PASSION OF THE CHRIST REVIEW:

hmm, there's a lot to say... first of all, i'd like to say, i truly enjoyed the movie... mel gibson is a very talented director... combine that with his strong religious faith, and this is what occurs... the movie is also very well crafted... let's start w/the bad sides... (i'll try not to spoil the movie too much, but if you want the ending, just read the ends of the gospels :D)

some scenes/stuff could have been done without... me and jon sorta agreed with this, like:
-jesus w/the table and mary his mother scene... humorous, wasn't UNNECESSARY, but could have been without... i think gibson was just fooling around here :D
-the raven at the cross... you'll understand when you see it
-the person playing the devil was nice, but at the same time, the very last scene was unnecessary... TOTALLY unnecessary...(i find it funny how all the secular ppl analyzing the movie thought it was too violent, but didn't say anything about this scene being unnecessary) also, you might not have gotten what was going on when it looked like the devil was carrying a demented child... i had an idea, jon was wtf on that one
-the high priest should have been slightly more hesitant; he knew that jesus was the messiah... he is depicted as totally callous until the very end when the temple is torn in two
-who is that girl who offers him a drink but is pushed away? it's not mary... not his mother either... me and jon couldn't figure out who...
-and there's a slight inconsistency when they hammer the nails into his palm, not his wrist...

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ok, that said, this is an excellant movie... however, i will say this: it is NOT recommended for the person who is not a christian and doesn't have a good understanding of the bible; i say this because after seeing the movie, i now understand why so many secular ppl write this movie off... it COMPLEMENTS the gospel, but doesn't provide the entire picture... that's why you hear ppl either say:

-the movie is too violent(they don't see how the hatred of the crowd makes jesus' love for them and unwillingness to fight them even more appearant)
-or, the fear that anti-jewish feelings will occur(ppl might think that jews had to be the most thick-headed ignorant ppl to allow this tragedy to occur and get pissed, but so far, that hasnt occurred, god bless)...

also, there are often cutscenes that go away from the main crucifixation scene... this is good in movie directing, because it you keep exposing the audience to blood and gore they get numb to it... stick in a few cheerful scenes, and it makes the blood and gore seem fresh and still exciting... but some of those cutscenes are impossible to pick up if you're not a christian... for instance, the way they depicted the time when jesus forgave mary for being a prostitute was very short, too short for a nonbeliever to get, but long enough that a christian would be "bam, i know what's happening" (i especially liked the camera angle which they did this scene... makes jesus look that much more powerful, and the others that much more weak)

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that said, throughout the whole movie, i was just seeing every prophecy refulfilled in front of my eyes and going bam with the exact verses that came up... "my bones are out of joint... they will look on the one they have pierced... etc..."

it was awesome how throughout the movie jesus keeps looking to his father for strength... probably my fave quote of them all was when he was about to be whipped, and looked up, saying, "father, my heart is ready..." i wish i had that type of heart...

i did not cry(:D) during the movie, but my throat occasionally got really stiff, and i think it was when one of the ppl crucified next to jesus stated that he deserved to be condemned, but pleaded that jesus remember him, and that jesus said that he would be next to him in paradise, that my throat got pretty stiff... also, when they pulled his bones out of joint, i had a similar feeling...

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so what did i think mel was trying to depict with this movie? that jesus came to DIE... many ppl don't really realize that jesus came to die in the most horrific death possible... this movie, in my own words, says JESUS DIED with a huge exclaimation point near the end... it makes you realize how terrible the suffering jesus had to go through, how it was so terrible that jesus is stressing so hard as he was praying before he was captured, debating whether to run or stay(further complicated by the devil tempting him by saying "no one can carry this burden... too heavy... no")... often, even us christians know about the crucifixation, those of us who do our hw can even explain scientifically how gruesome and how it occurs, but i bet none of us truly can take it if we see it full color in front of our eyes with jesus suffering so hard(he mustve fainted like 6+ times going up to the hill)... this movie is good to nail that point(no pun intended) into our heads... secular ppl won't get it, they think this movie is too gruesome... they don't understand what mel was trying to do...

secondly, the other main important aspect is that love kept Jesus from saving himself... this IS a film of love, not hatred(contrary to what the other critics say)... power is demonstrated in what we do do, as well as what we don't do... jesus could have EASILY turned against the crowd, walked through them, performed miracles to save himself... but he chose not to, although the taunting and the pain must have been insanely difficult for him to take... in this way his heart and strength are elevated beyond anything you can think of... in most of the film, he remains fairly silent even as he is being taunted, spit upon, whatever...

and yet, even as christians watching the movie, we knew that if we were there right beside him, we would be so scared, we would run... like peter, or be hesitant like all the others... we would not be able to stand by him... not of us would... humanity is at its worst, but christ is at his very best...

i hope that the reader of these words, whoever that may be, if you go see this film, that it strengthens your faith, or if you're a nonbeliever, forces you to again seriously question who jesus of nazareth really is... that's all from me on this point... saying even more would more or less be overemphasizing previous points... til then, god bless

since bob is a lotr fan, i thought this foxtrot comic was funny:
click here

like how my site now has sound? :D how'd ya like that, you xangans? you're not the only ones now! (unfortunately, i wanted to put up 12 stones- let go instead, but the version up at the site is tainted)

i promised a review and i'm writing that in the next post

just watched passion of the christ; man, i was blown away... because it's late sat morning, i will write a review when i wake up...

(i planned on going to sleep earlier anyways... btw, i figured out a really neat way of helping myself go to sleep... reminding myself... and not staying up too late playing games... i've used the task scheduler program of win xp to open a file i've called GoToSleepMessage.txt, which states in HUGE BLOCK LETTERS, GO TO SLEEP... i have it do this every 10 min starting from 11:20 all the way to about 4:00 AM... very hard to ignore... and it helps a lot IMO)

i must learn to write more legibly more quickly... i just got msm's church directory, and my info is wrong... probably cause i was writing too fast...

that said, here is something else on a lighter note: i remet one of my small group buddies... playing tekken 3... i was playing jin, and someone joins in alongside me... chooses true ogre, and about 3 rounds later i lose, but it was close, was like 2/3 i think( i think i got 1 round win, or at least pulled it close the 2nd round)... we then turn and eye each other, and suddenly he goes, "richard?" :D so that was fun... we played a few more, then parted ways afterwards... i also managed to whup an incoming guy playing law, cause after we played a few more rounds, some ppl started coming along and playing w/us as well... man, i love tekken 3, but i suck so much... because i know how you're supposed to play(poke, not mash, to set up your big damage moves), but my execution is crap(i can't consistently do a dragon punch motion, and other times, other stuff doesn't come out like it should)... it was fun though... i loved punt kicking his true ogre some like 5x along the ground before he got up simply cause true ogre's so fat... and i LOVE the mishima 1,1,2... hei, jin, nina are all fun... but a +/- side to tekken is that damage is reeked out SO FAST... this is good, but also bad... i'm not a millionaire... i can't wait til they emulate the system that tekken 3 or tekken tag uses... that'll be some fun times...

man, i have to go downtown to get the bball stuff that i need?(not bballs and clothing, but i was thinking small accessories, like the exotic stuff: finger sleeves for one...)

ok, i'm done for tonight... review for passion tomorrow... as well as work...

i gotta post some happening during my bio lab session cause it was just too funny:

first i gotta give some background: basically, there's this short azn fob in my class... at times he seems to suck up to the TA, but the truth is, he really loves bio; you can tell by the way he's fascinated by his actions... however, at times he's not too good with words; sometimes it gets under my nerves, because some of the questions he asks our TA seem like he shoots them out without thinking of the answer first.

today in our lab we were more or less prepping for the huge lab practical to come next week; sprayed all over the place were animals of all sorts; spiders(i still detest spiders, esp black, large and hairy ones, but somehow seeing one contained in a cage like it was a pet hamster made it look adorable... after all, even poisonous spiders aren't out to hunt you down; that's just their defense mechanism; sometimes they can be downright friendly... it was made cuter by the paper tag on the cage saying "hi my name is henry"... anyways, where was I?), scorpions, crabs, worms, centipedes, some were dead, others contained within a cage... it was hectic, cause we had to do a lotta writing to get down the stuff we needed to memorize, but for me, it was enjoyable after i finished and just walked around watching how god's creatures are l33t... anyways, i was slower than more others in finishing, so by the time i finished, only me, the fob, and the TA were left in the room... the fob's busy trying to get down in his mind info for the test... he picks up a worm and walks up to the front...

fob: (TA's name), how come this worm isn't moving?
(TA's name): it's dead...

that got me cracking up like crazy, and yet i feel saddened when he spun around and asked me "what?" in a defensive manner... as you know, the way i laugh out loud sounds like i'm laughing at other ppl harshly... it's a bad habit... something that i might wanna consider working on... but it was still funny to see this dialogue play out... if the TA was harshly sarcastic like some bay area ppl, i could see him going, "hmmm... i thought he was dead... but not really, just asleep... go on, poke him... he'll wake up eventua- no, no, don't be shy..."

msm rented out a movie theatre(!) for the sole purpose of watching "passions" after our large group this friday... a review to follow from me on saturday... as for now, do some hardcore reading and praying... hope for big things from this...

me: one of the audience members at a evanescence concert showed a "show us your tits" sign to amy
sam h: wow
sam h: same with switchfoot
me: yea
me: oh?
sam h: i dont think half the audience are christian
me: that's true
me: switchfoot doesn't come out and go "we are christian" like other christian bands
sam h: yeahh
me: they sorta get you to think "is there something more?" and leave it at that
sam h: yep
me: heh... when you told me "yup" to switchfoot, for a moment i wondered why in the world someone would show a "show us your tits" sign to the band members :-D
me: unless if some queers were in the concert....
sam h: oooo haha

ok, i added too much corn starch to my curry soup and overcorrected the problem from last time... a huge hunk of my curry soup tasted like a nasty derivative of jello

that is the very last time i will ever procrastinate til the last minute and then cram for a midterm/paper/whatnot... today, i change everything... i've had enough of myself screwing myself over, procrastinating by idling around on the web, letting my readings go undone... sometimes it works, but it requires a lot more heart than doing some each day... and lately i don't have the heart... i tired of letting myself grow spiritually and mentally hungry... i don't deserve the grades i would get from this crap, and i don't need it... unnecessary... 4+ years down the road, you don't earn your bread from being able to do combos on emulators consistently... and you get good grades from just doing a little bit each day... today, i turn over a new leaf and bring forth the sacrifices to get there... i used to say this stuff all the time, but now, i truly mean it...

"cause i... hate the way i feel tonight/ and i know i need you in my life/ yes i hate the way i feel inside/ and i promise to make the sacrifice"
(12 stones)

(it seems that the more you relate to the words of a song, the more you like it... well, in the above case, "the way i feel" is now probably my favorite song)

that said, i'm not spending any more time typing... i've got some reading to do

william hung got a record deal :D now, he can INDEED bang somewhere else!

is it right to be angry at God? is it right to be frustrated at God due to your circumstances? or are you supposed to just keep everything inside and internally combust from the unanswered questions? cause you can carry everything God right? what about anger and frustrations? maybe i'll find my refuge in this for some days to come:

What a Friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer

Oh, what needs we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer

as for now, i'm out...

what's the point of me going on aim anymore? i don't talk to anyone, and the time i spend waiting for someone to talk to me only detracts from the time i should be using to do some studies...

best wishes, kevin dorr of 12 stones... i will miss your bass-playing...

i might have to take back what i said about 12 stones being a harder, more skilled creed... creed's 3rd album(one of their latest), weathered, is pretty hard for a lot of the tracks... i think i've grown to like 12 stones more than creed by now though...

the backlash against "passions" due to the potential for anti-semitism just goes to show how you can't win em all... you either have to dilute the gospel, or present it as it is, and suffer the consequences of a gospel that is offensive by nature...

hmm... the east pulled closer to the west this year than it's been for a while... and sophomores rocked house as usual... but why oh why did jrich have to lose?

phil's up here w/me for about >50% of this week... w/michelle back @minnesota teachin... been so long since i've hung out w/phil w/o michelle next to him... this is gonna be fun hanging out tuesday night... wonder if we're gonna run around in the car looking for some random restaurant like last time?

building 429 - glory defined... i can't wait til i can hear the full track online...

while valentine's day is here and many couples (and young lovers) sit together and smooch over each other, i will sitting at home in my bedroom, hating on the young lovers(i'm talking like college and below) on why the hell they think the highest form of happiness is found in a human relationship, and hating the fact that i have a lotta work to do this weekend when i could be watching the nba all-star weekend at someone's house... ginobili, lebron, amare to watch for in the rookie game, jrich to watch for in the dunk contest, and then kg, duncan, ai, tmac, pierce, and the whole slew together on sunday...

i didn't bring my gamepad back w/me to home... i figured i had a lotta work to get done, and wanted to work on my song in my freetime... not trying to give myself any distractions

udon soup is too good... when you make it yourself... man, do-it-yourself azn cooking is the shizzle... imagine fishballs, chicken tenders, sugar snap peas, and the occasional trout all together in one soup of udon... that is good stuff... adding an egg would also be tight...

everything you want is really within your grasp... the real question is whether or not you've got the heart and soul to seek it with all your strength to get it... and lately, i've been realizing that if i'm ever to go through college with flying colors, i'm going to need to attack school with that type of mentality... because right now, i don't have the heart of a diligent, hardworking person...

my bible study leader is like joe lin w/o the sarcasm... he sounds so much like joe when he talks, that sometimes i'm tempted to call him joe... he's not as funny though... but heck, at least he went to monta vista... that counts for something... never met him or his younger bro when i was still at mvhs... we made fun of our ol cheerleader matador song that the cheerleaders always have to sing during our rallys...

national "self defense" awareness month... man, all they offered for discounts in my emails was stuff on pepper spray... i was hoping a discount on a shotokan class or akido, but maybe that's more of an offense awareness month, heh...

can't wait for this week to end... seems like there's so much that i'm supposed to do... man, another organic chem midterm... they seriously don't give me enough time to study for those...

trivial info, but for the weirdest reason, i was craving for some daikon soup w/fishballs in it today... maybe it's cause i have not been eating azn food for such a long time(miso soup's great, but it gets old, and i'm running out of seaweed, but don't have time to make a korean market run this week)... it least it's nice to know i've always got a stash of tofu and miso back at the apt when i need it... i've mainly been cooking for myself, but some of the stuff i cook isn't exactly azn... you wouldn't call chicken+ tomatoes+ carrots+ potatoes+ garlic+ green onion an azn soup, would you? and noodle soups aren't automatically azn either

kinda bums me how msm(the fellowship me and jon are going to) for their sports day, they now don't ever do bball... it's cause they always want the girls to get into it... they're doing softball this year... man, at least do flag football or something... i miss turkey bowl... well, at least volleyball or something...

comics i'm currently into are on the left; boondocks in particular; i remember the 1st time they appeared in the sj mercury news; back then, i was still a little kid, so i didn't get it(and didn't have the olang gene dwelling in me), so i brushed it off... i was a big garfield and sometimes foxtrot fan... growing up, eventually, garfield wasn't really funny anymore... foxtrot was still the bomb... i recently rediscovered boondocks by reading some of the books in the ucd bookstore... they really are funny... definitely good stuff... the author is a black guy, who sometimes pokes fun at black customs, sometimes at political events, etc... i love how once he had something like this for a comic strip(main char's black, his neighbor is mixed):

girl: i can't tell if i'm black or white...
boy: what do you mean?
girl: well, see, my grandfather was irish, my grandmother was nigerian, my mother was african american, my dad was from england, (rants and rants about her diverse background), so you see how i can't tell
boy: I FEEL THE SAME WAY!
girl: REALLY?
boy: yeah... i'm 1/5 black, 1/8 african-american, 3/7 colored and 1/4 negro
girl: YOU'RE STILL MAKING FUN OF ME!
boy: poor me, i don't know where i fit in...

marvel comics has made the stupidest mistake ever:

click here

in a way, this comic pretty much sums it up... yea... why use ryu... or tick throw with gief... when i can use CAR...

i had a huge-assed laugh reading the posts in reply to this article at SRK.com... sarcasm to the fulllest

goes to show; EA is not a company i respect at all anymore... they crank out as many video games as they can, without regard to REALLY CREATIVE THINKING, they're just trying to make some money, like NFL street?!??!?!? what the hell? way to really think straight there EA, that's not creative, that's just stupid... i can't remember the last time wanting to actually play tackle on the hard pavement with just a t-shirt and shorts... you tell me, "you haven't even seen the game yet" well, do i want to? knowing the reputation EA has... think for a moment... when's the last time EA really created a really creative game? tell me... you'd need to x out all the games they made based off of some movie, all their stupid "EA sports BIG" stuff... um... i don't even WANT to see their ventures into the fighting genre area or marvel for that matter, cause you know it's just going to be even more recycled crap... am i sounding pissed? you betcha... meanwhile marvel vs capcom 2, despite its AGE OLD status(it's a 1999 game if i am still right) is still one of the most widely played fighting games in the US... my campus still has that game, and in fact, they still hold tourneys for it occasionally

i dislike how the new aim 5.5's got the buddy profile button hidden in this tiny corner... i keep accidently pushing the "talk" button instead... if the thing didn't give a 2nd message for confirmation, i'd have to do a lot of explaining to ppl for why i'm stalking them...

tick throwing with 'gief in sf can be so fun...

seems like the shorter the azn girl, the more hyperactive they are... or loud... or have an engaging personality... or what not... something like that...

great... screwed up creating an mp3 of sanctus real's "say it loud" by recording the streaming media of them playing live... the other songs i recorded of them sound fine, but not "say it loud..." they mustve upped their volume before playing, cause they seem to clip slightly when i listen back... nevermind... it took me forever to convert the the entire service to mpeg, then took me forever to convert it to an mp3 using various software... i'm just gonna be happy with what i've got...

making this one quick cause i gotta quickly decide either whether to catch the bus to buy groceries now, or stick a bit longer(ie 1 hr longer) before doing so... eh whatever, i'll wait one more hour...

ginobili had an awesome give and go against the kings yesterday... tight... he might've even went under the rim when he tomahawked it like his signature style... heh... the commentators were like "dude... he just parted the sea like moses" i think overall i like the kings team over the spurs team, but man, ginobili and duncan are both awesome... both of them are balanced on attack and defense... i love the way ginobili plays on offense... kings will be getting cwebb back, so that's awesome to hear...

is it just me, but does it seem like horry's signature move(besides the late 4th-quarter clutch 3) is the lemme-inbound-the-ball-with-a-full-court-qb-style-pass? he does that a lot i think... am i just seeing things? he did that to set up kobe last year for the play of the year, he's done that 2x so far that i've watched the spurs this year to set up turkaglu... he did it again yesterday... if only spurs had someone with huge hops... then that'd make a good combo...

warriors win!

this engrish cracked me up

i just watched the vid on the fob who auditioned for american idol... i died too hard; i had to stop it short so i wouldn't burst out loud laughing in the memorial union... let's get that fob on the air again!

(man... civil engineering at ucb... and a fob... and he sings bad... i bet some ppl are just throwing stereotypes at us azns now... it was bad enough that none of us really are big in the music scene... now this... the way i put it to sam: i bet some east coasters after seeing him never wanna go west side now)

i wonder if this is inspiration to me to work harder on my weak-ass vocals... if i raise my voice above a certain level my voice cracks...

"show me some kindness/ in the midst of the hardships/ cause things should never be this way" -sanctus real

Watch Sanctus Real live on streaming video

if you're gonna watch it, you need to fast forward about a little less than 1/4th of the full sunday service...

look at the date: 2002! it would be like almost 6 months later that i actually found out about them, and about 6 months more before i finally bought their CD... i especially like the way they played "hungry"; chris improvises on the lead guitar very well... and it seems like matt's vocals are strong even live; i can't say the same about the bassist though... but sometimes that's life... can't wait for their sophomore album this summer... go sanctus real!

my japanese coffee candy's got msg...

it's funny really; i bought the thing when i was shopping at the only azn market in downtown davis for miso; i had run outta mini snacks to keep my mouth busy while studying/while in my room, so i decided to give this a try... i was buying the thing cause i thought by the ingredients that it would taste like cola...(had stuff like caramel color, brown sugar, glucose syrup)... it turned out to taste slightly bitter; it wasn't until 1 day later that i actually realized that MAYBE... the candy wasn't cola-flavored, and maybe that it was coffee flavored; coffee flavored stuff is usually pretty fragrant, but it's got a sorta bittersweet feeling to it... which isn't bad, i do like coffee candy, i just wish the package could've said something about the flavor in plain english... maybe next time i'll just stick with the ginger candy i usually crave... (don't laugh; it's pretty sweet, and melts slowly, so very worthwhile; well, as long as ppl aren't sticking their head 1 inch in front of your face to catch a whiff of it)... as for the fact that it's got msg, don't worry, i'm not getting any headaches from it yet; i think stuff like this does have to somewhat do with the nocebo effect; the more you think negatively about it the more you just naturally make yourself get a headache over it...

the play of the day for wed was very nice... a fast break from mike james to set up paul pierce for a 1-handed dunk...

impressive... hammerhead rhythm station is now one of the top 20 downloads at SMM.com... that's the drum software i use... i do have to give the guys credit; granted, for me, since i wasn't as much into sheet music, it's harder to create loops that i like, but they're more realistic than any other program you can get right now(screw .midi; that crap format; .wav all the way)... i need to work on my song again... and soon, if i'm ever gonna write my 2nd song and finish by end of winter quarter...

ok i'm out... peace... til another day arises... wanna stay on longer, but i need to finish my o-chem lab writeups...(it's past midnight on thursday morning)

is it worth it to torture yourself pulling an all-nighter just so that you can get a perfect on your bio b midterm? 2 words: heeeeeeeaallll yea! :D

the rain's starting all over again at ucd(to be honest i was kinda surprised that it came back; so that was what that drumming sound was all night when i was cramming)... i'm guessing it's like this in the bay area too, going off of what i saw in mandy's profile... man, i'm so stuck up in gaming and getting myself down with not studying harder and putting down the controller that i forgot what it's all about... i remember when i used to embrace the rain... that was last school year... there's a sort of beauty in it... screw the fact that you're getting wet(and if you're too shallow to see beyond the fact of that, i hope god knocks some sense into you)... i'm not talking about the childish urge to go splash around in puddles... i'm talking about the rain that seems to fall with the same rhythm to "blessed be your name" by matt redman(but the free version is performed by tree63 at grassrootsmusic.com)... and just gazing up in its embrace, feeling god's grace... thinking of how wonderful and awesome god's design is... it's stuff like this that just reminds me and etches back into my mind of the power of god, his beauty and grace, how shallow most of us are to see it, and how the tiniest flick of god's finger can send us scrambling like that... (once i go back home, after i eat, i think i'm going outside and gazing at the rain; i think i need the quiet time)... reminds me, maybe i need to redo the rain recording that i did back home... maybe it'll sound better... heh heh... one's thing for sure; it seems too short...

but getting back... i bet jesus never rested after his daily victories... so i did well on this midterm... that's good, but i should pick up the pace right after i go home and keep studying even though i'm beat from no sleep... that way i hit the bed early and get up good and rested early to do it all over again... after all, like i always say, it's crunch time... even more so when you gotta bring up your grades and free up your time...

because jon's tv is crap(the one in the living room), i didn't really care about either team, and because i had a bio midterm to cram for, i didn't watch the game until i actually had to make dinner... and i am happy to see that the patriots won... who cares about nc panthers?

btw, i got to see one pepsi commercial before the game was over... and it cracked me up... jimi hendrix was the most influential 70s rock musician... the guy was awesome on the electric guitar... furthermore, he played with a left-handed guitar(i have seen a buncha posters of him in my bro's room), making him one of the very few elite lead guitarists who do so... that song you heard during the commercial was one of his most famous songs... there was even a debate i had visited upon at srk.com in the misc forums(haha... imagine that... guys who would rather perfect their dragon punches down to an art talking about rock) about who was the best guitarist ever... there were quite a lotta votes for jimi hendrix(my vote goes to eddie van halen, because he created more effects USING a guitar, and pretty much played lead guitar for food), too bad his life ended from drug overdose... and he was just about willing to accept christ too... his last day before he died he stopped and pleaded with the crowd that if anyone found real peace to meet him backstage... no one came forth... a shame...

but back to the commercial, it cracked me up... after they played his song with a close-up of a fender, they switched the view over to the coke machine and the accordian nearby, and played that same song with that instrument... heh heh... yea, good thing eh...

btw, i saw this on wes' aim profile, too funny:

Golden Rules of IM

Stop with these oblique away messages like "Not here", "Away", "Gone", or using an AIM face. If you had to crap, fine. Tell us, we're concerned for your well being. And for goodness sake don't use the default away message: "I am away from my computer right now." Don't you get disappointed when you see that?

Please stop with LOL. Only about .4% of people actually "Laugh out Loud" and they are retarded. And don't give me this ROTFLMAO (Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off). I'd actually like to see you try this just so you can snap your neck as you fall out of your chair. Good. Nothing to LOL about now, is there?

kinda bummed that the see spot rock tour will swing around la and anaheim, but will not visit davis, sac, or at the very least, nor cal... i don't care about the adoration tour at uc davis(newsboys, audio a, jeremy camp)

ykno, if duncan was just one tenth of a second earlier on that clutch dunk against the painful loss at the bucks, it would've made the top ten at nba.com(really, really, too bad for the spurs)... but instead we gotta settle for redd's shake and bake of horry and duncan for the clutch layup; (but in all honesty)give credit where it's due; that was an awesome play...

had a little scare... had a problem with my graphics driver which caused the cpu to freeze and had to restart... downloaded latest graphics driver... installed... restarted... and couldn't get my cpu to go into windows normally... rinse and repeat that last step until i was debating whether to throw my laptop on the ground in frustration... calmed down... started windows using the last config... downloaded the latest graphics controller... restarted and prayed HARD... my cpu's normal again... thank god... man, all that time wasted that i could've studied before i went to my bio lab... or played tfc... well, that's gonna have to pass... i should go eat instead... then i'd have 2 good hours to cram-errr, study...

i was tired, and add to that that my bio instructor dimmed the lights for the slideshow, and the chairs in soc sci 1100 are COMFY(fabric, not wood backs)... zzzzz... thank god he let you print out the lectures online, but still... i mightve missed a LOTTA details...

i've been hating myself lately... i lack discipline... dunno when to say no...

man, can you believe that oreos are considered kosher?(i'm saying this in a skeptical way, not a hopeful way) don't believe me? go pick up an oreos package and look for a small circle with a capital U in the middle. i remember hearing this in my food science class, and didn't believe it, til i saw it today... it's like saying donuts are good for you or something... you'd think with the hydrogenation done to it that it's supposedly "clean"? and i thought hebrew national hot dogs were supposed to be good... now i'm reevaluating... no wonder jesus said it's not what goes into your mouth that makes you unclean... he mustve predicted the day that we'd call oreos kosher... it's like the atkins diet... i'm disgusted with that diet idea as well...

speaking of atkins diet, from a biological standpoint, i can see the reason why you'd lose weight on it; there are 3 forms of energy that humans use; carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids(fats)... carbs are most readily available, so they're used up first... then proteins, then lipids, which take a long time to digest and to finally be used... lipids provide the most energy per matter, but they never get used, cause yeah... so by taking away the carbs as a source of energy, you start using the proteins and fats in your body you never use... and thus lose weight by actually getting around to using the fats... this is good in the short term, but bad in the long term... why? because you don't consume grains just for the carbs... you consume them for the nutrients they provide... there's a reason you have to ingest vitamins and minerals; to stay healthy... the 3 energy things provide your energy, but the vitamins and minerals are the little things that enable you to stay running... sorta like just feeding your car gas, but not giving it tune-ups, replacing used parts etc... the gas is obviously the main thing, but it's not the only thing... all those guys on the atkins diet are going to suffer long-term effects from various diets that require fiber and the like...

i love how kj-52 addressed the fact that some people think he wrote "dear slim" just to make some money and diss eminem:

“Come on, I do Christian rap. I live in a one-bedroom apartment and drive a beat-up mini van. How much money am I going to make? People download the song [from my Web site] anyway.

… the response I’ve gotten from people saying how much the song changed their lives, to me that was the bigger picture.”

(taken from http://calvinfreitas.f2o.org/blog/archives/2003/07/30/kj52_followup.php)

think you should get rid of christian hip-hop and rock? apparently the ol skoolers don't realize the kids who worship eminem sometimes have heard kj's song and turned their ways around...

found an article on how to bunny hop in tfc... will try some this weekend, provided i'm done studying for bio and rewriting my paper...

i'm liking what i'm hearing from the samples of kj-52's latest album, "pronounced five-two"... man, all these christian cds i'm coveting all of a sudden... waiting for the summer releases of sanctus real, 12 stones, maybe pillar, and now kj-52...

"the hour of the star" is such a weird book... a fiction about a narrator writing about a story about a poor girl, who is just weird and doesn't get it, but is so happy... it's about time i saw that a person wrote a book about a poor person STAYING poor... i think the author tries to make you feel all sorts of things inside from this book; frustration at the poor girl for not getting why she's a loner, but sympathetic because, her background led up to this... ring any bells? (bob, remember the celebration of discipline reference?)

had a little internal clash in my head when i was trying to get up or decide to stay down in my bed(i already missed the bus, if i wanted to get up to run to school, i'd still be late)... no, i wasn't muttering out loud...
optimist side: cmon, get up
pessimist side: what's the use? i'm gonna miss most of class
optimist side: any part of class lecture is still good for you
pessimist side: why? i feel like i've done so many stupid mistakes so far in college; why the hell should i go on at all?
optimist side: that's why god forgave you
pessimist side: i know i'm just gonna sin again; waste my oppurtunities; god's giving me second chances, only to see me blow them away
optimist side: god only gives second chances to people who are willing to try, now GET THE HELL UP!
(that did it and got me up)

so as i was trying to quickly walk to school, i mulled over what my optimist side had said... the very last thing... about god only giving second chances to people who are willing to try... isn't that the truth? thanks for the lesson god, and DON'T LET ME EVER FORGET IT

there's this really short, dorky blond girl who just oozes of weirdness in my biology b class... she sits in the front of the class and asks these really OBVIOUS questions or says stuff that really doesn't matter... her voice is like the dorky girls that snl's rachael dratsch sometimes plays. i wonder if anybody's clued her in that she's really quite weird... then again, it took me a while in jr high-high school for me to be clued in that i was acting like an idiotic dork, and then took me quite a bit to shake that image, and i'm still in the process...

today's bio b discussion cracked me up... the teacher was trying to show why evolution occurs w/o blending of genes(ie white gene+black gene = grey gene, instead of white gene+black gene = grey(one black, one white, not mixed together)), and he was showing that when we do have this blending of genes(white gene+black gene = gene), that in a few generations, the black gene would no longer be there, and you'd never see it(assuming darker color is favored, and that the population starts with all white rabbits, and one grey rabbit, which has one white and one black gene)... so he was asking us if there was any other way for the grey rabbit to keep surviving, and one female student asked,
"maybe if the rabbit mates with itself?"
instructor: well, that's a good thought, but you'd assume that where natural selection says that the mating is random, and the chances of mating with its own kind...
*silence; girl friend next to student starts cracking up*
instructor: haha... well... seems like you two are good friends eh?
*now you hear a few laughs here and there in the room as ppl start getting it, but now i'm just chuckling too loud and long*
instructor: in later chapters we'll cover asexual reproduction, but for now...

reminds me of family guy where peter griffin's having a conversation with michael eisner and bill gates, all three are outside laying on the grass at night, looking at the stars:
bill: wow... look at the stars... if God created all this, who created God?
michael: maybe he created himself
peter: or HERself
bill+michael: AAAAAAHHH
peter: think about that

waiting for my lecture notes to be printed at davis, so while i'm waiting in the public cpu room, why not throw some thoughts on the ol web eh?

i see that sprite's gonna be doing the courtside countdown again for this year... wonder if this means my bball multimedia collection on my cpu's gonna grow again? (note to self; delete more crap from your cpu)

what else... jeremy camp finally made a music video of "understand..." unfortunately, i think whoever did that could've done a better job... basically, it just shows him walking around... i know the song's full of meaning, but man, you could've done something better... didn't even show him playing...

w.w.j.d. this means what would jesus do right? punched that into the google search, and came up with what would JUDAS do... surprised just how much people always find a way to distort the truth. there is a church of judas, and on their website they have their reasons why they think judas is our saviour, not jesus. but here's the thing; how is following judas going to ever save my soul? even the website states that judas went to hell, not heaven. but judas didn't pay the price for any of us, well, just punch in wwjd into google, and you'll find the site; i wanna comment more, but a lot of their arguments are very shallow, like the fact that judas voluntarily gave himself up by killing himself, and that jesus was arrested against his will(any bible-reading infant could tell you jesus voluntarily gave himself up)... stuff like this gets my inner "hater-mentality" all riled up... like the way the world treats stuff, and just doesn't see the need and the context of the word of God... pisses me off big-time... thank God i'm not very vocal, or i'd explode...

btw, i'm now wearing justin's wwjd bracelet that he gave me frequently... i think it looks cool, and it serves a good visible reminder to do what's right... sometimes it's very helpful... who knows... there may be cases where i'm about to slack off, and i need that reminder straight in my face... and ballers also have this tiny bracelet sometimes on their wrists, so... heh...

oh yea, i thought of this when trying to think of reasons we're allowed to worship God however we'd like(since it bugs me how when you go to online message boards there's always someone who thinks it's wrong for christians to worship with heavy rock or hip hop or the like)... the reference that paul made to eating meat(it's in my bible verse links up there somewhere)... and think about how the early church had to debate whether or not to junk the jewish traditions, and not lay those upon gentile believers... the point is, like paul's reference to eating meat, look at the heart... not every person's gonna feel the same thing... some christians feel ok with a biblical tattoo on their body(who knows; it may be like the wwjd bracelet idea gone a bit further; maybe it reminds them of who they are when they need it, or to serve as a witness to others[cause maybe they're shy and would like some easy way to introduce themselves]), some don't... ditto w/christian music... i know some ppl just won't be able to hold their stand in a 12 stones or pillar concert, but i know i could(although i've never been to either; wonder if i would need special earplugs for such?), and it's not cause i'm flaunting it, it's cause i feel more connected that way... hey, there's nothing wrong with having fun when you're worshipping God...

i've been giving the thought of updating my other website with some thought... the idea's growing, so i'll prob eventually do it... still dunno if i'm gonna throw the actual songs on there, put em on iuma.com, or keep em at the yahoo site on the left... but i plan on adding what i call "scratchings", or lyrics i wrote down that i never made into a song, for a specific page...

we had the eggheads dancing around our campus... eh, um, i think if you don't understand what i'm talking about you won't... must be a UCD-exclusive thing...

check this out, we got jeremy camp playing again at ucd soon... but now we gotta pay for it, so i'll pass... good overall line-up though; audio adrenaline's gonna be there, and some other popular christian music group that i can't recall off the top of my head. man, 12 stones, sanctus real, pillar, come to ucd and play for free! :D (chances of this happening are in a blue moon; i think me and jon were EXTREMELY lucky to have jeremy camp and telecast come here to play for FREE)

man, i wanna help out w/the youth group's iron chef! esp since now that i know a bit about cooking...

found a piano synthesizer online... i think the name was kb piano or something, found it at shareware music machine.com... but it's on midi files... and to me, midi sounds way too electrical and unreal... so while it's the best freeware thing i could find on it, i'll have to pass... i can't even REALLY play piano... my attempts at playing something good on it degraded quickly...

well, this IS winter quarter sophomore year, if i need to step it up sometime, it's obviously gotta be now. sucks how much responsibility weighs on your shoulders the older you get; i feel like freshman year was just 2 months ago. and perhaps that's the big downside of capitalism; yes, you get what you earn, but you also get what you earn. so if you work hard, you reap the benefits; if luck doesn't fall your way, well... that's life...

ok, i'm done... lots to do this weekend... a LOT... school, job searching, guitar playing, coming close to God, AND i gotta watch that i don't overdo playing tekken 2 on my cpu... i'll just have to force myself to conceed that i only do that after i'm finished with EVERYTHING... but for now, i'll splurge a token or two on tekken 3 at the arcade, then i gotta attend the last lecture of today... btw we now how guilty gear xx, but i was never into that game... we also have SNK vs Capcom... but i'd really like either Tekken 4, Tekken Tag Tournament or Virtua Fighter 4 Evo for our arcade... or an emulator :D

Heh heh... eat pork, beeyyotch!

Now I understand why Sanctus Real redid Beautiful Day

apparently this CD has all of U2's songs redone by various christian artists; having Grits on there is a nice touch... this confirms my readings a while ago of how bono got together with all these christian artists to see if they would do something for africa

man, all my fave christian artists are working on a new album due summer... 12 stones... pillar... sanctus real... i bet jeremy camp's got something up his sleeve too...

i wonder when the super bowl's ever going to have an offense-offense matchup... at least an offense-defense matchup would be ok(even though the past has always shown that the offensive team gets raped by the defensive team)... but panthers and patriots?!?!? i don't even WANT to watch this year's super bowl; at least when i watched giants and ravens i was at john tang's house getting free food... sounds superficial yes, but still... but if you were to ask me who'd i rather win probably patriots... i'm still sad that the eagles lost though. more sad that the chiefs got knocked out in the playoffs, and even more saddened that the niners didn't even make the playoffs. that's made even sadder that TO's leaving...

bball must be the only game where i actually CARE about defense more than offense; all other sports i want to see numbers jump on the scoreboard... bball i STILL want to see numbers climb, but watching some guy's shot get stuffed or watching a big man clean the glass is very satisfying in itself.

hmm... remember superchic- barlow girls? well, those 3 sisters of whom the band was inspired by now have their own band... i remember them getting played on air1 a few days ago...

the whole notion of "health foods" make me sick... if you're gonna crave beef, eat the real thing... if you want cheese, eat the real thing... i'm tired of soy being used as a shallow substitute for anything...

after reading bob's writing for today, i realize many of us have online diaries by now; the reasons are of course various; some, only cause it's the only way to comment on other ppl's online diaries... most of my friends are like that... maybe cause all your friends are doing it... there's a lot more youth doing xanga, and not blogger, because all their friends are online and have a site for themselves... maybe you're hoping someone out there will pick up the stuff you have put in, and with a grain of salt, come away enlightened... some dedicate their stuff to other things(like the american soldier)... and of course, the list goes on and on...

why do i write in an online journal, much less a public one, so that everyone can see my stuff? i dunno; i'm fairly honest about what i write down(although i will admit there's some things that go on in the back of my head that i never put down, out of fear of other ppl, such as girl fettishes, and the like), but i wasn't looking for fame(in fact, many of my friends never read my entries, because even though i throw out what i consider to be deep thoughts, they're extremely long; i got a taste of my own medicine when i tried to read mandy's xanga site when she was still into that... nothing but words without breaking topics with the return key, not to mention it was written in the atypical teenage girl talk(ie heehee, oh yeah, and the like)... in the beginning, my place was just another place i wanted so that i could put down my thoughts; adding thoughts to your own webpage if it isn't in a journal format is a lot more tedious... also, because the space given you on a journal is indefinite, it's a much better place for throwing your thoughts online than on an AIM profile, where you get a limit(and all you have to do is add a link to your profile)...

but really, why have i kept it up for such a long time, and often, i end up writing longer and more frequently than anyone i know who has a diary? a lot of my friends have quit their sites after a while... only the young adults i know have kept this up... i guess... it's not the fame; many ppl don't even READ my site... so i could write about raping ppl and blowing black people's heads off with a shotgun, and only a select few would even bother to tell me about my faults... the reason is that it's more for myself. you'd be surprised just how treasuring it can be to one day go back and read what you wrote and rethink about everything... the diary is in aspects the loner's best friend because when you've got no girl to pour out every single thought to, you can always turn to this. and that's why i write here; for my own benefit. it's tough to sift through what you wrote when you come back, but you'll know everything was in here. from iverson, to tekken 3, to sanctus real, to the effects pedals you wanna get, to jeremiah's struggles against what he wanted and what God wanted, to just trying to stay alive in davis, it's all here, and if you wanna read it, go ahead; if you don't, i'll be fine with that.

never stop the online journal.

(on a sidenote, i will be home for the weekends; is the superbowl coming up this 3-day weekend?)

contemp christian music thoughts:

12 stones is coming out w/stuff again summer... can't wait... although, waiting might lower the price a bit... indeed, 12 stones is interesting to analyze... yes, all the band members(except maybe the drummer, cause when i looked in the cd's jacket for thanks, only the drummer didn't give god/jesus the praise, although he did mention to remember the golden rule) are christians, and paul mccoy writes lyrics that definitely show a relationship between himself and god, but onstage, they are a bit interesting to analyze; one of paul's quotes paraphrased is that he and his band members are christians, but they're aware that their audiences may have different beliefs and such, so they just wanna present something positive for their audiences to fall back upon... which i think is good; to be honest, this makes them seem to have the P.O.D. attitude, where you know who you are, but try to reach as many as possible(by being slightly hidden about beliefs, so many ppl don't get turned off), so that if they find out your beliefs, they'll be like "oh wow, i never knew; maybe there's more to this than i thought"; they've played with their share of secular bands(mainly from the same company that they're attached to; wind-up, which is why they've toured with creed, and paul's helped evanescence, another wind-up product), but it has mainly been with secular bands. although, this year on See Spot Rock(christian rock tour), they're touring with other christian groups, such as Pillar, which is tight... too bad the tour doesn't visit norcal as far as i can remember.

speaking of Pillar... i'm thinking of getting their cd; i like the songs that are displayed; maybe i'm listening to a different version of their songs, but the ones on their website have the drums a bit more "realistic-sounding," compared to the stuff i dl'd off of .mp3 a while ago... i'm starting to get back into the rock+hip-hop-hybrid genre all over again, which also is influencing my thoughts on my songs... although christian rock+hip-hop is mainly heavy rock+rapping, not like linkin park... if i could just find a good synthesizer software and learn how to work it well, then i could crank out some good stuff...

i should've waited til winter break to get sanctus real's cd; they have a limited edition version which includes 5 free extra songs... but what i really wanted was their remake of u2's beautiful day song, which is currently not being sold yet...

i'll end tonight by saying i finally got around to dl'ing Neurotic's music off of his iuma site(remember the person who i said was similar to me?), and to be honest, i was turned off; 1st song sounded like a slow Nirvana song, and the 2nd one was some trance beat... ugh...(i'll say right now i don't like dance/trance music; too spazzy in general; do i need to smoke some crack before i listen to feel it?) i'll give him credit on editing though, cause his guitar sounded a bit more like the cd chorus pedal stuff, but i realize that my shortcomings with the vocals and guitar has more to do with my sound card than my actual skills(i think)... or the software... well, when you stick out the words, be sure to back it up; we'll have to see how my next song does...

after reading the required novel of "naomi" by tanizaki makes me think girls in relationships are evil... seriously... it's a good book, but at the end you also have to say the husband joji is too much in love with her to think straight... and that the wife is just hooking and baiting him at her will... and perhaps that is the point of the book(love doesn't cause you to think right), but the themes of westernization may be woven throughout the book; westernization leads to culture clashes, and dropping and picking up of values; y'kno, modern society can sometimes truly suck...

everything is a lesson in life... study hard... cause school's in session...

man, chiefs lost... which is sad... considering how much i love dante hall... he's ran 4 punt returns for a TD during the regular season, tying the record... he ran a 92-yrder during today against the colts(and gave the crowd and kc defense a real boost in moral when he did it, bringing the game within 7 again)... but no defense by either team, and came down to it, chiefs lost by a td+extra pt. ah well, maybe next year. go x-factor!

btw, stumbled across this; strange how ever since i've come across the jehovah's witnesses once, i've been interested in finding counter points so that i know that i'm worshipping the true God:
The Wrong Train

and indeed, i find this article to be quite true; for instance, the point that the witnesses find scripture to back up their beliefs, not to discover truth; i remember reading a point how only 144,000 ppl will get into heaven, but nelson pointed out how just the next verse it points out a large multitude of believers in heaven worshipping God.

also, when i came across the part which said they study off their articles, the watchtower, instead of the bible, and when they do, use their own, i had to agree, but also reflected on myself; where have I been getting my spiritual food from? a sermon? someone else's mouth? ok, a pastor, but still... if i want to grow, to become a better christian, it starts from that book.

it's like praying, and coming to God; today's lesson was from Genesis 32:24-32; when Jacob wrestled with God, God touched his socket, and Jacob refused to let go until he was blessed; God was testing Jacob. like Jacob, we need to pray and come to God, to have passionate prayer, focused prayer, and persistent prayer. only after doing so does God give us what we need in his name.

in our memorial union building at uc davis, there is this huge plaque inside the griffin lounge, which is essentially what you would call what looks like a waiting room... but that plaque lists all the ucd soldiers who gave up their lives for the good of this country... powerful stuff...

and on the other end of the spectrum, the bathrooms in the ucd male restroom have writing scrawled all over them; some comments are just stupid, but some are funny, like the one which says "i have more ink than you have paint"

fake overjoyousness is sooo annoying...

like when my org chem TA was teaching our class and um... to be honest, it's kinda hard to put into words what makes it fake, but if you could hear a sound clip, you'd know it's outta place... "isn't this so exciting? it's like doing puzzles! my husband had to tell me "go to sleep" cause i was too pepped up to go to sleep over these! now you try em!" sorry lady, but it's gonna take a couple more years before i WANT to stay up doing chem problems over sleeping...

marbury's still probably missing being a suns guy... i do... his pattern as a point guard as grown to take advantage of amare and marion; drive and bounce pass to them; they finish with a dunk... and why, on the phoenix end, do you guys even WANT to trade away stephen marbury?

yes, ppl associated with the national basketball association blog too:
click here

Warriors and Mavs tonight! go gsw!

britney, britney, britney... way to think rationally... ladies and gentlemen, here's the proof that las vegas is an evil town indeed and why anything can happen, like marrying someone you only knew during your childhood...

i dunno whether to say my mom's overreacting from mad cow disease stuff or being correct... i need to check the facts on mad cow disease to confirm this...

heh heh... been a while since i checked the nba top 10... so i was surprised to find ben wallace doing a pump fake reverse layup... damn!

the finished song will have to wait... i couldn't bring my guitar back w/me to davis... i can still work on the drumloops, and maybe vocals, but yes, guitar fills will have to wait...

may God grant me the desire to work harder... i hope he blows my love of video gaming to hell; that thing draws me away pretty hard... it is definitely one god i wish i could do without... it's probably what draws me away from getting better grades... i keep telling myself it's gonna be better next quarter, but...

i've managed to finish both Jeremiah and Lamentations(written by Jeremiah as well) this break... i see how the modern-day american christian fits Jeremiah's personality so well... like him we want out of the job... we think it's unfair that ppl torture and make sport of us... all we can do is tell them an unpopular message; you're sick, and you need help. nobody likes giving stuff up; everybody is to an extent superficial... but all we can do is press on. we know that God is backing us, but wish he'd be a bit more obvious and put the ppl who are against us as well as the troubles that arise from modern-day society to shame.

on a side note; you know that the gods that ppl worshipped during the old testament had cruel commands of obediance, usually demanding that the children be sacrificed so that their dreams of prosperity could occur. God could not accept this and so destroyed Judah so that it would never happen again. you realize just how ingrained it was in the ppl because you see in Jeremiah near the end that the ppl actually blamed Josiah(a very good Judahian king) for their downfall; he banned the Queen of Heaven, a Babylonian god, and a few years later, Babylon invaded them. but now, here's something to think about; aren't abortions used for birth control essentially the same thing? we're sacrificing our own children to gods of responsibility and prosperity(i don't want a kid; then i won't be able to work my job), in order to better our lifestyle. sure, ppl don't think what i'm saying is completely true, but then, it's not completely inaccurate either.

so, my vaction hasn't all gone to plan; that thing about fixing the saturn? nope; it's broke again; changing the battery didn't fix it. so that means i'm gonna have to carpool w/jon again(i hope he's not bringing too much stuff and can let me bring my guitar & green bag up; i'm not done recording my song)

plus, i spent too much time gaming on my cpu every day, which ALWAYS prompts the same thing from my mom: kee tak sze!(bad english phonetic attempt at taiwanese for: go read a book!), not to mention all the other stuff i wanted to do; i've gotten rid of the games now on my cpu which are way to easy to setup and play; only kept the cps2 emulators... and a few others...

and, i've been waking up very late lately... i don't get it... usually i can always wake up before phil does when he comes over; this time around i'm surprised to find phil getting up before i did; note that he wasn't the one who changed; i did. that took a huge chunk outta my time each day. like, 12:00, or even 1 every day. cold weather my ass; you gotta get up sometime; jumping in a pool's always gonna feel cold at the beginning...

but i've really begun to love songwriting; seems the more i tinker w/music creator with writing songs the more of its gizmos i come to appreciate... makes me wish i started REALLY doing stuff and not wasting time or gaming during my break... but from what i've done, i'm getting better at it; the latest song i'm working on is going great; how? usually i can't bear to even listen to my works after i've created them; but this time; i can't get the song i wrote outta my head, even though i'm not done adding stuff or converting it to .mp3 format; i keep hitting the replay button; this is good; furthermore; i feel like as the song is developing, that my walk with God is aligning itself again; it's like the more i feel the sincerity of the lyrics i'm writing, the more i'm living them out. and i hope it's gonna be like that; gaming's still fun, but i want it to fall in line with songwriting.

k, i should log off, before the neighbors wonder why their cable internet access is so slow, hint hint :D

1 more day that phil and michelle stay up here... and i'm not even too sure that it's gonna be at least a 8 hr AWAKE period... nevertheless, we did do a few things up here... like fix my car... hang around together at the valley fair... should've done more... like, i wanted to play ball w/phil... i can't remember the last time we played 1 on 1; it's just been such a long time... well, we did play nba 2k together... i whooped him:
warriors > lakers
celtics > hornets
twolves > blazers
kings > blazers
then we play nfl 2k together, and since i haven't really played that game, he whups me pretty badly: green bay > niners, 23-3
(i should order replacement dc controllers; both of ours are shot to hell)

conan's just way too funny; i've gotta quote(paraphrasing what i can't remember) what he said about Lord of the Rings 3:
"it made over a quarter of a billion dollars (audience whoops)... yea i know; in fact, the lines were so jam packed outside that the police had to use GIRLS to keep everyone in order (he then proceeds to act like a nerd who's never seen a girl's cleavage before)"

i kinda wanna write more, but i wanna get the most outta tomorrow xmas day, so i'll just end with this comic strip i have on my wall at home:

ever remember mallard fillmore? this was a comic of a male duck that just sorta wasn't too funny. however, he did post some good stuff every easter and xmas, reminding everyone what it was all about... remember el nino? ykno, the warm ocean current that was gonna screw our weather and blast everything to hell?

bald guy: when it's over with, how much do you think this "el nino's" gonna shake up the world?

mallard: not that much...
...compared to the first el nino...

the 3rd frame reads:
"For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the LORD"
Luke 2:12

merry christmas everyone and God bless; i'm out...

man, only 2 more days that phil and michelle get to stay up here w/me...

plus side of being a spare-time songwriter, but not currently being on a worship team:
-i get to work with the drop db tuning a LOT more w/o worrying about retuning the guitar(still want another electric guitar for this purpose, and still want a delay pedal, but i understand phil's not the richest person in the world, and has to worry about parenting about 5 months later, so i'll have to think about solving this one on my own[btw, it's gonna be a boy]):

C#, G#, C#(octave higher), F#, Bb, Fb

hope to have the song finished completely by break's end...

btw... can you believe just how much ppl suck up to vince carter? it's like when kobe stopped being constant on the top 10 of the week, that ppl HAAAVE to suck up to him now...

fall quarter's over for me, like it or not...

but jon's not... and since we carpooled, :(

*sigh*... 1 more day up here... i wanna be home w/my mom, or songwriting, or something... but not up here...

technically, i'm done w/the fall quarter; i have only 1 more final to go, and it's my easiest class... gonna have some fun cramming tonight... man, i've done to hell my sleep schedule this week... at least 2 times i've pulled all nighters out of fear of not doing my best on the finals as i would like. i just wanna be able to go to sleep at 11:00 after a nice shower each night and wake up at 7:00 refreshed, but that'll never happen partially because i waste time...

the most interesting philosophy question i've gotten today during my Ethical and Social Problems in Contemporary Society final; usually philosophy questions i get in the past philosophy classes up here i brush aside, but i was chewing on this one for a bit. i'll try to paraphrase it for you readers:

suppose a medieval scientist desires to create an advanced form of a dog by genetic breeding and giving them voice boxes and artificial hands... essentially, he desires to create a dog who can think and interact with humans. he disappears into canadian wilderness and we never hear from him again...
in 1999, we discover about a group of 1,000 such dogs living like they're 19th century high-class Prussian ppl... after a celebrated public notice, they move to NYC where they begin to partake in human activities; namely business, entertainment, and the like ventures. however, after beginning to interact with humans, they slowly begin to contract a disease that transforms them back to their canine instincts. essentially, they would lose all of their human intelligence. now, not all of the dogs have this disease, but it is inevitable that all of them will eventually contract and sucuumb to it. except one dog which appears to be immune; this dog is named Ludwig. it's possible you can extract a cure for this disease if you can perform many painful and unbearable experiments upon him. however, Ludwig is not willing to partake in the experiment voluntarily, and as a fatalist, chooses that once all but him sucuumb to the disease, that he will kill himself.

that said, is it right or wrong to perform those experiments upon Ludwig?

essentially, this question tested the lessons we learned on abortion(just like how a mother refuses to let a baby live over her own happiness) and animal cruelty... and so what it essentially comes down to is that if we do the experiments, we have a good chance of saving this race; one dog's selfish ambition pales to his entire race(consequentialist argument)... however, it is right to torture a dog? and now think: he's a dog who can think like a human, essentially making him one. would we torture a human against his will too? also, in light of the abortion side, this would be like a case of rape; we subject the dog unwillingly to the experiments, and force him to bear the burden to save another group of dogs... we normally allow for cases of rape in abortion cases, but what about this?

so even though the final doesn't say what you have to say, only that you back it up, i answered in favor of the experiments, but i couldn't help but wonder just really what would I do if i were in the situation in real life. is one being's life worth sacrificing to save a whole race, and what if the being is unwilling to cooperate?

what do you think?

queen of hearts 98 is pretty friggin fun... it's a fighting game between japanese anime school girls(don't worry, it's not hentai :D) if you thought capcom's combo system was thrown out of the window, i beg to differ... here, you can link all over the place... stuff like crouching lightx2, crouching heavy, crouching medium, standing heavy, standing lightx2, jumping lightx3... i need to get a gamepad when i return...

but perhaps the greatest gem i've found today is this:
BBQ(Yakiniku)
a small freeware game where you COOK your own japanese bbq beef!! that's so cool... very unique game concept... got a buncha giggles from me everytime i made the beef look black; then the customer got pissed... actually, according to the FAQ, the customer was me, cause that green bar is actually my health bar :D but it is very entertaining... i like how the beef actually browns very fast, just like how sukiyaki beef would realistically brown... man, i should goad mom into going to hot pot city or something... now i want asian bbq... dl the game readers... it's not large, not too complex to play, a good break in between your work...

virtual on is so friggin fun... check it out at the abandonware site... it's like robotech/transformers/what not gone fighting game... like one must fall, but modified to use the 3D environment... once i get a gamepad i'm playing this like crazy... my only stipulation is for some reason the software doesn't work as well w/my laptop... if i die playing against the cpu using certain characters the game automatically exits. ah well... it's still fun to play.

2 down, 2 left to go... technically, it's over thursday though, cause my easiest class is on friday...

list of things to do during break:
-buy phil a xmas present(i don't buy gifts for my mom... except authentic davis fruit, haha...)
-get hair cut... if this thing on my head lasts any longer i'm gonna look like a genuine authentic fob
-get saturn fixed, and figure out how to tow the damn thing outta the garage
-record at least one song before break ends(if anything else, i hope this occurs during break, and it better be good)
-help finish phil's song(which i have never gotten around to; damn i'm flaky sometimes)
-try to record some samples for sam(again, this shows my flaky side)
-keep up to date w/org chem(i HATE this course! well, it's partially my fault cause i should be studying this thing 24/7, but i don't, but it just seems harder to me than bio which comes so easy for me) and bio
-maybe start my own form of bball conditioning to build my stamina and hops...
-get a gamepad
-almost forgot this: GET MY BIBLE READING ON... i have almost neglected coming to God during school... if you go by whether i do daily bible readings... also, i'm considering fasting during each school month for 2 days... it might help me keep my focus...(i will consider that along the weird notion i had of getting up early on sunday morning to sprint to UCD and all the way back to my apt every sunday)
THINGS NOT TO DO DURING BREAK:
-slack off and sleep in and put off everything i plan like i do with every single break
-play all my cpu games to death and put off everything i put above...

they say chance favors the prepared mind, which is why crammers are less healthy than the nerds... i'm a nerd w/untapped potential... hence why i am not that healthy during finals week...

turns out i was fuming about nothing when it came to my winter schedule... i got it all fixed out now just now... god is good... to me... sometimes... by the superficial standpoint...

may god have mercy on us two ucd peeps... we try to strive for what we're supposed to do, but we almost always come up short...

my favorite week of nba top 10 is STILL week 2... 3 reels by ginobili(the pump fake reverse going between the two jazz was sick, and duncan's finish from him was also rapage), 2 of jrich, lebron, etc...

why must all you mainstream white christians rock slow? :D

duncan posted 47 pts, 12 rebounds in the win against magic... crazy...

i'm starting to believe that trading walker away for lefrentz was a bad idea(what, it took you THIS long to realize that?!?)... celtics just aren't doing good this year so far... they haven't even broken even... it's one thing to trade him away for some height cause you lack it, but you trade away an all-star for a bench player, don't even let him start, and are not doing good right now... soooo...

kings twolves game was amazing... IMO i was hoping kings would win this one, but you can't win them all... kg was superb, and cassell and spre were both hot... in fact, spre was doing monstrous on the offensive end... miller was also amazing... kg had an amazing block against bobby jackson... just came outta nowhere on the transition defense and swatted away the easy layup... but haha... later jackson would also come outta nowhere to swat kg's shot away... that was sweet... too bad the 1st will make the highlight reel, not the 2nd one...

dennis rodman was on the best damn sports show period... haha...

go comfort joe when you have time... tuffy passed away... i liked the dog, but she seemed cranky towards other dogs... i remember when chris liu was visiting our church again and alice brought oski and someone else (eva maybe?) brought her dog, and jean brought tuffy, and even though she's this tiny assed furball, was barking the yell at the other two even when the others were trying to be friendly(oski especially) and scaring the hell outta them... overall, she was this cool furball who skittered all over joe's crib and didn't care a thing about going anywhere...

i know that mistakes in life are just blips on the screen; one or two here and there but they won't make a difference... i may just have gotten myself out of the A range from bio(by accidentally oversleeping and not taking a QUIZ), might have gotten screwed over in org chem, might have botched a chance to get closer to the reqd 3.5 gpa for med school, but in the end, it won't matter. but then, this principle, for all its theory, is very hard to shallow... sometimes i see mistakes as one screw-up in a combo in a capcom fighting game... if one hit's off by the slightest timing, everything else comes crashing down...

that said, you can always fix the future, just not the past, by concentrating upon the present, soooo....
-when i get close to only 3 hrs of sleep during a night cramming, i will set my alarm clock to ALARM, not RADIO... hard times demands harsh actions... i will catch up on sleep one week later...

we look down on those of us who are more boisterous about their negative feelings, but in actuality, we all feel that way sometimes... some of us are just more politically correct about things...

i'm seriously considering the possibility of fasting maybe 2 days/month that i am in school... i never leave time for God, and this is a way not only to have to set that time aside for God, but on a small way take care of some of my food problems... feel that sometimes i run out of food pretty quickly... oh yea, i should consider running hard and fast every sunday morning, since i don't really exercise up here either...

man, it appears that more and more evanescence is looking more like a "creed," ie you don't know whether they're selling christianity or not:

read this rolling stones article

and indeed i started questioning them a bit too; even though i had known the lead two were christians, the lyrics that i heard lately sounded more like things out of linkin park(ie lyrics that sound like this relationship isn't working, let's break it, you're drowning me, etc)...

"Despite that intensity(Moody stated he was intense with Christ), God shows up on only two tracks on Fallen, "Tourniquet" and "Whisper," and the group's propensity to drink, swear and act like normal, everyday human beings has caused the album to be pulled from Christian record stores. This hasn't hurt sales, though, which continue to climb week after week."

this is the only hope of the band; they state that they haven't finished stating their message yet:

""You know how you were talking about misconceptions?" Lee says. "We've only just begun. Just be open-minded. You don't know us yet. We hope that you can.""

so that may be good... (i hope...) in the meantime, at least i'm glad 12 stones is christian all the way... their songs are definitely christian... too bad they don't get recognition like evanescence does... not by the christian industry, and not by the secular industry... just from guys like me who love modern rock with extremely talented licks coming from the lead guitarist... it does seem at times that ppl think they're secular(maybe they don't really spread the word onstage, just by their music?), and the secular industry thinks they're christian(which would explain why i NEVER hear them on any secular rock station)

but then for the guys who DO get rave reviews all i need to do is listen to jeremy camp(robin parrish of cmcentral.com must like him, which IS GOOD), and sanctus real(they beat 75 local rock bands to win a radio show contest, that kinda already says of the good stuff they're made of)...

ok, gotta study

so it was kinda cool when i was all frantic today with the amount of cramming of catching up i have to do when i realized that the bio class was canceled... praise God... only to find out just a few minutes ago that it was due to the teacher's son being sick... not due to the fact that she didn't have anything to teach... *damn*... at least tomorrow's just gonna be review...

God, please help me when i cram these next few days... please supply the desire, and the ability to put my arcade stuff aside and just cram... in fact, help the others too...

man, spurs lose to lakers by THIS CLOSE! 4 pts! cmon duncan, you should've been working the mailman all night! seriously!

and warriors lose to nuggets... man, it's like they just gave out in the final seconds... i'm watching the game update, and it got from a close deficit to about 8 pts like that...

those socal girls are just plain weird(going by what i saw on lydia's profile)... haha... that's why us college guys should just swear off the girls completely until we're around 24 or something...

michelle branch - breathe

seven places - landslide

so it's crunch time again aka uc finals week... do you ask for the rock? do you give someone else the rock? i wish there was a third option; that it was still 3rd quarter... better yet, i wish it were still halftime, when i could get a chance to take a breather...

cracked me up seeing this on joe's xanga site:

"I miss my dog. I tried to talk to her on the phone the other day. Don't think it worked"

next time we organize a praise night, i'll start WAAY earlier... small turnout this year because i sent out an email on a saturday before the event(if i have done so before then, the counselors could've told the others about the event on friday), couldn't get the sound to work for close to an hour when we first arrived, then wes all of a sudden says he's not going at the last moment, jerm arrives late, etc, etc, etc... yes, i know that the object of worship is God... but if i get the minor details outta the way first, doesn't it make it that much more easier to concentrate upon God? (of course, you could always counter that if i concentrate upon God first, the minor details disappear) that said, it was neat being able to worship next to the current worship leaders of the youth, sam and clement... musically i know they have deep potential... they just need to practice... funny how the thing they need to get down is to get a good strumming pattern down... with me, i kinda just follow the rhythm when i'm strumming, but it's kinda sporadic... eh, different ppl, different difficulties i guess... bob, you need to teach them some strumming stuff... or wait til winter break, when i'm back...

laura played with her new dark blue bass for the first time that night... um, maybe someone should've practiced some during school, instead of just panicking when wes all of a sudden doesn't show up(NOOO! richard, call him back! i can't play bass!)... then jerm couldn't figure out how to write "Schwarzenegger" for a prayer request, so he just wrote "pray for our governor..." that was funny... um, yea.

but it was fun...

warriors > spurs, +2... awesome...

went to rib crib for my pre-bday and jerm's post-bday... it was funny how fast i inhaled the free desert oreo sundae, even though me and jerm got the same thing and started at the same time... jerm was so full he passed his desert around, while when they turned back to look at me i had nearly finished mine... man, seriously i wonder if i have a naturally fast metabolism... it seems that no matter what i eat, my weight currently AVERAGES out to 128-131 lbs... eh, it'll probably catch up to me when i'm past 25 yrs... but i should exercise more... even this type of diet isn't good for you. it might be due to the fact that i move pretty fast, but eh...

damnit, and my saturn's engine just gave out on saturday night RIGHT after i got back from mike's house... at least there's some good to this, like that fact that it was in my garage when it gave out, on a thanksgiving break, right after getting a smog check, but uh, um...

man, i wrote so much i have no time to study before bio class... i guess i'm just gonna end this blog, shut the laptop off and go to class early...

oh yea, thanks to all who wished me a happy bday... jerm, where's MY gift man?

getting bogged down w/praise night preps... that seems to be the big thing going on for me this week... and it doesn't help that i'm the only one sending the emails and no one is replying back... maybe i should add "heart of worship" into the routine just to remind myself what it's all about...

stumbled upon the classic "christian rock good or bad?" debate(it never dies, doesn't it? and it probably won't for as long as some ppl can't accept rock) in one forum trying to search for chords and lyrics for some of the praise night songs... what amazes me is how some old ppl think christian rock and christian hip-hop are bad... they see the guy moshing around, guitar turned up to 10, heavy distortion on so hard the speaker's getting feedback, and they somehow think it's bad... (or in the case of a hip-hopper, he's yelling so many words into the mic you can't tell what he's saying)... but those ppl need to remember that almost that the hymns were first considered devilish in their own right when those started emerging... so we should ban those too? do we just listen to jewish music then? also, consider this: christianity is not a religion built upon customs... that debate was ended in acts a short while after God made Peter see the light and how christians don't need to do "kosher" things... and let's not even get into how i do solo worship...

me and jon showed up late for fellowship yesterday... but anyways, they were putting on a praise night of their own... songs were slow... but the attitude was sincere... it was like a couple of songs, prayer time, then rinse and repeat... since it was the late fellowship of the quarter, after that there was a bunch of photos on a slideshow for recap...

anyways, it was just good to have this thing... too bad i was sleepy from cramming for the org chem test... (man, i still have to improve my study habits...) but anyhow, good for getting myself into the whole praise night mentality...

god is great, and his praise fills the earth, fills the heavens, cause we're living for the glory of your name, the glory of your name

dante hall of the kansas city chiefs owns...

i thought i'd mention that... i really haven't been keeping up w/football, until i saw him appear as a guest on the best damn sports show period... and saw his october 6th performance against the denver broncos... i wish i could find the clip online, cause if you saw it you would've left your mouth way open... he shook the ENTIRE broncos defensive line! i was just getting awed watching this guy recieve a kickoff, then do all these fakes and you just see the defensive line collapsing trying to follow where this guy is going... he then breaks through the line and runs it for a touchdown...

i just spent some time at www.nba.com/history and watched the video clips of the greatest plays of all time(i haven't subscribed to IT, but you can watch the 56K clips for free)... damn... you don't know highlight reels til you see those... ol skool... not as much shaking and baking off of good dribbling(first to do so was AI on MJ i think), but the stuff they did in the air as well as their defensive stops were unbelievable... my mouth was gaping... mj, how many highlight reels can you make? it is really unbelievable how much he can change his moves and adjust when driving to the rack and going up for a layup.

there's an angry noob at the arcade getting frustrated at a fighting game playing AGAINST THE CPU, but EXPRESSING HIS EMOTIONS VERY LOUDLY; i have to say, i have never seen someone yell FAAAAUCK! and slam the buttons so hard after losing to a cpu... calm down man... and stop ruining the arcade buttons...

linkin park- numb(live in texas)

oh yea, there's some weird trick in area51, that arcade shooting game, which makes the game colors look all psycadelic or something... hecka hard to discern what you are shooting, although it's sometimes cool to do the code, as it's like you're seeing everything in infra-red.

Jeremiah 6:27-30: God compares stiffnecked ppl to metals that just can't be refined; you heat and heat but they just wont get rid of their impurities. What is the use of such things? You can only destroy them and rid them from the face of the earth.

i saw one of those evangalistic ppl on campus today... ykno, the ones which hold up a sign saying "jesus loves you; turn or burn" or something like that, and i saw him debating with a small crowd gathered around him... i could seriously not do that, because it would take so much courage on my part to put myself on the spotlight like that... yes, thru God all things are possible, but i just could not see myself doing something like that without a huge leap of confidence.

i wonder if christians like that turn OFF nonbelievers more than they turn them on; often they carry what feels like negative news of doom; granted, the gospel HAS been getting a lot soft lately(i remember the lesson of the gospel needing to be more offensive in church), as people need to realize that what they have done is wrong, but at times, i wonder if it concentrates more upon the fear essence than the love side of things.

arcade stuff:

absolute worst place to go for online capcom combo videos:
www.akumacombos.com
this guy doesn't know how to do crap... well, the main guys... i could probably do better in all the games that i have and do play...

so our ucd games area now has an "ultracade;" sorta like a collection of ol skool games all packed into one machine; it has STREET FIGHTER 1! i haven't played it yet, i want to, but seriously, it was crap from just watching it; aside from a historical landmark for a video game genre, many of the moves came out extremely awkward. some moves are too fast when they shouldn't be(up-close games look like just mashing low punch is the way to go), others WAAY too slow to start(hurricane kick's like a super move in this game; takes like 1 full second to even start hitting), the other two shoto specials are awkward in their own light; fireball's slow too, although dragon punch was the best of them; from what i've read before, it's unblockable.

of course, they also have the old sf2 series; the original one, the championship edition, hyper version; no super or super turbo though... and i'm not big on nostalgic street fighter too much. sf2 WW was pretty jacked up; if you weren't guile or dhalsim, you were getting butt-raped; it didn't look like that when us youngsters were playing the game, but that's how all the tourney guys were playing it when we were too busy doing hadoken until the opponents jumped then SRK'd them. tick throws, etc...

i am still big on MVC1; that seems to be the fighting game i play the most these days; no comp plays me not because i'm good, but because i usually play when no one's challenging me; it's no big deal, usually i just play 1 game's worth to relax. it's really fun how top tier tactics often boil down to just gaining meter, then calling your partner in and just chipping your opponent to death with super after super after super after... fun...

let's talk nba:

i can't believe that the magic currently are the ones holding the worst ranking in the league right now... and they have tmac too... players' fault? doc rivers' fault? i dunno; don't look at me... but i will say this; they definitely don't belong there; they have tmac...

fave new west team: denver nuggets; any of you warrior fans regretting us trading boykins away now? boykins+anthony= golden...

and let's not forget the sonics man... flip murray? lewis?

btw, there's a LOT of good movies out this winter... matrix 3, elf, LOTR 3... haha... scary movie 3...

1 down, 2 more to go...

stand up write the soundtrack for your life
it doesn't happen to you you happen to life
stand up, you know you're gonna have to fight
don't wanna lose the will to find your light
stand up, God gave you the gift of life
it doesn't happen to you, you happen to life
stand up, do something with your light
you're a light on a hill, you're meant to shine so bright
(superchick- so bright)

i need to culminate God's presence in me by 1 week...

screw cnet.com... they're buying mp3.com... one of the very last big legal sites on the web where you can dl free music... it will be taken down dec 2nd...

jerm: man. im tired
me: oh?
jerm: but i don't wanna go lay in bed hah
me: THAT lazy?
me: :-D
jerm: yea hehe

paul pierce looked like tmac last night... no headband, atypical wristband up elbow, and a green leg thingy...

interesting... Sanctus Real remade U2's song...

woot! and warriors and spurs win! warriors win by 2 in OT! amazing!

and ginobili... man... i'm just loving this guy... it's funny... the truth is, sometimes he's even too flashy for greg popovich... that cracks me up... imagine courtside huddles:

greg: stop doing that!
manu: what... winning?

davis police has nothing to do...

that's what my "bio of aging" instructor tells us... we didn't really have a lecture today; he just wanted to kick it back and learn more about us(man, this guy is an awesome teacher... he actually takes time to know you; granted he has a small class to work with, but whatever, it's fun)... 2 incidents that stand out:
-a guy got into a carwreck with a bike; the police arrive, and help him move his banged up car alongside the road, then arrange a ride for him... so he takes off... my instructor is witnessing all this... he goes away, and comes back in a few... and a cop's writing a ticket for this illegally parked car! haha... what gives?
-then there's the daily show w/jon stewart incident: a woman got arrested in davis for get this: SNORING TOO LOUD... haha! who would have thought?

also, get this: university instructors aren't paid by how well they teach; only by what they earn by research... that's how the legislature of ca decides it. they exceed their research projects... they get a raise... you get the idea.

oh, btw, bob, this instructor also pointed out how most of our body can run on fat as energy for about 50 days total, given total fat revenues... so there... proof that you can fast a while w/o killing yourself... i dunno the exact stats though, but basically there's a lotta calories that can be burned off from fat...

perhaps one of the things that annoys me the most about college is that it blazes too fast... no time to take to breathe... and class registration always annoys me greatly.

woot! how about vin baker with the clutch shot!

duncan had a NASTY tomahawk either sunday or monday; i dunno which day...

and go roddick! (to be honest, i will say he looked a lot more dominating during the summer's us open... he was pulling aces outta his ass everywhere... not the game i watched... of course, you could give credit to moya being an improved player, but i don't think so... during the us open his aces were 130 mph, right on the line... and very frequent. this game the serves were a bit more in, and slower)

i was surprised to see 2 elderly woman approach our apt yesterday... i was intrigued when they whipped out a bible and shared 2 bible verses to me. then they gave me a pamphlet... and when i closed the door and read the cover, i was immediately turned off... it said "can you believe in a paradise earth?" it was written by jehovah's witnesses. however, after junking it in the recycle bin, i had afterthoughts, and decided to pick it up and keep it just so that i can read it and see how it deviates from christianity... i haven't read the thing word for word yet, but i will do so soon, because "a pretext without a context becomes a prooftext for a context" or something like that. being closed-minded doesn't help anyone. but this is what i gather so far, from what i've read:

going off of the few articles i've read in it so far, there is a big emphasis upon "paradise earth;" they quoted a buncha biblical verses and used it to back how many ppl believe they will go to heaven, but not many ppl believe they will reside on a paradise earth.
then there's of course, this huge emphasis upon preaching this truth to others.

however, here's the thing:
-the whole emphasis of christianity is Jesus Christ. they didn't say that he didn't save the world, but they just alluded to that in a few places, how he shed his blood for others. we all know that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, and when we take that away from the central focus, that's just as bad as denying him completely... the 1st commandment is to love God, the 2nd one is to serve your neighbor
-another main focal point of Christianity is the aknowledgment of your sins. there was no article i saw in their pamphlet that drew attention to that. in a sense, you create a false sense of hope in ordinary ppl, who believe the world will turn out ok in the end, but you don't help them in preparing for it. it's almost as bad as the common notion in modern-day society that "ppl will go to heaven simply cause they've been a relatively good person"
-and on that same point, they drew no emphasis upon what happens in the afterlife; no one is perfect, and whoever doesn't acknowledge their sins and the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord will be thrown into hell. they talked about only a paradise earth and spreading that stuff.
-finally... who cares? there is biblical reference in revelations how some ppl will come to live in the New Jerusalem, but whether you live there or in heaven, does that matter? it's sorta like asking if Jesus could give you a front-row seat in heaven. it's completely unnecessary, not something you need to work for. i would be completely satisfied being the janitor of heaven, than the gatekeeper of hell. (i hope God's not being sarcastic after reading this and assigns me that job in heaven :D)

i'll probably read more of the pamplet sometime later. also, most likely their version of the bible is somewhat different, so i'll have to compare their verses with the NIV that i have. as well as check info on them on the web, but right now i kinda have a lotta stuff to do these weeks...

if i had known ahead of time all this, i mightve started debating to those ppl, cause i had no idea they were jehovah's witnesses until they left and i read the pamplets carefully... i was just happy for them to leave so i could get back to watching comedy central. maybe this is something i should pray for... the ability to discern stuff faster from God.

i love thanksgiving so much more than christmas... christmas can seem so fruity now... thanksgiving is a lot more sincere IMO... plus, i'll have to see if we wanna do another praise night...

pistons and warriors on wednesday... FINALLY gs gets some national airtime... i'm still waiting for celtics to get some national airtime...

oh yea... one more thing before i go:

davis has air1!