Right now, I am sitting on my couch with a bowl of soup. Now, this shouldn't come as a surprise, given the name of this journal. What is different about this, is that this soup came from some friends of my family who are looking after us since my dad had surgery.
Today has been an amazing example of just how good God is to us.
Most of you probably know that we are moving to Illinois this summer, (and to those of you who don't know, you haven't been paying attention have you?) In our moving process, we've needed the help of a lot of people. While Kyle and I are away at school, mom is at home, trying to do it all. That's just not healthy. I don't think anyone could expect her to pack an entire house by herself.
There have been so many people willing to step up and lend a hand. I know that the men's ministry from our church came by one day to help do a lot of heavy lifting and moving, things that my mom probably couldn't do. We have had somewhere around three meals dropped at our house, just a few days after dad's surgery. We're allowed to store a bunch of our household junk in a friends storage garage while we try and pack up. Today, a friend came over to fix our broken attic door.
I take this entire time as an example of how God helps out those who need him. I can't count the number of times mom has come home and said that something was a God moment. It's all these little that add up to help. I know that we still ave some big needs, like selling our house soon. God will work in those moments when we need Him, and He'll work big, that's no surprise. But it's finding Him in these little moments, always helping, that really encourages me.
All the awesome people God has brought into our life is amazing. And they definitely balance out all the troublemakers that we've had to deal with.
Just something to chew on.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Humans Bad, Blarg, Blarg, Blarg!
Recently I picked up a copy of Mass Effect from Bioware. It's a "space epic" that lets you play as Commander Shepherd and pick how you save the galaxy. So far it's been a good game. It's got its flaws, but I might get into that at a later time. There is one thing that I've noticed, and it intrigues me.
Aliens are really xenophobic jerks aren't they?
A big idea so far in Mass Effect, is that many of the aliens don't think that humans are worth anything. They think that, for some reason or another, humans are lowly, under-evolved wastes of space. Of course, the whole thing about your character being human is to work with all your little alien buddies to save the galaxy and prove how worthwhile your species is.
Hooray for noble quests and the heroes journey and all that. I take a bit of an issue with all the racial hate flying around like jumping beans in a tumble dryer. There really seems to be no bounds for any of the accusations flying from either side. All the races seem pretty similar in most respects. Your party has one member from about four races, and despite some different focus areas, they all seem pretty much alike. Given, they all have different back stories and such, but in combat, they all get the job done. If Bioware was going to focus so much on the differences of race, they should have done some drastic things among the characters that you deal with.
As far as conflicts go, I prefer the one in Bioware's other epic, Dragon Age. There, despite all the internal conflicts, racism, and all that, there is still an overarching enemy threat that everyone has to deal with. I like the dark spawn because their motives aren't based on some poor excuse for superiority. They're evil, they want everyone dead, not too hard to understand. The antagonist of Mass Effect has that kind of ego problem, viewing the humans as so slowly. To me, it is hard to really want him dead based on his motives. Dragon Age has a demon that wants to wipe out humanity for its own evil reasons, cool, I can deal with that. But Mass Effect's villian is just kind of a tosser.
In a lot of the science fiction I've seen, this seems to be a real problem. There's always some kind of race superiority going on, whether it is by the humans, or the aliens. Either way, I feel that this is a really flimsy conflict to try and resolve. I like the idea of some kind of evil that is easy to identify, an evil overlord, demonic dragon, mutant broccoli, something. To just say that all members of race X are weak and deserve death isn't really a strong plot. All in all, I guess you could take this as a overarching complaint against all racism.
Interesting end note, the main cannon fodder for the game are robots. They're fine with all the hate speech, but they won't let you shoot the aliens? Odd.
Just something to chew on.
Aliens are really xenophobic jerks aren't they?
A big idea so far in Mass Effect, is that many of the aliens don't think that humans are worth anything. They think that, for some reason or another, humans are lowly, under-evolved wastes of space. Of course, the whole thing about your character being human is to work with all your little alien buddies to save the galaxy and prove how worthwhile your species is.
Hooray for noble quests and the heroes journey and all that. I take a bit of an issue with all the racial hate flying around like jumping beans in a tumble dryer. There really seems to be no bounds for any of the accusations flying from either side. All the races seem pretty similar in most respects. Your party has one member from about four races, and despite some different focus areas, they all seem pretty much alike. Given, they all have different back stories and such, but in combat, they all get the job done. If Bioware was going to focus so much on the differences of race, they should have done some drastic things among the characters that you deal with.
As far as conflicts go, I prefer the one in Bioware's other epic, Dragon Age. There, despite all the internal conflicts, racism, and all that, there is still an overarching enemy threat that everyone has to deal with. I like the dark spawn because their motives aren't based on some poor excuse for superiority. They're evil, they want everyone dead, not too hard to understand. The antagonist of Mass Effect has that kind of ego problem, viewing the humans as so slowly. To me, it is hard to really want him dead based on his motives. Dragon Age has a demon that wants to wipe out humanity for its own evil reasons, cool, I can deal with that. But Mass Effect's villian is just kind of a tosser.
In a lot of the science fiction I've seen, this seems to be a real problem. There's always some kind of race superiority going on, whether it is by the humans, or the aliens. Either way, I feel that this is a really flimsy conflict to try and resolve. I like the idea of some kind of evil that is easy to identify, an evil overlord, demonic dragon, mutant broccoli, something. To just say that all members of race X are weak and deserve death isn't really a strong plot. All in all, I guess you could take this as a overarching complaint against all racism.
Interesting end note, the main cannon fodder for the game are robots. They're fine with all the hate speech, but they won't let you shoot the aliens? Odd.
Just something to chew on.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Annoyances: "Mischief Makers"
For those of you who were hoping for an old N64 reference, you'll be sadly disappointed (that'll come another day.) This is the start of a pointless look at people types that annoy me. I'm sure my faithful readers are just dying to know about these little snippets, so why not oblige them. If anything, this is just a chance to clear my head a bit.
Don't try to be mischievous, especially if there is no believable way anyone think you could.
I've run into a few people like this is my few years. Some kids think that they're crafty or mischievous, and they try and tell everyone just how clever they are. They think they're pranksters, the kind of kids who are the class clowns and can pull off the tricks reminiscent of an episode of Recess.
Here's the thing. Every kid I've made that has made this claim, has been completely wrong. The most mischievous thing they have ever done was getting away with wearing two different colored socks. To them, there a diabolical mastermind, to the rest of us, they're just sad nuisances.
I know that this doesn't sound like it's a big deal, I'm just easily annoyed right? Wrong (shut up, it's true). With these kind of people, we have kids trying to be what they aren't and believing it. I suppose you could say that this is a general problem with most people. The reason I can make this category for people is because of how much they talk about it. Interestingly enough, I've never heard any one of them actually talk about their pranks, they just like to say things like, "I have to do [insert inane task] so I don't cause any mischief." Phrases like that make me think that they even realize that what they're saying is worthless, but they're still trying to pass it off as who they are.
So, on a whole, I people who aren't real bother me, but I can go into far greater detail on that another time (and I probably will.)
On a side note, I'm a fan of pranks, just like anyone else, just don't do one to me. Seriously, I will end you....
Just something to chew on.
Don't try to be mischievous, especially if there is no believable way anyone think you could.
I've run into a few people like this is my few years. Some kids think that they're crafty or mischievous, and they try and tell everyone just how clever they are. They think they're pranksters, the kind of kids who are the class clowns and can pull off the tricks reminiscent of an episode of Recess.
Here's the thing. Every kid I've made that has made this claim, has been completely wrong. The most mischievous thing they have ever done was getting away with wearing two different colored socks. To them, there a diabolical mastermind, to the rest of us, they're just sad nuisances.
I know that this doesn't sound like it's a big deal, I'm just easily annoyed right? Wrong (shut up, it's true). With these kind of people, we have kids trying to be what they aren't and believing it. I suppose you could say that this is a general problem with most people. The reason I can make this category for people is because of how much they talk about it. Interestingly enough, I've never heard any one of them actually talk about their pranks, they just like to say things like, "I have to do [insert inane task] so I don't cause any mischief." Phrases like that make me think that they even realize that what they're saying is worthless, but they're still trying to pass it off as who they are.
So, on a whole, I people who aren't real bother me, but I can go into far greater detail on that another time (and I probably will.)
On a side note, I'm a fan of pranks, just like anyone else, just don't do one to me. Seriously, I will end you....
Just something to chew on.
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