight to San Francisco, then on standby to Portland, with a 20 minute connection. Arriving at 2am. I told them that was not acceptable, and that I want them to put me on this southwest flight. They refused. I finally decided my best bet was to just buy the southwest ticket and take it up with american later. It was "only" $350- not the $1000 I thought it would be. So I bought it on my phone while I made the guy wait. Yay for iphone. So then I told him I want to pay for my transfer from O'Hare to midway. Again, he refused. Just gave me the address to file my complaints. Said the most they would do is refund the portion of my ticket that went unused.

So I went to wait for the shuttle to midway, where I met all sorts of other pissed off people, including two women that said they had gotten seven vouchers (for what, I'm not sure) out of the deal so far. I asked how they had done that, b/c I had gotten nothing, and they said 'you have to cry and pitch a fit'. i said I did.

Oh well. I am keeping my receipts and will be sending them a nice juicy letter.

But so now I'm sitting in midway waiting for my flight. At least it's direct. Hopefully things will go smoothly on saturday. I never thought I'd look forward to flying USAir, but at this point I am just ready to wash my hands of american.

Silver lining- I have all day tomorrow to explore Portland.

(man, i hope it's worth it!)

;)



metalpeter - 04/10/08 18:26
I hope all of this canceled flight things are over and done with before late June since I have a weeding to fly to. It sounds crazy and I wish you the best of luck.
joshua - 04/10/08 14:55
People are often surprised, but yeah - airplanes are generally safe even if directly hit by lightning. There has only been one recorded crash as a result of a lightning strike, and that was in 1967 and likely resulted not from damage to the airframe but damage to electrical instrumentation... which is no longer a problem.

The skin of the planes are made of aluminum - it conducts electricity very well and allows almost all of the energy to flow directly through the skin and out of the aircraft. The rest of the latent energy is dissipated by wicks that are placed all over the outside structure - you can see them easily on the wings of planes and other spots on the body as well. They look like little sticks that jut out from the edges. Instrumentation is protected by insulating factors and there are many redundancies put in place in case something goes wrong.

The real preventative equipment are the two people controlling the plane - pilots can ask for a reroute around storms that are easily visible via radar. Sometimes this is not possible though!

Here is a video of a Qantas plane being struck in mid-air while on approach, so you can see how it works. :::link::: (don't be freaked out!).
ajay - 04/10/08 14:16
Take these fuckers to small-claims court. Keep all your receipts, including hotel, meals, etc.
ladycroft - 04/10/08 03:52
ahhh lufthansa is the best! free beer in coach class....

i was in a plane struck by lighting once too. i just happened to be looking outside the window because i thought the lightning was so cool and suddenly there was a loud snap and everything went white and i couldn't see shit for about 40 seconds. i thought i went blind.

good luck in portland! ride a yellow bike ;)
fellyconnelly - 04/09/08 23:05
you KNOW that as soon as you say "felly don't read this" then felly immediately sets aside her extra curricular activities to read in full.
STRUCK BY LIGHTING?
Ya know... all those dreams that I had about flying, and never even gettingon the plane... or never taking off.. probably meant that when I finally was ready to fly somewhere, my flight would be cancelled. damn.
james - 04/09/08 21:48
Just look up voodoo doughnut on Flickr and see the wonder that it truly is.

I want to visit PDX just for it, and I don't even like doughnuts.
vincent - 04/09/08 21:33
All I can say is we need to RE-REGULATE the airline industry. All of the benefits of Laissez-faire have been wiped out. Yea over in Europe they pay more to get somewhere but at least they get there safe & with a meal to boot. There is no airline in North American anymore that even think about coming close to say Lufthansa.

It's just a race to the bottom. Cut benefits, pay, staff & safety so you can try to come close to Southwest.
zobar - 04/09/08 21:10
PDX is sweet, if you're in the neighborhood go to Voodoo Doughnut, 22 SW 3rd Ave. The ODB is pretty good, but I have it on good authority that the Maple Bacon Bar is better. Better stay away from the Nyquil-glazed Pepto.

- Z