it’s a fact!

Make sure your speakers are on, it’s priceless.

Good times, good times. Beat Ninja gaiden 2, Got some preliminary ideas up for the next chapter, and wrote 4 pages in, struck with a brilliant idea, needed to stop to percolate it so it wouldn’t be worried.

Looks like I’m over the hump that I fought with for 4 months this summer.

latent persuasive principle.

You have no idea how much that single phrase just opened up the dissertation and makes it work.

Beat Ninja Gaiden 2
Begin 4th chapter of Dissertation4 pages in, struck by a brilliant idea, need to percolate it…plus got the plan laid out on the big boards
Begin Fable 2

going to be a busy busy day!

is still bubbling away contentedly. Tested the brown ale last week, and that was right-fantastic, today we get to test the weizenbier…we’ll see how that goes.

Had a bit of a test taste of the mead, and it’s missing that kick-you-in-the-teeth after taste that my last batch had. I’m really diggin’ this temperature controlled business. Still bubbly, I’m hoping it’ll be done by christmas and can be bottled. but who knows? Not me!

at times like this, starting a week off like this, the only thing I can do is walk down to get some iced cream.

honestly.

So I just helped a friend get his dissertation formatted in Word 2007. After that fiasco, I’m horribly horribly glad that I’m using word 97 to write my stuff in.

The problem with 2007 is that they made everything so “user friendly” that they forgot that user’s have to be able to fix things too. And that’s a hassle and a half when nothing is set up to make any sense in 2007. They must assume that people using it just will never adjust margins on more than one page, or have to undo a section break put in yesterday. What a pain in the ass.

Word 97, on the other hand, has every command in a menu, and the menus make heierarchical sense. That’s the worst thing about 2007’s “ribbon”…none of the commands underneath the categories make any sense whatsoever..and it’s completely backwards on some of the stuff in order to fix it. There’s no “view hidden” or anything to take out the $#)(*7′n automatic indenting or any of the automatic formatting that word 2007 so dearly loves, so it’s a treasure hunt each time one of those things needs to be taken out.

Now I just hope my laptop makes it through next year…it ought to. It was made before gateway lost all self respect, and has held up fantastically so far. Windows 98 and Word 97: saving my sanity.

The Shack has been ruffling some feathers in the culture, from what I can gather. Since I love nothing more than to ruffle some feathers, I picked it up today and read it over the last 2.5 hours. Is the book that gripping? No. Listen, when you go through higher education for about 10 years you more or less pick up some superhuman powers.

The first three chapters are best described as pedestrian. The writing is REALLY poor. There are some issues with long complicated sentences that are not needed, and cliches are rife. That being said, the book picks up (at least for me) once the trinity enters the picture. The story picks up, and the ideas pick up, but the writing itself remains subpar all the way through.

That isn’t to say that the book picking up is not without its problems. Problems such as representing God the father as a black woman, or the holy spirit as an Asian…which, admittedly aren’t really that much of a problem. There are stereotypes associated with each image chosen, but perhaps in the most intelligent decision made by the author, these stereotypes are not carried through. In fact, throughout the book, outside of the first shock, it doesn’t make any difference what the characters look like, as they become a sounding board for the author to wrestle with some theological concepts.

These concepts largely deal with evil in the world, which the author attributes to man’s drive for independence from God (completely ignoring the fact of demons from the Bible), and the complications that arise from the separation of God.

In order to do that, the author pret’ much leaves the bible in the dust. There are some stances taken throughout the book that are questionable from a Christian’s standpoint, especially when it comes to the lack of responsibility. I won’t ruin the book should you want to read it, but suffice to say it is more of a “I’m-okay-you’re-okay-God’s-okay” type of spirituality, focusing most on a conception of Jesus that conveniently ignores a great deal of what He said and what was written throughout the bible. It apparently is all about relationships.

To be completely honest, this book could have easily been about Buddha, and not to offend any muslims, but could have been about Mohammed…that’s how easily applicable the theology was, and how far it was removed from any biblical backing.

It was highly polemical when it came to power structures and heierarchys, claiming that they were a creation of independent and sinful men. I’ll let you read it to make your own stance, but while it did have SOME kernels of thoughts in there, it seemed to be too large a leap to come to these conclusions…especially as the majority of them were without biblical backing.

Let’s just say that it is an interesting read from a philosophical standpoint, but a read that should not affect your beliefs one way or t’other. The more I think of it, the more I agree with one reviewer on Amazon who said that it was a book perfect for people who wanted to recreate God in their own image.

Whether or not it reaches the level of subversion that another reviewer has claimed is another matter, one that I wouldn’t be so hasty to accuse this book of, due in most part to the fact that the writing is so subpar. Cliche is everywhere, the characters are two dimensional (no where near as complete as they are in the Bible) and it is because of that that I do not see this book as dangerous to thinking Christians.

ok, so after wednesday and the irritation therein died down, I realized a couple of things.

1. I wasn’t angry so much at the financial aid situation, but at the fact that Pacifica went 100% to the new system of contacting students through their pacifica email addresses…which I never set up due to being a dissertation student…and never having a problem communicating with people beforehand through my private email. Once I got that set up the way I needed it to, and got things double checked that 100% needed to be double checked, everything was good to go.

2. I am in good hands. I got a second class to teach this semester at the last minute, not having asked for it, nor really seeking after it, but I took it. Turns out that after contacting the business office at Pacifica and setting up a monthly payment plan, that extra class pays for Pacifica’s monthly bill. This means that I’ve got until January to get the financial aid set up, which is far more time than I should need. W/o that second class, I’d be up a creek without a paddle.

Turns out that things will be provided, whether I know I need them or not, and between the things provided and being raised to be able to handle problems as they arise, I’m extremely blessed to be able to continue doing what I’m doing. I’d like to take SOME credit here, but I really have nothing. God provides and the parents raised me right.

*shrug* I just keep on keepin’ on.

and that was sending in chapter 3.

The rest of the day has gone right down to the tubes with a variety of things going haywire, and going haywire quite badly.

f’ing financial aid.

chapter 3 written and edited.

Total pages thus far (not including wc list): 110
Words: 33,321

Good times, good times.

and I just can’t hide it!

Last week, I picked up two used refrigerators. One was $40 and we picked it up in the ‘Nard (oxnard, for you non ventura countiers), it was an epic voyage one that would fit well chronicled…perhaps titled as a book series (with other adventures there) as the Chronicles of Nardia? I smell copyright infringment!

And the other fridge was free from a group of friends out here. It was apparently just taking up space in their yard and they wanted to be rid of it. Both work great. We transformed one into the beverage fridge, to hold our soda, iced tea (roommate’s) and beer (mine). The other is going to be a fermenting fridge.

It’s large enough to hold two 5 gallon brew pails, and I picked up a Fridge Thermostat that will monitor the temp inside the fridge and shut it off when it’s too cold, and flip it on when it gets too warm. That means no more beer with a strange taste to it. I tried everything before to get rid of it, and then figured out it was because my fermentation temps had been too high. w00t!

Good times, good times.

Meanwhile, editing on dissertation chapter 3 continues apace, should be done by the end of tomorrow.

Destroyed in Seconds on the discovery channel.

so blind people are all up in arms and going to protest that movie about a plague that makes people not see.

Two things come to mind. One, how will they get to the theater to protest, and two, how will they know that the signs they’re holding haven’t been cleverly painted with cute slogans like “Buy popcorn!” or “Enjoy the show!”

Because, they’re…well, they’re blind. They’re not going to know.

Plus, what’s going to stop people from just walking around them? Nothing.