We report, you decide.

http://www.sharperiron.org/forumdisplay.php?f=4

[Listening to: Cantique de Jean Racine - The Cambridge Singers - Requiem and other choral music (06:47)]

A friend played this song for me a few days ago - about brought me to tears when I first heard it. Still does. Its beauty is in its simplicity. This song covers just about every facet of the Christian life from birth to death…and it’s message is so crystal clear that it’s almost impossible to miss…unless you don’t have a pulse. Here is the complete set of lyrics:

Weak and wounded sinner,
    Lost and about to die,
Raise you head,
    For love is passing by.
Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, come to Jesus and live.

Now your burden’s lifted
    And carried far away.
His precious blood
    Has washed away the stain,
So sing to Jesus, sing to Jesus, sing to Jesus and live.

Like a newborn baby,
    Don’t be afraid to crawl;
And remember: when you walk,
    Sometimes we fall,
So fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus and live.

Sometimes the way is lonely
    And steep and filled with pain.
So if your sky is dark,
    And pours the rain,
Then cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus and live.

When the love spills over,
    And music fills the night,
And when you can’t contain
    Your joy inside,
Then dance for Jesus, dance for Jesus, dance for Jesus and live.

And with your final heartbeat,
    Kiss the world goodbye;
And go in peace
    And laugh on Glory’s side.
Then fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus and live. (repeat)

The current count stands at 19, including myself. I’ve been trolling a few blogs, especially since an article came up in our discussion forums internally about blogging at BJ. There’s quite a list there, but I think I’m ahead of the ball. It’s the top category on the left sidebar.

If you’re a current student (or not-as-current but recently graduated or on staff or somehow connected with the school in any way other than “I heard Dr. Bob on Larry King Live a while back,” comment with your site and who you are and how much cash you’re willing to give me to link…No! Wait! Just kidding! Ha ha! I haven’t figured out what kind of impact on the school would be caused by the world knowing everyone who blogs at BJ, but until I do, progress is a good thing, so help me progress. I’ll try to start including RSS links on the sidebar so you can just subscribe (Thunderbird, NewsGator, Firefox, etc.) because not everyone has their RSS feed out in the open. That’s a reprogramming project, though, so it’s not real high-priority unless I get bored.

Comments have been busted on my site for a few days now. I was trying to clean out some errors in my blacklist and ended up blacklisting anyone from BJU from commenting. Not quite what I had intended to do. To make matters worse, I blacklisted myself. Doh! (To be more accurate, I didn’t blacklist myself; the blog blacklisted me as a spammer. This is why people in the IT profession are the ones who hate computers the most, BTW.)

Suffice to say, if you tried commenting in the last week and nothing happened, try again. I was reading a BJ blogger posting on another BJ blogger’s site saying that he had commented on my site leaving a track to an article, but that comment never showed up in this corner. So, Scott, if you would be so good to recomment and continue your “crosspolination,” I think you called it. I disabled the blacklist plugin, and I probably will leave it down until I upgrade to WordPress 1.5 this summer, unless the folks at WP’s support forums can help me get it working again. So, let the commenting begin. And, if you comment and nothing happens for a while, email me at ‘mounty at mountyscorner dot com’ and include your comment - I’ll manually insert it into the database. :shudders:

…driving onto campus at 12:30a and being waved right through the gates, while the SUV behind you is stopped and asked for identification.

…beating the “very easy” level of Smash Brothers for GameCube in twenty minutes.

…spending an evening (spilling into the morning) with “the guys.”

…actually winning at Mario Party…for once in your life.

…spending the day worrying about why you say one thing and the person on the other end of the phone hears something completely different.

…wanting something one week then trying desparately to get out of it the next week.

…hearing a different twist on “Good News/Bad News” - ‘The good news is that I’m gloriously saved and on my way to heaven; the bad news is the gas pump system is down and we’ll have to call the contractor to fix it tomorrow…and it won’t be cheap.’

…hearing the local Linux guru tell you that your wireless network card will never work under Linux.

…wondering if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that you found out this morning the girl you were thinking of asking out is actually pretty well taken by someone else whom you know quite well…good that you found out before making an idiot of yourself, but bad that she’s already taken, you guess. C’est la vie, dirait-on. It’s French; look it up. (Note to friends - no, I’m not telling you who the parties are, and no, I don’t plan on stewing for six weeks like the last time this happened. Call me jaded, call my cynical, call me whatever; but the simple fact is that the best part about being cynical is that you’re nearly always right.)

…blogging at quarter to two…no, make that two on the dot on a Saturday morning. I gotta stop staying up late…

Quite a few of these are actually true of me…most of them, in fact. Guess I’m from Allentown…

You have your friends from other cities come to visit and they hear gun shots and you shrug it off like its no big deal…in fact you didn’t even hear them until you friend pointed it out.

While you’re driving and stop at a red light, the people on all sides of you have the bass turned up so high on their radios your windows start to shake

You get cravings for hoagies, shoo fly pie, and pierogies

Friendlys is considered the place to “be” with all your friends and your always there no matter what time of day or night.

When it snows you put chair’s in your parking spot after you’ve dug it out so ur stupid neighbors don’t steal it from you while your gone.

You see people outside “chillin” on their porches at all hours of the night but during the day its quiet and peaceful

You walk down the street and a car slows down by you and you hear “hey ma!, How ya doin? Holla atcha boy!” and you keep walking and the people in the car yell back “it’s aiight you still beautiful!”

You hear that snow’s coming and you know that you most likely won’t have school the next day or will have a school delay even if there’s barely any accumulation or its mixed with rain

You can name all the high schools in the city. Yup that’s right all of them, you know the 2 public ones (Dieruff and Allen) and the only private one (Central).

You call your group of friends “Da gang”.

You don’t know what a sub is, but you think they are trying to describe an imitation HOAGIE.

You can walk to everything, inculding the supermaket due to how close it is.

When you get bored you go the corner store and see what’s going on there and who’s killed who.

You school is in the middle of drug/killing infested areas and it’s right across from a hospital.

The local Jordan Creek has pot growing around it naturally along with shopping carts and air conditioners.

You live off of A-Treat soda

You don’t think Wawa sounds funny

You pronounce the word horrible as harrable

You think Tastycakes are the best thing

You realize that besides going to the movies and places to eat Allentown really has nothing great to offer, not to the youth anyway.

You refer to Allentown as A-Town

When and IF you graduate from high school you leave for college in another state or go as far from Allentown as possible.

Everyone you meet is Ghetto even that rich white kid.

You think going to Walmart at 3 in the morning is the most fun thing to do ever

You know the time and location of every Wing Night in a 10 mile radius.

You have ever ended a sentence with “a while”. Ex. “You know it happens every once and a while.”

You think Fasnacht Day and Groundhog Day are national holidays.

You know that “long johns” are something you eat, not something you wear

“Hey Yuz Guyz” is your traditional greeting.

You know how to pronounce Schuylkill and other weird names like that.

You sleep soundly through gunfire and ambulance sirens.

More props today to Firefox, specifically for their search bar that is highly customizable. This page contains a link to install the capability to search the ESV Bible by entering a reference in the search bar, and this page shows how to create a quick search so you can type “esv <reference>” and you can go to the reference. So, to look up a passage in the ESV, I simply have to hit F6 to go to the nav bar, type “esv col. 3:16,” and off I go.

The technique described on the second page works for any site that takes arguments, so in theory it’s possible to look up any information with just a keyword. So if you haven’t gotten Firefox yet, join the twenty six million, eight hundred eighty-seven thousand, eight hundred eleven (26.887.811) people who have and make the switch. I have to admit that, as computers go, I’m starting to see the light of open-source. First FF, and now Linux…thanks to a coworker who’s holding my hand (not literally) as I start out with SuSE. But that’s another story for another time.

So now the best browser can look up passages in the best translation. Trippy…

From time to time, we receive administrative prayer requests. Usually these are in-house request for faculty, students, or former staff. This one, though, is of enough global concern that I thought it would be good to put it here. I’m asking Christians who read this to pray for this one:

Our US Senator, Jim DeMint, who represents South Carolina with distinction, has requested prayer for himself and Senator Sam Brownback who leave Thursday, February 24, to visit our troops in Iraq. They will also meet with newly elected Iraqi officials to discuss security issues and religious freedom for Christians under the new constitution.

Senator DeMint is depending on our prayers for them over the next week. Thank you.

The issue of religious freedom in such a Muslim country as Iraq is a sensitive one for Christians, especially Christians in government. Senator DeMint has been to BJ before, has preached in our chapel service on several occasions, and is overall a good friend of the school, going to bat for us when we’ve needed “administrative clout.” We should always be praying for our leaders (I Tim. 2:1-2), but we should be especially diligent when they have a time of more pressing need than usual. I’m sure he appreciates your prayers on his behalf.

For all you IT troubleshooters out there, I’ve found two sites that have proven very helpful in diagnosing problems:

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) codes
Courtesy of a deranged error reporting scheme at Microsoft, Blue Screens of Death (otherwise referred to as the dreaded BSOD) are notoriously difficult to troubleshoot, especially if you didn’t recently put a new piece of hardware in the computer. This site has a list of all the error codes in (mostly) plain English, making life a little easier to live.

Event ID Codes
For those errors that don’t cause BSOD’s but still hamper performance, this site will allow you to take a specific event ID in the Event Viewer (as well as the program that caused the event) and look up the different causes and possible resolutions to the problems as reported by other IT troubleshooters. Great stuff.

If I find any other usefull tools around I’ll be sure to post them. Happy troubleshooting!

This morning’s service on campus was quite good. The Chorale had possibly the best blend I’ve ever heard them sing with, and their song was a personal favorite that I don’t often get to hear - Lord Most Holy by Mark Hayes (I think). Then to hear Dr. Berg, Dean of Students, confirm a conviction I’ve long held in the face of fierce opposition, even here on campus…

My Z Choir buddies have heard this from me before - the stuff that God gave the Israelites in Exodus 16 [+/-] [16:1]They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily." So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, "At evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against the LORD. For what are we, that you grumble against us?" And Moses said, "When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him--what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD." Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, 'Come near before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.'" And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. And the LORD said to Moses, "I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.'" In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.'" And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, "Let no one leave any of it over till the morning." But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.'" So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none." On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the seventh day. Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.'" And Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD to be kept throughout your generations." As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. (An omer is the tenth part of an ephah.) was called “manna” (cf. Ex. 16:15, KJV: “And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was,” which makes absolutely no sense, and the same verse in the ESV: “When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was.”; apparently the Hebrew expression for “What is it?” is man hu, or manna - they named it by their first reaction to the stuff). I believe firmly in my heart of hearts (whatever that means) that God actually rained Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the Israelites every day, because every Sunday morning that Z Choir went out, we’d pick up KK doughnuts, and they would work miracles for our singers: the basses would sing lower and stronger and the tenors would sing lighter and higher. Think about it - small, round, sweet bread-like things = Krispy Kreme doughnut holes! And he said that right from the pulpit! I’m vindicated! Thank you, Dr. Berg!

He also made some excellent points about using technology as it relates to our communication. Key quote (reconstructed from memory): “Technology doesn’t exempt our communication; it only broadens it.” Or something to that effect. His point was that so many blogs (in particular) are simply “mind dumps” - an online stream of consciousness that quite often, even on Christian sites, isn’t at all good communication. He made several pointed references to what I’ll call the “Christian blogosphere” and how Christian bloggers should be careful about how they write. Very good point, and well taken. If you missed that one, check SermonAudio.com in the next few days and get the BJU morning worship service sermon for 2/20/05 by Dr. Jim Berg.

Moving on, apparently quite a stir has been created in recent weeks by Dr. Kevin Bauder’s article on Fundamentalism. Before you boo hoo him, consider that the man is the president of one of the foremost Fundamentalist seminaries in America right now, Central Baptist Theological Seminary. You can read up on him at his official writeup on Central’s site. (This, by the way, is Central in Minneapolis, MN, not to be confused with Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Virginia Beach, VA. I don’t think they’re related, but I could be wrong.) Anyway, he wrote an article that asked a new question - “What specifically in our movement is even worth saving?” See, the question for the past several years has been, “How can we save Fundamentalism?” That the question is changing is an indication of just how far down the tubes Fundamentalism has gone, despite the façade. The popular concept among the veteran leaders is that Fundamentalism, as a movement, is losing its young people to the world - the world’s music, entertainment, philosophies, etc. I would sort of agree with that assessment, though I doubt the losing is as passive as they would believe it to be. Any institution that loses its youth is doomed to marginalization at best, and complete dissolution at worst. But my roommate and I were up until shortly after 1:00a Sunday solving all the world’s problems, and we somehow managed to get on this topic. We came to the conclusion that, while many young people are being lost (or perhaps losing themselves) to the world’s music and entertainment, it’s not quite as simple as that. Many Fundamentalists, including a good number of Bible College students, are “rejecting” their parents’ “traditional values” (I speak from the parents’ point of view) because they’re starting to think for themselves. I know I personally have drifted to some degree from my upbringing (not too far, but enough that I can occasionally engage in a mild, “still friends when all is said and done” debate with my dad over theological interpretations). Most notably was the time I was told (not by him) that, because I came out and said that I believed in unconditional election (Calvinism, to a point), I had rejected my parents’ teaching. (In point of fact, I had heard of none of these “major” controversies that have our movement in a death grip until my sophomore year of college, so it could be said that I had never received any teaching on why Calvinism is a heretical life-sucking force [erm…no] or why the King James is quite supreme to any modern version [erm…definitely not] at all.) This is one example of a handful in my own life that, when combined with the same things that have happened to a number of friends of mine, have led me to believe that a major problem with the Establishment is that it doesn’t think for itself. A sizable chunk of our pastors have simply been taught which view to believe, then tested over those, cementing interpretations as doctrines. An even greater number of our laity are just as bad, taking everything they hear from a “trusted source” as gospel truth. It’s only been recently that the younger generation have started thinking for themselves and realizing a great number of things: that there are Christians who are by no means “Fundamentalists;” that maybe it’s okay for our music to be peppy and upbeat; that maybe it’s okay to work with Campus Crusade or some other non-Fundamentalist organization if no other choice exists. And I’m not talking about my personal beliefs on these; the few things I listed are samples of where conservative Evangelicals are heading.

History is an unalterable force, something to be repeated over and over again. “All of this has happened before; all of this will happen again” is an apt way of putting it. Three hundred fifty years ago the Puritans took a long look at their establishment and decided that they would stay in the Anglican church in an attempt to, as their name would suggest, purify it. The Brownists (what we Americans would later generically term “Pilgrims” took the opposite tack and cut out. Fifty years ago, Dr. Harold Ockenga took a long look at his establishment and decided that he would stick around in a rapidly decaying Evangelicalism and attempt to reform it through scholasticism and dialogue with unbelievers. Other leaders within Evangelicalism decided to pull out and form their own little movement, which they called “Fundamentalism.” And I (and quite a few others) think that once the current generation of leaders is off the scene, or perhaps sooner, the same thing will happen again. It’s entirely possible that the crop of thinking Fundamentalists who have “rejected the faith of their parents and teachers” after carefully studying Scripture and coming to different conclusions will take a long look at Fundamentalism and decide to pull out of what is even today rapidly becoming filled with unscripturally deviant teachings and people who consider separating from believers a sport or game. I believe that eventually we’ll see a more moderate Fundamentalism emerge which marginalizes a great deal of the negative aspects of Fundamentalism today - a sort of “new fundamentalism,” or Neo Fundamentalism, if you will. At the same time, there’s a sort of shift in the current New Evangelical crowd. People like John MacArthur, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, and a few other movers and shakers within New Evangelicalism are starting to get the idea that perhaps their movement has gone a little too far. Even the Southern Baptist Convention has been taking steps in recent years to pull back into a little more conservative mindset.

Where’s this headed? Give it thirty to forty years, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Neo Fundamentalists emerge from today’s Fundamentalist camp and get a little closer to mainstream. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see a chunk of current New Evangelicals distance themselves from the more liberal parts of their movement and come closer to mainstream. Might the two merge, the Neo Fundamentalists joining their brothers from whom they were separated for almost a century? I think it’s too early to tell. It’s just as possible that the idealism of today’s youth and the desire to reform Fundamentalism will either die out cynically; or perhaps they’ll get a dose of maturity mingled with laziness and figure that it’s not all that important.

If history has anything to show us, it’s that while groups will continue to break themselves down into ever-smaller and more distinct clumps, those clumps will continue merging with others of similar beliefs to form a super-critical mass of barely-tolerated beliefs that will hold for a generation or two, at which time that mass will split apart into two or three smaller clumps, and the process will start all over again. So I think I’m on good ground to say that the time is coming when, for all our majoring on separation, mainstream Fundamentalism will probably merge with a large chunk of mainstream Evangelicalism for a century or two…if the Lord tarries. Then again, we could all be called home to heaven this evening and not have to worry about it. (”John Calvin? St. Augustine? What are you doing in heaven? I thought you were heretics!!!”)

Microsoft is recalling a ton of power cords from Xboxes sold worldwide. PCWorld is where I got the information; more can be found in that article. In short, if you live outside Europe and your unit was manufactured before October 23, 2003, you’re affected. For my very few European visitors, if yours was made anytime before January 13, 2004, you’re affected. More information about this recall is in the article, including a link to Microsoft’s Xbox site. Apparently not many people have had troubles, but enough to warrant action have called in.

One of the problems we’ve been facing at work was the problem of Remote Desktop breaking when WinXP SP2 is installed on a computer. This is very annoying for us techs, because now we have to hike around campus (or check out a vehicle if the computer’s off-site) just to change one setting in Internet Explorer, for example. One of our guys spent a few hours fooling with settings of all sorts trying to get it to work, but he apparently didn’t Google first (remember: Google Groups knows all!) because the answer was right there. For anyone else who doesn’t want to sort through Google to get Remote Desktop to work under Windows XP service pack 2, here’s what I did:

1. Find a system that’s running XP SP1 and download his c:\windows\system32\termsrv.dll file. (Alternatively, get it here.)
2. added: Move that file to the root of the hard drive.
3. added: Reboot the target computer and hit F8 during the startup - you want to boot to Safe Mode with Command Prompt.
4. Navigate to the c:\windows\system32 folder of the system you want to patch.
5. changed: Delete the termsrv.dll file.
6. Copy the SP1 termsrv.dll file into the directory.
7. added: Navigate to the c:\windows\system32\dllcache folder and repeat the last two steps.
8. added: If you have a c:\windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 folder, you’ll need to repeat those two steps for this directory as well.
9. Restart.

That did it for me. I even turned the firewall on and the exception for remote desktop off, and it still works. Granted, this probably creates other holes you have to worry about (if you’re really worried about people trying to hack in using Remote Desktop), and you may have to recopy this dll after any patches are put on, so my suggestion would be to keep it around on a USB key or something (aren’t those things great?) just in case.

EDIT: please note some strange things:

First, every other computer I tried this one, Windows deleted the old one and replaced it with the new one, and it did so quietly. I think this is a security feature designed to prevent virii or other malicious code snippets from doing exactly what I’m trying to do. I did, however, figure out a way to do it, and I’ve changed the documentation above to match the correct working way. This, incidentally, should work for build 2055 of the DLL, distributed with the SP2 beta RC2, that allows a user to have multiple concurrent terminal sessions. Second, if you want to live dangerously, you might try hitting Flag+F to search for files, make sure that you’re searching in hidden and system folders, and search for termsrv.dll. You’ll want to replace them in the following order: c:\windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 (overwrite), c:\windows\system32\dllcache (overwrite), and then c:\windows\system32 (rename the old file, copy the new file, restart, delete old file). May or may not work, but I don’t have enough SP2 guinea pigs around here to test out each method. The 9-step above will work all the time; the shortcut I just listed may work, and it may not. There’s almost no chance it’ll mess up your system, but keep a copy of the new DLL around just in case. Finally, Windows may yell at you when you overwrite the DLL, depending on your security settings. Just keep hitting “no” or “cancel” to whatever box you see - you want to overwrite the file and you don’t want to restore it from the original CD or anything like that.

Questions? Comment or email me.

You know, over the past few months, so many people that I’ve emailed at one time or another have come up to me and commented in some way about my site. Even people that I don’t think I’ve ever met before (nod to ‘kaimilani,’ whom I met Sunday afternoon and who heretofore thought I was just another one of zacfoo’s imaginary friends) have been at my corner, hopefully laughing or nodding thoughtfully…or maybe doing both at the same time, difficult as that may sound. With that in mind, I have absolutely no idea who else that I know is a silent reader. Without a guestbook (which I may yet install) I have no real way of knowing. I mean, I could browse through my IP address logs and find who has been visiting from campus (since all compuers here have the same start to their IP addresses), then look them up on our nameserver, then track the computer name to a person. And since I don’t have any classes tomorrow, I may yet do that. (Update: I did, and only found 3 BJU addresses, one of which I’m assuming is mine. On the other hand, someone at the Department of Defense, specifically at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, is reading my blog. Wow.) Regardless, I probably have friends who are finding out more about me than I perhaps intended, so that’s fine, too. Maybe you’ll tell me later if you haven’t already. C’mon, stroke my ego!

Today is an interesting day in the calendar. Most calendars mark it as “St. Valentine’s Day.” A little background reading on St. Valentine shows that there were, in fact, at least two Saint Valentines, both of which were martyred under Roman persecution of Christianity in the mid-third century. Further study shows that the good folks of the Middle Ages noted that (I swear I’m not making this up) birds generally mated on February 14th of each year. I’m not certain which is worse - that they even noticed this or that they bothered to mark down the day each year. (”Honey! Those robins are at it again! It must be February 14th, because that’s seventeen years straight in the same tree on the same day!”) On that note, I still don’t find anything celebratory about this particular day. Being the stoic guy that I am (you can feel free to substitute just about any word there, as long as you don’t tell me), I have never had occasion on Valentine’s Day to celebrate. (That statement allows for that one Valentine’s Day where, had things gone ideally, I would have been celebrating the next Valentine’s Day, which I think would be today, but that’s entirely another story.) Instead, I celebrate the day as “S.A.D.” Over-glum bachelors (and bachlorettes, I suppose) take this to mean “Singles’ Awareness Day,” as if the very day is a painful reminder of their status. I and a few friends, however, choose to call it “Singles’ Appreciation Day.” Has a more perky ring to it, huh? Anyway, we so call it because tonight we’re going out to Starbucks to spend the money we would have spent on our girlfriends on ourselves instead. And, since we’re all GAs, we can do it at 10:30 when all the couples have to say their teary farewells for eight whole hours until they see each other again at breakfast.

On a related note, a married friend of mine raised an interesting question at lunch: “Why do guys always want these romantic dinners dark? Don’t they want to see their beautiful date?” She makes an interesting point; not having any particular experience in romantic dinners, I can’t say for sure. Maybe one’s vision improves after finding “her.” All I can say is, I’ve got what passes as 20-20 vision, at least by PennDOT standards, so I guess I’ll never know.

Finally, a shout-out to all those bachelors (you know who you are) who are fighting off, not the pretty girls in their late 20s looking desparately for a husband, but those girls’ mothers in their mid 50s who want their daughters OUT OF THE HOUSE. I feel for you, bro(s). I also laugh with you; unless you’re not laughing, in which case I laugh at you…’cuz it’s just so funny.

World Peace Herald

Just days after North Korea became the world’s first mental ward armed with nuclear weapons, China (who we all know is looking out for the safety and peace of the world) announced that it would bring N. Korea to talks to remove those weapons. I find so many funny things about this. The first is N. Korea’s reasoning for weapons and the United States’ response to that reason. N. Korea said it was worried about threats to its borders and was using its nukes as a deterrent to anyone that might think to attack. The U.S. scoffed at this reason…but why does the U.S. keep nukes on hand? Could it be as a detterent? So here’s a superpower telling a mental ward that what’s good for the goose is definitely wrong for the gander. Patriotic as I am, that’s a weak argument. Second, we’ve got China acting out of the goodness of its heart? Excuse me while I stop laughing. First, China has its own nukes - neither they nor anyone else has credibility to stand up and say, “See, you don’t really need these things to assure your own peace and safety.” This whole conference, on that point, is probably useless. Second, what are they worried about? They’re both Communist. One might be more radical than the other, but they both sleep, if not in the same bed, then at least in the same room. The worst that could happen is that they could see secondary effects from wind-blown radioactive debris…and we know China generally doesn’t care about the people of its country as long as the people in question aren’t in the ruling class. Third, since when has China done anything because they want to help the good ol’ U.S. of A.? On the flip side, it’s entirely possible they’re worried about MFN status and are trying to cozy up to Bush. The finaly funny thing I see in this is the patronizing tone that China’s taking. “Oh, you couldn’t do anything to get them to stop? Don’t you worry about a thing. Uncle China will make sure the mean old North Koreans treat you nice, you hear?” I still think the military attitude of other countries thinking they’re all big and bad is really humorous, when you think about it. What good does a standing army of one million do you when you have no way of getting them overseas? China’s air force? Pretty much Cold-War-era Russian yard sale leftovers. China’s Navy? A few submarines here and there, but you can’t transport a million ground troops underwater. The United States’ air force, on the other hand? Bases in just about every country on the map with a fleet of transport planes that can get our soldiers anywhere on the planet in 12 hours. Our Navy? Just talking about the aircraft carriers is enough - floating cities with their own zip codes. Portable military bases, if you want to think of them that way. So many other nations are cocky about their military, thinking that they can stand in the same class as the US when it comes to military matters, but they’re so very wrong. And because they think they’re all that, they think they can adopt a patronizing tone with us. News flash: the US is in a class by itself, all things considered.

In Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, towards the end of the collection, an accident causes Australia’s nuclear arsenel to go up all at once, vaporizing the continent. I keep wondering of something like that might happen to N. Korea. I wonder how the world would respond…

You think parking at your place is bad? Try getting a parking space in downtown Greenville anytime after 6pm. Wow. The parking is designed for a city of 10,000…unfortunately Greenville is a city of 300,000 (I think). 290,000 of them can be found downtown on any given evening, where the motto is, “Why should rush hour be just an hour long?” Seriously, the streets are wall-to-wall cars, especially when someone is pulling out of those little angled parking spaces, and a driver is waiting to take the space, causing all 64 cars behind him to come to a complete stop through two red lights, which means that the cross streets are also backed up. Think I’m joking? Come down here and see for yourself. I have no idea where I ended up parking. I don’t think the street has a name. I’m not even sure I’m legal, because that part of the street was oddly devoid of cars, and there was a metal sign face-down on the pavement. I hope it wasn’t anything important. If so, that tax refund is going to end up becoming a lot smaller than I was planning on having available.

I’m glad to report that my weekend is finally here. Sure, I’ve got choir and one class Friday, but that’s no reason to think of Friday as a school day. It’s too easy of a day, and as long as work tomorrow is as quiet as it was today, it’ll be an easy day to get through. So what are my big plans? Sleep. Besides that, I’m not sure. I understand there’s a Vespers…again…maybe. Come to think of it, I’m not sure there is. Oh well - I’ll figure it out Sunday. Hopefully they’ll announce it. In other news, I was witnessed to on the street this evening trying to find my way from whatever passed as a parking space to Port City. Phi Beta’s out in force for street witnessing - semper fi, boys. Keep it up.

Today’s topic is being relevant, and the preceeding was a perfect example of what not to do to be relevant. (I feel a rant coming on.) A lot of blogs I’ve seen, mostly those run by those middle- and high-school girls that, if we are to believe the Greenville Journal, dominate the blogosphere, are nothing more than a personal record of their thoughts through the day. This is drivel. Now, there’s something to be said for people who blog because they’re far away from their friends, and they’re trying to fill their friends in on their lives. This is good, because I have a few friends who fit this description, and their “journals” are a great way to catch up with them. I mean, at least it cuts down the “So! …How was your summer?” questions that come up every single August when students return to school. I never had to ask some people how their summers went, because with a combination of email and blogging, I knew just about everything of note that happened to them. I’d be sitting with someone, drinking coffee or soda or whatever we happened to have on hand, and I’d say, “So, did you hear about such-and-such?” He’d reply, “Yeah…you blogged about it.” That was the extent of my catching up with some people. But I’m not talking about that, despite the fact that I spent the last five minutes talking about it. I’m (supposed to be) talking about people who post things on the internet that everyone they know, except maybe their parents, is already aware of. Blogging is for most a way to say stuff that they’d never say out loud. But this is sounding like something I wrote late last night, so just keep reading on this page and eventually you’ll see more of what I’m saying. (Are you as confused as I am yet?)

Hmm…what was I talking about, again? Oh yeah, relevance. I try to make all my stuff relevant to people I know. And apparently my page rank on Google of 3 means that I’m not totally useless. (Actually, I just read that at a page rank of 4 I could conceivably start making money from my site. Something to shoot for. I should start a concerted Googlebomb effort. Anyone want to help?) It’s actually kinda funny - people are starting to search for their names on my site. Some are searching quite a few times each month. Well, I don’t know who’s searching for what. I do know that one name has been searched for five times on this site, and if it was from the person whose name is being searched…but who am I to pass judgment?

So, for my on-campus peeps, consider me you source of an alternative viewpoint. For the off-campus BJ people, I’m your hookup for news with a twist. And for everyone else, I’ll simply say that I’m sure your workplace is just as quirky when you take an outsider’s look at it, too.

Am I relevant? Find me in Google and see.

Free things are wonderful. Regardless of what you think of Dr. R.C. Sproul, discerning readers will always get something at least out of his stuff. One of the top-ranked Evangelical blogs out there is holding a giveaway of the Reformation Study Bible or Sproul’s The Holiness of God book. You can click here to enter the contest for yourself. Might as well, right?

It’s been quite some time since I’ve watched anything that was at once inspiring, logical, and downright frightening. This flash file is just that. Mad props to zacfoo for pointing this out to me.

EDIT: this is apparently a lot bigger than I realized. Here is a transcript of the whole thing, including links to anything that has happened up until this point. In case the Georgia Tech link goes down, there are also mirrors for this on different servers at the bottom of that page. More props to Poss-dawg for pointing out that the ID Card that shows up halfway through the thing is for some dude named “Winston Smith,” whom literary fans will recognize as the protagonist in George Orwell’s 1984 - the minor cleric who turned against Big Brother and became a Thought Criminal, only to sickeningly turn back to Big Brother at the end of the book (quite possibly the most depressing story I’ve ever read, Poe and Dante notwithstanding). I don’t know if that’s anything significant, but with such an intelligent layout to the whole thing I have a hard time believing it was mere accident. At least the Winston Smith in this short doesn’t live in London. The whole thing is optimistically Orwellian in design, so I’m pretty sure the name was intentional. Snaps to the folks that did this.

Really observant regulars may notice that I’ve gone full-screen. If you have Firefox and the Web Developer extension, go ahead and resize the page. Failing that, just un-maximize the window and start playing with the width. Notice anything? My middle area grows and shrinks depending on how wide the screen is. I just found out this afternoon that there was such a thing as a “liquid” layout which will never, ever leave horizontal scroll bars on your screen, even at 640×480 (tested it). So mounty’s corner is now liquid. Speaking of liquid, I think it’s time for me to drain myself into bed. Maybe this will be the night that I get to sleep before 1am. Maybe.

As I was sitting at Port City last night with my good friend Stu and explaining the joys of WordPress, I saw a copy of the Greenville Journal sitting around. The frontpage article dealt with blogging and the impact it has had on teenagers of this generation. Very interesting stuff, and I was surprised to see how much their experiences and feelings reflected my own when I blog. I thought it was noteworthy enough to blog about blogging, so here goes.

According to the article, a solid half of all bloggers are teenagers (defined, I suppose, by “high schoolers”). The appeal is that I can be a completely different person online than in person. The quietest person in real lifecan be a roaring lion online, and not many people would know the difference. It provides an outlet for their deep-seated thoughts and feelings that a generation ago were kept in locked diaries under mattresses. There is a danger to this - not to be mean, but people, especially teenagers, lack the objectivity to see how their posted content affects others and themselves. Now, rest assured, when I say something, I’ve thought through the ramifications, and have come to the conclusion that either a.) I won’t be affected, or b.) I don’t care how I will be affected (there’s probably a C and D in there, too). Okay, I make some goofs that a few editors in my life point out to me one way or another, but I’m nowheres near some of the sample blogs listed in the Journal. Here’s an article about a 13-year-old girl (!) waxing as eloquent as a 13-year-old girl can about how she wants to stay single this Valentine’s Day (otherwise known as Singles Awareness Day, or just plain S.A.D.). Here’s a 14-year-old girl going on about a rather confusing love…something. Let’s see…there are at least five people mentioned in this tangled web. Sorry, but 14-year-olds should not even have boyfriends or girlfriends, much less be caught up in love pentagons. Here’s another high school student who has a mortal fear of eating and talks about how she was forced to eat (poor girl) but “purged” it, as if her mother will never find out. Probably several hundred will find out before her, but I’m sure mom will eventually figure it out, dearie. The crowning article is from a 17-year-old girl who apparently had a good time one evening, though I think her memories of it are suspect. I quote:

So we hung out and played pool fun stuff. Then once his parentals went to bed we got some beer. (I actually got vodka since beer is nasty) lol anyway, my friend got pretty drunk and was saying stupid [stuff]… But it was pretty funny. I was soo tired that after a couple shots of russian vodka I was feeling a little woozy and just stumbling a teeny bit but I was fine [emphasis mine - after a couple (may I assume that means more than two?) shots of straight vodka she’s only a little tipsy? Perhaps she’s still feeling it?]. Anyway about 1 in the morning I realized that I had to go home [no duh!] but it was cold so (a friend) suggested I drive his parents camry. So we all load up in his car and I drive to my house. It was greeaat fun! lol! That little car sould even reach 60 if I had that thing floored. But everyone made it alive and no one died so I say it was a successful. [A successful what?]

I’m not sure what in this entry is more appalling - her handle (or lack thereof) on grammer, spelling, and punctuation; the fact that she was only a little woozy after at least two hits of vodka, which tends to put anyone but Russians on the floor; the fact that she then drive a Camry 60 mph with her blood alcohol content likely through the roof; or the fact that she thinks living through the whole thing was just icing on the cake. Come to think of it, not one article in the whole mess is flattering at all. Just going by the Journal, you’d think that blogging serves no useful purpose except to provide teenagers the ability to speak their mind to everyone in the world except those that actually need to hear what they have to say. The only one who showed the slightest bit of restraint simply said she wouldn’t go into details “because it’s something people don’t want to hear about.” Otherwise, these are stereotypical teens, spouting off out of ignorance or anger to anyone that will listen…or, in this case, read.

There are dangers - most teens, while certainly computer-saavy, aren’t there enough to run their own site - setting up the server and MySQL databases, installing a blog package, and modifying the PHP and CSS to suit what they want. They usually go for the subdomain package - myblog.somehostingserver.com - like Xanga or LiveJournal. Those places have personal profiles - fill out your age, location, gender, etc., and post it for the world to see. Enter perverts of all stripes who harvest this information and who occasionally use it to prey upon the weak. Which is why when I’m forced to fill out those things, I generally put that I was born sometime in 1915 and that I’m in some profession limited to the 20-30 age group. It’s a riot - I end up being 90-year-old stock trader from Tumbleweed Junction, Kansas. If anyone ever looks at that information, I hope they get a good laugh.

In short, we here (I speak using the royal plural) at mounty’s corner strive to bring a balance of actual semi-relevant news stories mixed with our usual dry, sarcastic, and sometimes unapparent sense of humor. Which is why, if you’re offended by anything you read, we’re trying to be funny; otherwise pretty much everything we say is somewhat serious, unless it’s not. Got that? Sure……

[Listening to: Fuerchte dich nicht (BWV 228) - Philippe Herreweghe - Grands Motets (08:31)]

It’s over. The miracle-ridden season for the Philadelphia Eagles is done, at least for now. The Eagles lost a heart-breaker 24-21 to New England in Super Bowl 39. But you know what? I’m not all that ticked about it. We made it past the NFC Championship barrier. We were the underdogs (seven point underdogs, for that matter), and we only lost by three. Both teams played an excellent football game…sort of. Here’s mounty’s thumbs up and thumbs down from the night:

Thumbs Up

• …to Terrell Owens for a fast-paced recovery and a good solid game, broken ankle notwithstanding.
• …to the Eagles for never giving up, even when things looked absolutely unrecoverable
• …to Greg Martin, Bryan Westbrook, and Todd Pinkston for stepping up all season and especially tonight to fill in for T.O.
• …to both teams for playing an excellent, fast-paced, well-matched game in all respects

Thumbs Down

• …to Donovan McNabb for losing his concentration at the end of the game. Even with under a minute left on the clock, he could have marched downfield, or at least ran a few more plays than he did. Instead he blew his concentration and went to the huddle with essentially no time left on the clock, and he chucked an INT that sealed the game for New England
• …to both teams for playing an absolutely wretched first quarter
• …to New England for winning

Yes, that’s right - I just gave a big fat two thumbs down to New England for winning. I don’t care about their “dynasty.” I don’t care about Bellichek being a “better” coach than Vince Lombardi (I can’t believe people have the grit to say those names in the same sentence). I’m (almost) from Philly. Let me explain Philly sports fans by citing a few examples:

• Cowboys’ WR Michael Irving meets the unforgiving turf of Veteran’s Stadium and suffers a career-ending concussion. Philly fans give a standing ovation when he goes down and boo when he gets back up.
• Philly fans boo Santa Claus at a home game.
• Philly fans regularly turn on even the most beloved players in their own organization.

Why that last point? Because Philly fans aren’t fans of the team (made up of players); they’re fans of the organization (the name of the franchise). And when a darling (Eric Lindros) makes the organization (the Flyers) look bad, fans of the organization (the Flyers) turn, sometimes violently, against the ex-darling (Eric Lindros). I don’t see what’s so hard about this, but apparently one has to be from Philly to understand. To the outsider, Philly fans are rough, hard-to-please, and very unsportsmanlike. To someone in the know, though, Philly fans are extremely passionate about the organizations they love, and nothing, not even the team captain, is allowed to make the organization look bad and get away with it. So, I leave you readers with this:

Both teams played an excellent game, and it wasn’t until the last minute that the game was finally over. If anyone tries telling me that Philly choked somehow, or that Philly played a horrible game, or in any way disrespects my team, I will take it as a personal insult, as any phan would. Be warned, then, that I will not take any bad-mouthing of my team, especially not by over-puffed NE fans on their “dynasty” kick. New England won, and they did it not because they were better, but because they made fewer mistakes. I’m willing to admit, though, that NE won fair and square, but I will not tolerate any talk that NE dominated Philly, or anything that somehow intimates that NE is vastly superior to Philly.

So, no sportsmanlike “congrats” from me to NE fans. All I gotta say is, you want your dynasty, you’re going to have to fight for it next year. Peace.

[Listening to: Chichester Psalms: Ps. 131 [+/-] [131:1]O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.; 133:1 - Leonard Bernstein - Bernstein Conducts Bernstein (09:44)]