Friday February 8th 2008
6:18PM | Triple Stack
oday I had breakfast three times, but that is not as gluttonous as it may sound. This morning before work I had an extremely light and hurried breakfast of Pop Tarts and yogurt. I made up for this with a heavy breakfast at lunch time: delicious blueberry pancakes, three sausage links, scrambled eggs, and home fries. Then, for dinner, fried eggs and bacon. I did not wake up and plan that - it's just how things turned out. Breakfast is by far my favorite meal, perfect for any time - especially late at night.
Having pancakes today made up for my lack thereof on Shrove Tuesday. The restaurant I was planning on lunching at turns out to be closed on Tuesdays. There was no IHOP nearby, that I am aware, so that was that.
Annoying news this week: Yahoo! Music Jukebox is converting its customers to Rhapsody due to a new deal. What makes this annoying new is that only a few months ago, last year, Musicmatch was bought by Yahoo! and I was transferred with only a little problem - frustrating nonetheless. But aside from a few bugs the new player and service worked out comparably, if not better. The thing about Rhapsody is that the monthly subscription will be higher: $13 a month. That's not a lot of money, but more than I want to pay for the limitations of the service. My Blockbuster subscription doesn't even cost that much. I'll have to explore other music providers, as Musicmatch and Yahoo! Jukebox have been my primary means of discovering new music and listening to music at home. I do not like the usability of Pandora, and internet radio such as Deezer and Last.fm is not quite what I am looking for. Any suggestions of other legal music providers?
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Monday February 4th 2008
10:25AM | 17-14
don't like the Giants, but I hate the Patriots. From Tom Brady's ankle and shoulder, the Bruschi hype of two years ago, Randy Moss, the pride of Boston sports, the cheating claims, the media hype, to recalcitrant head coach Bill Belichick's cut-off hooded sweatshirts, the Patriots have fallen beneath even the Cowboys on my most-despised football team list. You know a team must be low in my esteem when I root for the Cowboys or Giants over them.
Last night's Super Bowl felt like vindication for all that went wrong this NFL season. The mighty undefeated patriots fell to the giant-slayers, the Giants themselves, who won the Super Bowl as the lowest seeded NFC victor ever - overcoming such high-powered teams as Dallas and Green Bay. To add to the irony, the Giants' first touchdown and then the game's biggest catch were both made by the ultimate underdog David Tyree, who previously tallied only 4 catches all season long. Tyree's amazing leaping catch with one hand and his head after Manning improbably scrambled away from a sack deserves a name to enshrine it in NFL history, but sadly sports journalists I've read are of such poor worth that they admit being unable to come up with a fitting name. When the receiver is on a team with the name "Giants" and the play is made in the game's final minute, fitting names are ready-made: off the top of my head I can come up with The Giant Miracle, the Giant Leap, Goliath's Revenge, the New York Minute, et cetera.
Eli Manning's poise was impressive, both throughout the playoffs and in the Super Bowl. With two Mannings leading their teams to Super Bowl victories and earning game MVP's two years in a row, I hope they do not have a younger brother who will be really feeling the pressure to live up to that. Aside from Manning and Tyree, Usi Umenyiora deserved consideration for MVP after leading a stalwart defensive effort against the highest scoring offense in NFL history.
The Patriots leaving the field one second early was the perfect stamp to the end of this classless imperfect team's season.
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Friday February 1st 2008
3:46PM | Already
y resolution of blogging regularly has not been proceeding as planned: I almost forgot my username and password for logging in here already! The last year sped by as they frequently seem to do, but I was especially reminded of this when I read that Major League Baseball's spring training is only two weeks away. Just like I was doing such a short time ago in February of 2007 I am scrounging for any fantasy baseball news I can find and preparing for my leagues' upcoming drafts. The second jolt was seeing Groundhog Day already coming around again. Next Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday. Maybe I will actually get around to eating pancakes on Fat Tuesday this year - there is an excellent breakfast restaurant only five minutes away from home and office, and though I have never tried their pancakes Tuesday seems like as good a day as any.
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Tuesday January 15th 2008
10:16AM | I Wonder What Ron Paul Thinks Of This
ike Huckabee says that the Constitution needs to be modified to conform to God's Word. I wonder who gets to conform it though? Obviously, this will raise a lot of ire amongst Christians and non-Christians alike. What do you think about such a concept?
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Monday January 14th 2008
7:13PM | Golden Ankle Terminators
he Sunday before last I twisted my ankle a bit while out trail running. After limping at first I was able to finish the rest of the run, and the following days I started to feel it high and outside on that ankle. But fortunately it was no big deal, as a couple nights on the exercise bike eased the pain away and by Sunday I was running the same trail again.
I am surprised at how good Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is starting out. I did not expect much, but the story is fun and the show plays like a movie. Summer Glau's character looks like she stepped right out of Firefly/Serenity.
I was pleased with last night's Golden Globes. Most of the movies I did not see, so my interest was not so much in seeing my favorite movies win as reinforcing what movies I might like to see. What I liked about this year's Golden Globes was the absence of the glitz and the ceremony: no hours of red carpet, lame acceptance speeches, and preening celebrities between award announcements - just a quick hour of getting straight to the results.
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Tuesday January 8th 2008
2:52PM | Human Tetris
hese are very funny: a Japanese game show where humans try to fit through strange shapes in a moving wall.
1 | 2 | 3 |
4 |
5 | 6
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Tuesday January 8th 2008
1:24PM | No Love From The Revolution
realize that for every presidential candidate, you could probably find some samples of nuts among their supporters, with little difficulty. These particular Ron Paul supporters were just classless. They forgot to represent the "love" of the Ron Paul Re-Love-ution. Okay, so I get that the "re-love-ution" play on the word revolution is just a hippie slogan, and the Ron Paul blimp poignantly points to the two sides that represent Ron Paul's support base. On one side of the blimp is the slogan that represents the good of the Ron Paul message - the modern semi-intellectual who is tired of current government trends and the Bush and Clinton eras: Google Ron Paul. The other side represents the kooky side of the Ron Paul campaign - the excitable hippie crowd: Ron Paul Re-Love-ution.
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Monday January 7th 2008
7:38PM | Your Faith Does Not Save
ames 2:14
What does it profit, my brothers, though a man says he has faith, and has not works? Can faith save him?
Sola fide - but it is not as simple as that sounds when it comes to the matter of faith and one's salvation. Faith alone will not save. In fact, it is not really your faith that saves: it is the Lord's covenant faithfulness, the Messiah's faithfulness in life and death, and the faith that is God's gift of grace to those to whom He bestows this unmerited love. We are to exercise this faith in works that show that we have received this gift, that we desire to serve the Lord and reciprocate His mercy to the world around us. Faith without works is just faith: it is dead - and the person who has just faith is also eternally dead, except by a change of heart.
19th century Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers said: "Though justified by faith alone, let me remember that it is not by faith being alone, or by faith which is alone.-My God, may I show my faith by my works, and when tempted to the opposite of this, do Thou prove unto me a very present help in the time of temptation."
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Saturday January 5th 2008
7:20PM | Law Of Warfare
euteronomy 20:1
When you go into battle against your enemies, and see horses, and chariots, and a people greater in number than you, be not afraid of them: for the Lord your God is with you, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
These words were spoken to the people of Israel during the review of the law ahead of their crossing the Jordan to possess the Promised Land. If the Lord delivered such a promise to the people of Israel in the old covenant, how much more would He be with us who in the new and better covenant are much more than His people: we are His sons and daughters. No matter how strong our opponents look, no matter how dire our circumstances, no matter how much we may seem outnumbered at any moment, the Lord's promise is that He is with us, that He will fight for us, and that the course of history is under His control.
The promise is - should be - a source of hope, a focal point for the confidence of our endeavors: the manner in which we receive this promise should be an exercise of our faith. The Old Testament Israelites abandoned God, culminating in rejecting His Son, and things did not go to well for them as a result. The Lord will not reject His sons - if we remain faithful to Him. We intend to remain faithful, so why expect anything but future blessings from God here on this earth? As long as we are faithful, God will fight on our behalf and bless our work here on earth. So let's remain faithful and optimistic for the future, but at the same time we should remember that faithfulness of the mind and the obedience of action are inseparable.
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Thursday January 3rd 2008
7:23PM | Good Luck Huck
NN's early projection is that Mike "The Huckster" Huckabee comes out on top in the Iowa caucus. If that holds out, then congratulations Huck - and there was much rejoicing. Before anyone gets too excited though, let me point you to political blogger Zach Wendling and his pertinent reminder of what a caucus is, and why the system of caucuses are flawed and rather undemocratic.
Yes, I am supporting Mike Huckabee, though I am not thrilled with the choice. Yet in a field of the kinda good (Huckabee), the bad (Giuliani), and the scary (Paul), Huckabee has more positives and less negatives than the rest of the field - and the fact that he appears the most overt Christian is a distinguished plus. Concerned about his sometimes somewhat liberal voting tendencies while governor of Arkansas? Read this for a little perspective. Not excuses, just perspective. I would like to like Fred Thompson more, but he seems to be half-hearted about running, and has stated that he is no longer a practicing Christian, both of which things point to me of an alarming lack of commitment.
Since most of the people who are likely to read my blog are among those who like Googling Ron Paul (the Ron Paul supporting mob I affectionately dub The Great Googley Moogly), I feel like I should explain why I don't like him (why he's "scary"). First of all, I am glad that he is in the race: he has some good things to say, particularly about states' rights and, to a point, economics. But (leaving his conspiracy theories and my doubts of his diplomatic ability aside) the deal-breaker for me is his foreign policy: a policy that both ignores history and at the same time does not seem future-oriented. He's saying a lot of the right things (right as in effective) to polarize people from the way things currently are, but I do not think he is the man to lead this nation to a better state.
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