Graduations, End of Semesters, and an Old Bed

This past week my girlfriend graduated from college with Bachelor's degree in Communication with a minor in Psychology. I'm way proud of her! Here's a picture of her and her sister at her graduation. Congratulations Amy!



Today I was faced with daunting task of getting my room assembled. Each semester I am forced to remove all my possessions from the room at my school, and find some manner of temporary abode for them in my room. Fortunately, my mother had some spare boxes and I was able to store much of it in an unused corner of the garage.

But I get ahead of myself. Before I could even think about what I was going to do with all the junk that was filling up most of my car, I first had to make space for it in my room by getting it cleaned up. As I began the first round of cleanings, I had an awesome idea. Earlier, my mom had mentioned that since the frame for my bed was broken, I should just use the frame that my Grandfather Bennett had made for me when I was 8 months old (By 6 months, I had made it quiet clear to my mother that I would not stand being in a crib).

It should have been easy, right? I take the pieces out of the garage, dust them off, put them together and I'm done. 30 minutes top. I have come to adopt a new moto in life when it comes to projects: "The easier a project should be, the more time it's going to take". Things started out bad when my shoulder informed me that I had slept on it wrong and was going to make life unbearably painful the more I tried to use it. But I was determined to get this done, so I muscle through the pain and attempt to do this two person project by myself.

Fortunately, my mom came to the rescue with an extra pair of hands and a pair of Aleeve tablets. We managed to get the frame together when I realized that the box frame (the thing that the matress sits on) was too large to fit in the frame my granddad made. Oh well, that's no big problem, for as long as I can remember, we've always just used a piece of plywood with this bed and it's worked fantastically.

After a short debate with my mom about how wide I should get the plywood cut, I run off to Lowe's to procure my item. As I'm walking in, I decide that my mom was probably right about erring on the side of caution with the width of the board and decide to get it cut to the exact width of the frame. A short time later I leave with my cut plywood (which cost me an extra 5 dollars since someone had mislabled a section of plywood), arrived home, and carried the wood upstairs. With mom's help we set the plywood in place only to find it was an inch to wide. Oops.

Thankfully, mom is used to dealing with frustrated Bennett men, and we quickly cut off an inch of the wood and fit in back into place with no problems. I hope that this bed will continue to last me for another 24 years and my kids will get to enjoy the bed that their great-grandpa made for their dad. All in all, it goes quite nicely with my wood shelves, the Benny's Place sign, and the bookcase, the desk, the floor... my room is very woodsy. Here's picture of the bed.


The washcloths are there to keep the metal bolts from damaging the mattress, and the suitcase is only there because I'm going to use it tomorrow to go see my best friend (who isn't Amy ;) ) in our annual Christmas time get together.

Oh, and after we finally got everything worked out with the bed (7:30) I was able to get my stuff in from my car and got done around 10:30. It was a very profitable day which started at 11:30 with me heading out to do the last of my Christmas shopping!

Graduations, End of Semesters, and an Old Bed

How I wish I were joking

Barak Obama has had a lot of dark secrets that has cropped up in the course of this election time. From being a secret Muslim, to belonging to a church run by a crazy lunatic (is it redundant to use crazy to modify the word lunatic?), to some of the more recent, he's not eligible to be president because he is not a natural born citizen (the Supreme Court is refusing to take the case for reasons they won't tellm, which you gotta admit regardless of the validity of the situtation, that seems underhanded of them, I think they've expanded their power a little beyond what they were supposed to).

However, the most recent, and by far the most pathetic controversy in the Obama camp? Whether or not he uses Microsoft's Zune MP3 player instead of the Apple iPod.

I wish I were joking. His campaign team has lunched a slew of releases stating emphatically that he is an iPod users and it must have been one of his SS men, or perhaps a daughter (who got it from where?) who was using it.

But why all the fuss? Because of the response, people are litterally saying they have no faith in Obama to run America because he owns a Zune! Come on guys! Wasn't the fact that this guy's policies are the same things Clinton did that set up the Bank crash a bigger worry? Or what about the fact that the guy has a remarably undisguished career? Or, I dunno, what about the fact that any white guy who had the credenticals and plans Obama had never would have even been elected to represent the democratic ticket let alone won the presidency race? I kinda count those things as a little more solid ground for lossing faith in someone.

It's a brave new world President-hopefuls, make sure to be a good little consumer lemming and bring your iPod.

How I wish I were joking

The conclusion of my PS2 adventure

So, when I bought the PS2 I was informed that the reason it was so cheap was the the 1st player port did not work. I thought to myself, "I don't see why I should worry about that, I'm the only one who ever plays Video games anyways at my house" and promptly saved myself 30 bucks. Well as I did some research on the PS2, I decided that I most definitely wanted to install a hard drive on it so I could play games from the Hard drive instead of having to deal with the painfully long load times of the CD/DVD (as mentioned yesterday).

Much to my joy, I found that my local Gamestop carried the Network adapter (remember Network adapter = hard drive?) and instead of it being 30 dollars it was a scant 10! Once I arrived there, I inquired the Gamestop employee where said item was and was informed that the adapter was attached to another PS2 already and they could not give it to me since they didn't have the back plate to cover up the hole left by it. Fortunately I had my PS2 with me in the car with said back plate and convinced them to let me trade my back plate for their adapter (I still had to pay for it of course).

Armed with everything I needed for my set up, I traveled home and inserted a certain disc to allow me to install my hard drive and play games from it. And then I hit "a snag". Turns out this disc only responds to a controller plugged into the 1st player port... you know, the broken one. And just like that, my new PS2 was in pieces on the floor as I searched for the problem. Long story short, the cable that attached the controller ports to the motherboard was loose. It would have been a simple thing to fix... if I hadn't taken apart the entire thing.

As I attempted to reinsert the cable, I realized that the PS2 had designed the cable holder in a fascinating way. The cable in question was just a flat, paper thin cable. To make sure this cable didn't become dislodged, the holder would clamp down on the cable. I found this out just in time for the clamp to break on one end. A quick superglue and electrical tape job later, and I was back in action! At some point I'll buy a replacement piece for it, but right now I'm okay with this solution (plus the replacement pieces cost 25 bucks in most places, if I wanted to spend that much I would have just bought the thing new!). With the first player port now working, it was a simple matter to install the hard drive and copy the discs over to it.

Now one thing I should mention about this software I installed to let me copy the games... the original software it was based on was shut down by Sony (the maker of PS2). Their contention was that by making it such that the game CD is not needed to play the game, the software created piracy solutions where the user could buy the game, copy it, then turn around and return it while keeping the game on their hard drive. And I understand this concern. If Sony had been smart however, they would have simply made it so the game would run from the hard drive only when the game CD was present in the drive (most modern games work like this on the computer). Then they would have made a fortune of selling PS2 compatible Hard drives larger than the official 40GB hard drive.

Regardless, I believe in showing corporations that not every gamer is out to rob them blind (in fact, most aren't and their anti-piracy measures are only hurting the people following the rules). Which is why I have no problem in using a software based on another software shut down by a corporation provided I use it to the fullest legal extent of only making backup copies of my games that will be deleted in the event that I ever sell said game.

Remember kids, always read the EULA so you can know your rights and do things like this to the full extent of the law!

The conclusion of my PS2 adventure

PS2 don't you know you're obsolete?

The following is an e-mail I sent to my mom.

Subject: And right before finals

Message:

Dear Mom:

Love Matt

The true joke of the matter being that mom my is absolutely terrified of what video games do to my life and I knew it. So when I bought this, I made sure no to buy a power cable or cable to attach it to the TV (okay, so I didn't buy those because I already had them, but that's besides the point). All I really lack is a memory card so I can save my game.

But here's where the problem came up. After doing some research I learned 2 things. 1) I really want to buy a network adapter for the PS2 just so I can install a hard drive (I'm not joking you have to buy a network adapter to install a hard drive) so I can save my discs to the hard drive. 2) The price for ANY PS2 item (with the possible exception of the games) has remained at a static price across the board. No matter where you go, everyone sales the same 5 items for the single price of $30 (or more for some items).

It quiet astounded me. I mean, these aren't even the new items, these are the used by 20 different people over the course of its 8 year life-span. You'd think that I'd get a little discount for it being used at least. It seems doubly weird when you consider that the PS2 hardware is now completely outdated with the advent of the PS3. If anything for the PS2 was going to stay locked at a certain price, it should be the games (which are both awesome and playable on the PS3) instead of the hardware (which while being cool for the PS2 is largely useless for the PS3).

Equally fascinating is if you go to eBay and search for these items, they are being bought up at tremendous rates. The more one tries to bid for an item lately the more some guy with the name m**3 comes in and bids higher (which is another weird thing, what's up with the letter double * number names on eBay?) a LOT higher.

Oh well, little by little I get this set up by the time school it out for winter! Current titles: Kingdom Hearts and Ico (Ico may be more universally recognized as the first part to a recent release; Shadow of the Colossus)

Edit: I just learned that the ** thing on eBay is part of their ID masking service so people don't know what your name is if you win the item by being a complete jerk. AWESOME.

PS2 don't you know you're obsolete?

Final weeks!

Sorry guys, you still don't get the end of that story! Or the thing about Christian Music! HA HA HA you have no choice but to wait for finals to be over! (or for me to update in an attempt to procrastinate against studying)

Final weeks!

And to think that I saw it on Matlock Street

I saw quiet the interesting event take place yesterday as I drove to my dad's office. As I approached an intersection, in the dedicated right turn lane, a little fender bender happened. It was nothing major, the pickup in the rear thought the car in the front should keep going through the red light and tail ended him a little. From what I could tell there was no major damage.

So a black guy get out of the truck in back and a white guy gets out of the car in front and they begin to exchange insurance information as just about any two young preppy males of my age group would, by shoving each other. Of course this isn't anything unusual to me and with the light being green and all I start to drive past them.

Right as I get next to them (I was in the lane immediately adjacent to them) the white guy decides that shoving isn't cutting it for him and proceeds to punch the black man. And, just like Pringles slogan says, once he popped (him on in the face) he just couldn't stop. The black guy tried quiet useless to punch the white guy back, but was immediately overwhelmed and the white guy proceeded to beat him to the ground between the cars, then stood over him and continued to beat down on this black guy.

At this point I'm just barely through the intersection. I can tell this white guy isn't gonna stop till the black guy is dead in all likelihood and drive down to the next light to pull a U-turn and get back there, hopefully with enough time to scare the white guy away with the black guy still breathing. By the time I get there, the white guy has already sped off in his car, and the black guy is getting helped by several (I saw at least 10) store employees who had run out to his defense.

Behold the fruit of a generation of idiots. In all honesty, I wouldn't have been surprised at all the see the white guy be one of the people who live across the hall from me at my Baptist College. They're always going on swearing sprees about how horrible this school is and how they hate everyone it. Maybe if their parents had loved them enough to discipline them. Anyone know the charges the white guy would be facing (other than a bogus hate crime charge that the news would try to stick to him of course)?

And as a side note? I think Grandma and I are the only people who semi-regularly update their blogs. I wonder what's going on with the rest of my family. Daniel knows I can't very well just call them ;)

And to think that I saw it on Matlock Street

Hey remember that story?

You know it was a story I was doing back in March about a dream I had? Well I hadn't forgotten about it, just didn't have time to finish it. I'm gonna do that this week (or at least try). So if you want you can refresh your memories with

Part 1

and

Part 2

Part 3 is posted here with some changes and a little extra at the end. I basically stopped it before I was ready to stop it last time, and took it on to the point that I wished to end this section. Also fixed were spelling mistakes (the ones I noticed a least) and some continuity/word changes to make it flow better with the rest of the story.

So, without further delay, Part 3:

I stepped out onto the harsh, unforgiving area surrounding the mountain and immediately felt the unforgiving wind attack. Relentlessly, the wind tore at my skin and bit at my eyes. Raising my arms to shield my face, I approached the mountain and began to search for a path over it. Its jagged terrain seemed equally inhospitable no matter where I looked. The mountain slopes seemed to have been forcefully discharged from the Earth at a daunting angle as if it had been rejected by the ground that once harbored it. Though a part of me desired to find a less severe path, the longer I spent on the scorched ground, the less my makeshift shoes protected me from the severe heat. Already I had to constantly swap my weight from foot to foot to keep either from burning.

Driven only by my determination to obey the lamb, I stepped onto the mountain, grasped a rough outcropping and began to scale what seemed to be as good as a place as any. My efforts were quickly rewarded as I climbed above the wisps of dust and left the heat of that unforgiving ground behind. My victory was short lived, however, as the intensity of the wind rapidly increased. Each inch I climbed was a painful battle that taxed my weary muscles against the downward gusts that threatened to tear me away from the mountainside and fling me into the air.
Slowly, painfully, I dragged myself up the mountainside. After what seemed to be an eternity, I found myself past the extreme slope at the base of the mountain and before a great, winding path as unwelcoming and devoid of life as the base of the mountain. I found a spot relatively free of wind and lay gasping for breath and assuaging my weary muscles.

Having regained some strength, I stood and peered over the wall I had just scaled expecting to find a great distance between myself and the ground below. To my dismay, I found that I had only come 10 yards at most from the mountain base. Dumbfounded, I began to struggle along the craggy path before me as I silently wept.
Each step I took along the path was fraught with pain and danger as my foot slid across the uneven ground. The shoes that had protected me against the heat now threatened to end my life as they leaked what little water they still contained. Though I tried to step carefully, the ground seemed to be ever changing. What I thought was flat ground actually tilted to the side. What I thought was slanted was actually a jagged point that nipped at the soles of my feet. Each stumbled threatened to send me tumbling all the way to the base of the mountain. No matter how I stepped, my feet would either find a sharp point or slide into a pinching outcropping.

As I stubbornly pressed on, I finally began to grown thirsty and hungry. I searched for some gathering of water that could have pooled from some previous rain, but despite the dark clouds that loomed above, I felt that the mountain had never been touched by the gentle kiss of rain. I wearily plodded onward hopping that the end of this mountain would reveal an area like the field I had left. It was then that I became keenly aware of time’s relentless march. Where before I was certain that many days had passed while I wondered in that beautiful field without ever growing tired, I now needed frequently increasing breaks.

Abruptly, I found myself at the precipice of an intimidating cliff. Gazing out, I saw an endless, flat expanse. Like the mountain, the expanse was devoid of life. Long dead trees were speckled amidst a sea of blood red sand. At once, I felt both a surge of hope at finding such plentiful wood to burn and a sinking despair that I could find no way down this cliff nor a way back up burdened with wood.

For a moment, it seemed as if the wind’s relentless torrent against my skin abated and instead wisped around me gently as if trying to caress my face or wipe the sweat from my brow. In that moment, the wind seemed to carry a fragrance that made my heart leap. I felt as if I should know this smell, like the scent of a grandfather or grandmother, but the moment was fleeting and left me feeling bitter and abandoned.
Resolved to build a fire, I began to descend the wall of the cliff. Each handhold tore and pinched at my skin, bit and gnawed at my toes, jarred my knees and scraped my face. I had hardly begun my descent when a gust of wind lifted me up and flung me into the air.

Time held its breath for me as for one perilous moment gravity failed to assert its hold over me. Then slowly, like many tiny hands reaching up and grasping at my clothes, I began to fall. Quicker, faster the ground rushed up at me. In vain, I grasped for the wall, but no matter how I moved, it remained just beyond my grasp. With one final desperate lunge, I reached for the wall. Despite all odds, my hand managed to find a hold and my body slammed into cliff face with stunning speed that caused my head to strike a rock jutting out from the wall. The world spun as I hopelessly struggled to regain my senses.

I managed to clear my head just in time to realize that when struck my head, I released my grip and was presently falling head first toward the sandy expanse. Before I had time to try anything, I hit the ground, and the world exploded into stars, then immediately sunk into a black, soundless darkness.

Hey remember that story?

The end of an era

Last night two things of sorrow note took place. If you don't like long political rhetoric, you might as well skip on to the second thing, it's down a little ways and the paragraph is started out bold. The first, and more widely known, was that America elected it's first black president. The sorrow of this situation is not that he's black, but that his election was due largely to the fact that he was black. I can think of no greater racism than to vote for someone based on the color of their skin, regardless of how that swings your vote. What makes this even more sad is that Obama is not particularly impressive as an individual. The things he was saying and the stances he was making would not have won him the democrat ticket let alone the presidency had he been white.

About a month ago I made two speculations. The first was that I was quiet convinced that Obama would only loose if the democrat vote was split by a surge of write ins for Hilary. The second was that the greatest support for Obama would come not from higher age groups (indeed those are split more or less 50-50 with most of Senator Obama's votes coming from minority or African-American based populaces), but rather from those who are in the 18-21 age range. Those people who 4 years ago were 14-17 and have for the past four years seen nothing but South Park, Family Guy, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart representations of President Bush. For four years this age demographic's mind has been utterly poisoned with the presentation of a man (and by extension political party) that is impossibly dumb. So it is no surprise that this age range DID vote overwhelming in favor of Obama. To be perfelect blunt, the democrat party could have nominated a block of cheese and gotten an equally strong turn out.

I now make three suppositions.
1) Obama on the whole is a political pansy. (That's not the supposition part, that's a statement of fact based on looking at his political career, a completely lackluster record until his campaign for presidency when people suddenly began to sing his praise despite any evidence to support such praise.) Therefore I will be so bold to venture that the true power of the next 4-8 years will not be the president but rather the party leader in Congress.
2) Due largely to the efforts of the current administration to control the weak economy left by Clinton and the his foolish law that made it illegal for a bank to not give a loan based on credit history, Obama's term in office will be fondly remembered as a good time for America, but the person who inherits the Presidency from him will be faced with a second even more disastrous economic crisis than we are currently in.
3) For the next several elections it will be impossible for a non-minority to gain Presidency. Now, I must stress again that I have no issue with an African-American, Latino, or Asian being President, my qualm lies in them becoming President because of their ethnicity, furthermore I am equally opposed to a Caucasian becoming President only because his opponent was not Caucasian.

However, none of this is why it is the end of an era for me. For the second thing of sorrow that occurred last night was the death of Michael Crichton known for such books as "Jurassic Park, Lost World, Sphere, Prey, Congo, et el" and movies by the same title as well as "Twister". Michael Crichton has been a long time favored author of mine whose works I have long read and collected.

While it is certainly sorrowful that his life (of 66 years) came to an end last night due to cancer. The truly sad thing for me is his undeniably hostile (or at best indifferent) view of God. Indeed, it's hard to find a science fiction write who believes in God. It's almost a statement of pure contradiction in fact! After all, every sci fi writer believes on some level that man is inherently good and has the power within himself for self-improvement; that the notion of a high (non-alien) being is completely ludicrous. So it was that last night, to my sorrow, Michael Crichton joined the ranks of my other adored sci fi writers such as Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov in coming to know the pure horror of the wrath of God poured out on those who reject Christ's purifying work on our behalf.

The end of an era

The interesting month of November

First of all, I have not forgotten about following up the music post. I just have not had sufficient time to sit down and coherently write out my reasoning as it is based on Biblical fact (that's worth taking time for). I assure you, it is forthcoming.

I find it interesting how events in our lives seem to gravitate towards a specific month. Almost as if every year, around the same time, we decide to get back into trouble. Of course, the simple fact of the matter is that since there are only 12 months, if something is going to go wrong in a year, there's an 8.3% chance it will land in any given month. And since usually more than one thing of noteworthiness happens in any given year, the act of reflecting back on specific months gives the illusion of any one month being, "a bad-luck month".

Regardless, November, while not being a bad-luck month, is certainly a month of happenings in my life. So it is, with my birthday rapidly approaching, that I find myself looking back over my Novembers.

As I just mentioned, November is my birth month, but disregarding that, the first thing of noteworthiness (for today at any rate) that occurred in November took place 6 years ago. I had a very good friend of the time who I admittedly held some romantic interest in. Well, not really, but I certainly interpreted them as such. It was a time of darkness in my life when I despaired of living. My friend moved off to college and I kept in regular contact with her. One night she mentioned how it seemed I lived each day simply to make it to the next. I was struck by this truth and could not deny the only reason I woke up in the mornings was because I had not yet died. I spent the whole night contemplating how I was living my life in relation to how the bible instructed I should be living it and came to the conclusion that it was time for a change.

I also realized at this time that the only feelings I had for her were strictly friendly, but having shut out everyone so firmly since Mark's death I called it love. Freed from the burden of this false label, I decided to take a trip up to her school to tell her how a simple statement had turned my life around. She was thrilled I was coming to her college and expressed a hope that I would attend school there so we could hang out more, she further went on to mention how I always seemed to called at just the right time to cheer her up.

When I got there, however, things took a sudden sour turn. While playing a game of 8 ball, with a man no one knew, he calmly told me my friend was dating this guy, and left. When I asked her about it, she told me it was none of my business, and that we were no longer friends. It is perhaps the single greatest regret of my life that our friendship was lost over a simple lack of communication.

November was also the month my cousin committed suicide. An event that reminded me how to cry and kept me from visiting another friend over Thanksgiving; a fact that I was never really forgiven for.

November was the time that I had to leave Countryside for a while a couple years back as a member of the church began spreading lies about me to her friends and family to cover her own sin. She never did come clean about it although all was forgiven long ago.

Though it was not in November, I started dating Amy very close to November, and though it will embarrass her greatly for me to say so, it was in November when I first kissed her ;)

And while it was also not in November, I would like to mention (while being reflective and what-not) that it was not too long ago that the 1 year anniversary of my grandfather's death rolled by. I will forever lament that my children will never get to know their great-grandfather and see all the amazing things he built for us while they were fresh and taken care of.

It was also the 1 year anniversary of learning my dad has cancer. It has been an amazing year of learning for my parents and myself as we come to help one another out and learn how to live with this disease. My stance has not changed one bit from the first moment I learned the news. I still wholly believe that God will push the cancer into remission and even if He does not, cancer is not what will end my father's life. My dad getting cancer did not catch God by surprise, it did not shorten the numbers of his days. From the very beginning, God and God alone was going to be the One to call my father home. It may be a little morbid to talk about how I think my dad is going to die (especially when I word it like that), but as I already stated, I have complete faith that God has control my father's body, and while it may be hard for the moment, there is a point to the suffering, the least of which was allowing me to serve their needs this summer time.

Yes, November is quite the interesting month.

The interesting month of November

2 years!

Though I do not have time to fully list how wonderful my girlfriend Amy is, and all the various things she has done for me over the past two years, I must take a moment to write a simple happy 2 years of dating (it was on Saturday)! And get right back to studying Chinese for my midterm tomorrow!

2 years!

The answer to my little music poll!

The answer, to be concise, is that neither of them are Christian songs. Now, to be fair, both of these songs play on Christian radio stations. The first one (How to save a life) plays on just about every Christian station I've heard. The second one plays on a local Christian Rock station solely. So why aren't the Christian? To be blunt, the first song being played on Christians stations is a mere perversion of the Lyrics. They say that they "pray to God" but it's not an actual acknowledgment of God or of His authority of the hearts of man. When they use that phrase, it has as much to do with actually praying to God as the phrase "Heaven forbid" has to do with heaven. The artist who sings it is unquestionably secular, it's not a Christian song.

The second song is by an indie (Christian) band. After some searching I discovered that the band claims the song is about ending spiritual stagnancy. Wow... just wow, that's some mighty fine between the lines reading. It a purely nonsensical song with a bunch of teens screaming into a microphone. That hardly classifies as Christian.

The reason I posted the little music test is because I've been having some real difficulties with (so-called) Christian music for about... 2 years now (hey that's how long I've been going to DBU... the little coincidences of life). My problem with Christian music has recently resurfaced as the local Christian Rock station, which used to be an amazing station with genuine Christ centered music ranging from Larry Norman's "Why should the devil have all the good music?" (yes, I file that under Christian music) to Nailed Promise's "Stand Tall" (Nailed Promise is a heavy metal band).

If, however, you were to listen to the station today, you would find yourself wondering if you had somehow landed on a really mediocre rock station.

Since I was young, I have contended that it is not the music that makes a song Christian or not. A popular TV show actually pokes fun of this in one of their episodes.

Ned : “Where’s your backing band?”

Girl : “They left the Christian music scene and went mainstream - you just use the word ‘baby’ instead of Jesus”

(yeah, that's a Simpson's quote for you, and that's the sound of my mom dying of shame that I would both know a Simpson's quote and that I would actually use a Simpson's quote). But that's not a problem. The division of secular and Christianity is CHRIST, so of course that will be the difference in who we sing our songs about! After all, the Hymns we sing today were done to the same style as the secular songs of their time period. The problem is with modern Christian bands, the quote becomes

Girl : “They left the Christian music scene and went mainstream - you just imply a girl instead of imply Jesus"

We've done away with actually ascribing anything to God and made simply clip off a wink under our hats in God's direction when no one is looking.

Now just for the record, I have nothing wrong with listen to secular music (provided of course it's not a song that is just slapping the face of Jesus with its every word). Neither do I have a problem with Christian bands singing fun, random, or silly songs. The problem I wish to address is that our "Christian" songs have become dominated with these types of songs and Christ is no longer anywhere to be found (with some small exception).

Sadly, on the other end of the spectrum are the Christian praise and worship songs that the DBU chapel loves so much that is mindless repetition and man centered manipulation.

So, in the next little bit here, I'm gonna take a look at what the Bible has to say about Christian Music and it's place in our lives.

The answer to my little music poll!

Christian Music Test

Here's a little test that I'd like for y'all to take. Of the two videos below, can anyone tell me which one is the Christian one?



Lyrics:

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life



Lyrics:

Sing, sing
Oh so sucker for the sugar substitute and artificial flavoring
Small wonder I felt so safe inside nothing more than a smoke screen and masquerade
But outside a car bomb's ticking
Inside a car bomb's ticking

The words I wrote are a broken chain
Holding me from the criminally insane
But its gone and there's no stopping
All my balloons are popping

But the tree was not yet down as she lifted the flag from the bloody
ground, whispering:
'Gallons of gas and a makeshift cast and I'm still no further from nowhere
fast'
Listen! Downstairs the doorbell's ringing
We've been waiting
I've been waiting

The words I wrote are a broken chain
Holding me from the criminally insane
But its gone and there's no stopping
All my balloons are popping

The words I wrote are a broken chain
Keeping me from the criminally insane
But it's gone and there's no stopping

The words I wrote and the songs I sang
Kept this ship from sinking to its grave
But it's gone and there's no stopping
All my balloons are popping

leave comments on which one you think is Christian (remember, I'm a sneaky guy, they might both be Christian or they might both be secular)

Christian Music Test

The Bathroom Project Part 3 - Getting up to half a bathroom

Following the last picture, mom grouted the floor and we let everything set for a week while everyone was out of town. This weekend, we were rearing and reading to get a usable bathroom at this end of the hall. We started Friday night hoping to quickly set the toilet before it was bed time. If you look at the last picture of the previous post, you may notice a white circular object sticking up out of the floor. This is called the flange, it's the part that connects the toilet to the drainage pipe. Or in plainer terms: it is the bridge that keeps your waste from leaking on it's way to the sewer.

Though I forgot to mention it, the previous flange that was in there, was cracked and had to be replaced. If the previous person had installed it correctly, this would have been no problem, but instead of screwing the flange to the floor, they glued it into the pipe. Meaning I had to take a hammer and chisel to that... nasty, nasty bridge and break it out piece. by. piece. I was, therefore, committed to installing it correctly and screwed it down nice and tight. See?



Only one problem. See those nice straight lines in the tile going from the bottom left to the top right? They needed to be touching the end of that bolt hole, not the middle. If you ever look under a flange, you'll see how there's a little plastic ridge that goes to just before the end of that bolt hole. It's purpose is to catch the bolt so that it does not twist as you try to tighten the nuts on top of the toilet. Oops. We press on. Long and very frustrating story short, the bolt turned sideways as we were attempting to secure the toilet and popped right out of the hole. Furthermore, for some reason the wax ring that sit on top of the flange to further insure no leakage was not smushed at all meaning that the toilet was not resting on the flange like it's supposed to. It was then that mom realized that the flange was supposed to be at floor height, not sunken in as you see it.

Though we called it quits for the night, we did, quiet fortunately, already have the solution for this, back when we were doing the backer boards almost 3 weeks ago, we had the foresight to buy an extension kit for just such an outcome. So it was that first thing Saturday morning, we installed the flange kit, and seated the toilet. Things were looking up until we found that after all that hard work, the toilet tank was cracked. Though we were at first worried that this meant we were going to have to buy a whole new toilet, a nice employee at Lowe's helped us find a replacement for just the toilet tank! Replacing the old, cracked tank for the new (shorter) tank was a simple job and we finally had a working toilet... albeit no sink or door at this point.


The installation of the vanity bottom went well. We decided to caulk behind it so water wouldn't be able to seep into the walls and discovered that we only had gray caulk. Fortunately this area is completely covered by the vanity so we caulked it gray and pressed on. At this point mom left to go see my 3 day old niece, Alyssa Faith Bennett, and left me to install the sink and vanity top.

It was a largely easy affair. The only hold up was on of the water lines that went from the pipe to the faucet could no longer reach since the new vanity is about 4-6 inches higher than the old one. This also meant that the drain pipe from the sink did not reach to the drain pipe going into the wall. One last quick Lowe's run (it's an exit from our house) allowed me to purchase the solutions to both these problems, and once mom got back we were able to silicone glue the vanity top to the bottom. Here's the result:



I was also able to replace the light, but I didn't bother taking a picture of that. So what's left you ask?

1) Caulk the tub
2) Caulk the space where the wall meets the floor
3) Put on base boards
4) Put up shower curtain
5) Put up towel holders
6) Any other little things my sister wants to do that I am unaware of.

We've done a really nice job so far. The one and only draw back I'm seeing right now is that it's a much louder bathroom now. That make things a little embarrassing for the people trying to use it!

The Bathroom Project Part 3 - Getting up to half a bathroom

The Bathroom Project Part 2 - Flooring woes

I learned an important lesson about measuring tapes while working on the floor. Any increment greater than 1/32 is not only an unneeded amount of accuracy, but also exponentially increases the likelihood of measuring the area incorrectly. I also learned that a jigsaw blade that can cut backer board is worth 100 backer board cutting knives. On my first attempt, I opened the knife I had purchased (with my parents money of course, I'm just helping on the manual labor) and proceeded to war against the backer board. The directions claim that two swipes of the knife was more than sufficient to cut the board. I assure you it is not. But I struggled and toiled with that knife for an hour. And having finally cut the board I bent over to pick it up, only I failed to notice that the tip of my foot was over the board and as I lifted, I broke that board right down the middle.

That, however, was not the end of the woes! For we were willing to have the broken board be the base. It's not like a single piece was going to cover that area anyway, one extra split wasn't going to hurt anything. That's when I learned that a mark ever 1/64 of an inch of a tape measure was just too many marks. I was anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch off my cuts. Now, the way the floor in that bathroom is makes the length of the board extremely important. The floor slants up from the door to about 2 feet into the room, then from that point back down to the tub. Any backer board or tile lain over this crest would quickly crack. So it was that I went back to Lowe's, purchased another backer board to replace the one that was now worthless as well as this little beauty.


It's a carbide jig saw blade. I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but rather than have teeth like most saws, it's blade is covered in... well carbide I guess. And it makes quick work of that backer board. So it was that armed with this blade, and a better tape measure, I was able to quickly measure and cut the three backer board pieces to cover the bathroom floor. It was perfect.

Of course, I had yet to secure them to the floor. Which is where we hit our next major snag. The concrete screw heads where square. That's right, they were not flat head nor philip's head screws but square heads. After a lot of searching, my mom and I were able to find a screw for the power dill that would mostly fit the square heads. It started out well enough, but for those who don't know, turns out screwing through concrete is hard work. Hard work made even harder by a dill head that kept wanting to come loose and make my square holes circular. But we did manage to get them all screwed down and the floor started looking pretty nice.


Here you can see the three pieces I used with a hole cut out for the toilet flange. You can also see how we cut them to follow that crest I was talking about. With the backer board down, we were able to apply the final coat brown coco paint and prepare to lay down the tile.

Later, as we were inspecting the floor one last time before laying down the tile, we realized that a lot of the heads were not flush with the backer board. Without the heads being all the way flush, it was very likely the tile would shift and crack as people walked on them. The problem was further exacerbated as we could not find the square bit we had been using. Finally, I decided that it would be better just to run over to Lowe's and buy the right sized bit to do the job right. It was as I read the box of screws to see what size I should get that I noticed the following


No, no, look closer


Yes, there in rather plain, "hey I'm just part of the bar code or quantity " text were the unimpressive words "Free square drive bit" All the time I was drilling in those screws wishing I had the right bit, it had been in that box, hidden down underneath all those screws. Fortunately, after replacing about 1/3 of the screws I had down, it was a relatively simple process for mom to lay down the tile such that my back board went from what you saw above to


that. And finally to

The Bathroom Project Part 2 - Flooring woes

The Bathroom Project Part 1 - Introduction

Merriam Webster defines project as "a specific plan or design" and that's a pretty okay way of defining it, but over the course of the bathroom project, I have my own definition of project. "Project: a related series of snafus that result in a (hopefully) desirable outcome". A year ago, a bad hail storm came through my area. As a result our insurance company paid for a new roof and paint job. Additionally, it was discovered that the damage to the roof caused by said hail storm the "kids' bathroom" ceiling, wall, and tub was damaged and the insurance company was going to cover the replacement costs.

So it was that at the beginning of summer my mom decided to make good on a promise she gave Emily years and years ago that she could redo the bathroom however she wanted to (within reason). Together the two of them began to conspire over the details of this new bathroom. The two of them finally decided on what tile to use about half way through the summer, and about a month and a half ago, the bathroom project officially began with a construction crew removing the tub, fixing the ceiling, installing the new tub, and installing the new tile. With their work completed, it now fell to us to finish the job. After all, we could never afford a new bathroom if they did all the work, but if we did it all a shiny new bathroom would be ours!

It began with the loss of the toilet. It was a heavy loss for me. Literally, I had to carry that sucker out of there and porcelain is quiet weighty. It was quickly followed by the removing of the vanity, tile, and wallpaper in rapid succession. Usually when someone talks about a house having 1 and 1/2 bathrooms they mean one bathroom only has a toilet and sink, ours only had a shower. This bathroom remained in this state of limbo for a couple weeks while Emily deliberated over what color paint to use. Two coats of killz and one coat of brown coco later, my mom and I realized that before applying the final coat of brown coco, we should lay down the concrete backer board that was necessary for the tile to adhere to or else we were going to rip up her nice paint as we wedge these concrete board in to the room. And just like that, the snafus came marching in two by two!

The Bathroom Project Part 1 - Introduction

Why am I up at 1 AM?

A couple weeks ago, maybe a month, I woke in the morning to an odd clicking noise. Now, when I say morning I actually mean about 4 AM. I try to ignore it at first, but as the clicking continues I wake up enough to realize that there is something bug-like in my room. Needless to say, this distressed me. I have enough trouble waking up almost nightly thinking there's some giant bug crawling down my wall without there actually being any bugs in my room. But I do muster up the courage to hunt down this bug that will undoubtedly rush my face when I find it only to find it is in this stationary holder I have. It's kinda like....


...that only less sissy... and full of calculators, earphones, and hands-free sets. I dump it out and squish it dead, then promptly sleep until a decent time to wake up say... 9:00 AM.

Regardless, my bug woes continued tonight as this huge bug flies out of nowhere (literally, it just popped up out of nowhere on my ceiling) and lands on the ceiling. The time is 11:45-ish, I was about to climb into bed. Well I grab a shoe with which to strike it down and begin my advance only to realize that I had grab the shoe for my left foot but I wanted to put it on my right hand, it just wasn't gonna work. So I turned around, swapped out shoes, and in the 4 seconds it took me to accomplish this task the thing disappears.

But it's not like I can just go to sleep, ya know? There's a huge bug somewhere in my room. I know I'm gonna wake up with that sucker on my face and I'll never sleep again. So instead of doing what a rational person would do (just go to sleep), I turn out the light in my room, turn on the light in the hall and sit down with a book on my bug stake out. I'm just waiting for this bug to become attracted by the light and wonder out of my room. Now, in all honesty, I don't care if I actually succeed in killing it once it is out of my room. I count it as a full victory if I merely get it out of my room!

Sadly, it was resolute in staying concealed in my room and after... an hour and 15 minutes, several different attempts to change the conditions in the room to get it out of its hiding spot and back onto the ceiling (fan on, fan off, lights on, lights off) I'm beginning to consider just calling it quits and sleeping in the hallway... or my sister's room, why didn't that occur to me until just now? (my sister is not here tonight, for the record which is why her room would have been an option) Regardless, just as I'm about to pack it up I hear an all too familiar, "click". Yes, that giant ol' bug that had rushed me had been another click beetle. And while I did consider it extremely odd that two click beetles would invade my room so close to one another (and leave the rest of the house completely alone?) what was truly perplexing to me is that I once again found it in



that.

Why am I up at 1 AM?

Fan Project Part 3

If you didn't see Part 2, I posted it just before this one, so go check it out.

With the wires now successfully in place. It was time for the easy part: hanging the fan itself. It was an extremely simple task as anyone who has done it before can tell you. I had a little interesting time since I had three feet of extra electrical wire sticking down the ceiling, but after stuffing the spare wire back up into the attic, it was just a couple of quick twist to get the power hooked up to the fan wires

Hide the wires


Attach the blades


And install the lights (hey look, someone is looking at blogger on that computer monitor)

And voila! A completed fan project. It was much to my joy that when we switch power back onto the rooms, that the light switch on the wall controlled the lights on the fan, but not the fan blades themselves (which was what I was trying to do). This way we can turn the lights off at night and leave the fan running. Total project time: about 12-15 hours. It was a lot of fun, but I'm not going back into the attic any time soon!

Here's a picture of the view of mine and Emily's room with the fan's running (not that you can tell since my flash drowns out the light and fan motion) ... and the mess that I call my work space.

Fan Project Part 3

Fan Project Part 2 and car mayhem

So having installed the fan box, it was time to install the electrical wiring. My initial hope was to drop the wire down the wall to where the light switch is and draw power from there. This would have given me the added benefit of making the switched outlet in my room an outlet with constant power (like all the rest in my room). After spending time in the attic, however, I quickly realized that would never work. So Emily got the idea to feed the line up to the attic, a fantastic idea that also proved impossible. So it's getting to the hot part of the day, but I've already cut a wire up in the attic, I can't turn power back on until I get this fixed. I finally just did a quick patch and stumbled out of the attic practically passing out. Not a fun experience.

Fortunately, I did figure out what I needed to do after consulting our local electric handyman, and my brother's father-in-law, Mr. Pait. Here's the problem. I have these power wires in the attic that are cut exactly to the right length; no slack what-so-ever so them. so if I cut it, I cannot reconnect it, it just can't be done. So what I had to do ultimately was to cut the wire and then install a junction box for the left side of the wire to go into all for the sole purpose of attaching additional wire to connect to a second junction box where the right side of the wire would connect to as well as the wire that would go down to the fan. Here's a VERY simplistic drawing of what happened.
So the long story short is that since I was doing a wire for the lights and a wire for the power I had to do the above picture four times. That's 8 junction boxes (and junction box covers). 20 junction box fittings to cover the hole where the wire went in (it keeps flammable stuff from getting in the box). 16 screws to keep the junction boxes in place, 24 wire caps, 4 segments of wire to connect one junction box to the other and 4 segments of wire to take it from the junction box to the fan itself. It took about an hour for each of these with an hour break when I was half way done. But God was EXTREMELY merciful to me in that He gave me a glorious overcast day to be in the attic. Here's a picture of the end result from the room (I'm not about to take my camera into that attic!)



After I got the wiring done (around noon). I showered and met up with Amy for a long promised clothes run. See, she and I have differing opinions on how long clothes should last. I say until they too full of holes to be worn, and she says once they start getting ugly they should be changed out. Oh, my girl and her crazy ideas.

So we hit up Khol's and Target and get 3 pants and 6 shirts for about a hundred dollars. I'm a very good clothes shopper. After Target the exhaustion from the heat in the attic and the physical demands of being up there catch up with me and we call it a day (1 hour after beginning). We try to go to her parent's house, but the A/C was being repaired and I wasn't feeling great about the heat. Amy, being my ever watchful and caring girlfriend, decides that we should head out to Blockbuster and get me out of the heat. I ask her to drive and as we're leaving her neighborhood we look at each other and go "does something sound funny to you?"

Turns out it was the rear passenger tire that was sounding funny. Flat funny. Fortunately, Amy was able to pull over into some shade and a half hour latter, we headed back to her house with a donut spare. The evening did get better after that though. The A/C was fixed and it cooled off rapidly. Then Amy's parents treated us to dinner at this fun little Greek restaurant (the hamburgers were excellent!). It was a truly fun experience.

Fan Project Part 2 and car mayhem

Internet resolutions and Fan Project part 1

To follow up on the last post, I was finally able to get the internet problem resolved. After countless of calls ending in "call Linksys" or "call Time Warner" I finally learned two things:

1) Linksys had the firmware to fix the entire mess but refused to give it to me because they only give it to ISPs (call Time Warner).

2) Time Warner Cable (aka Road Runner High Speed Internet) also had the firmware but refused to give it to me because they used special software and lacked the ability to manually give me the firmware, but it's possible the maker of my router had the firmware I needed (call Linksys).

Now, I've been using cable internet since it was called AT&T Broadband Internet (ATTBI), then Comcast bought it out, and I will forever consider them the people I had to most reliable service with, and now Time Warner has bought THEM out! Feh.

I called my school today and an Arab girl picks up and asks me who I'm trying to call in a very thick accent. My first thought was to say "Don't you people get a job doing anything other than answering phones poorly?!", but I quickly stifled that thought because it was racists, rude, and only brought on by how many times I had called my American based company and got sent overseas to some people who didn't know the first thing about my router.

Oh, the final solution, by the way, was to have Time Warner give us a new modem (for free!) and then shell out 50 bucks for a new Linksys wireless router (did I mention I'm a big Linksys fan?).

So enough with the geek talk.

I've started a fan project at my parents house. Since we have moved in to this home, some 19 years ago, we have lamented the fact that the bedrooms completely lack a ceiling light... or any light. There is a single wall outlet controlled by a light switch, but who wants to waste space with a floor lamp? Besides, those things don't spreed light well.

Last week, my mom expressed the desire to save some money in the house by raising the thermostat and getting some floor fans in the rooms. Again, who wants to waste space like that? So I did some research, priced it out, and presented a plan to install ceiling fans in mine and my sister's room. A task made hard mainly since there's no place to install a ceiling fan.

So today I got the green light from mom on the fan to buy (with a light kit for light of course) and after dinner I jumped on into the attic to install a fan box to mount the fan from. It seemed like an easy enough project: I cut the hole in the ceiling, find that hole in attic, put the box in place, and screw it down. That's when the snags hit.

I had wisely opted to bring a board into the attic to set my tools down on, but maneuvering through that tiny space while holding a board... not so easy. But I do make it to where my room is only, hey where the hole? Snag #1.

No problem, I brought a very nice walkie talkie up there with me, I'll call mom and have her tap on the ceiling next to the hole, but hey what's this? My Walkie is missing! Snag #2.

I make it back to the ladder leading back into the house and find that my walkie fell off before I even got up there. Oh well, I didn't have all the tools anyway, I grab the walkie, the tools and head back on up with my mom waiting in my room to tap on the ceiling with a cane. After an arduous trek to my room, I find the cane sticking out of the sea of insulation. Only there's a little problem I'm going to have to get flat on my stomach to get out there since I'll have a couple inches of clearance even with lying down. Snag #3

Fortunately, I did have that board with me and I am able to lie on it between the rafters and not come crashing through the ceiling. So I clear out the insulation from around the hole and find that while I am between two rafters (the way I wanted it), there is this random plank of wood that comes down diagonally from the right and crosses right over my hole. Snag #4.

Again, God is merciful and I have just enough room to fit the fan box (and the rod it connects to) under the plank of wood. I line the box up with my beautiful little hole and discover that I forgot to account for the direction the box would be oriented when I cut my hole and am now trying to force a square box down a round hole (figuratively speaking of course). Snag #5.

After working it around, I'm able to get the box in correctly and attempt to screw it on home. Only problem is the drill is too big and I can get the screws in with the box attached to the rod. Snag #6.

At this point, I'm exhausted, hot, and full of fiber glass insulation. But I'm determined to get this done! So I take off the fan box from the rod and focus solely on getting that rod firmly attached to the rafters on either side of it. After all, the rod is what truly holds the weight of the fan and it is vital that it is secured tight. Meanwhile, my mom is down in my room being a wonderful mother and handing me anything I need while forsaking her own project of working on the kids' bathroom.

After countless attempts of getting that blasted rod oriented correctly, I manage to screw it on home and move the board back so I can easily grab it the next time I'm up there and move it ever so slightly over to Emily's room. With a final mighty burst of energy I work my way back across the attic only to see my mom waiting for me with Snags # 7, 8, and 9.

Turns out I failed to properly comprehend the pervasiveness of insulation. A good amount fell out of my ceiling onto the floor which mom cleaned up. (Snag #7), another portion fell out onto Emily's bed which I had attempted to cover up, but failed miserably (Snag #8), and finally, some insulation had fallen out and gotten over some of the clothes in the closet the ladder comes down into (Snag #9). Oops, sorry mom. Mom is forgiving and only insists that I clean up the floors and move the bed out of Emily's room before I get started again tomorrow.

So I shower up, I'm just pouring sweat at this point, and traipse into my room to finish the job. After all, I had taken the box off the rod to get it in position. Oh did I mention Snag #10? Since I had removed the box, it looked like I was a little off on the position of the rod. Hilarious fun! Fortunately, I am able, with mom's help, to get the fan box attached from the bottom.

While telling dad about the problem with the drill afterwards, he sits there for a minute and says, "the screws should be hexagonal heads, why don't you use a socket and ratchet?" Rats, he's totally right.

The good news it that I did work out all the little kinks and Emily's doesn't have the plank so it should be significantly easier (especially since I'm bringing a socket and ratchet with me). Plus, there final project is looking VERY nice. See?



There is a little space around it where I had to rotate the box to get it properly oriented, but that is one nicely done job if I do say so myself! You can see where the electrical wire I'm laying down will come in to the box and give it some power. I'll take plenty of pictures and let y'all know how it goes! Soon, I'm gonna do a post about all my family and I have done project wise this summer, it's amazing!

Edit: I forgot to mention this, but the total time to install that? 3 hours. So VERY many painful snags!

Internet resolutions and Fan Project part 1

So much frustration

So I've been having internet problems for almost a month now. Anytime I use a P2P software (only for legal reasons I promise), my internet connection dies. Turns out that about 3 weeks ago my ISP updated their software and my router is no longer compatible with it. My ISP tells me that a simple firmware upgrade should fix the problem. Only problem is the firmware they're pushing isn't compatible with my router? That's odd. They tell me to give the makers of my router a call. I can't find a number to call so ultimately I use their online chat. A man named "Ernie C." asks me what the problem is and I tell him I need a firmware update for my router. He curtly informed me that my router was a wireless gateway and therefore "has no firmware".

Really? Are you kidding me? That's funny because your wireless gateway has a different story.

You can't make it out too well, but that says "firmware version" followed by the firmware version. Of course, that was one step better than the next lady I had who tried to get me to download the latest USB drivers for my router to update my firmware version. I hate dealing with lower level know nothings.

So much frustration

Did I mention I was a geek?

Okay, so a little break from what I just posted and what I have in the works for my next post to talk about something I'm quite passionate about; electronics (And with that 90% of the people who read this leave). Hear me out :p In the many years I've had a surround sound system set up in this house I have had an on going battle with getting everything to work with a single remote. And not just a single remote, on no! A single remote that allows a user to sit down and with a single click of a button watch some television. There is no desire in this house to have to push 5 buttons to get everything turned on and set correctly.

For a while I've been exploring the universal remotes with the nice little LCD screen that lets you choose with electronic device you want on, but all of those cost in the $100 minimum range making them assuredly a non-option. Other options I researched were turning a PDA into a remote, a plan that was scrubbed because any PDA of sufficient capabilities would end up costing as much as a universal remote, and using an iPod, which turned out to be extremely limited and rather useless.

Thus it was, as I researched various solutions, that I happened upon a remote that advertised macro buttons. Turns out that there are a large selection of very modest remotes that have the very feature that all the fancy remotes advertise so well. (A macro button sends multiple commands with the push of a single button). And while that is cool enough on its own, the really interesting part started after I found this remote. (for those interested it is the URC-8910 and I've found it for as little as $16 + a few dollars for shipping and handling)

As I read user reviews on this remote I kept seeing people mention this mysterious JP1. Now, to me JP1 means Jumper 1. I see this on every motherboard for every computer I've every dealt with, but no where could I find what JP1 meant to these people. All that anyone ever said was, "but using JP1 quickly fixed that problem!" After several searches I finally found the right combination of phrases that lead me to a forum that had a link to what JP1 was.

Here is what JP1 is. On certain remotes (especially those of radio shack and One for All) there is a 6 pin connector located in the battery compartment with a small JP1 printed on the circuit board next to it. Someone discovered that you could create a custom cable to connect your computer to your remote using this so-called JP1 connector. Then other people realized that you could download the contents of your remote and replace it with custom signals to make your universal remote TRULY universal. Check out the cable that connects the remote to the computer via the serial port (a more expensive usb cable was offered as was a parallel cable)



No more will people have to settle for a remote that mostly works their equipment. These people have THOROUGHLY documented every piece of remote controlled equipment they can get their hands on and relish finding the right signals to get new equipment to work. I'm excited to get my cable in the mail so I can start programming the remote to make it the ultimate universal remote! I actually encourage anyone who reads this to make sure the next remote they get is JP1 capable and learn how to modify the remote to stream line it (or ask me to come do it for you :P ).

Now here's some linkage for you!
Buy the URC-8910 remote at home depot (out of stock last I checked, but maybe you'll get lucky)
Google listings of URC-8910 remote sellers(I just typed URC-8910 into Google search)
Good place to get the JP1 cables
Learn more about JP1 over at this sub-culture's forum!
Good list of current and past JP1 remotes (It's a forum post, click on the download button under the post)

Did I mention I was a geek?

A (not so) modest proposal?

I had an interesting thought the other day and as I followed this train of thought through, I considered the practice of killing infants. I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. In the bible, there are two major accounts that stand out in my mind, the first, and most well known, is when Herod gathered up all the male children two years old or younger and killed them (found in Matthew 2:16-18). The second is not a reference to actual infanticide. In Ezekiel 16:3 and following, God describes Israel as a baby girl who is left in the open on the day of her birth to die. This is making reference to a well known practice of exposing a child. If for any reason a child did not find favor in the eyes of the father, it would be left outside of the city to die. Other forms of this involved throwing the child off a cliff, drowning, and various other things

Now, I'm sure that to the modern reader, this seems atrocious, hideous and disgusting to leave a baby to die outside a city or even worse to murder a child with your own hands, but it was a fully accepted practice among the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Chinese, Japanese... well you get the idea. Infanticide was beyond common, it was as humdrum an affair as buy groceries. They held no self delusions that it was not murder since the child could not support itself, they did not pretend that if they just left it outside it wasn't like they were killing it. They knew they were killing a baby and it was okay because they didn't like it. It was too ugly, it was a girl, it looked scrawny, whatever, they didn't like it, they killed it. But what if I talked about abortion? Would you be able to hold onto that feeling of disgust you just had? Or would you just get mad at me and call me conservative?

I read one author who argued that the reason infanticide was universally illegal in the world today is thanks to Christianity, and he gave some wonderful points that certainly would seem to prove his case, but he sadly fails to grasp the horrible truth that infanticide hasn't stopped, it's simply become refined. We've traded the brutish, uncivilized method of killing babies and adopted a pristine, painless, classy way of doing it. We've stopped killing them when they are outside, and started killing them while they're still on the inside. And sure, we try and justify it, as if it were okay since it could not survive outside the womb, but if we take that stance, why not legalize the murder of children? I mean, have you met a 5 year old who could survive on its own? Psh, I've met 20-year-olds who wouldn't fit that definition of alive!

Modern science has removed the veil of mystery about the development of a fetus and proved how quickly a child it by all accounts alive. Now I must admit something that will shock many people, I am pro-choice. It's true! I believe that a woman has the full right to choose whether or not to engage in activities that may result in a human life being conceived. But after that? After that to forcibly end child's life is murder.

Fun fact! Congress recognizes unborn children who die when the mother is assaulted as alive and therefore the attacker is guilty of homicide (Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) signed by President Bush on April 1, 2004) . Further fun fact! The act of assisted suicide got Jack Kevorkian convicted of second degree murder (non premeditated murder). So the question becomes, why wouldn't a "doctor". I'm sorry, I put that in quotes because a real doctor has to do that Hippocratic oath thing where they promise to do no harm, and even if they didn't, the whole point of being a doctor is to make people better. Not... you know, kill babies. So, as I was saying, the question becomes why wouldn't a "abortion clinic guy masquerading as a legitimate doctor" be guilty of second degree murder also? I mean, congress recognizes that a fetus in any stage of development that prematurely ends is in fact a full fledged loss of life and the justice department clearly finds "doctors" who assist their patients into death guilty of second degree murder so... yeah, it doesn't take a genius to put one and one together.

Not that any such anti-baby killing law will ever come into affect mind you. Just like prostitution will never be illegal. These two things go back forever in earth's history. We like killing our children. People find comfort in the knowledge that they can live however they want and not have to worry about those pesky consequences.

Hmm... I'm sure some people who are legitimately pro-choice would find offense at me saying "baby killing". So if you do find offense at that, please re-read the post, but kindly substitute "abortion" anytime you see "baby killing". Those ancient societies didn't kill their children, they simply didn't have all our fancy medicine so they "post-utero aborted" that's all. And hey, just like that, that feeling of disgust is gone right?

I'm gonna wrap things up here with an interesting little fact. The other day I was speaking to a friend of mine and Amy's who I take Chinese with. She's off in another part of the world and I got to wondering what time it was where she was and I came across this little gem.

http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks2.htm

It's a clock that calculates the current number of many things. Of most interest to me, was the death page. It breaks down into category the number of people who have died by a specific cause. Of particular interest is a little footnote at the bottom that says "abortion is not counted in the total number of deaths". And hey, it's a good thing it's not because if it were, the number of deaths would almost double. At the time of this writing, the total number of deaths, as calculated by them and they have a very nice page describing how they get these numbers, is 28,540,000. Total number of abortions? 19,464,000. If abortions were included in the total number of deaths, it would count for 40.5% of all total deaths! We may cry for the atrocieties happening to children in Africa right now, but what about the genocide we're waging against our own unborn right here in America?

A (not so) modest proposal?

Not the end of the story yet.

You thought you'd get the end of the story or at least an awesome commentary on modern events. Nope! All you get is this video from Monty Python's Flying Circus. This is the spam video that the sin video from the last past was based on. Oh, and to turn off that amazing song by Regina Spektor look over on the left and hit the pause button on the little mp3 player just below the blog archive lister.



Oh, and I'll get the end of the story up sooner or later. I won't leave the protagonist on the edge of that cliff forever.

Not the end of the story yet.

Daniel inspired video day

Daniel's videos led me to the following gems

I hope you've seen the Monty Python's skit about Spam on that one



You too can save a starving Christian.



Mr. Seeker-sensitive Mega church guy



This guy may have broken my anti-seminary stance

Edit 2011: So I had a video here where a pastor had a slip of the tongue. Turns out I didn't hear him right and he was actually saying something quite naughty. Needless to say when my wife and I were playing through these and she caught it, we decided to take it down. Does this count as a slip of the ear?

This one isn't funny at all, but it is a good look into how people are viewing Christianity from our own emotion centered church services.

Daniel inspired video day

Hitch Hiking Addendum

As a point of mild interest, I should not that the week following my nighttime hitch hiking adventure, two people were murdered on the street next to my college and several others have begun to be stalked as they drive down the road. I admittedly find the latter stories suspect as I go to a school in the middle of absolutely nowhere so the fact that if someone actually ends up behind you on that long, one lane road, odds are they're gonna be going the same place you are.

These recent events are especially of interest to myself as a few semester ago I was verbally abused by some of my fellow DBU students for voicing the opinion that female students should get to park up top and the male students should park down below and hike back to the dorms. One person in particular almost cussed me out and called me an idiot for thinking the school might be unsafe. Well guess what? It's not! HA! DBU is located on all sides by low-income and high-crime areas (not saying those two always go hand and hand, just that they do in this particular instance). A wimpy, easily bypassed fence is not gonna keep them out if and when they decide that a particular girl looks especially inviting. Though feminist may take offense at my stance that the women on campus should get that added protection of parking up top, the fact of the matter is that in this fallen world, women are more likely to be singled out for assault then men.

Not that it matters since DBU will do what they want to when they want to without consideration of us :p (how you liking that nature trail to that new chapel commuter students?) Oh, one last tid bit, I currently live in the only dorm who's front door doesn't lock and hasn't for over a year now. Is fixing a lock really that much out of budget? Maybe if you stopped siphoning all our money to the town homes you'd actually be able to afford some basic repairs to us lowly dorm students.

Hitch Hiking Addendum