Things We Definitely Don't Need

Stupid.

Here's my list.

1. Remote controlled Manta-Ray. Operates in up to 8 feet of water, but you can only be six feet away from it. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose if you're not inside the pool your Manta is shooting around in? How stupid.

2. Electric-powered bumper boats. So expensive, not that fast, super crappy.

3. Anything replicated from a movie, such as Harry Potter wands, a pin that says "I believe in Harvey Dent", or anything that looks like it may have come from Mordor. Nothing makes you more of a nerd than one or all of these things in different combinations. If I ever see a person with a Hogwart's cloak giving out packs of cards made entirely of Jokers and raving about halflings, I'm going to punch them.

4. If I ever see someone with a ramp in their house specifically for their dog to get on the bed or sofa... holy crap, I don't even know.

5. Insert your name on the back of a jersey of a player scoring the winning run, or jumping on the "joy pile" at the end of a big game. HOW STUPID IS THAT. If I saw my last name on the body of someone shaped like Kevin Youkilis, I would piss myself. I should hope everyone else in the room would do the same. My name, on the back of a Red Sox jersey, in the middle of the action. Diagnosis: retarded.

Why do we feel like we NEED all these THINGS?? Andy Braner told it to me best... a buddy of his was driving him along in Durango some years ago and they passed a gigantic mansion overlooking beautiful mountains. Andy marveled at the location and wondered aloud what it must be like to live like that. His buddy simply looked at him and said "Dude, it's all gonna burn".

Ha!

I wish I could live like that. Just make myself do it. I can't though. It looks like I'll have to ask God to change me from the inside out on that one. Hmmm. Change my heart? Again?

Worth a shot.

Anime? Darth Vader? Jason Statham?

I'm standing in a field, and it's super bright outside. The sun is beating me down, and a gigantic robot is crossing the field towards me. It has legs like a spider, and weird half-circles hanging from beneath it. It wants to hurt me, and I want to fight it but I'm too small and weak.

Out of nowhere, Naruto shows up. If you don't know, I watch this anime show called "Naruto". It comes on once a week, online, and it kicks butts. It's the only Japanese animation show I watch. Don't judge me. Anyway... so Naruto is there. He runs in front of me and tells me he'll "handle it". Awesome.

The robot attacks Naruto, shooting some kind of laser thing at him and blasting him back hundreds of yards. The robot is after me again, with Naruto out of the picture. I then get an aerial view of what Naruto is doing. He picks himself up, dusts himself off, yells something at the top of his lungs, and places his hands together as though praying, but with his elbows sticking straight out. All these little red and blue balls start rising out of the ground around Naruto. Hundreds of them. They turn into little darts and start shooting at the robot. The robot is being pummeled ruthlessly, knocked back again and again.

Suddenly the robot lifts off and flies through the air, transforming into some other object. I get an aerial view (in my dream of course) of where the robot is headed. It transforms into the roof of some industrial garage and settles down on top of an already existing garage.

I run to the garage, trying to see what the robot thing is doing. Darth Vader is in the garage, with some other people I don't recognize. He tries to put me inside of some suit that will make me look like him. I try to resist, but it's freaking Darth Vader. He gets everything on me except the creepy helmet.

Flash forward and now I'm in a semi trailer, being followed by a car driven by Jason Statham. Over a hill comes a horde of cars, like in Doomsday, that terrible British plague movie. Jason Statham is laying down covering fire while I think of things to do from the back of the trailer. I unscrew these huge bolts and start throwing them at the cars. The bolts turn into grenades and blow up a few of the cars. Some of them are heavy construction vehichles, just flying all over the place. Jason Statham then runs and jumps into the back of the trailer with me. Our truck is crashing on a draw bridge that is raised up.

We both jump out of the trailer and start running and climbing as it gets steeper and steeper. I pass a lady in her car. She looks at me and says "Who are you running after?"

I wake up.

Coach has a decent role in this one. Also, dogs.

Luke Parrott + dogs = strange times.

So I'm in some stupid sweet mansion, watching someone's dogs. I decide that I need to lock them in a certain room in the house, because... well, because I do. I'm also house sitting with some random girl. Don't know who she is, I can't see her face for some reason.

I get the dogs locked up in this room, put a gate in front of the door leading out of the room, and close the door. Everything seems fine. Then the st. bernard I'm watching decides to smash completely through the gate and the door. The pug that I'm watching follows right behind it. It squeezes under the gate (which didn't break, but the door did. That doesn't even make sense), and fires down the hallway.

I start panicking, because for some reason I need to keep these dogs in the room! As soon as I stand up, I see that I'm completely naked. Oh goody.

Running to the bathroom in the same room, I try to figure out what just happened. The dogs are gone. I was nude in the room with a girl I don't know, and can't see her face apparently. I look down and see a pair of cutoff jean shorts, dark blue wash. So happy at this point. I throw them on, and go out of the bathroom through another door into the hallway where the dogs went.

I run down the hall in my new shorts and try to find the dogs. Descending the staircase, I find myself in a livingroom with a piano and several couches. The big dog is under the piano, trying to hide from me. As I head towards it, Luke shows up out of nowhere with a fleece blanket over his head, screaming "MY BLANKET IS CLEAN!" He runs around the livingroom, up the stairs and disappears.

I wake up.

I wasn't even trapped, holy crap I'm an idiot.

DANCIN' WITH MAH-SEH-HELF OH OH OH

OK... this dream is going to make me look like an idiot, and my dad like a cat lover. We are both neither of these things.

I'm at a house party. Nate Friend is there, and loads of other people from K-CO. I'll divulge identities shortly.

Rap music is bumping (and no it isn't Lecrae or any of that awful stuff). The entire party is pretty much all K-CO guys and girls, except this one girl. Her name is Dana. She is acting super weird towards everyone. She's taking shots of "stuff", and so is everyone else. I have no idea what the stuff is, but no one is drunk. They're just drinking... stuff.

I'm standing in a kitchen with my back to a counter top when Nate Friend and Drew Crowson approach me and start talking with me. About this girl who acting "weird". In real life, Nate seems to know when someone is "weird", so of course this would be no different than in my dream world either. For some reason, the music gets louder, and suddenly a ton of people that Dana "knows" show up on the other side of the kitchen.

Dana is sitting in a chair, doing Algebra homework at a crowded party. Nate and I noticed this and thought it was weird. Seems to be a recurring theme, eh?

Now the other side of the room is teeming with people. All who know Dana. Drew and I hear the music (as if for the first time) and start swayin back and forth in unison. Pretty soon, Nate and a bunch of other people are doing it with us. I see what's happening here. There's about to be a dance battle.

The grossest song ever starts playing. "Oochie Wally" by who knows, because I don't care and I'm not going to look it up. Drew Crowson goes bananas. Dana throws her books down and walks across the room to me, simply says "let's go", and I go. The kitchen, along with the entire house we were partying at, has been transformed into a gigantic dance hall, complete with disco ball and balconies everywhere. We start dancing like crazy people. I'm dancing with my back to her front, reverse grinding across the floor, when she knees me in the butt and sends me flying. I sprawl out across the floor and get ticked. So I run over to her and start grinding with her, dancing furiously. Slowly but surely we move across the whole floor.

At this point it becomes a real battle. She's grabbing my hands and trying to throw me down, as if me hitting the ground indicates that I've lost. So I one up her, and as soon as she knocks me over I start breakdancing. Crowd. Goes. Bananas.

I walk over to a staircase on the far side of the dance hall and go up to a balcony where there is tons of food and more K-CO people. Josh Casey is carrying a conversation with Nate Friend, Luke Parrot and Steve Miller. I decide that I'm hungry, so I climb this weird scaffolding style structure up to a place where there are sandwiches. I start making myself a sandwich on a plate that already has macaroni and cheese on it for some reason. I cover the macaroni with another plate and start assembling my sandwich.

Nate Friend: "You know the food they have here is terrible, right?"

I don't really care, even though Steve is leaning over a railing with his head in his hands. Apparently this is the place he's having his wedding reception, and he's ticked the food stinks so badly. I put a piece of turkey, a tomato, another piece of break, so roast beef, more tomatoes, and mustard on my sandwich. I spill mustard EVERYWHERE, all over my arms. I realized I'm wearing my white basketball shorts, and I immediately became concerned I would get mustard stains on them. So I walk (somewhere) and throw them under a porch. For safe keeping apparently.

I realize I need my shorts back, as now I'm not wearing pants. What the heck.

So I run down a flight of stairs to a door, open it and it takes me under the porch. I get my shorts, throw them on, and see something else under the porch, much farther away. It's a dufflebag, and it's full of my stuff. So I go crawling on my hands and knees to retrieve the bag. Pretty soon, I'm stuck under the porch.

I see Josh Casey from under the porch. I start yelling at him to help me get out. The holes that lead under the porch are too small for me to squeeze through, and the only one that might be big enough to get through is covered in spider webs, spider eggs, spiders, etc. Gross. Josh leaves, but never comes back. So I'm laying on this dirt floor. It has become night time, and it's nearly impossible to see anything without the help of the two very dim lights installed in the bottom front side of the porch.

After I wait for what feels like several hours, I look to my right and realize there is a door. The same door I used to get under the porch in the first place. I'm an idiot. So I walk out the door, and up the stairs. At the top of the stairs I run into some random girl, who politely smiles at me and goes up another flight of stairs. I find two halves of a ping pong ball on the floor and pick one of the up.

As I walk around the front side of the porch, I'm suddenly inside. Huh. The house I've walked into has nice hardwood floors. For all I know, this could be the house that started out in my dream with the party. I hear that sound cats make when they're fighting, and two felines fly out of the nowhere. One of them is making crazy noises, and the other one is just chilling. Not too worried about the other cat I guess.

I throw that half a ping pong ball at the crazy cat and nail it, sending it running. I walk through some nice wood and glass doors and hear my father's voice. As I turn the corner into the room, I see my dad at a desk, with papers piled high. There's water all over the floor.

"What the heck!" I say to all that water. I should have said "Look at all the water around".

"Oh yeah, my cat did that" says my dad. He hates cats in not dream world. So do I.

Turns out my dad is talking to my little sister on the phone. He tells her that I'm there, and then hands me the phone because she wants to talk to me. So I take the phone and say "Hello!"

Nothing.

I ask her how her boyfriend Jon is doing.

No response.

I think about whether or not I can call him "Jonny".

Then I woke up.

John C. Reilly?

I'm standing in a street with buildings on either side of me. The street moves rather slowly down a hill. Suddenly I'm on the back of a cart being pedaled down the hill. There are cars passing by us on the right. We (the person pedaling the cart and myself) pull up into a right hand turn lane next to a man driving an ice cream truck.

Man in ice cream truck: "You'll never outsell me!"

John C. Reilly: "This Rolling Stone ice cream is the best, there's no way we won't make a killing!"

Man in ice cream truck: "It's way too hot out there! All your Rolling Stone pops will melt!"

This goes on for a few seconds/minutes/hours. John C. Reilly is pedaling the cart around the corner, and I'm jumping up and down on the back of the cart to make it do wheelies for some reason. The cart flips over, and John C. Reilly starts crying, because all the Rolling Stone ice cream is everywhere in the street, and it's ruined. We can't sell it any more.

Yes, the Rolling Stone ice cream was the heads of the guys from the Rolling Stones on wooden stick, with gumball eyes and everything.

Awake.

...also, the President of the United States got a Portuguese water dog. Those things couldn't look dumber. I know they're supposed to BE smart, but they look retarded.

I also heard about a lady who willingly jumped into a polar bear tank. WHY DID ANYONE RESCUE HER?

Thoughts?

A demon in the light, a demon in the ceiling

This is not dream related.

This actually happened to me.

If you don't like stories dealing with visions, or premonitions, or sightings, or "visitors", or whatever you like to call them, don't read this post.

Here we go.

What I have to say here will (sort of) tie into what (I think) happened to me last night.

When I was about 7 years old, maybe 8, could have been 9 (shoot, maybe I was 12), I saw something absolutely ridiculous in my room. I can only describe it as demonic. I don't know 100% if it was, but it sure wasn't Santa.

If you picture my bedroom when I was a kid... well, why don't I paint it for you.

If you were to walk into me and my brother's room when I was a kid, here's what you would see. A bunk bed, stacked long-ways across the front of a double window that looked out into our front yard. At night, the only light in the room was the yard light my dad had put up years before, just to keep things illuminated I guess.

We had a skylight in the room too, through which that yard light shone every night of my life from the age of 6 to the age of 18. It was always shining on the same spot, every night. Depending on the poster on the wall, I could see Ken Griffey Jr. or Tony Hawk or whoever.

On this particular night I had awoken looking out the window. I have no idea what time it was. I rolled over to try to get comfortable, facing the wall where the light shone in.

There was something standing in the way of the light. The thing was enormous. It was taller than my dad for sure, and he's over 6 feet tall. It had arms and legs, but no recognizable head. Where the head should have been was a lump. It was as if the shoulders just had a huge, hulking bump, no neck or anything. Just a mass.

This thing was as dark a green as it could have been. Any darker and it would have been black. It didn't move, I didn't hear breathing, I couldn't see a face.

The worst part: the light from the yard light wasn't lighting it up. It was standing directly in the path of the yard light, shining through the skylight, and it wasn't illuminated at all.

What if you shined a light on the wall, and you could look into the flashlight and see light coming out, but the wall remained dark?

That was the worst part for me. I shoved my head under my pillow and tried to hold my breath for as long as I could, and when I did have to breathe, I took short, choppy breaths so I wouldn't move. I passed out after a while I suppose. I woke up and there was no evidence anything had even been there. I never told anyone in my family about it for some reason.

Last night 04/09/2009

I'm house sitting at a friends place, watching their dog and cat. I decide to hit the sack around midnight, which is pretty usual. I put the cat in one of the rooms on a bed, leave the dog on her bed, and crawl into one of the beds upstairs, shutting the door behind me.

About 20 minutes after getting into bed, I hear what sounds like labored breathing and growling/vibrating coming from directly above me.

I don't know much about houses, or ventilation systems, or any of that stuff. I just know that when I went to sleep, the only thing on the ceiling was an autographed hockey jersey. You know, for decoration.

Normally when I hear sounds at night, I don't really care. Footsteps, doors opening and closing, it's all pretty usual.

When I hear heavy breathing and growling above me, in the middle of the night, in an empty house, that freaks me out. Just a little. My heart is racing, and no I'm not kidding. Something felt really evil for a minute there. I remember I was kind of cold when I had gotten into bed, even 20 minutes after I had gotten into bed. Once I heard that sound, whatever it was, I was sweating bullets.

I started reciting scripture, as quickly as I could. Still not kidding here. Psalm 119:9-16.

"How can a young man keep his way pure?

By living according to your word.

I seek you with all my heart;

do not let me stray from your commands.

I have hidden your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you."

Etc, etc. I start praying like crazy. No, I'm not kidding. The breathing/growling/vibrating stops after like 15 seconds. I continue to pray. I don't move for about 30 minutes.

Finally, I decide I'd better turn a light on and see what is going on. I flip the bedside light to find nothing but a hockey jersey, still tacked to the ceiling.

What the heck could have made that noise?

I didn't fall asleep until 2am. I stayed awake with the light on, staring at the ceiling. I guess I was waiting to see if it happened again? Maybe I was scared to turn the light off and pass out?

I feel like because I've finally decided to start rejecting my sinful nature in favor of rejoicing in God's will for my life and His word in my heart, maybe Satan isn't too stoked on it.

What the heck did I see in my house when I was a kid? What did I hear last night in bed?

I have no idea. What I do know is this: I love scary movies. They don't scare me. They crack me up. And while I prayed last night in bed about this noise above me, I smiled. I smiled because I asked God to lift me up and protect me. Sweet Moses, it was that easy. My heart rate dropped, I stopped sweating, and I smiled. It still took me a while to turn the light on, ha.

For some reason 2 weeks ago (yes, it was only 2 weeks ago) I figured I might be the subject of some spiritual warfare when I decide to turn away from all the crap I'd decided to get myself into and start living for something permanent. Awesome. Bring it on.

Does it freak me out? Hell yes it does. Shoot, before I moved into the K-Life house, I was renting out a basement room from a friend, and one night I was laying in bed getting ready to sleep and suddenly I couldn't move. I struggled for a minute and then began to feel myself being pushed into the bed itself, as though a few dozen people were restraining me. I cried out loudly "NO!" and the weight lifted. I jumped out of bed and searched my room. Nothing.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess... just pray for me a little. Whatever you want to pray. I think it's funny that I walked away from all this crap in my life, only to have the Great Deceiver attempt to suck me back in through fear.

Some Christian leaders attempt to use fear to bring people to Christ, and they reject it.

If Satan wants to use fear to draw me in... seriously? He's the ultimate example of someone who knows the truth, but can't speak an ounce of it.

Mrs. Decosta?

Here's the dream I had last night kids...

I had an English teacher my sophomore year of high school named Mrs. Decosta. Sweetest lady, hardest English class I've ever had.

Well this dream takes place in her classroom, but the hallway attached to her room exists in the school in which I went to second grade. I'm walking down this hallway, and there in the second grade classroom is Mrs. Decosta teaching a high school class.

One of my small group kids is in that class. His name is Matt.

For some reason, he immediately starts making fun of me. This is what Matt does in real life also. So I walk up behind him and slap the crap out of the back of his head. He starts crying. I slap him again and tell him to man up, slap him one more time, and walk to the front of the room.

Mrs. Decosta asks me to help her with some boxes in the back of the room, so I do.

I'm filling boxes with packaging peanuts, whole blocks of styrafoam, and pink and brown tissue paper. The whole class is watching me, as this is not a quiet task to perform. The paper is crinkling, the stryafoam is making that noise styrafoam makes, and Matt (my small group kid in the dream) is talking smack.

I slap Matt around a little more.

Suddenly, I'm in front of my car (the green Honda Accord) with a baseball bat. I start smacking the junk out of it until the water pump falls off the engine. I look under my car, and there's a huge hole in my engine. Coolant is pouring everywhere.

...and I'm awake. What?

reflection...

Apparently, Matt drives me nuts and I want to kick the junk out of him for being a goober.

Apparently, I feel as though Mrs. Decosta gave me a job that I could perform only with an insane amount of noise. In high school, this might have been yelling and screaming.

Apparently, I wish I could hit my car with a bat and fix it like that.

That would be so stinking awesome.

Love you.

The Dream With David

I had a roommate when I first moved out here named David. He's a great guy. I lived with him for a year and a half, and we had some great times. Anyway, somehow he made his way into my dream last night. There was a lot of stuff going on before David came in, but I'm going to do the part with him because it's the only part I remember.

I'm on an island, and it's sunset. I'm swinging in a hammock and on the horizon, I see mountains for some reason. Nothing too crazy, the ocean and the mountains, visible from the island I'm hanging out on.

Enter David. I see Dave walk towards me and ask me if I want to go over to those mountains. I look towards the mountains and see that they are now ON FIRE. The mountains are on fire. Ridiculous.

...that's it. That's the whole dream that I remember. David shows up, the mountains burst into flames. Retarded.

I guess that's all I've got for dreams kids.


Tonight we'll see what happens. Just so you know, I'm going deeper into my Bible, and trying to get my relationship with the Lord a little more solid. Trying to tune my ears to what He has to say to me. I've been really sick and tired of living life on the edge of committing to God.

Living lukewarm = bad idea. Don't believe me?

I lived my life for the past 7 months since kamp got out struggling with a desire for pornography, drinking, and trying to discover who I was in Christ. What was I supposed to do? How could I stay motivated with my music, the thing I was CERTAIN when kamp ended was supposed to be my calling?

I finally see that I need to be in God's word, so His word can live in me.

It's a living word.

It's given me new life.

Two weeks. For the last two weeks I've been digging in, memorizing scripture, talking more openly about my life as a follower of Christ with my Christian friends and my friends who have a harder time understanding my joy.

I started tithing.

I asked God to change my heart, to fix me from the inside out. He's doing it.

Just thought I'd let you know! Ha! I'm as joyful as I could be.