“It’s not that we are sinners because we sin,
but rather, we sin because we are sinners…”

Robin has started a fotolog.

The trailer (9MB Quicktime) for The Return of the King has been released. You might also be interested in The Fanimatrix (70MB DivX), a fan-made story set in the Matrix universe, and Duality (24MB DivX), a fan-made story set in the Star Wars universe.

“Now – here is my secret. I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I will ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God – that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.” – Douglas Coupland

“My life looks good, I do confess.
You can ask anyone.
Just don’t ask my real good friends,
‘cause they will lie to you.
Or worse, they’ll tell the truth.

‘Cause there are things you would not believe
that travel into my mind.
I swear I try and capture them,
but I always set them free.
It seems bad things comfort me.” (>>)

This is a good article on understanding tradition.

“How are we honoring the saints that have died when we do exactly what they did, the way they did it, for the nonsensical reason that ‘it’s tradition?’ This behavior is anything but traditional. The saints of the 17th century wanted clarity of Scripture, so they read the King James Version, which was the language of the time. The idea was understanding the Word, not reading the King James Version. The KJV was the vehicle for revelation.”

Updated the fotolog.

Thanks to the amazing grace and skill of our good-luck-charm/voodoo-priestess Robin, Jamie and company were handed a stunning defeat on the hallowed Ultimate Frisbee courts at Delco Park.

“The truth, of course, is that ANY organization or even body of ideas that encourages thinking in terms of ‘race’ is racist, because people are individuals, not races. Once upon a time, there were ‘reformers’ who understood that fact, but anymore, race politics in the US isn’t about eliminating racism; it is just about hiding it and trying to create equality of outcomes by quota systems and so on. Nobody, including black people, thinks about actually working towards MLKJr’s colorblind society; they all think about how to get a bigger chunk of the pie for their buddies.” (>>)

If you go here you can listen to 3 tracks from MxPx‘s new album and watch the video for Everything Sucks. Well Adjusted was the song they played during the Super Bowl commerical. Walmart has the CD for $10.

“There is somewhere in almost every company a spreadsheet showing a cost-benefit analysis for every worker. It all comes down to a single lifetime number that is the difference between the expected earnings to the corporation that are made possible by the direct labor of that employee, and the total cost of that employee to the company in current wages and future benefits. Nobody admits the existence of this spreadsheet, which is probably illegal, but it is there. And at some point, it indicates in many cases that a worker has reached a condition where they are likely to cost the company more in future benefits than they will earn the company through future labor. At that moment, that employee becomes expendable. Forget that the business situation could change, altering the numbers. Forget that the employee, if he knew his job was in peril, might take action to improve his productivity. Forget that the negative number could easily be the result of a management error or misstep, and have nothing to do with the employee’s effort. Forget that the calculation could be just plain wrong. No matter what happened to get the company and the worker to that place, it is in the interest of the company to get rid of the employee as soon as possible.” (>>)

On the actual envelope I spelled “admission” right.

“Yeah, it’s one thing for somebody else to comment on it, but it’s something else…it’d be kind of like putting on jeans and a t-shirt in the morning. You just do it because it’s what you put on. You don’t walk out of the house saying aloud to yourself, ‘So I put on my jeans and my t-shirt because what I was trying to accomplish was the casual look.’ You know? You just do what you do, and then other people go, ‘Oh, she’s going for the casual thing,’ or ‘Oh, she’s going for self-exploration.’ But when you’re doing it, you’re just doing it. It’s not, ‘This is meant to be the vulnerable record.’ It just turned out that way.” (>>)

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” – John Stuart Mill

I’ve decided that I’m going to switch my minor from History to Religious Studies. I decided that when I realized that I wanted to take pretty much every single 300-level class UD offers. Only a few of the 400-level classes look interesting, but I’ll only need to take one, anyway.

Check out The Insightful Hazards of Being a Lay Theologian and Contra Urbem: Why I Hate the City.

What: Ultimate Frisbee.
When: Saturday, September 20th @ 6pm.
Where: Delco Park soccer fields.
Who: Jamie, myself and anyone else who wants to come.
Why: You’re all a bunch of lazy slobs who need exercise It will be fun and we can look like hippies!

Ok, since no one got the allusion I’m gonna have to give you the answer. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Short story about soldiers in the Vietnam War which uses physical items they carried as a metaphor for the emotional burdens they carried. Basically, it was a cute way of whining about all the responsibility i have.

“You know you’re in a bad place with pride when you think everything you do for God is too much and everything He does for you is too little.” (>>)

CENTERVILLE (AP) – Hell officially froze over this evening at approximately 7:26PM as Ian Dunn attended a high school football game for the first time in his life. Residents of the fiery furnace said that the day began as any other, but as night fell an eerie breeze began to sweep through the depths of the underworld.

“It was wierd,” said long-time inhabitant Leif Ericson. “At first it was nice. It reminded me of the brisk winter nights in Iceland.” But then, residents say, things turned ugly. “It went from a nice desert breeze to a freakish hailstorm,” reports newcomer Uday Hussein.

Preliminary data gathered by scientists working for the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that the breeze started at the exact moment Ian purchased his ticket and that the conditions in Hades worsened as he approached the field, culminating in the “freakish hailstorm” once he took his seat and began to watch the game.

The Dark Prince could not be reached for comment, but his public relations advisor, Joseph Goebbels, said that they will be taking legal action. The ACLU has released a press statement offering to take the case pro-bono. “I am personally offended that in this day and age such an intolerable act of intolerance could go unchecked by our failing justice system. The ACLU is commited to protecting the rights of Mr. Prince and all his constituents to be as sultry as they want without temperature bigots such as Mr. Dunn interfering,” commented ACLU president Nadine Strossen.

Insiders tell the Associated Press that Satan has been in talks with Microsoft Corporation to install new Windows-based heating units that can be remotely controlled from a Windows-based laptop. With such a heating network in place, Beelzebub could control the level of torment each prisoner indures from the comfort of his deep, dark pit. Until it crashes.

“The human heart is an idol factory.” – John Calvin

MxPx‘s new album comes out on the 16th and you can listen to “Everything Sucks” here. It’s not what I expected, and might take a little getting used to. But, like I told Bob the other day, even if they put out a Polka album, I’d probably still buy it.

Johnny Cash died this morning.

Five points to the first person who explains the allusion.

Psalm 127:1 (>>)

“Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.”

This is a great comic from Cox and Forkum. “…not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” is a great ideal. Too bad our society is still judging people by the color of their skin–they’ve just changed their reaction to that judgement.

This is a good commentary on how Johnny Cash was ripped off at the VMAs, and also how boring and fake the whole Britney Spears/Madonna/Christina Aquilera kiss was. Besides, the author uses the phrase “MTV Lesbian Stunt Coordinator.”

Larry King interviewed Johnny Cash a few months back and they aired it again Saturday night; here‘s the transcript. His new album sounds really interesting, you can stream one of the songs, Hurt, at MP3.com. Hurt is actually a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song. Why do I get the feeling Johnny sings this more honestly than Trent Reznor ever could?