And now it's time for me to once again throw some common sense into the ring here.

If you seriously are spending your time whining, crying, bitching, moaning, complaining, hating, yelling, railing about successful Xangans, you obviously have a tiny e-peener. Now, my e-peener is big. And fluffy. Like a jumbo-sized batch of cotton candy. Mmm mmm good.

Now, to those successful Xangans who keep talking about the people who are whining, crying, bitching, moaning, complaining, hating, yelling, railing about you...I have one question.

SERIOUSLY???

You run a successful Xanga website. Your e-peener should already be big and fluffy. Much like mine. You don't need to rally your troops behind you every time someone has a problem with you. In fact, the bbbest option for everyone involved is for you to just ignore it. I enjoy your posts. I enjoy your actual posts. And when you spend your time on Xanga posting about people who dislike you, it takes time away from your good posts. Not everyone is going to like you, and everyone knows that the only reason haters hate is because they want attention. You are giving it to them. The internet + anonymity + idiot = asshole. The internet + anonymity + idiot + attention =  asshole who will never quit bothering you. If you want to respond in a rational way to accusations they've made against you, fine. But ZOMG LET'S GET NUKE THE BASTARDS!!! is not a proper way to respond. You don't need to rally your base. They already like you, otherwise, they wouldn't be subscribed to you.

Back to the hate people. Yes, I realize that I am being slightly hypocritical in this post by making a post about haters. But trust me, as discussed previously, I have a big e-peener. I can handle it.

I like Xanga. But for realz, you people can be like a bunch of 14 year olds sometimes. But then again, the internet tends to make people like that. All I've gotten for the past 3 or so days from many of the good Xangans is anti-hate posts. Frankly, I don't give a shit about haters. I do, however, give a shit if I don't get to read a decent post from Xangans that I like. It makes me sad. Plus, it makes my e-peener shrink. So please, for the sake of my e-peener...ignore the haters.

A disclaimer before I begin:

I am a Christian...I grew up in an awful church environment. Backstabbing, sedition,  church splits, lies, hypocrisy, etc. So my opinion of religious ceremonies, etc., is probably jaded. And I in NO way wish to demean or ridicule anyone's beliefs in this post.

Lent has always bothered me. And it's probably because I don't fully understand it...so if anyone reading this practices Lent, please try to explain it to me.

Firstly, there's Mardi-Gras. Loud, drunken partying, and then...Lent. I guess my issue here is the need to 'get it out of my system.' I've never felt that need. I've always been a person who, if I think I need to change something or stop doing something, I'll stop then and there. I don't wait for New Years, don't wait for graduation, Lent, etc., I just stop it then and there. So why is the day/week leading up to Lent a get-it-all-out type of deal? Why do people need to indulge themselves right before they deprive themselves?

So, for Lent, people traditionally give up certain things...coffee, chocolate, cheeseburgers, texting, etc. My question to those who practice it is this - is that permanent, or does it just last the 40 days? Because everyone I know has always just given it up for the 40 days and then gone back to eating/drinking/doing whatever they gave up...and I don't understand it. Why did you decide to give up something that is essentially trivial, like texting for example, instead of something more concrete, like, I am going to focus extra hard on stopping this sin I've been struggling with, and I'm going to spent more time praying/reading my Bible, etc? And when you give up something like texting for the 40 days...if you felt it was something you needed to give up during Lent, why not just stop it entirely for the rest of your life?

I dunno. It confuses me. If anyone could help me out here, I'd appreciate it.

Later folks.

I received this message from several people tonight:

"Copy and paste this message and send it to all of your friends and subscribers to John know how much you love him."

It's interesting...in EVERY one, the message was exactly the same...no one seemed to notice the error, they just copied and pasted. "subscribers to John know." See how there should have been a 'let' in there? People are funny.

http://cbs3.com/local/Camden.Sacramento.Online.2.926261.html

Just saw this story on Drudge.

"During an online conversation Monday night, 22-year-old Jesse Coltrane realized his friend was distraught and even suicidal.

"At one moment he was cutting his arms," Coltrane explained.

Jesse said he only knew the 18-year-old's first name and phone number and tried to convince his friend not to kill himself. The conversation lasted well into the evening while his friend continued cutting his forearm with a razor.

Jesse decided to call a police department in Sacramento and officers were able to track down where his friend lived in California.

"Certainly suicide is not new, certainly doing it in front of people that you know is not new unfortunately, but seeing it on a web cam while you're chatting on the internet is new and we're seeing that these are possibilities, before you only saw it in Hollywood," Sgt. Norm Leong of the Sacramento Police Department said."

Ok...so here's my thing. First off, props to the guy who saved the 18 year old. Good for him.

Secondly...is it just me, or has the internet magnified the problem of attention whores? Now, I don't know the suicidal kid in question, but, I do know a few people who have done the cutting thing/threatened to commit suicide. I know one person who has kids who was on IM with me late one night threatening to commit suicide. I thought of the incident later, and while at the time all I felt was worry and concern, as I thought more and more about it, it pissed me off.  The woman has kids and is threatening to commit suicide? What a cold-hearted selfish bitch. You do NOT commit suicide and leave your kids behind to pick up the pieces. I don't care how shitty your life is (the woman was upset because of her divorce).

Anyway, back to the point at hand. Right. This kid. My theory is this, and I very well could be wrong, but hear me out. I believe that if you truly want to commit suicide, you will. Right then and there. The people who go to the Brooklyn Bride and threaten to jump - they're not really going to jump. They just want the attention that comes with threatening to jump. If they really wanted to jump, they would have already.

I think in many ways, the internet has magnified this problem. Attention-seekers now have a whole new medium in which they can manipulate nice, unsuspecting people. My theory is that this suicidal kid in the story just wanted attention...and he got it alright.

I know I sound kinda heartless here, but it's not from lack of experience. Like I said, I know a few people who have thrown out the suicide card. Most of them, besides the woman I spoke of earlier, have told me that yea, it was the dumbest thing they could possibly have done and that all they wanted was attention. But like I said, I don't know this kid and it could be something completely different. It just creeps me out when I see a story like this come out...I think the internet, while wonderful, has enhanced the problem is attention-whores...stories like this make me think that much worse things are still to come.

Anywho, it's late (or early?) and I'm being inarticulate. G'night.