60,000 Pounds of Fake Snow -or- 28,000 Dollars A Year for No-Holes-Barred Fun!

At Baylor University, in the center of campus, in the middle of Springtime, there are 60,000 pounds of artificial snow. This snow is here to help elite Univeristy students let their hair down and enjoy college with like-minded peers. It's also here to help show the world and the community around us that we care.

We love you, world! And you too, Waco! And that's why we've decided to spend some dolla-dolla-bills-ya'll! We got you some snow! Yah! Snow! We got you, the world and Waco, gobs and gobs of snow for our own student body to enjoy!

60-freaking-thousand pounds of it! And I say, that that is money well spent! There is no way we could have provided near enough fun for ourselves during our self-made holiday without 60,000 pounds of snow. In general, there is just never really enough really leisurely, fun, tom-foolery going on around the Baylor campus. We work so hard and have lives filled with so much sweat and rigor that I don't know how we make it.

Sure, tuition is skyrocketing to around 30,000 dollars, effectively keeping out those dirty-handed peasants and middle-class muddlies; but damnit, it's snow! What are a couple of g's dropped to enhance that good ol' Baylor experience? I mean, there is no way we could walk away from Baylor University having had a good time if that good time didn't involve some gross displays of ridiculousness for the impoverished community around us to gawk at. In fact, we probably shouldn't even give it a second thought. Besides, that's them, and this is us. We're Baylor, they are the surrounding community. Seperate, but equal, right!

I know some of you might be thinking: now, is this the best use of our funds? Well, don't worry about it. Besides, if you are worried about financing your education you're probably missing out on all of the cool fun stuff going on. And aren't there like, student loans, or grants and stuff that you can just take out? What's the problem?

Look, maybe you don't see eye-to-eye with me on this, but you can at least admit that things are pretty boring around campus. I know they have all of the sporting events and stuff (yawn), but noboy whose anybody goes to those, certainly not on time! Trust me, this whole over-the-top effort to have fun will pay off when you forget about real life and the world around you for a day of snow-balling and fun with the young and mobile movers-and-shakers of tomorrow's North Dallas elite!

So get all of your snow gear together (and I KNOW you own snow gear) and come join in the SNOWTABULOUS fun! It's only costing a few hundred dollars here and there from money that could otherwise go to scholarship funds, to decrease tuition, or (ugh) to invest back into the community. We don't really need toput any extra funds into those areas. Besides, that would only encourage "other" people to come to Baylor, and I think we've seen that that only causes problems and negative attention being brought to our university. Yuck.

Theology for Dummies -or- Why I Will Never Be A Legitimate Academic Source

If you ask me about theology, I will rattle off movie quotes. Ask me about philosophy, and I'll tell you about the best fiction.

I've always been a fan of annotated texts. The concept of the "lowest common denominator" was not lost on me (as opposed to most of the other ideas in mathematics), although it is widely innapropriately applied to things other than math by way of faulty reasoning and my ability to apply such reasoning thereafter. In order to survive in the academic world, my cognitive activity is relegated to trying to reduce terms into something manageable; to a lowest common denominator.

I try and read philosophers and theologians and can carry my weight in the conversations that ensue. But that is only because I watch a lot of movies and read a lot of fictional (and largely hilarious) books. I have drawn 90 percent of my theology and philosophy from movies and fiction (only to go back and find out about the people's whose ideas they were originally).

All this to say that I watched Bruce Almighty again with Angeleri last night. If someone asks me about what I think and believe, I think the most direct way in which I could initiate this conversation would be to say, "see this first." Besides that, Morgan Freeman has easily usurped my previous model for God which was based on bad cartoons and the cieling of the Sistine Chapel.

I can say, without a doubt, that most of my thoughts on things are based out of fiction and movies first, only to be lent credibility from the real academic stuff. I watch Bruce Almighty and the Matrix trilogy for theology, I read Kurt Vonnegut for philosophy. I crack open CS Lewis' fiction and get more theology (his other stuff is good, but I honestly yawn through it). Give me more of the Chronic(what)cles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, the Space Trilogy, and the Great Divorce (you can fight through Mere Christianity if you'd like). I watch Big Fish (and read it, by Daniel Wallace), and I Heart Hucabees, and Life Aquatic and I think, "Yes! This is my experience! This it truth!"

I don't think badly of myself for doing this. I just prefer art as a means to truth over "reason" as a means to truth. (An idea that is well-articulated in Big Fish).

So what does this mean? It means that I am always dangerously close to qouting movie lines. I only tell you this to expose my own fraud (not Freud). I just want you to know that if we're talking and it happens that we talk about something deep, I've got movie scenes going through my head.

My sociological views are based on stand-up comedy and music... it's complicated. So if ever you question the soundness of my thoughts and beliefs, read the subtitle "an irresponisble blog at best" and know that it is true.

The illumination of these facts will either lead you to believe that I am a farce (also an arse), or that I am really onto something (still, an arse).