Sunday, October 28, 2007

10/27/07 God doesn't need my help

I have been thinking about God a lot lately and faith in general. I have spent more than 1/3 of my life now, since I became a Christian, defending God and Christianity in general. Why? To bring people to the cause? To help others have a better life? I have studied the bible thoroughly, read other books from Christian authors, and read many stories from the other side, people who have lost their faith and those who never believed. In all of this I have prepared myself for apocrisis... which is the Greek word that means to give an answer. I have answered for what I thought was God on many occasions to many people.

Recently my best-friend and my wife have declared that they no longer believe in God. This brought me to a place where I had to question where I stand. It took no time at all to realize that my faith is based on no one, and no one can shake it. I know God and Christ because I have met them in my own way within the plan that they set up for me.

So why am I even writing about it? i have come to another conclusion while thinking about all of this. I have spent a lot of my life defending God and he does not even need me to. He is infinitely powerful and his creation and deeds speak for themselves. If people cannot see how wonderful the earth and human kind is, and they would rather hold to their cynical view that there is nothing supernaturally beautiful then it is not my job to change them or generate answers to their futile questions.

I have found that most people do not have a problem with God himself, they have a problem with judgmental Christians, the soul grinding/money grubbing/badly organized Christian church, and with the narrow view that belief in Christ is the only way to heaven. I cannot answer most of these questions anyway.

I refuse to defend the church in the first place because I know too much about it. I know how the church takes people in, categorize them and then plugs them into a cookie cutter program to brain wash them rather than teach them to critically think about their faith. If someone truly finds God and opens themselves to communicate with him then they will eventually realize that 90% of the believers around them, while well intentioned, are as Andrew puts it… REDNECKS! The church just fails its followers.

Andrew and Sara are pretty sure that they will eventually get me to come around to the ‘Truth’ that there is nothing, or some quasi nothing. I surround myself with intelligent successful people that I respect, and have been very blessed in that area of my life. However, they all think they are right all the time. Unfortunately, being that intelligent sometimes warps your perspective and makes it difficult for you to question your own motives for lifestyle choices. No one is complete, for every strength there is a weakness my friends.

Back to the point once again… I am not wasting my time with theoretical questions and conversations about God anymore. If someone is in pain, or is receptive to beginning or repairing a relationship with God then I will get in there and help if God wants me to. I am not wasting any more of my words defending and omnipotent being. Controversy does not mean anything to me, popular news and topics to not suck me in, and I do not care about politics. All of these things make it very easy for me to just stay out of the way of people who just want to talk. I want to talk with seekers and people who already believe. I would rather spend my time guiding people who are just getting started or trying to get to the next level, than to have hypothetical discussions with cynics. Good luck to all of my friends… I hope you have a lot of other topics up your sleeve to discuss… You are all smart I am sure you will figure it out.

Monday, October 22, 2007

10/21/07 - 30 Days of Night & Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrells

I decided that from now on I am going to try to review movies that I see, but first things first. This weekend I went to Lodi to visit my parents and also to see the Roo who took a bus down to hang out with me. The traffic on the way to get Roo from the train station was absolutely insane. Sacramento is beautiful and the air is pretty clean... but I still would not live there. I just hate lines and traffic. So after spending 30 minutes within 1 mile of the location I was trying to get to I finally arrived and me and Roo got to act crazy for almost two days. Actually I am pretty sure he is crazy all the time, but I act crazier around him.

Dad, Sara, Roo, and I went to a Chili festival http://www.lodiwine.com/manager2/publish/article_374.shtml
This website sucks based on the size of the event... check out my coverage. http://www.tblpodcast.com/Images/personal/0710ChiliFest/0710ChiliFest.htm
It was great to see the Roo and we had crazy adventures, which included, but were not limited to
1. Attending Chili Festival
2. Hours of talking about crazy junk
3. Hugging Moo-Hat guy
4. Pulling a picture scam on people
5. Almost impulse buying an old Porche
6. Dancing to country music
7. Drinking milk shakes from MOMO's
8. Seeing a movie
9. Eating tons of food at my parents house
10. A whole bunch of driving

30 Days of Night
This horror flick, which is one of my favorite genres, stares Josh Hartnett, and is based in Alaska during a 30 day period where there is no sun. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of this town vampires show up and start eating everyone. The vamps were hideously scary with their celerity and incredible strength. I am always interested when going to see a vampire movie which powers the night stalkers will have. Interview with a vampire had most of them, mind control, celerity, healing, flight, blah blah blah. In this movie the vamps always had their teeth out and only spoke what sounded like Turkish. This was an interesting take, and even though the movie was disjointed in regular comic book fashion the hero of the film makes a great sacrifice to save his friends. In regular horror movie fashion they had a major showdown at the end and the good guys win. But it was left open for a sequel.

The vampires were scary. I love this aspect because that is what horror really comes down to. There were some subplots like a love story that were not very well developed. It was a comic book adaptation after all. After the sun goes down and the vampires show up there is a ton of carnage which looked really good. Blood stained snow, shot up and half dead people, Alaskans getting "turned" into vampires, and bad guys getting their heads cut off.

I give it 3.5 stars our of 5 in a normal movie line up but 4 out of 5 in the horror genre. Decent story plot, but not all fast paced actions, enough plot twists to keep you interested, but there were definitely some holes in the plot line.

The Roo fell asleep during the movie and I had to tell him the ending.

When I got home I finished watching Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. 4 English guys bumble around trying to cut out a big living in the London underground card circuit but get cheated out of 500k on loans in a crooked card game and have to find some way to pay it back in less than a week. There is something like 30 characters in the movie, and Sting plays the father of on of the unlucky young men. In usual fashion for these types of movies almost everyone ends up dead in a strange series of chance, well armed meetings throughout the movie. I was highly entertained by the dry and clever British wit.

The four main characters pool their money and send one player into a very high stakes poker game with 100 thousand quid. One player beats him for all of his money plus 500k in loans by cheating, and requires payment by the end of week but does not think he will get it. The main characters, which include the likes of Jason Statham, decide to rob some guys who are robbing a marijuana dealer. Everything seems to go right and then everything goes very wrong, but in the best way possible for our bumbling hero's.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars overall and a 5 out of 5 for its specific genre, which I am classifying as British comedy action. It is unclear at the end if the hero's get their money back in the form of two antic firearms worth 500k. This movie was filmed wonderfully, had some very surreal moments, had some well developed hardened characters, and made me laugh almost the whole way through.

Can't wait to see "We Own the Night" this week.

Monday, October 15, 2007

10/15/07 - Blog Action Day Baby!

Alright so I really wanted to talk about what was going on in my life and my new iPhone (pros and cons), but I decided to talk about the environment for blog action day ( http://blogactionday.org/ ) since the Roobot was already doing it and it seems like it might get me a few more subscribers. BAM!

So lets talk about the environment. Look I am clearly a black hearted, evil, selfish, greedy capitalist. Anyone that knows me knows that the only thing I care about is money. However, sike! There is no however... that is true. So the problem with the environment is not human kind.... it is human nature. There are all sorts of new car designs and engines that run on corn, but alas the Ford's 2008 vehicle list includes the same old Expedition, which has been around and fuel inefficient from the day it was invented. But wait... Ford is totally doing their part to help the environment because they have released one hybrid model.... out of 16 updated and new 2008 models. Thank god for corporate responsibility.

Now like I said, I am all for companies making a buck. But come on car companies... if you just change your cars, then the oil and gas companies will have to get on board and start exploiting some other resource instead of gas. You never know... you might even stop a war! I am just saying that is all.

That is just a bit about companies... now lets talk about the government that has recently funded the studies that have caused all this hoopla. Please tell me what kind of incentives there are for me to start using solar energy instead of Gas and Electric from the local utility? em... Very little. You can't release a movie starring the incredibly debonair and charismatic Al Gore without following that scare tactic up with some incentives. For goodness sakes. The government paid millions of dollars for the the study to be done and they will not even kick down a reasonable discount for the average consumer to cut down on the cost of a solar heating and power system for their house... average cost for an average system is 13k.

So my conclusion is that companies can make money on other stuff. I think they just want to exploit what they have already been selling till the well runs dry... literally the oil wells that power their vehicles. Second, the government is a two faced bastard that wants to use scare tactics to get people in an up roar about junk melting (like our children's faces in 50 years) but not give us any reasonable incentives to make changes. Listen up useless bureaucratic machine, someone that makes 25k per year, has a family of 6, a car payment, and rents because he cannot get financing to buy a house, can only care about the environment enough to not liter. That is free! Everything above that you are gonna have to give him a big hand. There is a huge percentage of people in that situation... much more than you would think. It is called poverty level. Look it up! Someone in another department in your useless organization defined it for you.

Now lets talk about rich spoiled movie stars that show up to benefits for the environment. I hope they all drive hybrids there. Instead of giving your money to organizations that suck up at least 50% of the donation for overhead, why don't you sponsor 40 families so they can buy a hybrid car or an alternative power system for their house. Seems to me that it would be much more effective that way.

As for me. I will help the environment by driving the most cost effective car with the best gas mileage, walk to the store instead of driving, not put cigarettes out on the polar ice caps, and breath 1/3 as much as I did last year. However, I refuse to stop littering. It gives me an emotional thrill to know that I am beating a 1k ticket and putting one over on the traffic pigs that never catch me... FACE!

BTW... I would really love to have a solar system for my house, if they were more versatile with what they can power, had a better storage system for long term storage of excess solar energy. If you think about it... the sun is the best natural resource that exists and we are totally not using it. That is retarded. Now I am going to be thinking about this depressing crap all week.

Monday, October 8, 2007

10/8/07 - Sanity

So I watched the Amittyville Horror remake this weekend and it occurred to me that I really do not understand sanity. Or rather I really do not understand my own insanity. I think we all have a little insane person inside of us. All of our jealousies, crazy conspiracies, self-centeredness. It reminded me of the book of Ecclesiastes from the bible. It was written by Solomon, apparently the wisest person who ever walked the planet, and in it he repeatedly says that he has explored; happiness and sadness, love and hate, wisdom and foolishness and madness. He explored it all. He had unlimited riches and could explore all things to their fullest.

I think it may be a time in my life that I will explorer madness. Of course I have to do all things in moderation. I do not have an entire kingdom at my disposal to frivolously explore things to the fullest. In the last year I have explored more of the world and selfishness than I have ever done before. I have been foolish, impetuous, selfish, wild, and undisciplined. What does the next year hold?

Being friends with Andrew has helped me quantify this desire to explore all different aspects of life and myself. He is very gung-ho about denying himself nothing, and just living in the moment, and being in contact with his unique brand of exploration has really given me a lot to think about.

So what is sanity? My current understanding is that sanity has to do with you understanding of the reality you live in. So what is insanity? Not connecting with the world around you? What is reality? Isn't it relative anyway? Isn't perception reality? Doesn't that mean that living in your own reality is sanity? If you are logical about exploring sanity does it defeat the purpose? How do you go about altering your perception and reality?

I have decided that the best way to really explore my psyche is to focus myself on some writing. If I write about some really dark or altered things, then maybe that will help me contact the dark insane parts of my own heart. So what should I write about? Maybe just talking about this is crazy. Maybe I am already insane.... Bruhahahahahah!

The funny thing is that I know who I am. I am confident, secure, and stable. Another reason I have decided that I need a really abstract project like this is because I feel like I need to expand my mind in a new way. I enjoy media, books, movies and television soooooo much, but they are really limited ways to exercise your brain and imagination. I really want my mind to continue to grow, and the best way to make that happen is to look at new things, and explore. I do not want my brain to become weak and soft like most of the people in the world around me. I want there to be limitless possibilities.

As you get older it is so easy just to fall into patterns of life and then just live out your life in a rut or on a track. I don't want that for my life. I want new ideas and possibilities on the horizon everyday. I love change. What is a bigger rush than the crazy feeling that the world that you have always known is about to drastically change? The life you have been living for years is going to be turned upside down? Gambling, drugs, booze, and competition do not have anything on the high you get from life changes. The fear, excitement, and confusion that real life brings is the bomb.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

9/30/07 - The Birthday Party

So I am now 28 years old. I do not feel old, but I do have the feeling that I lack in accomplishments. I feel like I should be making at least 200k per year, and should be involved in lots of community business circles. I know that is dumb but it is just something that I feel.

We had a party at Don Perico's. People kept buying me booze and I kept drinking it. The Mic showed up with his family and we took some video of the event. Daniel, Stoney, Sara, and Keeter also showed up. The cards that I received warmed my heart and made me laugh. I had sent out a text message telling everyone that I was challenging Derrek to our annual drunken UFC alley rematch. However, he called and said he was coming to the poker game late so I would be really drunk and never showed. I was ready to beat him down, none of that submission crap this year. I was gonna punch him in the face till he wanted to take a nap. I will get him next year.

The Mic wants to have a really complicated 6 month family competition with over 1k on the line. It involves body fat measurements, short distance running, long distance running, basketball, tennis, hockey, and something else I cannot remember. I am 90% sure it is going to happen but we are still talking about rules and scoring.

So at my birthday poker game I was really drunk and did not stop drinking for quite a while. I felt like I was playing good though. Mixing it up a lot, trying to confuse people, and making really dumb plays to get others to think the alcohol was impairing my playing ability. It worked, I got soooooo much action on my good hands. I feel like I would have taken all the chips on the table is if Sara had not had too much to drink and gotten sick.

I feel bad because the whole time I was telling her to drink and giving her shots, and just being a completely obnoxious drunkard (I only do it a couple times a year, might as well play it up.) So at about midnight, Sara calls to me from the back porch, when I get there she looks confused and the ground is covered in vomit. I sat with her for hours, and she was rambling all sorts of nursing mumbo jumbo about electrolyte balances being thrown off by the consumption of water and vomiting. She was real wasted so we had some super funny conversations. For instance, if Sara could have a mix of two animals it would be a tiger/koala, and she is almost positive she would not kill someone for any amount of money.

So my heart has been extremely saddened by the loss of Dave and Andrew. I had no idea how much I missed them till I recently saw them. I have been moping around the house for a week now trying to keep myself busy with cleaning and accounting work, but alas, it will never be enough. I am sad and I miss them. I am all about brotherly love! There is a type of bond that men have that some people will never have or understand. Not everyone gets to experience it in their lives and I have had the opportunity to experience it 3 times. There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. That companionship is important to me, and it make my life better for having it. Missing it now makes life less bright and shiny.

~Richard