10 things I bet you didn't know about me

Jen wrote up one of these the other day, and I got to thinking about what I'd write last night. Here are the fruits of my thoughts!

1. When I was a baby, my parents and my uncle built our house on the side of a mountain in Groton, New Hampshire. We lived in a tent, then in the foundation. My memories of that place are big icicles and squashed frogs on the road. I lived there until I was school age, then I moved to Plymouth.

2. I was a pagan witch when I was in the military.

3. I sold educational books door to door one summer when I was in college for Southwestern. I lived on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. I worked like 80 hours a week and barely broke even.

4. I was a virgin until college.

5. I never smoked weed until college. In college, I was eventually a total pothead. I'd get high nearly every day, and I can remember thinking to myself: "I can't remember the last time I *wasn't* high." one time. My favorite pipe was one a friend of mine made out of some wood.

6. I used to read the Illuminatus Trilogy in high school. This is a rather unique book that had a profound impact on my life. It's not written in cronological order. If you can make it past the first 100 pages of the first book, you should be Ok. I've read it a lot of times, and used to treat it like I imagined other people would treat "the bible". In fact, I used to call it my bible. My copy was dog eared, highlighted, and the binding was held together with that clear packing tape.

7. When I was a kid, there was this girl who was my age who lived in the neighborhood. She was one of those "cool" kids. She and a couple of other kids at her encouragement started throwing rocks at me on the street one day. I picked up a piece of broken off pavement from the street and chucked it at her, and it hit her full in the face. My parents made me apologise to her, but I always thought she deserved what she got. Why is the victor always the one who gets in trouble?

8. I joined the military because my car broke down.

9. I got kicked out of the military for smoking weed. I had the highest recorded THC content discovered on the base, ever. I think I had smoked out the day before.

10. I'm a "messy". I lack organisation in my life, and I don't really see clutter. It doesn't bother me. It's a problem for me, and I try and combat it, because it's embarassing to have a house that's messy when other people come over.

Who's your scapegoat?

I drive in my car 1.5-2 hours each way. So I get a lot of time to think. Time to converse with myself and with pretend people. You know what I mean: playing out a conversation in your head. Today on the way home from work, I was listening to The Bible Answerman on WMCA 570. One of his callers was a reformed catholic. He said he was "born a catholic", which is quite the mindset that these people have, even though they were "raised a catholic". And even that can be quite diverse, usually ending up in disillusionment, a sense of "Christian" hypocrisy, and rebellion.

It got me to thinking about the issue of free will and salvation. God gives us a free will. A will to do what we will. This, of course, doesn't mean we can lift cars over our heads if we want to, but it does mean that we can jump off the ski-lift if we so desire. Have you ever thought that? Been about 50 feet in the air, skis on your feet, soaring along a mountain at about 10 miles an hour and though to yourself: "I could jump here. I could kill myself, or hurt myself. I could do it."

And you could. You could jump there. You could push your partner in the seat out as well. You could put your arm around them and tell them you love them. You could ignore them. You could make fun of their hat.

We all have a lot of choices in life. And we get to make whichever ones we want, because we have free will.

Do you know what sin is? It's not doing the will of God.

Let that sink in for a second. The bible says: "If you know what is right, and don't do it, it's a sin." And clearly doing things that are contrary to what God wants you to do is sin. So it's not just action which is sin, but inaction can also be sin. God doesn't want you to sin, but he gave you free will, and if he didn't, you wouldn't be able to sin.

Why is there evil in the world? Free will.

You know, Satan means "Accuser". He was cast down from heaven for trying to set himself above God. Essentially, Satan disobeyed God, and God kicked him and his posse (1/3 of the angelic host) out of heaven. And because of Satan and his angel's disobedience, they're going to "burn in hell". Do you know what that's like? Eternal darkness. Weeping. Gnashing, grinding teeth. And that which has always permeated the universe, the presence of God, will be absent there. "The lake of fire" where "the worm never dies." Sucks, eh? A place designed to hold Satan and his demons (the fallen angels).

But you know what? That's where most of humanity is heading too. God is just, is he not?

Satan's like: "Hey, look what you did to me! Look at my punishment for disobedience! Look, these humans are disobeying you too."

And it's true.

Sucks for us.

God has a plan though. He's already put it into play. He decided He'd take the blame for us. He's our scapegoat. Our kinsman redeemer. Our sacrificial lamb. This plan satisfies his justice and expresses his love for us.

He's done some pretty awesome stuff. Chief amongst said awesome stuff is his death. He willingly was tortured and suffocated to death for you. For who? Yeah, that's right. He did it for you. Because he loves you.

This death was prophecied in Isaiah 53, hundreds of years before he was born. He fulfilled many prophecies. You may have heard this analogy: Fill Texas 3 feet high with silver dollars covering it's entire surface. Mark one silver dollar beforehand. Parachute into Texas blindfolded, reach down, and pick up that one silver dollar that's been marked. That's the chances of Jesus fulfilling just 8 of the many prophecies (hundreds) he fulfilled.

Think about it. Is it hard to think about it? Do you have trouble concentrating on just comprehending what I'm saying here? Tortured, whipped until his spine was exposed, nailed to a special wooden beam naked in front of a jeering crowd. Hours pass and he has to rub his body up and down on the cross just to breathe. And he eventually dies of suffocation, giving up his last breath.

For you.

How would you feel if you did that for someone? If you loved someone so much you'd die like that for them? Just to save them? If you did that for someone and they denied it. They denied you! "Piss off." "Yeah, whatever." "I don't want to hear about it." "That's ok for you, but not for me."

God has already done everything he needs to do for you to be made right with him. For Satan's accusations to be blocked by his righteousness. Jesus is our advocate. When Satan wants to accuse us, he stands in the gap and says: "Whoah, I took the blame for that, remember? He's with me."

Thank God.

But what about the people who deny him? What about the people who don't want to hear about it? What about you?

I mentioned this scripture in a previous post, and it has great bearing right now:

John 3:16-20

3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
3:17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
3:18 "There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God.
3:19 Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
3:20 They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished.

Is there a veil over your eyes? A hardness in your heart? A buzzing in your head? Or do you feel a tugging at your heart? A compulsion to thank God for what he's done? A drive to give your life away to Christ?

He does love you, you know. God is real.

And behind curtain number one, we find . . . Bill Cosby?

This morning I was listening to Curtis & Kuby on WABC from NYC. They were talking about the proposal to institute a curfew in New York City for minors after a certain time of night (midnight or so). And an interesting point was made: Conservatives are usually all for limited governement involvement, scaling down government influence in our lives. "Liberals" are for increased government presence and power.

What's interesting is this issue turned that conception on it's head, as Kuby noted. Most of the liberals calling in the show were against this, and the conservatives were for it! Kuby marked it as inconsistant.

For me, I think this would be a good thing. Because it's practical, and works for the good of the people. These kids are trouble waiting to happen, and sometimes not waiting (which is why we have a problem). If the cops can just send them home before the crazyness starts, then we'll have a safer society.

It seems to me now that this issue speaks to "prejudice" or "bigotry". Because we all know who the people are that this law targets: The young black male. Riding with his posse, packing heat and baggy jeans down to his knees. The "disenfranchised youth" that today's liberals are so careful to avoid calling "wrong", that Bill Cosby caught so much flack for calling a pox on society. I think that's the root of the issue, the switching of sides: liberals want to protect this MTV generation culture (regardless of how messed up it is) and conservatives want to see it destroyed, and those wasted lives cleaned up.

Just spouting off

I went to church on Sunday. The pastor was speaking about the reality of hell.

He was also making some inappropriate inductions based on a statistic. He said that when asked the question: "Did you receive Christ in this church?", 5% of the respondants said "yes". From this, he compared the growth of Islam to the growth of Christianity.

One simply cannot use that statistic in an argument about the source of the disparity between the growth of islam and the growth of Christianity in America. To make it stick, people would have to (a) live in the same place all the time and (b) never change the church they're currently in and (c) all people would have to be saved inside of a church!

The truth of the matter is that people do change churches when they're not pleased with the church they're currently in. I certainly did. People do move around. I have, a lot. And people are saved outside of churches! While I was saved inside of a church at an altar call, not everyone is.

That was Beef #1. Beef #2 has to do with my own beliefs about predestination and volitional will.

While the pastor was talking about hell, he made the statement that God doesn't want anyone to go to hell, and that people make the decision to go to hell all by themselves. By hell, I'm talking "ghenna" second-death hell. And I can respect that belief, and it falls within the pale of orthodoxy. But later on in the sermon, he brought up passage after passage that, in my mind, speaks about predestination! I don't know if this guy is subscribing to full-blown palagianism or semi-palagianism. Full blown = heresy, semi = orthodoxy.

Anyway, he busted out with Romans 8:28. But he didn't even touch on what comes immediately after: 8:29 and 8:30!

8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
8:30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

Jesus said: "You didn't choose me. I chose you." We're the Elect, the chosen ones of God.

In the final analysis, you can look at salvation in one of two ways:
(1) My salvation is dependant on my choices.
(2) My salvation is dependant upon the choices God makes.

I mean, later in that very book, you see the following:
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!
15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion."
16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."
18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"
20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?"
21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

So look at that. Romans 9:15-17 says that God does whatever he wants for his own reasons and for his own pleasure. 9:18 indicates that God can will to harden the heart of a man. We see this often in the old testament, and the reference here is for the pharoah.

But look at 9:19. He's speaking to the argument that pops into almost every mind: "Yo, what's up?! If God hardens a heart against him, how can he be angry about that? How can he condemn that person?"

Paul doesn't make excuses. He brings it up! You know what the biblical mindset it? What the mind of God is? Look at Romans 9:20-24. The potter makes "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" from the same clay that he makes "vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory". And it's the potter's perrogative to make what he will.

As a Chrisitan, I'm no better than anyone else inherently. I didn't do anything to warrant the love and mercy of God. God doesn't owe me love and mercy. And he doesn't owe it to you either. But it is in his mercy that he has prepared some of us to be "vessels of mercy" foreordained for glory.

The whole subject is rather complex. Anyway, I thought it odd that the guy would go over so many passages that pointed to Augustine predestination, that pointed to God choosing us and not the other way around, and then to speak from a mindset that man can choose God.

And now let me speak to you. You're thinking: "But I have free will. If I wanted to choose God, I could. I can do anything I want." It's simply not true. I have free will too, but I can't do something that is not within my power. I may will to lift this car over my head, but I'm simply too wimpy for that. It's not within my power.

I think that 2 Cor 4:4 ties in closely with this:

2 But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

In other words, Satan is keeping some from really hearing the Gospel. From understanding and accepting the truth. Look at John 3:16-20

16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
18 "There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God.
19 Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
20 They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished.
21 But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants."

In my mind, this always evokes a picture of cockroaches skattering from a kitchen floor when a light is turned on to expose them.

Buttermilk Falls Redux

I'm kind of proud of myself. This weekend I went hiking barefoot. There was even glass on the trail (this trailhead sees a lot of morons apparently) in the beginning, but once I moved on it was fine. I went back to Buttermilk Falls with Srini, Jaya, Brad, and Jasmeet. We hiked and I hiked barefoot! For about 70% of the way - on the way back when I came to the gravel road and my feet were already shot I put my sandals back on.

The hike was really good for 2 reasons: we saw a beaver dam, and we busted out off-trail quite a bit. That's my kind of action. I had fun!

On the way back, we hit Brannigans. Best. Ribs. Ever. Bonus: they had Beamish, and so did I =) Srini found 800 bucks on the ground at a gas station. He give the attendant his number and told her to give it to anyone looking for money they'd lost. If they knew the amount, they could have it back. After a late lunch/early dinner, Srini and Jaya and I went to go see Garden State, which I spoke of previously.

Home

I watched the movie Garden State today. It was great. Apparently it was directed as well as written by one of the main characters, the guy from Scrubs. He was good in the movie, but Natalie Portman was even better. Sure, she's pretty cute. But she's a great actress. The way she was able to convey emotion was nearly authentic. Who knows, perhaps it was.

Not to deliver a spoiler here, but one statement made in the movie particularly hit home with me, because this has been how I've felt. The main character is sitting in a heated pool with Sam (Portman) and he's talking about coming home. He hasn't been home in 9 years, and he's telling her how he's discovered that it's not "home" anymore. He's got a place now where he sleeps and keeps his crap and lives out his day to day life, but it's not "home". Not a place that will give him the warm and safe feelings he experienced in his childhood.

And I feel that way. I don't have "home" anymore. And I want it. I just want the warmth, and the peace. I want the love. That's something that's built together, as a family. Who knows - maybe one day I'll have it. Maybe one day some house will become a "home".

Unusual dreams

I just woke up from the oddest dream. I was living at my parents house, but they weren't there. I believe I was younger than I am today.

There was a small spider that could change shape, it wasn't a spider really but something like it, that was opressing me. I went to the flowered fence that seperates the driveway of this house from the driveway of another house. On the other side, there were two small mud/rock men. I plead with them for assistance, and they took me to their side of the fence and we spoke. Then the spider saw me.

So we went to their side and hid. But I knew the spider was more powerful than the rock men. It came over, and jumped on me, but I flung it away. Yet, I knew I couldn't overcome the spider, even with the help of the two rock men.

So I started to pray. The spider grew smaller, and hid under some trash. It didn't give up. The spider would look out from under the piece of trash (it was like the wrapper of a small chip container), look up, and fearfully put it's head back under the trash. God spoke to my spirit, and let me know that if the spider was to be defeated, I had to crush it while it hid under the trash. So I stomped on the trash while the spider danced around under it, making it move around. I crushed something under there, but it wasn't the spider. Then I crushed the spider.

I lifted the trash to look at the remains, and a noxious, acidic stench rose into the air and burned my leg. I quickly jumped back. Under the trash was a goo.

I had another, equally odd dream, immediately after this from which I awakened:

I was walking along the streets of Plymouth (where I grew up), I believe I was searching for something or running from someone, when I looked and saw the Birketts house. I saw Stephanie, a childhood friend, walking up the driveway. I called out to her, and walked my bike up her driveway after her.
"Do you know who I am?" I said. My head was shaved as it is now, but for some reason it was cleanly shaved right in the front, like I started to shave my head and stopped after one buzz.
I don't recall her reply. We walked to her house and started speaking to a woman that in the dream was her mother.
But her mother was talking what appeared to be nonsense. She was calling Stephanie by a different name, which I took to be her sister's (Elise?) even though in the waking world I believe Stephanie has only a brother.
Stephanie asked me about her bike. Did I know where it was? I said I did, and that it was gone. Her mother started talking about gold, and something different than gold, and then I was flashing back to something different but related, based on what her mother had said.

There were pretend people there, but they were real enough. Some were chasing us (they were uniformly green) and some were running with us. There was a whole "Guys and Dolls" or "Happy Days" 50's feel to the whole thing. These people looked like claymation or cartoons. They definitely weren't "real" humans. Perhaps what one would think of as faeries. They had accentuated features: big noses, big heads.

The police started chasing us all, and we got cornered. The next thing I know we're on some dock at night, the confused police around us, and one of the bad guys is acting stupid. Not stupidly, but giving stuff away. He's like: "Yeah, but it's not like they know about the. . . uh . . ." and then he takes one of the females from our party and kisses her, as some kind of "cool" 50's style escape route.

Anyway, that's about when I woke up.

It was funny, but I was wrong.

I have a confession to make. A couple of days ago I was playing on "CANDYS 1.6" BF1942 server. It was just me and a bunch of their clan and some other random people. We were playing great maps (Iwo Jima, Bocage, Battle of the Bulge) and I was enjoying myself.

This one guy kept on complaining. You know the type: "WTF, BS!!11!!" every time he dies. Followed by swearing at people, etc.

So I said: "[Name], you sure complain a lot, don't you?"
To which he retorts: "STFU asshole" and some other random stuff
And I say: "And you swear a lot too."
It kind of went downhill when I said: "Is that some kind of homosexual come-on?" to one of his half-witted diatribes.
He threatened to kick me. I told him that that would show all his friends how big of a man he was around here. And that he should quit his whining.

Yeah, I eventually got kicked, perhaps even banned.

I really shouldn't have allowed myself to taunt the poor, timid soul like that. I don't know, maybe I was looking for someone to pick on. He was just annoying me with his constant whining.

When I play, I do expect to win. For good reason: I usually do. But when I don't, I'm not about to complain to the whole server about it. And I'm certainly not going to curse other players out. It bugs me when people do.

Anyway, I was wrong. It was funny, but I was wrong.

I have an orange tongue

I admit it. I am an orange tic-tac addict.

I've been years without them, but when I was at Costco last night I got 12 dollars worth of tictacs. 1/3 of the entire package was orange. I am on my first little container. I fully anticipate it empty by the end of the day. If orange tictacs were cigarettes, I would be a chain smoker.

I've already popped 2 more into my mouth while writing this.

Cherry picking from Bash.org

I think bash.org is has some pretty funny stuff on it. This stuff is relatively clean in content, but be forewarned: it does have some gratuitous offensive language in it.

<Donut[AFK]> HEY EURAKARTE
<Donut[AFK]> INSULT
<Eurakarte> RETORT
<Donut[AFK]> COUNTER-RETORT
<Eurakarte> QUESTIONING OF SEXUAL PREFERENCE
<Donut[AFK]> SUGGESTION TO SHUT THE FUCK UP
<Eurakarte> NOTATION THAT YOU CREATE A VACUUM
<Donut[AFK]> RIPOSTE
<Donut[AFK]> ADDON RIPOSTE
<Eurakarte> COUNTER-RIPOSTE
<Donut[AFK]> COUNTER-COUNTER RIPOSTE
<Eurakarte> NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON
<Miles_Prower> RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES
<Eurakarte> WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD
<Miles_Prower> ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS

<AgentSmith> It seems you have been leading two lives, Mr. Anderson. In one life, you are Robert Anderson, assistant cook at a Jack in the Box in Mesquite....in the other...you go by the chat alias "Randerson"...spreading homosexual propoganda, lying, and being a generally immature pest...
<AgentSmith> One of these...has a future.
<Randerson> LMAO OMFG where's the phone, I have to tell Dean about this
<AgentSmith> How can you use the phone when you cannot...speak?
*** AgentSmith sets mode: +m

<DeadMansHand> haha, last night, me and pete went out to celebrate his engagement and got hugely drunk
<DeadMansHand> we got this great idea to bury eachother in the sand close to the water and see who would chicken out first
<DeadMansHand> took about a half hour, but the water got up to my face so i freaked and got out
<DeadMansHand> i looked around for pete and he must've chickened out before me and stumbled home or something heh
<DeadMansHand> What'd he say when he woke up this morning?
<Thirteen-> uhh.. he hasn't come home yet.. i thought he was staying with you?
<DeadMansHand> holy fuck.
<DeadMansHand> i fucking hope im wrong about what im thinking right now
<DeadMansHand> im fucking going back to the beach to make sure
<DeadMansHand> if he gets home, call me, i don't want to be worrying about this
<Thirteen-> will do. you better hope he's not still buried, you'll be in deep shit.
quit: (DeadMansHand)
<Tyran> wtf? pete came home last night you fuck. Ken's going to be worrying about this shit all day
<Thirteen-> haha yea, but it will be fun while it lasts
join: (PeteRepeat) (bob@3F8C4655.11D1C8C.18637D35.IP)
<PeteRepeat> fucking ken
<PeteRepeat> ken... that fucker buried me in the sand last night, i ran off about 5 minutes to it, left him there to be an idiot
<quiqsilver> pete, ken didn't come back last night, i thought he was with you.
<PeteRepeat> oh fuck.
<PeteRepeat> if ken shows up, make sure he doesn't know that im at the beach digging for his body. i don't want him to think i care or anything.
quit: (PeteRepeat)
<Thirteen-> rofl. Those 2 are going to get a huge surprise when they meet at the beach.
<Tyran> i can't beleive how perfect their timing was

<kow`> "There are 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't."
<SpaceRain> That's only 2 types of people, kow.
<SpaceRain> STUPID

Rabidplaybunny87: Okay, so my neighbors officially hate me
GarbageStan23: why?
Rabidplaybunny87: Well, me, david and andrew were having a bonfire in the backyard, and we were making s'mores and all... and suddenly we here sirens, and see a firetruck turn into the street in front of us.
Rabidplaybunny87: So we all went running to see what was up, and our neigbor's house was on fire!
GarbageStan23: oh shit!
Rabidplaybunny87: Yeah, and when we got there, the wife was crying into her husbands arms, and we were just kinda standing there, and then she saw us, and then like for 10 seconds, gave us the dirtiest look ever
Rabidplaybunny87: Turns out, we were still holding our sticks with marshmallows on it, watching the fire....
Rabidplaybunny87: talk about bad timing...

<scirDSL> I hated going to weddings. All the grandmas would poke me saying "You're next". They stopped that when I started doing it to them at funerals.

<Hiroe> he was dressed as a big fuckin devil
<Hiroe> like, HUGE costume
<Hiroe> 8-foot lizard wings, giant horns on the head
<Hiroe> at some anime con in california
<Hiroe> they were double booked with a southern Baptist group in the same hotel
<Hiroe> he's riding the elevator down to the con space
<Hiroe> doors open, little old baptist woman standing there
<Hiroe> he just says "Going Down" in his best evil voice

<BronsonTheBeef> So we were supposed to have a guest speaker in one of my classes
<BronsonTheBeef> to talk about diversity and racism and shit today
<BronsonTheBeef> prof's never met him..
<BronsonTheBeef> in walks this super black gangsta ghetto dude
<BronsonTheBeef> he's got a 'pimp' chain around his neck, wearing FUBU everything
<BronsonTheBeef> has a gold watch and a ring on each finger, smells like pot and beer
<BronsonTheBeef> he even had a do-rag on and a cigarrette tucked behind his ear
<BronsonTheBeef> walks in in true rapper style flashing his crazy ghetto signs at us
<BronsonTheBeef> the prof's like...'are you... jeff?'
<BronsonTheBeef> he goes 'true dat, ho' and says 'you all my niggaz!' and he turns in a circle
<BronsonTheBeef> waving his arms in the air singing about 'niggaz in 'da house' or some shit
<BronsonTheBeef> so she tells him to give his speech on diversity and shit
<BronsonTheBeef> and he starts talkin about 'the man' and how 'white folk be dissin'
<BronsonTheBeef> then like a minute later this other black dude runs in dressed in a suit
<BronsonTheBeef> and says 'sorry I'm late'
<BronsonTheBeef> it turns out the first black dude was just baked. he doesn't even go to college
<BronsonTheBeef> he just wanted to buy weed in the dorms

Windows Application Selection

I'd like to share what I use for my Windows applications. While I'm still pretty much a Linux noob, my application selection in Windows has gone through significant comparative analysis, and I think that most of these are best-of-breed freeware. I've also included some of the games I play, 2 of which are free to download and play.

Archive / Zip application: Filzip
Filzip is a full-featured archive manager. It handles many formats, and has some excellent functionlality (zip spanning, "Install" an embedded Setup.exe, most recently used directories for extracting). It also has some useful shell extensions which you can expose by right-clicking on a zip file.

Jukebox / Music Manager: MediaMonkey
MediaMonkey is, hands down, the best music jukebox out there. It is a tight, fast, flexible and powerful database for songs. It includes an embedded player, the ability to rip and transcode songs, burning functionality, and a skinnable interface. You can also configure it to use the embedded media player, or Winamp 2.

MP3 tagger: The Godfather
The Godfather is an AWESOME mp3 tagging application. It has vast functionality, and some unique functionality. I wrote a letter to the author praising his work (I don't often do this) because I had a directory full of untagged MP3s and I didn't know what they were. Godfather was able to analyse them, go on the net, and give me their tags. This is very impressive.

Audio codecs: Ogg Vorbis, MP3
While Ogg is a technically superior codec, it doesn't have much hardware support. By this I mean that while your average iPod or MP3 cd-player can play MP3 and wma, most of them don't do ogg. In this coming year, I think we're going to see many more players (the new iRiver supports ogg, but I'm not sure about the Audible format for that one). If you don't have a hardware MP3 player, or a car CD player that plays MP3s, then you should encode your collection in ogg. Think the same quality at about half the file size.

CD/DVD Burner: CDBurnerXP Pro
CDBurnerXP Pro is a great burner program, period. It does what I need it to do and it's free. Can't beat that action!

Image Mounter: Daemon Tools
Daemon tools will allow you to take an .iso image (like a snapshot of an entire CD in one file) and mount it to a virtual DVD on your system. So if you rip the ISO, you can then mount it. This is great for games or any other application that requires you to have a CD in the drive to use it.

Video codec: Xvid
Xvid, if you haven't noticed, is Divx spelled backwards. Xvid is an open-source video codec that directly competes with WMV, MOV, and Divx.

Image viewer: Irfanview
Irfanview is the be-all-end-all of image viewers. This thing can handle anything, and can do basic transformations and cropping etc. It also has an EXTENSIVE plugin library which allows it to play MP3s, play RealMedia, and a host of other stuff. Don't miss out on this one.

Text editors: NoteTab Lite & syn
I am a newcomer to NoteTab Lite. At work, I recently had to edit some passwords on a bunch of batch files, and I didn't want to have to search & replace on one and then another. NoteTab Lite (as well as Crimson Editor) allows me to do a Seach & Replace among all open documents. It has a tabbed document interface (MDI) and a bunch of other cool features. syn has been a good standby for me. It's got a lot of great features, but lacks multi-doc search & replace and doesn't word-wrap.

Web Browser: Firefox
Firefox has seen a lot of news lately. This latest version, 1.0PR, adds a bunch of new features and cleans up the interface a bit. It's a super browser and pretty much the only one I use.

Email: Thunderbird
Thunderbird is another Mozilla application. Thunderbird has great integrated Bayesian spam filtering, excellent support for multiple accounts, and is super easy to use and configure.

Office application: OpenOffice
OpenOffice is the premire open-source competitor to Microsoft Office. It handles Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files.

IM client: gaim
gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging client. With gaim, you can connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, IRC, and some other less well known networks (like Jabber).

Voice communcations: TeamSpeak
TeamSpeak is a voice communcation server/client. With TeamSpeak, you and your friends can chat online for free using a headset. Great for gamers and online communities.

Remote control: Ultr@VNC
Ultr@VNC is a tweaked VNC application that is stable and fast. When you run the server, it allows someone else to connect using a VNC client (if they know the password) and control your computer with their keyboard/mouse.

System tweaking/maintenance: Ad-aware, Xsetup
Ad-aware is a great Adware remover. Xsetup exposes Windows settings hidden in the registry in an easy to use interface.

Games: Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, Enemy Territory, America's Army, Savage
What can I say? I've played BF1942 since the demo more than 2 years ago and I still love playing it. BF:V came along more recently and includes some excellent interface enhancements, but is pretty much the same game. ET is free (as in beer), and has a large and active online community. The game is fun to play. AA is also free (as in beer) game that uses the UT2003 engine and has gameplay similar to the most popular game on the internet, CounterStrike. Savage is a great game in a genre all of it's own: it's a combination RTS/FPS. So one guy is the master strategist, while the rest of the players are the "units".

Hiking at Buttermilk Falls

Audrial and I just got back from hiking. We went to Buttermilk Falls in Terryville. I was surprised at how nice this area was. Acharacteristically for Connecticut, this terrain was highly populated with quality granite. The surrounding hike was relatively short, but definitely secluded. The water made the whole area cooler than most hikes, so it was a good thing we'd brought our fall coats with us.

Once we were past the falls (in fact, all of the water) we hiked a little ways in until the "blue blazed trail" hit against some houses and a road. On the way, as we stopped for a rest, I heard a flapping of wings and looked up to see a very large bird in the trees above. I went in for a better look and saw an owl perched high up in a tree. I found a great viewing spot, and called my daughter over so she could see it. After a time, she did. The whole time the owl was looking at us. As I did a little research, I think it was a snowy owl.

I was very impressed with this nature preserve. I don't think I've been to a better place in Connecticut yet!

I am Cornholio! I need tp for my bunghole!

So last night I went to go pick up my daughter. Her mother had travelled to a friend's house in New York, and I travelled from Stamford to go pick her up and bring her home for a couple of days.

So this morning, my daughter and I are going to a great local diner, and it's raining lightly as we go out to the car. So she takes her sweater and pulls it up over her head.

I told her: "I'm going to call you Cornholio." She laughs and smacks my shoulder from her seat in the car. "My name is Audrial!" she scolds.

"I need tp for my bunghole!" I retort, in my best Cornholio impression. She laughs.
"Cornholio is a boy's name. I'm a girl!"
"I'll call you Cornholia then" I respond.
She thumps me on the arm again.
"Come on!" I say. "Girls names end with the 'A' sound. Jessica, Angelica, Monica . . . Cornholia!" This yields another arm thumping. I laugh and stop teasing her.

Fast forward to our return trip home. We get home and I show her why it was funny that I was calling her Cornholio. After a quick web search, she sits on my lap and we visit The Great Cornholio Soundboard, which sends her into a good fit of the giggles. Of course, this doesn't really show her why I was calling her Cornholio. So we visit the Cornholio feature on b3ta, which she thinks is strange and I think is funny. So finally we find The Great Cornholio website, and she gets why it was funny.

Haloscan commenting

Well, since I saw so many other people using it, I decided to jump onboard and install Haloscan commenting.

However, one point of this turned me off. Given the propensity of a blog to grow in size and the increased probability of people commenting on old items (as I am sometimes wont to do), I prefer to have email notification. This is a "premium" feature of Haloscan.

So I uninstalled it and decided to stick with the internal blogger commenting system.

Long hair?

So last night I was logged into the MSN messaging network after setting up GAIM. My old friend Greg from Superior gave me a chat, and we spoke for a little bit and I pointed him to this site so he can kind of know what's going on in the world according to Adam.

One of the first things he said was: "You cut your hair?" The picture at the top of my sidebar is my daughter and I months ago at Chuck E. Cheeses. I used to have long hair, flowing to a little below my shoulders. I don't remember if I had my hair like that when I used to work there, but I imagine that I did as he commented on it.

It was funny to hear about that. Right now, I shave my head every couple of weeks. A couple of weeks ago, I even shaved my beard! While it makes me look younger, I really do prefer to wear a closely cropped beard (like the one in my picture). It's so low maintenance, I only have to buzz it once a month or something. Every week or so though, I usually trim my jawline, as this makes it look "sharper".

I've been considering letting my hair grow again for the autumn/winter season. We'll see. I don't really like that akward "middle" stage, where the hair is thick and growing longer but not long enough to tie. It looks and feels unruly. But in the end, I do enjoy having long hair.

And by cool, I mean totally sweet

So last night, using my Windows partition since my Linux one is having trouble with the /etc/fstab I ended up corrupting while trying to get lilo to work by editing the files via chroot using a Morphix CD, I got sick of using the stupid Internet Explorer and went to download Firefox.

I've been using Firefox since it was called Firebird, and I've always been pleased with it, though some websites aren't W3C compliant and are geared for IE (which doesn't always render CSS properly etc). Anyway, on to the point of this story: when I went to my blog, I noticed a little icon on the lower right hand side reading "RSS". This was new. I clicked on it, and it gave me a bookmark using an XML RSS feed!

The PR1 of Mozilla Firefox includes a pretty cool feature called "Live Bookmarks". This live bookmark acts like a dynamic folder of content in your bookmarks. When you open it up, it shows you the latest entries in the RSS feed.

This functionality works great with Blogger.com, since each and every blog driven by it has the ability to include an RSS feed.

What I'm interested in doing is seeing if I can't use these RSS feeds in kind of a combobox situation in my sidebar. Like putting someone's blog link there, but when you click on it, it drops down a list of the most recent posts according to their RSS feed.

Btw, if you're unfamiliar with RSS, check out the link to Daily Rotation on my sidebar. This whole site is driven by RSS. As is the meta-news functionality of Gametab.

The other thing I just noticed is the "Fund" functionality implemented in the new release. Rather than opening a popup, it opens a bar docked to the bottom of the window. You type in your string and it will find it for you. What's "totally sweet" about this is that it has a "highlight" feature. Click on this and all occurances of the string on the page will be highlighted. Cool, eh?

The "Guys' Rules"

From an email I received...

At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down. Finally, the
guys' side of the story. (I must admit, it's pretty good.)

We always hear "the rules" from the female side. Now here are the rules
from the male side. These are our rules!

Please note... these are all numbered "1" ON PURPOSE!

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
1. Sunday sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.
1. Crying is blackmail.
1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
1. A headache that lasts for 7 months is a problem. See a doctor, a Psychiatrist..
1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.
1. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.
1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.
1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other way.
1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both.. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
1. Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.
1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.
1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
1.. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.
1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine...Really.
1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or monster trucks.
1. You have enough clothes and bags.
1. You have too many shoes.

Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight; but did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

Guild Wars, Mudding, and MMORPGs

If there's one thing that can incite my geeky gaming lust, it's a good computer game that's coming down the pipe. Ever since I've heard of Guild Wars I've been pretty excited about it. I missed the E3 free for all they did, but hearing about it got me pretty excited about the game.

You see, I've been playing online games like this for quite some time. About 10 years ago, I started "Mudding". The first mud I played on was called "Aldara ][". I played with my friends Jim and Eric, and we got our feet wet in the wonderful world of stock MERC. We then moved on to play at Sanctuary, where I eventually went immortal and for a time administered the game, until Jim used my account improperly and I got demoted (I think).

My favorite mud of all time, the one I had the best experiences on and knew the community the best, was Rifts. This was a heavily modified CircleMUD, and we had a great community. You knew almost everyone. I was one of the big boys there, a total addict with a passion for leveling. I was in a race with my arch-nemesis, Nazgul (I think) to reach 50 first. I got there first =)

One of my favorite memories from Rifts was when Nazgul and I went head to head. He was from the dark races, I think he was a drow. I was a human monk named Presence, and I had developed a second character that I botted via triggers who was a cleric named Solar. One day, when I was like level 42 or something, I was walking around in this giant town (actually a relatively square castle up in the mountains somewhere) that was a Player Killing (PK) zone. Nazgul had his sidekick too, a thief/healer. He attacked me while I was fighting, I believe, I quickly had Solar refresh his Sanct spell on me (which halved all damage done to me, effectively doubling my hitpoints for a time). But before too long, I realised that Solar wasn't responding to my requests to heal me. When I switched to his session in a panic, I found that he had been "choked" via a spell from Nazgyls bot. In the end, I succumbed to them. I recall being quite infuriated and desiring revenge (which I don't recall if I got or not).

Eventually, a statue was made of my character in one of the zones on that mud. If the game still exists today, I may very well still be remembered.

Anyway, from Mudding, I moved on to graphical mudding (referred to as an MMORPG nowadays) playing Everquest. Again, I was a total addict and eventually burned out when I fell into lava in Sol A. I *though* I had levitate on...

Eventually, I was selected to beta test Dark Age of Camelot by the president of the game based on my forum posts at IGN. I participated in the beta and was active in the beta forums, and some of my ideas were implemented. I'm listed in the credits for that game with about 70 others, as Adam "Marker" Skinner.

I haven't played a game like that in a long time. And I honestly don't want to anymore. I know my propensity for addiction in that arena. But Guild Wars seems different. It's not based around character building, but rather is a combo of character building and real tactical "twitch" play (I think). We'll see. The graphics alone are COMPLETELY awesome. I'm looking forward to the open play at the end of October.

Sweet case & BF1942

Last night I got home to find my computer equipment waiting on my porch! I unpacked the case and motherboard. The case was honestly impressive. It had a laquored look to it, was jet black, has a see-through size panel of plexiglass set with a case fan that's got a blue light in it. On the top is an identical fan, and on the front are 6 blue diodes which emit the same blue light.

I unpacked the motherboard, set the case on a folded towel on my hard-wood floor in my "computer room", and installed the motherboard, DVD-burner, and hard drive. I plugged everything in, connected all the power and attached the case connectors. Then, I powered it on.

And nothing happened.

I was kind of concerned. I eventually discovered that my ATA-100 cable connector (which has little 'click and hold' things on the side to the motherboard) had pushed the pins of a fan power connector together. I broke that part of the ATA cable connector off and unbent the pins, and it powered on! Blue lights streaming out of the case, fans moving silently. I was pretty psyched.

But I was still concerned. I had chosen a motherboard that uses the same chipset as the motherboard I had in there before, but that's no gaurantee that Windows is going to boot. Usually this wouldn't be a real issue (given that I use Linux day-to-day), but I had a MoG Night (clan get-together) planned tonight, and didn't want to miss it as I'd been telling them in the forums that I'd be there. Fortunately, lilo didn't have a problem loading up Windows, so I was good to go! A couple reboots and a sound card install later and I was able to join my boys on Isaiah's "Sunny South" server.

I was on my game last night! Nearly every map I came away with a gold metal, and on some rounds *coughelalameincough* I totally ripped it up. The last time I played I was doing so bad that I renamed myself to "-=FODDER_BOY=-", which of course lead other people on the server to rename themselves to something witty. By the end we hardly knew who was who anymore =)

Anyway, I had a really good time playing with my MoG brothers last night. I wasn't on TeamSpeak, and initially my speakers were backwards (which got me killed a couple of times due to improper directional sound cues), but it was good to play with the guys (and girls) again. Hopefully I'll get more playtime in. The division has been less active of late, after the internal division centered around Mercy. We're getting it back on track though.

My INTP tendancies

Here are some things that I can really say: "Yeah, that's me!" on:

For here is the central goal of the INTP: to understand and seek truth.

[...] a curious overriding desire to observe from a detached position, indicating the preference for intuitive perception with respect to external things. Since accurate analysis needs to avoid becoming hampered with details or being influenced by the actions of others, the INTP invariably seeks to withdraw, at least in spirit, from the situation being considered.

Where detachment ceases is when someone makes an illogical statement or violates one of the INTPs principles. At such a point, the INTP feels the instant drive to provide for clarity. This is his Mission; to be the provider of clarity. [...] Here, the INTP risks being seen as over-critical, aloof and arrogant. On the whole, however, real arrogance is rare for INTPs for their desire is not to dominate others but simply to observe, analyse and clarify. Once the point has been clarified, the INTP withdraws quickly, for he prefers not to be in the limelight unless absolutely necessary. Hence, for most of the time, INTPs are easy-going and will fit in to others' needs, taking up the role of observer again.

[...] it is common to see INTPs dabbling at many things, achieving competency, just enough to prove to themselves that they could become more proficient if they wished, but rarely actually bothering to refine their skills further.

The opinions of others are rarely given much weight in themselves. All opinions must get filtered through an analysis procedure to test for viability. No title or claim of being an "expert" carries any weight with an INTP. All people, big or small, are subject to an identical scrutiny. The INTP sees himself as the independent arbiter, whether a fair claim or not. However, when someone has proved his credentials through having sensible opinions, he will be afforded great respect by the INTP.

To know is everything, to do is a lower order necessity, if it is necessary at all. This breeds the potential for lazy aloofness. The INTP is often satisfied simply by knowing that he could do something if he wished. This also leads to the danger of overestimating one's capabilities and losing a grip on reality.

[...] the INTP takes his interests and beliefs very seriously. Honesty and directness when explaining these interests are usually displayed. INTPs detest facades and particulary dislike people who exhibit them. Equally, those kind of people also dislike INTPs and avoid them at all cost, for they know that the INTP will see right through them.

The INTP's serious nature also makes them almost immune to mockery and being made fun of, at least when face to face with their mocker. If someone attempts to make a sarcastic, mocking comment about an interest of an INTP, the latter will defend himself with a pure, almost naive seriousness, explaining his position with a severe exactness, wielding his words like swords. This almost always disarms the mocker who does not expect such a penetrating defence. The INTPs defence usually also contains a subtle but biting attack thrown back in the mocker's face, chiefly because the INTP cannot entirely hide the fact that he believes his opponent to be stupid.

This ability to wield words with cutting precision is one of the INTP's greatest assests, but equally one of his most deadly traits. He is capable of using words creatively to penetrate deep into the understanding of a subject, but if not checked and wielded carelessly, his words can become highly destructive.

An INTP will often make controversial, speculative points of argument, often annoying the discussion-partner, and make them in such a way as to leave the impression that he is very serious about what he says. In reality, the INTP is not actually even certain himself whether he really stands by what he is saying, but his Ne strongly suggests that there must be a core of truth there. The purpose then of his outspoken style of argument is to sharpen his own intuitive understanding by testing the reaction of the listener, and indeed to examine the logic of his own arguments in real time while speaking them out. On occasion, INTPs may seem brash and tactless, but for themselves it is part of their way of getting closer to the truth. This is another aspect of the Ne grappling with the external world (in this case discussion with another) to understand it.

Humour is another aspect which marks out the INTP. He can readily dream up jokes about almost any situation. Taking things out of context is the chief source of humour and many an INTP is a Monty Pythonite. The Ne is the engine and source of this joke-generator. Needless to say, the humour of an INTP can be pretty zany and warped and may not be understood easily by others. The problem is that the Ne concepts for jokes are put into a structure only by the Ti. Hence, the humour can become black and tactless, having felt little Feeling input.

If you see someone smirking and laughing at some private thought, without any obvious reason, he's probably an INTP. --[This always happens to me. "What are you laughing about?"]

INTPs tend to be rather mistrusting of people and are rather sceptical.

INTPs dislike making the first move and tend to mirror the emotional content of the other person. A jolly person will quickly bring the INTP out of his shell, as much as that is possible, while a serious person will find a serious INTP looking back at him. In this sense, INTPs preference for intuitive perception (rather than action) with respect to people results in them resembling a chameleon. [...] the INTP remains somewhat reserved, never wholly identifying himself with his surroundings. As chameleons, INTPs are therefore approachable and open, unless the Ne tells the INTP that the other person is a type he doesn't like, in which case the reserved attitude may become too obvious.

INTPs have been groomed by other types into accomodating themselves into the social world, so that even amongst themselves a minimal level of social niceties will be given. Favourite topics of discussion are science and science-fiction, music, computers and any abstract concept with which one is currently fascinated by.

INTPs make very poor leaders, for they depend too much on the attitudes of others. This is one of the negative sides of the Ne function. INTPs tend to jump to intuitive conclusions, can be fatalistic and have little perseverence. On the other hand, they can make very good assistants to leaders, provided they and the leader are of one mind, for their perceptive analysis can give the leadership useful insights which they may overlook, being too busy with leading. Indeed, INTPs are often glad when someone else takes over the lead, again providing the leader is of the same mind. An INTPs ideal is to provide all the ideas for a project and have a charismatic leader, who agrees with him, carry them out.

INTPs have a very strong requirement to keep their external, social world as simple and as uncluttered as they can so that they can focus as much energy as possible on their internal world of system analysis and theoretizing. Hence, they tend to be amongst the least demanding and least complicated of all types when interacting with others

The INTP always tries to get a feel for the big picture, using his Ne, and habitually ignores all detail. Of course, objects of interest will be seen as a matter of course and he can choose to concentrate and focus on them, but it is remarkable how much he still overlooks.

When an INTP lives alone, his home is usually spartan and utility-oriented. There will be little or no decorative objects, electronic equipement will be in abundance and the importance of any object will depend only on its usefulness. The general style of the home is largely irrelevant. When an object is put aside, not to be returned to for a while, it will lie fully ignored until used again. Objects which lie unmoved for more than about 48 hours usually become invisible to the INTP, until such time as he has a use for them again. For other temperaments whose need for tidiness and order in a house is strong, this lack of concern in this area may seem despairing. For the INTP, however, no problem exists.

The INTP melancolic is typically drawn to wild polar expanses, to mountain ranges and all places on the edges of civilisation. Whatever his particular yearning might actually be, it has a common root. The homeland of the INTP's psyche is a small and cosy community, isolated in the middle of a vast expanse of wilderness.

Feelings and emotions are regarded with suspicion and perhaps fear by the INTP and he may be keen to avoid considering or showing them.

[...] his emotions, when visible, are pretty direct and easy to assess. Since the INTP normally wishes to hide his emotions; when they do come out, they do so in outbursts with an almost childlike innocence. There is a sense of all-or-nothing and, when visible, there is nothing enigmatic about the feelings of an INTP: indeed, shadow functions always seem pretty raw and basic.

For the INTP, emotions are seen as something mysterious and as uncontrollable as they are unalterable. Hence, the root of the fear of emotions is the fear that they cannot be controlled. Hence, when an INTP does finally respond emotionally to something, his emotions are indeed left uncontrolled, raw and open.

[...] lack of ability to show active empathy with people undergoing strong emotions. If he wishes to encourage the emotional person, the INTP tends to resort to giving T-based solutions to the problems involved. Often, the INTP does not really know how to empathize and may feel discomfort and helplessness, especially when he understands the rational basis for the emotions. He may become frustrated that the person remains unhappy in spite of hearing his T-based solutions. Much worse is when the emotional person appears to be being irrational. INTPs detest irrational emotion above all things.

Lyrics: Grateful Dead - Fire On The Mountain

This morning, while I was driving to work, I wasn't listening to my audio book. I was just letting my mind roam, thinking. For some reason, this song popped into my head. I used to listen to the Grateful Dead all the time . . .

Lyrics: Grateful Dead - Fire On The Mountain

Long distance runner, what you standin' there for?
Get up, get out, get out of the door
Your playin' cold music on the barroom floor
Drowned in your laughter and dead to the core.
There's a dragon with matches that's loose on the town
Takes a whole pail of water just to cool him down.

Fire! fire on the mountain!

Almost ablaze still you don't feel the heat
It takes all you got just to stay on the beat.
You say it's a livin', we all gotta eat
But you're here alone, there's no one to compete.

If mercy's a bus'ness, i wish it for you
More than just ashes when your dreams come true.

Fire! fire on the mountain!

Long distance runner, what you holdin' out for?
Caught in slow motion in a dash for the door.
The flame from your stage has now spread to the floor
You gave all you had. why you wanna give more?
The more that you give, the more it will take
To the thin line beyond which you really can't fake.

Fire! fire on the mountain!

Church

Well, it's been a while since my wife and I had gone to church. We were going to a church relatively close by a year or so ago, but things kind of soured there. I wasn't comforatable tithing to a place that was giving money to the likes of Kenneth Copeland. Plus, there were some things that were disturbing me.

My wife had gone up for prayer, and the pastor's wife (who was actually co-pastor) tried to push her over. "Slain in the Spirit" they call it, and she was trying to make it happen on her own. I have no problem with authentic things, but that is simply mocking God. She's also the worship leader, and when she's not there there's no worship. They just put on a tape and let it roll. That's one of the reasons we called the church the "Joe and Linda Show". It's just not my bag, baby.

So we left that church and the friends we'd made there and my wife found a church in New Haven that was monsterously large and had a school in it. We found it looking for a Christian school to put our daughter in. I kept on having doctrinal red flags flying when I went there. I eventually emailed the pastor and met with him one night, and we discussed his views on whether the Jesus underwent "spiritual death". While this may seem like a minor point, I feel it's important. It speaks to the question: "What is the basis for my salvation?" and "What did Jesus do that I am able to be made right with God?". They also tithed to disagreeable ministries, and when I was speaking with himhe pretty much said: "I'm not interested in what the church fathers or great Christian thinkers of the past have said. I use the bible and come to my own conclusions." While using the bible to come to your own conclusions is important, and it, of course, is the final arbiter, it's important to understand the opinions of the learned; these people have spent their entire lives dedicating themselves in different cultures to understanding the same book, and have come up with much of the same doctrine due to solid arguments for it. To throw that away seems foolish.

Anyway, it's been a while since I've been to church. And so last week I did some scouting on the internet and I visited New Life Church in Meriden, not 2 miles away from me. There was a large degree of community there, with people all speaking to one another and being very friendly. The worship was solid, though they did go out of their way to "diversify" - injecting spanish lyrics into a well known song. Many people find this "diversity" nice, or pretend to because our culture seems to think it's noble somehow, but I find it annoying. I'm there to worship God, and injecting stuff in a language I don't understand kind of kills that. It's also quite pointless in my estimation.

The sermon the pastor (Will?) gave was insightful, humorous, and accompanied with an authentic antecdote with regards to his father that touched me. The church wasn't so populated that you don't really get a chance to know people, but not so small that it's uncomforatable. It's close to home and I liked it. Also, one of the major selling points and perhaps the reason I decided to go there in the first place is that they have a focus on "cell groups", or small home meetings between members of the church during the week. After the church service, I introduced myself to the pastor and told him I wanted to "dial into one of the cells". He saw where I lived and recommended a couple of cell groups based on my age and location. He introduced me to the cell group leaders and provided me with cards with time and place and phone numbers.

I also picked up a CD they had prepared for newcomers that gave some more info about the church. All in all I was very pleased with the environment I came into and am looking forward to getting in touch with the cell group. Cell groups are what "church" is about to me.

Climbing

So when I got home on Friday night, I was just going to chill out at the house. My plans went arwy, however, at the realisation that there was no power whatsoever in my house. Now, it's not beyond me to forget to pay a bill as basic as the power bill, but this was fortunately not the case. Across the street from me, a power wire had fallen down and they'd closed off the street.

So I decided to go climbing with my newfound equipment instead. Only, I needed shoes and a belay device. And rather than going to Prime Climb to get them, I went to the mall. The reasons for this are twofold: (1) I don't know what kind of sizes Prime Climb carries and would definitely like to try the shoes on, and (2) EMS sometimes runs deals and I may be able to hook up with a price cut.

This was the case! They had some Spires that were 90 bucks and fit great, and some Anazazi velcros that totally jammed my big toe but were on sale from 130 to 113. One would think that I would go for the Spires like a normal human being, but the salesman made the valid-seeming point that the shoes would stretch on my feet and would be more comfortable as time wore on. In truth, I didn't have any trouble with their fit *while* I was climbing, and since they've velcros they slip on and off pretty easily. I got size 44 (10.5 mens) and they fit pretty well. I probably should have gotten 43, but . . . *shrug*. I'll probably only notice a difference when I do a heel hook. Also, the Spires are a very entry-level shoe, and VERY common, and hence I didn't want them. I'm not an entry level climber, even though I climb like it now, and my footwork is pretty good. Once I build up strength in my fingers and forearms I'll be back climbing the harder stuff, and these Anazazis will help me out a bit over the Spires.

So I purchased 170 bucks worth of equipment:

the Five Ten Anazazi velcros

the Petzl Reverso

a chalk bag and some chalk. I didn't need the reverso, chalk bag, or chalk, but I wanted them so I got them. And saw that the reverso was 4 bucks cheaper at Prime Climb!

The other piece of climbing equipment that really matters is my climbing harness, which is pictured here:


So I went to Prime Climb, paid for a monthly pass (60 bucks, good deal if I climb more than 4 times in 30 days, or at least once a week), took my belay and tie in test, and went climbing. Since I didn't come with a partner, and most people climbing there had partners, I first went to the bouldering wall. This was my first real humbling experience. You see, I used to climb 5.11c/d, and now I can hardly hold on to the small stuff. I was barely able to make it anywhere on that overhanging wall because of my lack of finger, tendon, and forearm strength. Once I realised I was over my head, I started looking to the slab wall in the same room. There were some people climbing there and somehow they mentioned that one of the routes at the base of this wall was no hands. So I did it, after failing twice. My balance is also somewhat off, but more in-tact than my finger strength for sure! I went off to hit the bouldering cave after this.

Now, this may seem like a crazy thing to do given my realization on the bouldering wall. However, the cave has a roof on it and very large jugs for me to hold on to. These jugs aren't going to be hitting my finger strength so much as my forearm strength, and so I could play there for a little while. I did, with a pair of teens. But in this cave it's very hot and stuffy, and I was sweating pretty good by the end with my forearms kind of pumped.

I went back to the other climbing area (pretty much because I had no where else to go) and was going to hit the boulding wall again over there or climb something else when the pair of people I had spoken to before asked me if I wanted to climb with them. They were both pretty blown and were going to split soon, and I did a climb. There was a 5.7 I was able to do *most* of. At the top, my strength was totally gone and I knew I would never make it to the next hold, maybe 3 feet away from the biners at the top. So I said: "Take" and heard "What?" from below. I just leaned back and let him lower me down. He asked me if I'd like to do another, and I said I was pretty blown but that I could do the slab (as this is not even vertical, it's pretty easy on the arms). We found another 5.7 there that looked kind of crazy. I had to mantle up on a hold, grab the next hold, and then place my foot on the mantle hold. All in all, the climb was actually quite nice: kudos to the route setter.

After this, I offered to belay for him and he said he'd like to do the "crack". This was in the other room. The wall had a bunch of yellow tagged holds, and to the right of it on a tangential wall was a fist-sized crack. He used that in shimmy fashion to get up to the top. After that, we called it a day and I drove home nice and pumped, with very little hand strength left.

My stupid computer

Last weekend I fogged my house for these crazy little fleas (ineffectively I might add) and I think that's what did my computer in. Now when I try and boot the thing, it will die on my in a few minutes, both in Linux and in Windows XP. I don't recall whether I shut the machine off or not when I fogged the main level, but it's dead now.

So I ordered a batch of equipment from Newegg. I got a new case (on sale, free shipping, and ROCKING!), a new motherboard (I've used it before, and like it because it's got integrated video and a microATX form-factor), a new set of speakers (mine were blown, didn't even work, I threw them away weeks ago and have been using my headphones), and because I ordered the motherboard I qualified for a gift, and chose a watch (I've been wanting a watch that's thinner than my normal Timex Ironman watch). I was hoping they'd come in today, but it looks like I'll see them on Monday or Tuesday.

So for the time being, I am writing this using an old motherboard I had lying around with a spare box that also had a dead motherboard which I haven't replaced yet (and apparently won't need to, as this motherboard is doing just fine though the processor is rather slow [913 mhz OC'd celeron]). I had a hell of a time getting this thing to work though. Many of the LiveCDs I tried in it didn't work, and JAMD didn't install and finally I got Libranet 2.7 installed. I know Libranet has a new CD out with 2.8 for free, but I use what I can get my hands on. I wish I had re-burned my Xandros CD after giving it to Srini; I doubt I would have had problems with that one and it's so very clean.

So the machine I'm working on now has an Asus motherboard, a 700mhz Celeron overclocked to 913mhz, a 30G hard drive, a geForce 3 AGP video card w/ 64M RAM, an SB Live! sound card, and a 24x burner. It's got Libranet 2.7 installed (I haven't run any updates yet to get it to a "current" state for the distribution) and it's good enough for me!

I found my climbing equipment!

Woot! So last night I was doing some laundry down in the basement and I found my military bag under a pile of clothing! Inside of that was all of my climbing equipment, minus my Boreal "Vector" climbing shoes and my Black Diamond "ATC" belay device.

So I washed the bag itself (it was smelling kind of nasty) and the rope bag (ditto) and my Petzl "Gourou" harness (not as bad, but it could use it) and some dark clothing. My wife is moderately stinky, but I'm not in the mood to wash it. Washing a rope isn't just sticking it in the washing machine. You have to hand wash these bad boys in the tub, "throw" them while they're soaking wet . . . ack. Besides, I don't know if it's even dirty. I'll have to use it a couple of times and see how my hands look. The rope is probably 11-13 years old, but it's been used mostly for top-roping. I've taken a few lead falls on it, but not too many and I don't think any too far. It should still serve as a good top rope.

So I'm going to need to buy some new shoes and an ATC. I can get a pair of shoes locally for 90-130 bucks, depending on the model. I was considering getting some "Mad Rock" brand shoes because they're inexpensive and apparently perform well, but I've heard too much about their durability issues to make that move. I'd rather go with something like the 5.10 Spires, which are very popular (and hence common) but more of a beginners shoe. Then again, it's not like I'm a strong climber right now so they should be good for me. The rock gym also sells some other shoes, some slippers and the like, but the Spires are only 90 bucks and are from Five Ten (a good, solid brand). Typically I'd buy my stuff online, but for climbing shoes I need to be able to put them on because the sizing is inconsistant between manufacturers. There is a place online where you can fax them an outline of your foot and they'll get you the right size based on how tight you want it, but I'm not sure if I want to do that or not.

Fluffer Nutter

So a couple weeks ago my wife came and took the dog. The dog had fleas, and the fleas were becoming a problem. So last weekend I "bombed" the basement, and last night I "bombed" the main floor of the house. There was so much of the good killing stuff in the area that it set off the fire alarm!

Anyway, in the middle of the night I had to use the bathroom. So I opened the door to my bedroom and went into the other room on the second floor of my house. The reason I keep the door closed is two-fold: to keep the cats out (who may still have fleas, given the fact that I didn't get them any repellant yet) and to keep the cool air in (because my wife took the air conditioner from that room). When I went into the bathroom it was like I was walking into flea city. I could feel them jumping on my legs. I knew I had a problem.

So this morning, I got out another one of those bug killers to use on the upper story. I needed to make sure that the cats were outside, so I checked to make sure that none were around and I set my cat door to only allow them to go out, and not come in. So I go and light one of these bad boys off upstairs and go to walk outside and there is one of my cats - "Fluffer Nutter" aka "Fluff". I check to verify I had set the door properly and then put him back outside.

Now here's the point of this entry: the cat starts batting at the cat-door, and he pulls it up with his paw and sticks his face in the open space. He then is able to get inside! I nudge his face out of the door with my foot, think for a little bit, and just open the thing so the other cats will be able to get inside as well. In retrospect, I suppose I should have set the cat door to not allow movement in either direction, but I didn't think of it at the time.

Personality Test Results

Advanced Big 30 Personality Test Results Sociability ||||||||||||||| 46% Aggressiveness ||||||||||||||| 46% Assertiveness |||||||||||||||||| 54% Activity Level |||||||||||| 34% Excitement-Seeking ||||||||| 30% Enthusiasm ||||||||||||||||||||| 66% Extroversion ||||||||||||||| 46% Trust ||||||||||||||| 42% Morality |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74% Altruism ||||||||||||||| 46% Cooperation ||||||||||||||| 50% Modesty |||||||||||||||||| 58% Sympathy ||||||||||||||| 46% Friendliness |||||||||||||||||| 52% Confidence |||||||||||||||||| 58% Neatness |||||||||||| 38% Dutifulness |||||||||||||||||||||||| 78% Achievement |||||||||||||||||| 54% Self-Discipline |||||||||||| 38% Cautiousness ||||||||||||||||||||| 70% Orderliness |||||||||||||||||| 56% Anxiety ||||||||||||||| 46% Volatility ||||||||| 22% Depression |||||| 18% Self-Consciousness |||||||||||||||||| 54% Impulsiveness ||||||||||||||| 50% Vulnerability ||||||||||||||| 42% Emotional Stability ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Imagination |||||||||||||||||| 54% Artistic Interests ||||||||| 26% Introspection |||||||||||||||||| 54% Adventurousness ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Intellect ||||||||||||||||||||| 66% Liberalism ||| 10% Openmindedness ||||||||||||||| 45%

Take Free Advanced Big 30 Personality Test
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ISTP - "Engineer". Values freedom of action and following interests and impulses. Independent, concise in speech, master of tools. 5.4% of total population.

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.

Main Type	Overall Self

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||| 41% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||| 41% Type 3 Image Focus |||||||||||| 50% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||| 33% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||||| 72% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||| 53% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||| 49% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||| 42% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Your main type is 9 Your variant is self pres

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Locus of Control Test Results

Internal Locus (48%) Individual believes that their life is defined more by their decisions and internal drive. External Locus (52%) Individual believes that their life is defined more by genetics, environment, fate, or other external factors.

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Cattell's 16 Factor Test Results Warmth ||||||||||||||| 46% Intellect ||||||||||||||||||||| 66% Emotional Stability |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82% Aggressiveness ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Liveliness ||||||||||||||| 50% Dutifulness ||||||||||||||| 46% Social Assertiveness |||||||||||||||||| 54% Sensitivity ||||||||| 26% Paranoia |||||||||||||||||| 58% Abstractness ||||||||||||||||||||| 62% Introversion ||||||||||||||||||||| 66% Anxiety ||||||||| 26% Openmindedness |||||||||||||||||| 54% Independence ||||||||||||||||||||| 70% Perfectionism ||||||||| 30% Tension |||||| 18%

Take Free 16pf based Personality Test
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My walk

For a long time I've had something lacking in my walk with God. I try to avoid sin, and for the most part succeed. But I'm lacking that closeness, that drive for holiness which really should define me. I haven't been reaching for God, commiting myself day to day to him.

And that's something I want to change. I want to be that selfless servant of God. To seek his will and his face. To turn my eyes to him alone.

I spoke with Justified last night and really realised that I need to make some changes in my spiritual life. I've never been very into prayer, and that's something I need to change.

Hiking and Climbing, Oh My!

This afternoon, I went to go see the movie "Hero". It was very "artistically" done - a little overdone at parts, but on the whole I enjoyed what they made. The story was pretty weak (as always with these flicks) but I don't consider it 6 bucks wasted.

After the movie, I decided (on a whim) to go hiking. I had my tevas on, some sweatpants, and a long-sleeved shirt. I hit a local hike. When I pulled up, there were around 10 cars parked at the base off of Rt 66. I got my lighter backpack out of the trunk and hit the trail. I had a really good time. In fact, it was such a beautiful day that when I got to the top of the ridgeline I took off my shirt and laid down on the rock near the ledge. There was a light wind and the sun was nice and warm and it wasn't too hot. The day was clear and not too humid. It was just plain nice.

I got up after that shortly after some people started talking to me, asking what this road was and what's that building. I hiked until the rideline took a dip to decend a bit before coming to the next "mountain", because I was really just up there for a little enjoyable jaunt after busting tail on Saturday. I spent some time in the quiet off the trail, looking at some trees and the clear blue sky, just sitting there.

There's something natural and right about being in the woods on a mountaintop all alone. I can look down on the cars below, watching them lead their busy little lives. Listening to their radios, consumed in their daily duties or troubles or desires. I can see them, imagine them all. Sitting in their houses, driving their cars, working on a holiday. It's an issue of perspective. Because I know this: most of the time, I'm right down there with them. I forget my place in the world, and this big wonderful universe is stripped down to my troubles, my cares, my worries, my duties. I sit in my car, listening to my audio books, and go to work 5 days a week. I get home, I eat, I play or work some more, and I go to bed to get up in the morning to do it all again. My life, spent working to maintain a "lifestyle", my hours drained away, like I'm strip-mining my life. But there's always the mountains, if I only choose to give them my time.

After the hike down, I got in my car and decided I was going to check out the local climbing crag. I drove over near the mall to where I knew the crag was supposed to be situated and lo and behold there were 4 cars parked off to the side of the road. So I pulled in behind them.

The ascent was steep but short. Right when I got to the cliffs (about 40-60 feet tall) there were 3 people climbing, a guy with a full rack and a couple of girls. They weren't very talkative or friendly seeming, so I moved on down the line after watching one of the women climb for a bit and met up with another set of 3. These were friendly, and warmed immediately when they discovered that I used to climb at Rumney all the time. The guy, Fritz, asked me my shoe size and when he found that I could wear one of their shoes asked if I'd like to climb.

I couldn't pass that action up. It was only a 5.5 I guess, but it taxed me in my current condition. I didn't fall, but I don't have the arm strength I used to have. Most of my groin flexability is still intact, so I was able to make some smooth moves.

I offered to belay and I belayed a couple of times for the Fritz. Since it was getting dark, he went to go take down the top-rope and I taught his female protege how to butterfly coil the rope. I'm still not sure if I did it backwards or not (not that it really matters) - I think I did it right.

Anyway, I left my name, phone number, and email address for them, so hopefully I'll be able to hook up for some climbing on the weekends. I've been considering getting a new pair of climbing shoes (some cheapos) and another harness (cheapos) since I can't seem to find my own. I'm almost certainly going to get a monthly subscription at Prime Climb in Wallingford, so . . .

Anyway, my hand strength is about nil. I didn't blow out my fingers or my arms, but I just didn't have the sack there. I was able to walk the climb simply because I knew what I was doing. Fritz said that it didn't look like I had been out of practice for the long years I'd told him about.

This was my first time climbing really since college. I did a little bit in the military but not really. I left college in 1995, so that's like 9 years. I said 4 years to be safe, but I certainly haven't climbed since we had Audrial. Give me a couple months, 3 or 4 days a week at the gym, and I'll be climbing 5.10 again. Or at least 5.9 =p. I thought I would be able to climb 5.9 right away, but I can see that I'm going to need to improve my hand strength and endurance before I do that.

Anyway, I'm pretty jazzed about climbing today. I had a good time and I'm looking forward to doing it again soon. Today was a perfect day for it too. Unfortunately, I won't be able to climb during the week after work outside because it gets dark too early. I considered leaving work early to climb, but that'd mean getting out at least an hour and a half before 5, and honestly I can pay for a months subscription at Prime Climb with the money I'd lose doing that. It just doesn't make sense. Next year =) I'll hit it while there's still light to see by.