it seems that the more we chart the signs in revelations towards the end times, it seems that the more we are in a bind... like the mark of the beast... we all know that the end will come about partially by this way... but yet, we can't do anything about it; like for instance, if you try to stop the production of these chips(trying to blow up the building which creates them), that's also a sin; true, God knows what you're doing, but he intends to make it happen, and you'll just be wasting your precious time... it's sorta like a "terminator 3" scenario; john connor couldn't stop skynet from being formed; the us government still found its way to create it... and strangely enough, like john connor, our role isn't to stop the chips from being formed, but to warn others... eh, whatever, i gotta study now...

3: God's number; well, one of God's...
6: man's number; if you don't me, take any fact about man and society; there's a big chance any number you churn out can be divisible by 6; case in pt; man has 6 qts of blood; has 6 main sections to his body, has 12 months in a year, has 24 hrs in a day, has 60 min in an hour and 60 sec in a min... etc, etc... interesting, eh? and man is given 6 days to work
7: the number of completion; Revelations is chock full of the number 7
now here's a new one you won't expect if you're hiding under a rock like me:
11: the number of urgency

you'd be surprised how many numbers you take pertaining to 9.11 has the number eleven in it...

also, i found this site, trying to search out meaning for revelations in the bible:

List of links

take with a grain of salt though; i haven't explored all the links, but this one seems particularily interesting:

link

mark of the beast

i find the 2nd link to also be very interesting; it not only lists some of the trademark things of the end times(mark of the beast, the antichrist, false prophets, etc), but lists some headlines which chart the progress of how we are progressing towards those end times

Comic about Passion

ditto

i'm not worried about being whitewashed... i'm more worried if i lose my sense of what it means to truly be a christian... because i can find my true identity from that... however, just to be sure i'm a bit more aware of what's going on from my ancestral country more often, i bookmarked a website that links you to all the latest taiwan news... in english, not engrish... on the left

i dare you to move/ i dare you to lift yourself/ lift yourself off of the floor -switchfoot

some miso soup w/trout would be good for today...

um... i'm getting boring huh?

see, this is where my blog begins to pale compared to others... since i'm not rich, i can't afford the luxury of taking a pic of myself making a silly face or capturing jon when he's unawares and then posting it up to redeem myself...

the infamous dickwack aka "richard e wack" at collegehumor.com puts richard weiner to shame... well, at least bob's "richard head" was pretty close...

wishlist(ok, so it's not christmas, i still don't have a job, etc... i'm bored, ok?):
-delay pedal, +various ac adapters(i'm thinking 2 more, maybe another surge protector)... i would love to be able to hook up delay,wah,flanger,dist all together... ok to be honest i would love to hook all the dif types of fx pedals boss has together in series, all powered by ac, and have a crybaby wah at one end... but i'm trying to paint myself as a modest guy(haha yea right)... so delay it is...
-preamp... would be useful if i ever get back into live playing again, so i can hear myself w/o putting others in "harm's way..." i could connect my headphones to it, then be able to play good riffs that don't reqr the sound to be turned up... man, that's like another 150+ or something... also, would i get another one for usb, for recording purposes?
-arcade joystick... psh... another 100 dollars thrown out the window... just to be able to hone my dp skills down pat...
-and then there's the cds... 12 stones, pillar, sanctus real, jeremy camp... maybe linkin park, maybe switchfoot(or their mp3 legally)... kj-52?
-minor, but i would like to see what it's like to play electric guitar w/a wireless cord... also a strap that stays on, so i can pull a throw-my-guitar-around-my-head and catch it...

ah yes, our toys get more expensive as we age... long ago, you couldn't push my wishlist's price above $60 if you tried... but i gotta convince myself that i would be just fine w/o the above... coveting's wrong... we all do it anyway... it's just that i'm being vocal putting my stuff down right HERE... i know i don't fit the mold, so i wonder what girls want as they grow older... please, tell me it's not shoes... or clothing...

foxtrot and boondocks both cracked me up pretty hard today...

Falling Up's official site

i especially like "bittersweet" and "broken heart"

wednesday's low post move of the day(thought of this one at home):

start w/ball in both hands, facing back to defender, to basket:
1.pivot outer foot towards the baseline to the top of the key, so you eventually turn around and face the defender
2.land hard with the foot to jab step towards the key
3.start to lunge the other way and start to dribble
4.crossover back to your jab stepping foot and drive in

lately i've been down, and it's probably due to my not-so-stellar performance in college lately... ah, the classic struggle between what a christian is supposed to believe in vs what they're feeling due to society... how "strong" are we supposed to be? callous that nothing in the world can shake us, NO MATTER HOW BAD IT LOOKS FOR US? how much of that down feeling from society is due to our fear of ppl looking down upon us, where we're either saddened that we've let them down, or humiliated because they're laughing at us? how do we lift the heavy burdens off our chest? how hard do we pray? are we praying the right request? etc, etc, etc...

thank God... my car's FINALLY fixed... supposedly... please, don't fall apart... not now... i don't really care about stick anymore; what good's a stick shift w/10 disc cd changer that keeps falling apart every 2 months or so?

it's interesting really; i am that car... i see my downness impersonated in that car... my car problems were due to a coolant sensor problem... and likewise... my downness is due to a coolness problem... angry when i shouldn't be, saddened too long by the wrong stuff when i shouldn't be... this is my lastest cliche thought, and i think it's a good one to remember:

WHAT'S DONE IS DONE... WHAT'S NOT DONE HAS NOT BEEN DONE...
(WHAT'S THE POINT OF WORRYING ABOUT WHAT YOU DID? NO MATTER HOW TERRIBLE THE THINGS YOU'VE DONE IN THE PAST, WORRYING DOESN'T CHANGE THEM; JUST CONCENTRATE ON WHAT OCCURS NOW...
i understand you sometimes wanna worry so there's less chance of making a mistake, but really, why? so you can get an ulcer that breaks you down at 40? please, life ON EARTH is too stupid for that type of thinking... every phase has really just one blip on a cpu screen of life)

writing up a FAQ on bball low post offense... a flowchart of sorts... that way i can refer back to it when i'm trying to find out how to improve my offensive game... defense is simpler, but to get that i'll need to work on shuffling, hops, and liners... which i'll try more often in UCD now...

song's not finished... but then i had only one short week... hopefully though i get a lot done tonight...

wolf in sheep's clothing?
-------------------------------

as you know, my favorite genre of music is "christian hard alternative..." more or less i like some other songs from other genres, but this is the big one... it's hard, it's fast, it's upbeat... i smile upon it more because the writers are looking at God, you get a positive message in their lyrics, and if you get lucky, they throw in a good riff and fill from the lead guitarist... at times though, i have to wonder, how acceptable is this type of music for a christian? a lotta times, you can't find the positive message in the songs until you look them up and then go "AHHHH!" if pillar put one of their harder songs on 104.9 FM, i would doubt many ppl would cry out immediately(since the secular society is against christian rock), and call in going, "hey! what's this christian stuff i hear?" am i jumping up and down to the hard, driving rhythms, or because my heart is going "praise God! amen w/this man's message!" i wonder stuff like this at times...

the fact is, music can sometimes go deeper than the lyrics, to the melody, harmony, and rhythm... i've never been calmed by listening to hard, alternative rock... or hip-hop... my feet instead starts bouncing, my head starts tilting to the left, i might even start air guitaring or fake a mic trying to emcee... i think the high point may be when i hear a good riff... sometimes i'm calmed by that... but it's still kinda rare... contrast that with listening to classical music... you just feel a lot calmer from listening to that... not saying that's it's wrong to listen to music which gets your heartbeat up, sometimes you want that(though listening to it before you turn in is a BAAAD IDEA), but is christian music supposed to be calming, or upbeat, or just simply concentrate upon God? there's a lotta jumping, dancing, whatnot commanded in the psalms about praising God, so is that enough to justify an upbeat, hard song? am i dancing to the good lyrics, or to the melodies/harmonies/rhythms? the "big three" of music can't testify to an existance of God... or do they?

and then what about the music having an effect to you OUTSIDE of listening to it? if i keep listening to pillar/12 stones/ etc, and the laptop turns off, and i walk away, am i going to just explode every time something annoys me? "I FEEL LIKE THIS!!!" sometimes i wonder where i get this temper of mine... bball? playing tekken? could be, but hard to say...

it's funny really; almost every new music carries a demonic connotation w/it... i remember when heavy metal used to be categorized w/the devil; a lotta musicians honestly just said right out that they were satanists, and did pretty stupid stuff... metallica had some evil lyrics, the curent one ppl frown upon is manson... hip-hop is currently categorized with pimping w/the hos and bling bling, and dance/trance is the new one... it feels like spazzing so much, and since it's often played in dance clubs, sometimes it carries a negative connotation w/lsd and esctasy, to name a few... however, those used to be categorized w/rock...

but the bible suggests to test everything, and hold onto the good; therefore what i'm eventually going to try one of these days is to hold off a week or two on listening to music at all(the one exception will be songwriting); if i do listen, it would be classical music, but i don't have any, therefore i'm trying for the cold turkey treatment... maybe when i try that i'll also cut off cold turkey on video games and bball watching... if my behavior improves, i'll have to reevaluate...

Luke 8:13-15

i am still the person who receives the seed as well as a seed getting thrown on a buncha thorns... i still end up playing by the rules of society even after i hear the message and want to believe it, yet i throw every single teaching that i have grown up by away... i have not remained in God lately, do not produce his fruit... *sigh*...

the ppl who have made mistakes yearn for the past... the ppl who have not made mistakes or don't care yearn for the future... it takes a real person to be grounded in what is occuring now, leaving the past behind and not bringing it into consideration of what's occurring, but not minding if the future suddenly came along...

switchfoot- dare you to move, has to be one of the few switchfoot songs that i REALLY like... it really is an exception, considering i was never into the coldplay, slow alt rock style... there's another one i really like, but i can't pull the title off the top of my head... it's not gone, meant to live, or more than fine...

but for the moment, i'm just waiting for building 429 to put their audio clips up...

context... nobody ever takes things IN CONTEXT anymore... a lot of the criticisms of other things would have been pulled back if ppl actually took things IN CONTEXT...

Casting Crowns - Who Am I

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You're

Chorus:
I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours

Who Am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love and watch me rise again
Who Am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me

I am Yours
Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear
'Cause I am Yours
I am Yours