I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoy these rants no matter how much my educational institution (LCC) is bashed or how plain asinine they are in general. I'm an MIS major here at LCC (this is your board...so I'll use your terms) scheduled to graduate this May. For the past 4 years I've seen a lot of hate spouted between these 3 wonderful schools and I have to admit that at my most immature times I've thrown a couple slams out there myself. What I've come to realize in my old age is that we are all just kids in Texas that REALLY love where we go to school, and most of the time we take that passion to it's extremes.

I know that I live in what is considered to be a boring place, but it suits this DFW boy just fine. I would love to raise my kids here, but it looks as though I'll have to do that in Dallas. I've talked to many of my friends who attend A&M and they'll all agree that while they are in a closer proximity to the big cities, CS is just as much a podunk town as Lubbock if not more so. That doesn't matter though, because the people at A&M love their town and it's a great place for them to be. What can you say about Austin? It's a great town to be at. Does it have it's downsides? Heck yeah it does. Just ask anyone that lived their more than 10 years ago. I could personally never live in the confines of Austin. I'm too much of a suburbanite (I truly believe Lubbock is just one big suburb...that's why it fits me). I could easly live outside Austin in the beautiful surrounding areas.

The whole rival thing is very humorous to me. I'm willing to accept that in the realm of sports (or even academics) you don't recognize us as a rival or even on your same level. That's cool with me. My days of fervently defending what I love and others don't were over after my ophmore year. But you can't deny the fact that because we are the 3 major public schools in the best state in the nation, that we don't compete against each other at everything that we can think of. For instance...how ridiculous is it for people on this board to have a heated argument about who drinks the most or who has the hottest women. That is just flat hilarious. It brings a smile to my face because I know that if I wasn't at LCC ;) that you still couldn't pay me to leave Texas. No matter how I've been raised to not like certain other schools or what my opinions are of your schools because of how my friends that attend there turned out...if I wasn't here, I'd be there.

There's alot I have to say about a lot of topics, but my time has run out. I'm interested to hear what kind of names I'll be called or if I'll be deemed dumbass #4. Anyway, think you for starting this board and giving people the opportunity to throw out opinions. I don't apologize for previous LCC students and their strategies for defending what they love, but I think their arguments were weak and frankly pretty retarded. I hate to see my school represented like that even though I know that no matter what kind of rant I write, it won't change anyone's opinion of my little piece of heaven in the barren lands of West Texas.

Thanks for this opportunity...you kids have a great day.

Garrick