Isaiah 53

1: Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2: For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3: He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. 6: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. 8: By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9: And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10: Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; 11: he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. 12: Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

I finished my Metroid Zero Mission speed run.

My time on my second Metroid Zero Misison Speed run is 1:49:45. I did it without sequence breaking.

Now I am running two files on the game. I am attempting to play through on one file with only a 15% collection rate (this will require Sequence breaking, but I have a faq that will help me). On the second file I am going to try to beat my time the old fasioned way. I am thinking of some things that may help me shave off a minute or so of playtime. I am fairly clumsy, so I am going to have to be more careful about missing ledges and so forth. If I take too long from one save to another, I will not save and do it again.

I will do better as I map the game more in my head.

Grandpa gave me some records.

Grandpa left a bunch of old records for me. I got an unopened, sealed copy of Billy Joel's "The Stranger", Two copies of Sgt. Peppers, A hard Day's Night, Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic, Styx' Pieces of Eight (awesome Album, we have it on cd.), Kansas' Point of Know return, and a bunch of stuff from the 40's and 50's. He knew I loved music, especially classic rock.

He also left me his stereo. It plays CD, 8 Track, Am/Fm Radio and Records. The turntable unfortunately does not work, but it looks like it wouldn't be too difficult to fix. Dad has a friend who runs an electronic shop, maybe he could do it cheap. I would love to listen to my albums.

Chris got some golf clubs, and Grandpa's dog tags.

I finished my first speedrun on Metroid: Zero Mission. 2:25. Not that great. The Record is 0:50 or something close. My goal this second time around is to make it under 1:30, but it'll be difficult. Perhaps I should look at sequence breaking. My first attempt was a normal shot through.

When I get a respectable time on Zero Mission, I plan to try some other games, such as Fusion, or Super Mario World. I like newer games, but speedrunning is more fun for me on 2d platformers.

I think dad and Chris, and Dad's friend David may be going golfing soon. A gift from David to dad.

Granpa's funeral was yesterday.

I ran around with absolutely no clue what to do.

Dad's Eulogy was evangelistic in nature. It showed a man who repented of his sins. It showed a man who had a bad youth, but turned to His Savior later in life.

It moved some people, please pray that God does His Will in their lives.

The STR Blogring.

Today I built the hub site for the STR Blogring. So far only Paladin and I are on it. But I trust it will expand. And if not, its not really the end of the world.

I still have to build the icon link to put on the blogs.

Maybe someone a bit more bold will create a CF Blogring, and we could connect to that. I dunno.

In other News.....

I have been listening to a lot of House of Heroes the last day or so. Especially "Pulling Back the Skin." Don't really know why, just been stuck in my head.

Dad is taking care of more funeral arrangements today. The Funeral is Wednesday. Dad is under a lot of stress and it is getting more visibly strained. Pray for him please.

Grandpa is going to be cremated. Some Christians object to it, I see no reason, and unless someone shows me from Scripture why it is wrong, I don't think I'll be changing my mind.

Ah funerals and everything that go with them.

My father was appointed by grandpa to take care of everything after he died. I'm not exaggerating when I say everything either. He was Grandpa's POA, Grandpa asked dad to distribute his items, and to arrange the funeral.

So, he does it. Works very hard, gets the job done. A lot of pressure on him. Pray for him please.

Some good news, and some bad news.

The Good news....

It looks like we are going to get that Mobile home up north. So... Cool. Looks like we could be happy up there. No BOOM BOOM BOOM in the middle of the Night. No shootings. Less problems.

The Bad News.....

My Grandfather just died. I mean, I just found out about it 5-10 minutes ago. Mom and Dad are going to go take care of business. I wasn't very close to him, but it is hitting my father and my brother very hard. Pray for us, but especially my father.

Indians are getting smashed.

Poor, Poor, Poor Tribe.

Last score I saw was 7-0 minesota.

Random update.

We may be moving up to that mobile home park up north. Pray that we make the right decision, we are going to talk to the guy that owns the place today.

Spring Training has started, and with the XM radio, I get everything. Gonna listen to the Cleveland game that starts at 1:00. Funness. They are playing Minesota, whom I listened to last night. They beat the Red Sox 6-3.

I've also been enjoying College Basketball quite a bit.... GO BUCKS!!!!!

And to a lesser extent..... GO BOBCATS!!!!!!!!

I am trying for a speed Run of Metroid : Zero Mission. My goal right now is under Three Hours.

Then I might try something on Fusion.

Still working on Echoes.

I am going to start looking for another job here soon. I got used to money....

I have to start school in a few minutes.

I have an issue of Pride right now, pray for me.

Roman Catholic

There is a lot of debate on whether or not Catholics in communion with Rome should be called Roman Catholics. And granted, some people use the term in a derogatory manner, and it is not the official name of the Church.

But I must defend myself and others. Most Christians do not use the term in a negative manner. To most of us it is simply a discriptor. When I write about "The Catholic Church" I write about the Universal Church of Jesus Christ, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. When I write about Roman Catholics, I write about those Catholics in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

It is not an insult.

Revisionist Christianity is not.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is an unchanging fact that must be taught with all of its integrity intact. This means we cannot gloss over the parts we don't like. Or perhaps I should say part. Sin.

I absolutely adore my God because He Saved me. What did He Save me from? He Saved me from Death, the direct result of sin in my life. Not just original sin that I inherited from adam. Not just the sin that I can write off as belonging to all people. But my direct, personal rebellions against God. My lies, my hypocrisies, my lusts, my passions, my hatreds and my deceits.

In Order to see how Good our Salvation is, we have to see how dispicable our Sin is. How can a man understand being pulled from the water unless he chokes on it and panics a bit?

Scripture is not soft about sin. It is described in such terms as "Abomination" and "Filthy Rags". Scripture says that the wages of sin are death. We cannot gloss over that.

We are a faith of hope. But what is there to hope for if we do not see our bondage?

Ah, so clumsy.

I have not played my guitar on a regular basis for a few months now, and my fingers are so Clumsy, I decided that I am going to play everyday, Period. No getting out of it.

Speaking of guitar....

This is very similar to my guitar. The only difference is the pickups.

I have also decided to stop playing around with what pops in my head and concentrate on real music, I know like three or four songs and that is about it.

GOT TO GET ON IT!

Been sick, hated it, didn't post, yes I'm alive The stupid port thing

Yeah, I've been sick as a dog the last week or so, and I've been feeling better in the last few days.

I really only have one issue to sound off about this time around so....

THE STUPID PORT THING!

This may just be one of the stupidest things Bush has ever done. I do think that liberals come down too hard on bush, but this time around I am with them. How idiotic is it to hand over a major national weakspot to a terrorist supporting nation! We might as well hand over our Airports to Bin Laden's successor.

About the Vice President accidentally shooting that poor guy.

It was an accident, it happened, he took responsibility for it, what more do these people want?

People are concerned that the VP is too secretive. Granted, if this were an issue of National Security I would agree, but this was a private, personal accident. He did not shoot the President of another country, he shot his close friend, and in a private setting on top of that.

Some people need lives.If the VP is hiding something important let me know, but I doubt a hunting accident where no one got killed will expose a weakness to Al Quida.

I LIKE XM RADIO!

Yesterday, we got XM radio. AWESOME!

I love the variety of music, the news channels and the sports.

RIght now I am listening to Fox news. We got rid of cable a few months ago and I am going through Cable news withdrawl. This will keep me going for a while.

Good Christian Music.

First of all, I am quite aware how ambiguous the term Christian music is. But we all know Christian music when we hear it so... eh.

I am going to just ramble on about some of my favorite Christian music, feel free to leave your own comments and lists if you want, even strangers.

I love Stavesacre, they are just so original, I have never heard anything quite like them. I guess the best way to describe them is hard rock, but that description just doesn't quite fit. There is just so much more emotion to their music, it is powerful.

Further Seems Forever has to be my favorite Christian Emo Band. Again very powerful, but in a completely different way. Hide Nothing is probably their best album. I like that with the new album their faith is more evident.

I have also been listening to a lot of Flyleaf lately, again, powerful, emotional, honest. Perhaps I am in somewhat of an "Emotion" Kick lately concerning music.

Yes I know, a waste of space, but.... it's my blog.

My thoughts on Star Wars.

See, I told you some of my posts would be inane.

First of all, I would like to say that I think that Star Wars is one of the greatest pieces of Pop Fiction ever. I am a huge fan, even to the point that I read the books, in fact after I write this post, I will be heading upstairs to work on Zahn's "The Last Command", the third book in the GREAT Thrawn Trilogy.

But I must say something. Nerds everywhere will hate me for it but... it must be said.

The plotlines are inconsistent.

Granted, Fandom and George Lucas have done a pretty decent job trying to paste everything together, but when you turn one movie into six movies, hundreds of books and magazines, and almost a hundred videogames, you are going to mix something up somewhere.

1) The Clone Wars in the Fiction written before the Prequel Trilogy (PT) is nothing like the Clone Wars George Lucas presents in the PT. In the Thrawn Trilogy for example, the Clone Wars were speculated to have been between the Light and Dark Jedi, and the referenced Clones were the Cloned Jedi themselves. For example a main antagonist is Joruus C'boath, a clone of the dark Jedi Jorus C'boath who was set on the Planet Wayland to watch over a hidden arsenal of the Emporers'.

(Correction. Ironically, after reading last night, I found that I had misinterpreted the Clone Wars as portrayed in Zahn's Fiction. While there are Cloned Jedi involved the war does involve Clone soldiers, and it is a political war as in the PT. Oops, now I look like a fool. Of course anyone who cares that much really wouldn't insult me anyway. IT is just fiction after all)

2) R2D2 just rocks more in the PT than in the OT. Who knew he could fly? And why didn't he get up off his butt and Save Luke at Tatooine? Let's see, throw a lightsaber and let him fend for himself, or throw him the lightsaber and kick some butt too... hmm....

3) THERE IS NO MENTION OF THE SITH IN THE OT! The Prequel Trilogy goes into great detail to paint Palpatine and Anakin/Vader as the last and most powerful Sith Lords, however, in the OT they are simply referred to as Jedi who fell to the dark side. Both Yoda and Obi-Wan know who and what the Sith are in the PT, but by the time of the Rebellion, they have forgotten altogether?


Do you know what this proves?

I need to get a life.

Oh, my XAnga hath been abandoned, Woe, Woe Woe to them!

I know I said I would try to keep both blogs running, but I have not even posted once on my Xanga since I set this thing up. Blogger is just so much better, in many ways than xanga.

I feel more creative. Not only can I mess with the visual layout more than I can with the Xanga, but I feel more like I am Creating with this, actually writing instead of just playing blog.

I know that there is no reason i could not write like this on Xanga, but for some reason it just feels more condusive to more serious writing than an online journal.

I dunno.

Hatred is not a Christian Virtue

I don't know if anyone even reads this thing at this point, in fact I would bet that no one but I have at this point (If I'm wrong, leave a comment and correct me), but there is something I would like to get off of my Chest.

Christians are not to hate.

I know it sounds obvious, but think about it. How many "Christian" groups out there put forward a message of hate, supposedly in the name of God?

For Example, there is a whole Church website out there called "God hates Fags." run by a man who hates homosexuals. Granted, I believe that homosexuality is a sin. But I believe that not only is it unChristian, but indeed antiChristian, to hate homosexuals.

In Reality, the message of Christ was not "You are all sinners and I hate you, here is a ticket to hell", but "I love you so much that I am willing to die for you. Pleaseturn from the sin that is destroying you and share in the Life that only I can bring you."

Everyone, including Christians, are sinners. We are all in the same boat. If you have told a lie, if you have cheated on your taxes or said a hurtful thing about a friend, you are just as sinful, and just as deserving of Hell as Murderers, Adulterers and Hatemongers. Hell is for sinners, of which we all are.

The difference is this. Those who are covered in the Blood, are cleansed of our sins. He paid the price so that we do not have to. He gave us a Way out.

So, remember, God is not a God of hate, but of Love. He does not approve of your sin, but He wants to save you from it, not hate you for it.

haha

As my regular readers know, I've long been skeptical of the "Religion of Peace" moniker for Muslims — for at least 3,000 reasons right off the top of my head. I think the evidence is going my way this week. The culture editor of a newspaper in Denmark suspected writers and cartoonists were engaging in self-censorship when it came to the Religion of Peace. It was subtle things, like a Danish comedian's statement, paraphrased by The New York Times, "that he had no problem urinating on the Bible but that he would not dare do the same to the Quran." So, after verifying that his life insurance premiums were paid up, the editor expressly requested cartoons of Muhammad from every cartoonist with a Danish cartoon syndicate. Out of 40 cartoonists, only 10 accepted the invitation, most of them submitting utterly neutral drawings with no political content whatsoever. But three cartoons made political points. One showed Muhammad turning away suicide bombers from the gates of heaven, saying "Stop, stop — we ran out of virgins!" — which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. Another was a cartoon of Muhammad with horns, which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. The third showed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb, which I believe was an expression of post-industrial ennui in a secular — oops, no, wait: It was more of a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence. Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back. The little darlings brandish placards with typical Religion of Peace slogans, such as: "Behead Those Who Insult Islam," "Europe, you will pay, extermination is on the way" and "Butcher those who mock Islam." They warn Europe of their own impending 9/11 with signs that say: "Europe: Your 9/11 will come" — which is ironic, because they almost had me convinced the Jews were behind the 9/11 attack. The rioting Muslims claim they are upset because Islam prohibits any depictions of Muhammad — though the text is ambiguous on beheadings, suicide bombings and flying planes into skyscrapers. The belief that Islam forbids portrayals of Muhammad is recently acquired. Back when Muslims created things, rather than blowing them up, they made paintings, frescoes, miniatures and prints of Muhammad. But apparently the Quran is like the Constitution: It's a "living document," capable of sprouting all-new provisions at will. Muslims ought to start claiming the Quran also prohibits indoor plumbing, to explain their lack of it. Other interpretations of the Quran forbid images of humans or animals, which makes even a child's coloring book blasphemous. That's why the Taliban blew up those priceless Buddhist statues, bless their innocent, peace-loving little hearts. Largely unnoticed in this spectacle is the blinding fact that one nation is missing from the long list of Muslim countries (by which I mean France and England) with hundreds of crazy Muslims experiencing bipolar rage over some cartoons: Iraq. Hey — maybe this democracy thing does work! The barbaric behavior of Europe's Muslims suggests that the European welfare state may not be attracting your top-notch Muslims. Making the rash assumption for purposes of discussion that Islam is a religion and not a car-burning cult, even a real religion can't go bossing around other people like this. Catholics aren't short on rules, but they couldn't care less if non-Catholics use birth control. Conservative Jews have no interest in forbidding other people from mixing meat and dairy. Protestants don't make a peep about other people eating food off one another's plates. (Just stay away from our plates — that's disgusting.) But Muslims think they can issue decrees about what images can appear in newspaper cartoons. Who do they think they are, liberals? COPYRIGHT 2006 ANN COULTER DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE 4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111