Do I really need to link to it? You already know what it's going to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLkgXhGraFM

Or gotten raped or God knows what else.

Today a complete stranger wanted my phone number after I gave him directions. I should have known something fishy was going on (my sister did), but my insensitivity to the Spirit, coupled with a blind trust and desperate need for a guy to notice me blinded me. I gave him my home address. That's how utterly stupid I was being. If I hadn't obeyed my mother and told him to not follow me home, I don't know what would have happened. He still came to my house later, but we called the cops when that happened. My fishy senses were on full blast by that point. Now I have to change my phone number so that he can't track me. Hopefully we can get the number he gave us off my sister's phone so that my father can call him. My brother also has permission to kick the dudes ass if he sees him around the neighborhood.

There's only reason I can think of that I didn't get hurt. God was watching out for me, and no one will convince me otherwise. I haven't been nearly as good as I should have, and nothing was working to get me to change my ways. I guess I'm one of those people that has to be scared into doing what's right. This is my last chance to clean up my act, and you can bet that this time I will not waste it. 

So girls, if a complete stranger comes up to you asking for your phone number, don't give it to him. Especially if he's charming. It's just trouble waiting to happen. 

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Shortest: Green Eggs and Ham. Or some Dr. Suess book.

Longest: The Tale of Genji, which I have yet to finish.

Had a pretty cool expereince yesterday while visiting teaching. What's visiting teaching, you ask? It's a Latter Day Saint thing where female members visit other female members to support each other.

Anyway, we were visiting this girl, having good discussions about all sort of things, spiritual and otherwise, when her brother passes by after waking up from a nap. With a snake around his neck. I didn't give it much thought other than "Cool. A snake." My sister... almost freaked out. She pointed out the snake, and suddenly the conversation took a rather different turn. Not only did he give us lots of interesting facts about snakes and caring for them as pets, he also let me hold both the snake around his neck, but another, smaller specimen that he had. I had held a snake before(a very large one that took several people to hold, but a snake nonetheless), but this was the first time I had volunteered to hold one, let alone two. My sister... well, she pet them, but was very much against holding them. She is very much like Indiana Jones in that regard.

Why do I bring this up? Becuase I was actually rather suprised by myself when I held those snakes. It had been years since I had even seen a snake, let alone held one. I have to say, I was quite proud of myself, because if I were 12, I would have been reacting to the snakes in a manner similar to my sister. The very large snake I held all those years ago helped me get over my natural squeamishness around them, but I had honestly expected never to hold another serpent in my life.

Let me tell ya though, my mom nearly freaked out when she found out when we got home. Having grown up in Kentucky, where there are more poisonous snake species than out west, I totally understand. Accidentally mixing up the words "cobra" and "python" didn't help either.

So now you know that I actually kinda like snakes. Never thought I would type that phrase, but there it is.

lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Weatherstock Remember when I said that you could play music in LOTRO? In groups as well as solo? I have? Good. Have I told you about my kinship, The Lonely Mountain Band, and how every Monday we hold a little event called Ales and Tales where we play songs, tell tales, drink ale(yes, you can craft booze in game. Pipe-weed too) and generally have a fun time? I have? Good.

Now let me tell you about an annual event The Lonely Mountain Band has held every summer since 2009. Think of it as a big Middle-Earth Battle of the Bands meets Woodstock kind of shindig held on Weathertop. What's it called? Weatherstock!

Seeing as I only joined the LMB shortly after LOTRO's F2P launch, this will be my first Weatherstock. And I am so excited for it. I heard from our kinship leader herself that over 200 folks were in attendance last year. LOTRO podcasts will be commenting on it. Two of the bands who signed up are from an EU server(which, until June 1st this year, are run by a different company). Saying that this is kind of a big deal is a huge understatement!

For more information, see the link at the beginning of the post. I doubt many on the flist will be interested, but if I can spread the word, well, I'll be content.

And now I must figure out what organizing team I should be on.

Bin Laden is finally dead! I know I shouldn't be this excited about someone dying, but this is just too momentous an occasion not to be excited! Finally, after almost a decade of wondering and waiting and watching and pretty much losing hope of us ever finding him, we got him!

To be honest, when I first saw the news, I was skeptical. Mind you, I first saw it on Twitter, so my skepticism was well founded.

You know what though? I'm rather sad that it had to end for him this way. Mass murderer that he was, he was still a child of God, just like Hitler and Stalin and Mao were. It's sad that people can become so wicked that the only way to prevent them from hurting others is to kill them.

I am fully aware that the short term ramifications include the people venerating him as a martyr and thus carrying on attacks in his memory. I really think that in the long run, the world will be a better place.

My mom had the weird idea of sticking his body on a pole at Ground Zero, Vlad the Impaler style. It would certainly be quite the message. It's also kind of disturbing coming from my mother.

My brother, whose birthday is September 11th, is positively giddy with joy right now. We have all been trying to calm him down, but to no avail.

Bets on whether this gets more news coverage than Friday's royal wedding.

Mom really did not want to go back to work at Wal-Mart. She had a bad feeling about it. And to be honest, knowing what I know about God, I'm actually rather glad she got fired. Not only is it time for Dad to take the reins income-wise, but my sister and I are at the point in our lives that we need to become independent, and I really feel that Mom is the best one to teach us how to do that. I'm not mad at the people who fired her or contributed to her firing anymore. I still think they are horrible people for doing that, but I've realized that it's just not worth getting mad at them. Oddly enough, it took me longer to get to that point than my mom.

In other, more cheerful news, lotrgficbigbang now exists. I can not begin to tell you how excited I am for this. I had even been thinking about how awesome such a thing would be when I found it. Sign-ups begin today(as soon as the sign-up post actually exists), and I am so going for it. It's 20,000 words over 6 months, so there's a bit less pressure than NaNoWriMo. I also have an excellent idea for what to write. Thank goodness they allow crossovers!

So apparently, LJ has a new feature that allows you to post comments to Facebook and Twitter, as well as entire entries. My thoughts? What's the point of this feature? Do we really need to sync up every aspect of our internet lives?

Honestly though, all that matters to me is that you don't use the stuff in my post for nefarious purposes. I believe that whatever bad we do has consequences, regardless of whether you get caught or not.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take my mom to the TMJ doctor and my brother to the orthodontist today. Yipee.