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Purity Force Challenge (Crash)

Computer crash.
That sucks.

Now, I had written a real long thing about my next days of the Purity Force Challenge, only to encounter a 'Page cannot be found' when I hit the publish button.
Now that sucks.

But anyway, I'll paste some of the interesting parts again, someday.

In this lesson as well as the next few lessons, we will look into some important issues in teenage life and their affect on purity. Today, Bart, we will look at adolescence itself, and see how you can use this important, crazy time in your life to set the stage for a lifetime of purity.

It is how God designed the human body, and there should be no shame in that. It’s “hormonal” reality – and it’s God’s great design! Yeah! (Go ahead and thank him for it!)

Now think about that.

Purity Force Challenge (The Dissapointment)

Learning what they mean with 'sexual impurity'

Yeah, that's right. With my first day exercises, I asked my 'mentor' what they consider to be sexual impurity. Let's quote here :

"As for sexual impurity, it is Biblically defined as all sex other than that between a man and woman bound in Holy matrimony and entered into in love and with mutual consent of both husband and wife. Sexual impurity would include premarital sex, premarital touching of another's sexual organs or touching them in a way so as to arouse them sexually, masturbation, either by yourself or with someone else, and, in a marriage, forcing something sexual upon your spouse to which she objects"

My gosh.
I really don't like the 'premarital' word there.
I consider asking the guy what they mean by 'premarital', but I suppose there's no hope for me. Ah well, on to the next days.

Day 2.

Wow! God's household! God is the King of the universe! We're of His household?!!? The Bible says it, so it must be true, Bart! We are of God's household, therefore we are adopted into His royal blood! Amazing! We are heirs. (Look at Galatians 4 again!) That's total reality if you know God and have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ.

This rather over-enthousiastic bit introduces me to another couple of questions, about my relationship with Jesus and my thoughts about being 'family' with God. Nothing note-worthy here, except for a lot of reading.

Mandatory questions :

Sexually pure ? Yeah
Committed to staying pure ? Well, knowing that no premarital sex is allowed, this might get tough. But okay, I'll say yes.

Day 3.

If only all my tests at school were this easy :

Question 1. According to this verse, what is at the right hand of God?
Question 2. According to this verse, who is at the right hand of God?

Next paragraph :

Note: The above verse tells us that there are eternal riches and pleasures at the right hand of God, and Jesus is at the right hand of God. Do you see it? The message is clear: In Jesus Christ is eternal pleasure! Sin's pleasures are only "for a season" but with Jesus Christ the pleasure never ends! Eternal pleasure!

Right. Why not start with those pleasures right away, and allow us to have premarital sex ?? If we're gonna get those pleasures anyway, might as well give us a preview of it ..

"Pure in heart" doesn't mean that you never have an impure thought or do something wrong.

Ahaa ! Now we're talking. Let's focus on this part, shall we ? So I can do something wrong ?? I'll keep this in mind.

I eventually end the day's exercises with posting this at the end of my last answer :

How are you today, [name of mentor]?? Did you ever take this course ? How was it for you ? Wasn't it hard for you to not have any premarital sex ? Didn't you have sex at all before you joined this course ?? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just interested .. :)

Sexually pure ? Yeah
Committed ? Still having doubts because of that 'premarital' part. But okay, I'll say yes.

Fun things to do at the MacDrive

How to bother other people as much as possible, during the simple process of ordering fast-food from your car.

We probably all know the universal concept of the MacDrive. You drive your car through a small sort of street, yell your order at a speaker, pay at a window, and collect your (usually incomplete or wrong) order at the next window.

The following tips will help make this mind-numbingly boring thing a bit more fun.

I. Drive through it - backwards.
Right before entering the MacDrive, turn your car around. Drive through the Drive backwards. When you get to either one of the windows, open the passenger window and lean all the way through the car to the window.
Loudly complain about how they could ever make a stupid system like this, and ask them why they didn't think of putting the window on the other side - it would make things a lot easier.

II. Order a pizza.
When you arrive at the speaker, order a Pizza Margherita.
When they tell you they do not sell those, ask for a Pizza Hawaii.
Get annoyed when they tell you they neither have that one. Try a few more kinds, before you drive away frustrated, and ask them 'what kind of stupid pizzeria' they are, if they don't even have those kinds of pizza's.

III. Horn - right through the ordering of the car in front of you.
When you notice the car in front of you starts ordering, keep sounding the horn of your car through their ordering. To be even more annoying, keep revving your engine as loud as possible.
Of course you can also do this while ordering yourself - in which case turning up your car-stereo as loud as possible is very funny as well.

IV. Keep driving, and collect your order through the window of the rear seat.
Like the title says. Keep driving on, move your chair back, lean back as far as possible, open the rear window, and collect your order like this.
(Added thanks to my girlfriend, who actually had to do this, since her driver-side window is broken, and can't open.)

V. Go through on your bike.
A classic - easy, yet funny.

VI. Keep insisting that you want your order 'to go'.

Purity Force Challenge (Kick-off)

Time for resolutions, right ?

Browsing around on the Internet and on some blogs, I noticed the Setting Captives Free website. Apart from books like "A Biblical Approach to Weight Loss" (of course we all know that, apart from spreading his message of love and peace, Jesus also informed us about dieting and weight-loss tactics.), the site offers several 1 or 2 month courses on subjects like porn-addiction and drinking problems.
One of the courses caught my eye, called the Purity Force Challenge.

Quoting a small part of their text :
If you want to live a life of power, then you must live a live of purity! If you want a life of purity, you must live a life that sees and understands reality and truth. Thats what we want to teach you and train you to recognize. Therefore, this course will be based on Truth, as a biblical study. It will be challenging but as Gods Word is put to use in you, it has the power to free you from sins grip, and to help you keep your life pure and powerful for Gods glory.

Right. Well, a life of power sounds good. Purity sounds funny as well. Let's give it a shot, shall we ? Sounds like a good way to start the new year.

Details

I will try and keep a record of everything I learn and do during the course here on my blog. I'll even try to make a day-to-day, diary like story. Hopefully, by the end of this course, I'll be completely pure and powerful.

Prologue.

So, there we go.
Signing up. I am confronted with the following facts :

Enrolling in this course means that you agree to:

Abstain from sexual impurity of any kind.

-Wait a minute. Does that mean no sex at all ? Or can I have sex, as long as I keep it 'pure' ??
I'm not really into any kinky stuff or whatever. Let's assume they mean that with 'impurity'..

Work through the daily lessons.

Email in the completed study guides (hit the submit button on the page).

Be held accountable for your daily progress (If you don't have daily access to a computer then we will work something out).

Apart from the 'abstaining' part, it sounds fair enough.
During the sign-up process, I have to check 3 boxes of which one again reads 'I am committed to abstain from sexual impurity.' Without checking it, there's no signing up. Let's just stick to my definition of impurity, until they prove me wrong.

Day 1.

Off we go.

I am inmediately confronted with the program for the first day.
The story again rants on about how you can only live a life of power, when you remain sexually pure.
It also tells me that during the course, I will learn, among others, about the 'various forms of sexual sin' and the 'Reality of Purity, Relationships and dating'.

Question 1. Bart, what are your own thoughts about sex and sexuality? (There are no right or wrong answers just write!). This will set a starting point and give you something to look back on as you go through the course. What do you think of when you hear "sexuality" ??

- Oh bugger, now what the hell am I supposed to say to that ?

My final answer reads :

When I hear sexuality, I think of the fact of two people having sexual intercourse, aimed at either procreation of their species, or simply as a way to show their feelings for each other, with those feelings being either emotional or physical.

After thinking for a while, I add another paragraph in which I ask the guys what exactly they mean with sexual impurity. Should get that one straightened out right away.

I answer a few other questions about how that opinion is shaped (I guess media and other people around me, mostly), and am confronted with a verse reading "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1 Cor. 6:18-20)

They now ask me whether I remained pure since my last lesson, and tell me they are gonna ask that question every day. I guess I should answer 'yes' here.

Note

Despite the -possibly somewhat sarcastic- tone I'm writing this, I mean in no way to ridicule or make fun of the Christian beliefs. In fact, I am very interested in their views on things like 'purity'.
If you feel offended by this post, or any other post following in this series, feel free to contact me -either by replying to this post, or by mailing me.
Realize however, that I too am entitled to my own opinion on things, and try not to simply think of me as a 'sinner' (or any other kind of jerk). If we act like adults, we might have a nice discussion.

Call on me

Sex sells

Some of you might've gotten the link between the main title, and the smaller sub-title. For those who don't watch TV, "Call on me" is the title of a music video by some Swedish guy named Eric Prydz. The song itself isn't that special, and even manages to get repetitive in the mere 3 minutes it takes. The brilliance of it, however, is the video.
The video features a group of scarcely-dressed and really beautiful woman doing some kind of aerobics excerises. My own gym has never been the same since I saw this video. (At least until one day, when I actually saw the people that were coming from the aerobics class there. My dreams shattered.)

But, back to the main point. Sex sells.
And even better, it seems to be aimed only at males.

Take a music video. Any male artist making a video, will have half-naked chicks in his video. That sells. Now take a female artist. Instead of the -somewhat logical, or at least fair- choice of having beautiful guys in their videos, female artist will also have half-naked chicks. Very often, they will even get -almost- undressed themselves, and dance around.
And it's everywhere. Once, I browsed through a catalog of car-tuning parts. On every single page, there were, next to the spoilers and sports-exhausts, pictures of girls in bikinis. Seriously every page.
TV-commercials. Apart from the Cola-light guy, I can't really remember a TV commercial that tries to sell with pretty guys. There's dozens of commercials using pretty -and often of course half naked- girls to get the attention of viewers.
Is that going to attract female buyers ? Nope, it's not.

So that should mean us males still rule the earth.

But why does it work ? I mean, I have never bought anything, just because the commercial has pretty girls, or because it is sold by pretty girls (another nasty trick, often used on the streets.). Of course, in the case of pretty girls selling something, I might be a bit less rude, and might not inmediately scream something like "No, I've already got one." (which is my favourite to get rid of anybody trying to sell something.).
But it certainly won't persuade me more to buy something. Do other people actually buy stuff because of the sex around it ? Let me know. Leave a comment.

Craziness

A rather simple how-to guide on how to get all the benefits of being considered crazy, without any of the problems usually associated with being it full-time.

I guess everybody secretly desires to escape all their daily routines, and live like they don't have a care in the world, like they don't care about the world. If you're crazy, things are much easier. People will forgive you much more if you are considered crazy. Take the following example.

Q : 'Why did you kick my car ?'
A : 'I felt like kicking something. You're car is ugly, so it seemed the obvious choice.'

Q : 'Why did you kick my car ?'
A : 'You're one of them ! I must kick the car of all the collaborators with the aliens !! Aaaahr !'

In reality, in scenario A, you will get your ass kicked. In scenario B, people are much more likely to forgive you, because they think you're crazy.
Now, actually being crazy won't get you very far. Within a few months, you're gonna be put in some home, drugged to near-death, and be thrown in a small room with padded walls from time to time.
Therefore, you should learn to seem crazy. Carefully read the following rules :

I. Gear up !
This one depends on the time of preparation you take for your crazy-moment. Ideally, you should stop shaving and cleaning yourself (and your clothes) about a week before your crazy-time.
When the necessity to be crazy suddenly shows itself, however, you can still make some simple, yet powerful changes to your visual crazy-rating. Perfectly good examples would be wearing your clothes inside out, decorating yourself with randoms items you find around (preferrably from thrashcans), and messing up your hair.

II. Talk to yourself
Most people would probably think of this one. It is, however, very important to do this one right.
Talking out loud about events that are currently happening will at best raise some eyebrows. Talking about events that are not currently happening would be better. Talking about yourself, referring to yourself in the third person is again even better.
For added craziness, you might even talk to a prop (see tip II), or to your own hand.
The final touch of talking to your hand, would be to insist that other people talk to your hand as well, instead of talking to you.

III. Get a prop
This one's very important. Take a random, useless item, and carry it around everywhere. Great items here are dead animals, human body parts, and vegetables. You can make this act more convincing by talking to the prop. Always call the prop 'Mr (name of prop)' (for example 'Mr Cucumber', or 'Mister Dead Parrot').
Talk to the prop, about other people. Try to make fun of these people as much as possible. Act like your prop actually talks back, which the other people of course cannot hear.

IV. Be afraid of invisble things
You might require some preparing for this, if you're not that imaginative. The point here is to refer to different invisble objects around you, taking care that these objects do absolutely not make sense in your current surroundings. Always consider these objects very hostile, and act like you are doing people a great favor warning them. For bonus crazy-points, you should choose inanimate objects.
For example, when in a train, you should warn people for meat-eating cheese, or very violent trees. Railway tracks or benches make more sense, because they are connected to the train. Thefore you shouldn't use them, even though the thought of violent benches sure is a scary one.
Of course, you should scream as loud as possible when warning people.

V. Mention the government/aliens
Things are simply not complete without mentioning the government or extra-terrestrials (a combination of both will do just as well, if not better).
Make up complicated conspiracy stories about how the government intrudes into your daily life, monitoring your every movement, trying to control your brain. Tell people (just tell them. No need for them to ask or something, just walk up to them and tell them) how the government co-operates with aliens, trying to seize control over the entire planet.
Bonus points here can be scored by finishing your story, and then screaming a loud 'You're one of them !' at your victims.

Memorized these tips ?
Go out, and enjoy yourself. Take care to notice any possibly dangerous (or boring) situation in which it might help you to escape the simple daily reality.

Note

Commenting is always welcome. However, do not mention anything about disrespect, calling 'mentally inhibited' people crazy or such. Sure, maybe you know crazy people, and you feel offended.
As you might have seen on my profile, I study Clinical Neuropsychology. Soon, it will be my everyday reality to deal with crazies and nutcases, so I pretty much know what I'm talking about.

Paradise Lost

The following is a sort of prologue to a short story I'm trying to write.
I actually don't have a clue how it will end out, yet. Somehow, I had this opening scene in my mind pretty clearly.
The story will (probably) end up being a short, supernatural themed thriller. I think this opening kind of sets the dark, scary atmosphere I want. I'll post some more updates when I come up with more.

Let me know what you think.


I woke up.

I was hanging over a toilet bowl, and I had a blasting headache.
I looked around carefully, every heartbeat threatening to blow my brains all over the toilet stall.
Trying to get my bearings again, I was attempting to figure out how I ended up almost face-down in a toilet bowl.
Not only could I not remember how I got myself down there, I couldn't even tell where I was. Not to mention several other things I couldn't remember.
I couldn't remember my name.
I couldn't remember anything else about myself.
I couldn't just not remember what happened before I ended up here, I couldn't remember anything before I got here.

Slowly, it occurred to me that I had woken up to one of the greatest Hollywood cliches there is :

I had lost my memory.

I didn't have a clue where I was. Neither did I have a clue who I was.

Still wondering about it, I walked out of the stall, and was in for another surprise - neither did I know how I looked. My reflection in the mirror scared the living hell out of me. My face was cut, scarred, and covered with dried-up blood. I could either be wearing a white shirt with lots of red stains on it, or simply a red shirt with a few white spots. I looked like something out of a cheap zombie-snuff movie.
After having cleaned the worst blood stains off my face, and having failed miserably at any other attempt to fix myself up, I walked up to the door leading out of the toilets. It led to a dimly lit hallway, the door to the female restrooms right in front of me. The walls of the hallway were randomly littered with small paintings. The paintings showed a distinct lack of good taste, and would've made most 19th century masters instantly quit their painting careers, to go tend gardens somewhere.

At the end of this hallway there was another door. It opened into a big room, again pretty dark. There was a bar on the far end, two big doors on the left side, and a few high tables scattered throughout the room. The wall behind the bar had a few shelves, well stocked with bottles of liquor. Triggering me like one of Pavlov's dogs, I instantly felt like having a drink. I walked to the bar, and looked around for the bartender. It was not until then that I started wondering where everybody else was. There were glasses on the tables, some of them half-filled - or half-emptied, make your own choice here.
I leaned over the bar, and discovered why it took the bartender so long to come up. Behind the bar, there was a well dressed, decapitated body. The floor was covered with blood. I couldn't find the head anywhere. I backed away from the bar, and strumbled out of the room. Opening the doors, I walked into a large, and surprisingly well-lit room. I wish that room were dark. Even today, I still regularly have nightmares about the sight I was treated to.

There were people here. Or at least, there were pieces of people.
I was in some kind of lobby, it seemed like a hotel. Scattered throughout the room, there were cut-off hands, arms, and legs. I even noticed a head, before I ran out of the place in terror.

Out on the street, I ran to the nearest corner, and threw up. I felt awful. It was like I was throwing up all of my intestines. The horrible pain in my head made it feel like my brain would soon come loose, so I could throw that up as well.

I turned around as I heard a sound behind me.
The last thing I saw was a large stick or bat headed on a straight collision course with my head.
It hit me, and I passed out.

It was the grand opening of the worst night of my life.
And I couldn't even remember whether the day had at least started well.

Winning arguments

A simple how-to guide on how to always win discussions/arguments/debates (and any other type of small talk in which opinions are used).

We've probably all been in stupid arguments, trying to convince the other of your views, and the obvious stupidity of his own. Meanwhile the other is trying the same. It seems pointless. It is pointless. Some people have almost made a sport of this. Honestly, I recently read something about the 'Debating Championships'.

For those of you who aren't all that socially skilled, and usually end up muttering something like "yeah, I guess you're right" after a discussion, here's a short guide on how to effectively convey your message to the other. I don't think it'll help you to win any 'Debating Championship', but if that's really what you want, I don't think I even want to talk to you.

Now, memorize the following rules.
Or copy-paste them, decrease the size, print them, and paste it on the back of your hand. Your call.

I. Interrupt your opponent.
One of the best ways to make sure your points are better than your opponent's, is to never give him a chance to even convey them.

You : "There's no such thing as evolution"
Opponent : "There is. Recent -"
You : "Oh no, there is no such thing as evolution"
Opponent : "But resea-"
You : "Research tells us nothing. How can there be such a thing as evolution ?"
Opponent : "Well, there-"
You : "There's just no such thing."
Opponent : "But -"
You : "Zip it."
Opponent : "...."

II. Use personal attacks.
Your opponent's shortcomings are there for you to exploit. Look for everything that might seem a bit out of the ordinary, and mention it. The better you get at discussing, the more details you will find to comment about.

You : "Freud was stupid."
Opponent : "Actually, he made quite a contribution to the modern psychotherapy."
You : "Shut up. You're fat !"
Opponent : "What ?"
You : "You're fat ! Fat people shouldn't talk !"
Opponent : "...."

III. Use accents
There's nothing as distracting as an accent. To make this even more effective, change the accent every time you say something.

You : "It should be legal to kill stupid people."
Opponent : "That's ridiculous"
You : "Arrr, matey, it would be a verry good idea, me thinks it would rid us of all stupiditie."
Opponent : "Huh ? What ? ... No, it wouldn't be good."
You : "Yezz, but of courze ! Without ze ztupidity, zhere would be lezz crime."
Opponent : "......"

IV. Refer to famous people
If a famous person said it, it's true. Now, the famous person doesn't necessarily need to have said it, the mere mentioning of the person should do the trick.

You : "All Germans are arrogant and stupid."
Opponent : "That's not true. I know some very nice Germans."
You : "They're all stupid. The Queen says so herself."
Opponent : "...."

V. Distract your opponent
Distraction works. Consider the military example of one fire-team distracting the enemy, while the other one sneaks around, and kicks the enemy in the ass. Distracting your opponent will make him vulnerable.

You : "Earth is the only planet in the galaxy."
Opponent : "No, it's not. There's proof of countless other planets in the galaxy."
You : "Look out ! Behind you !"
Opponent : "Huh, what ?" (looks behind)
You : (tap opponent on left shoulder.)
Opponent : (looks left)
You : (tap right shoulder)
Opponent : (looks right)
You : "So, I guess I'm right."
Opponent : "...."

VI. Hurt your opponent
If you can somehow manage to cause your opponent pain, and make the pain last for the entire discussion, you're set. The opponents points will be far less convincing and less clear, when they're mixed with groans and "please, stop hurting me".

You : "The Earth is flat."
Opponent : "No, it's not. There proof that the earth is round"
You : (stand on opponent's toes.) "If it were round, we'd fall off"
Opponent : "Ouch. No... That's .. Ouch .. because of ... Grrr .. gravity."
You : (grab opponent's hand, and squeeze it.) "Gravity ? Never heard of that."
Opponent : "Ouch.. Please, you're hurting me. Owww .."
You : "So I guess .." (squeeze harder) ".. that I'm right ?"
Opponent : "....."

Now, go out into the world, and put these lessons to good use.
Make me proud.

(By the way, also read the articles written by a fellow Neuropsychology student, Tom)

Amsterdam

A guide for dummies to the city where practically everything is allowed.

Amsterdam.
If Terry Pratchett had any real city in mind when he made up Ankh Morpork, it would be Amsterdam. As long as you don't kill or damage anybody (or anything), you're pretty much free to do whatever you want.

Drugs
"When it's legal to buy and use them, it'll probably give less problems then when we make it illegal.". That's about the view of the Dutch government and hell, it works. There's very little (visible, at least) crime surrounding the coffeeshops (places where they sell the drugs). Almost every famous American will loudly proclaim "don't do drugs, kids" when in America, then travel to Amsterdam, and get completely stoned. We've had Britney Spears (who was on a tour) so stoned, that she fell off the stairs of a coffeeshop. When George Clooney and Matt Damon were here for shooting of Ocean's Twelve, I think they spent about as much time smokin' in the coffeeshop as they spent actually doing the movie.
And when they get back to America, it's all "don't do drugs" again.

Alcohol
Officially, we have age limits concerned to drinking alcohol. Practically, you just need one thing to make your drinking legal : paying for it. I've seen kids in bars drinking beer, that hardly reached to my middle (Now, I am tall, but not that gigantic).
Even better, for the underage people, we have Bacardi Breezer. Don't have a clue if it's known anywhere else. Where normal alcohol has an age limit below which you aren't allowed to drink it, the Breezer has a limit above which you shouldn't be allowed to drink it.
And also, drinking it as a guy, instantly makes you gay.

Bikes
An interesting detail about Amsterdam, not known by most tourists.
Bikes are pretty much communal property. Not properly locking your bike is a guarantee that it'll be gone within 5 minutes. Properly locking your bike means putting at least 3 very large and heavy chain locks around it, putting the chain trough the bike and the wheels, and around anything on the street (lampposts, bridges, other bikes -preferably of people you don't know).
Only putting a lock around your front wheel will mean that your bike will be gone -except for the front wheel, which will still be there, with the lock still around it.

'Negotiable pleasures'
The red light district. I don't know much about it's legalness anywhere else in the world. But here, it's legal. It's all centered in one large, red-illuminated area, completely crawling with Japanese tourists.
Now, I wouldn't even consider doing something like this, even if the girls paid me. But it seems they have plenty of business, considering the many broad-smiling (really, from one ear to the other. If they'd smile even more, the top of their head would fall off), ugly old men, that you usually see coming from behind the closed curtains.
Probably something I will never understand, unless I'm gonna end up as a dirty, lonely old man as well .. If I do, somebody please kill me.

Which brings me to a very nice example of the incredible irony in Amsterdam. In one part of red-light district, there's several windows with girls behind them, and then, there's a kindergarden. Really, after several red-illuminated windows, there's suddenly a few windows decorated with children's drawings. I guess they put it there for "professional accidents" of people 'working' around there.
The next best thing would be another street, which is filled with sexshops, and in the middle of it, a Christian Youth Hostel.

Probably coming up, some day :
-Amsterdam, pt. II

Internet Chat Rooms

Escaping reality in possibly the saddest way possible

I had never had much experience with chatrooms. I never really saw the point in talking to people you don't know, without seeing them. I heard the stories about people that met each other on the chatrooms, and are now in love, or even getting married.

That's just sad.

But anyway, being a real jerk, and very bored, I decided to create a girl's e-mail adress, complete with a pink-colored MSN-profile stating that 'I love Hugh Grant and all his movies'. I stole a picture of a girl from hotornot.com. The girl is pretty good-looking, even.
It was really convincing.

Time to head out into the chatroom. I fill in the entrance form, calling myself 'Tanya', being female and 18 years old. And then the fun starts.

Girls, when in a bar, have you ever had 'Hey, wanna see my dick' as a pick-up line? I had. Multiple times. In chatrooms, that's supposedly a good opening. Also, it seems completely socially acceptable to ask a girl, after her asl, about her bra-size, her favourite sexual position, and if she shaves herself ... down there.
Now try that in a bar.

I discovered an entirely new world.
I had never known that things like this could go on.
I had never known that there's so many people out there, that really shouldn't be allowed to be walking around freely. Put them in a nice cell with padded walls, and don't give them Internet access.

I got into a conversation with a guy, that didn't seem completely as bad as the rest. At least, he didn't offer me to look at his dick. Let's call the guy Paul (Obviously, since that's his real name). After a while, he asked me for my MSN. Having created a perfectly girly profile, I figured this would be a good chance to see if anybody would find out.
He didn't find anything out. Instead, after a while, he started talking about that he really felt how 'well we connected', and that he had never had that with other people in chatrooms or on MSN. I figured that's what he said to everybody he'd meet here. It seemed it wasn't, because after a few more talks, he actually asked if I wanted to have a relationship with him.

Having never seen me, the guy considered me his girlfriend, and wouldn't look at other girls in bars, because he already had me. I was amazed. The guy was 18, and was as naive as George W. Bush. Things got even freakier from there, though.

Paul had a webcam. He offered to show me things on the webcam. I won't go into detail here. I couldn't watch it, anyway. The moment I saw him pulling his pants down, I turned off the video screen. A friend of mine, who also had Tanya's e-mail password, actually watched it, and made screenshots of it. If Paul ever gets famous, I have a nice surprise for him.
After that, I pretty much stopped talking to the guy.

Since then, I've had quite a lot of other guys offering me to show me their dicks. I even had a guy travelling to the Amsterdam WTC railway station, so we could have a sex-date there. I had a guy driving his car about halfway to Amsterdam.

I don't really use Tanya anymore, nowadays.
But sometimes, when I'm bored, I do.

Beware, dick-showing guys out there.

Coming up soon :

- "Amsterdam"
- "Internet's effect on puberty-age development. (A quasi-scientific piece.)"
- "My hero : Donald Duck"

SMS to TV

Aaah, MTV and TMF (which is our Dutch equivalent of MTV).

Frontline for the young generation. The perfect way to keep in touch with other people as wasted as yourself. Being 20 years old, I did not grow up with the Internet, and mobile phones. It wasn't usual that anybody could be reached anywhere, anytime. If you called someone at home, and they weren't there, well, tough luck.
I really don't understand what's great about wasting your money on sending text messages to some really overpriced company, to get your (usually useless) text featured on TV.

"Hey, my sweeetie, I luv you, and never want to loose you !"
-And bang, that's about 1,50 bucks down the drain. And then they complain that more young people have money problems.
Old-fashioned as I might be, I'd rather say something like that to the person. In person, really. Would also save me the 1,50 bucks, which I could put to better use.

Honestly, why would anybody want to waste their money on saying stuff like that to an audience that really doesn't care shit about what you think ? Anybody knows it, please fill me in on it.

Right now, there's some sort of game show going on on TMF. A Call-TV difficulty level question is asked on screen, and you can send a message, saying the correct answer. I don't know what you get for getting the correct answer, and I doubt that anybody does. But people still answer the questions.

Well, call me old.
Leave a comment here, if you can tell me the sense of any of the things I just named.

Coming up tomorrow : "Internet Chat Rooms (escaping reality in possibly the saddest way possible)"

My views

(Actually, this post was written on the 17th, as my third post. It didn't seem right coming after my previous two posts though, so I backdated it to seem like my first post. It looks a lot better here.)

Reading some other blogs, using the magical 'next blog' button, I notice there's many dark, negative and depressed blogs out there. There's almost suicidal thoughts, poems about darkness and death.

I realize my posts might seem pretty negative as well. I don't mean them to be like that, it's just my way of commenting on things in this world (especially those I don't understand/don't agree with).

In fact, I'm a rather positive person. Though I've had my share of problems in life, I would never consider my life to be troubled in any way. The last couple of years for me have been pretty hard, and could've plummeted me into a horrible depression. I would still describe them as nice, and pretty problem-free.

Awfully cliche as it might sound, I believe that -no matter or it's half-full or half-empty- the glass should simply be refilled again. I have an almost naive believe in the fact that things will work out, in the end. And maybe fate feels sympathy for me because of thinking that, but usually, things do work out.

Overall, I'm just happy. With my family, my girlfriend, my friends, and even with myself.