24 Day 5: 4:00PM to 5:00PM

We're almost halfway through this season already, wooo. What's with all the Victoria's Secret commercials during 24? haha. sheesh

Twenty Four Day 5 - 4:00PM to 5:00PM Episode 10:
[Events occur in real time]

Edgar, Chloe, Audrey, and Curtis finally got a grip of Lynn, while the "resolute" President Logan mulled over sending his wife and the Russian president and first lady to their deaths. :) Thankfully, Aaron, the secret service agent, got some shots in there (I thought he was dead). (The missle/bazooka.. ok. But the flamethrower?? lol)

Buchanny the laddy is back and things are finally on track again, although they still don't have a lead on the syntox gas. I'm sure Lynn will be back though, "a promise is a promise, Mr. Frodo."

We have Jack's former recruiter in cahoots with the terrorists now. [Here's another colleague Jack put away due to corruption :) ] [Dig the off hand Nina Myers + George Mason reference] He's got a cool theme song like Marwan did, haha.

Next week we get 2 episodes and the return of other popular 24 characters :-p.

Daily Lenten Reflections

http://ewtn.com/faith/lent/index.htm

Here's the link to the daily Lenten Reflections.

Enjoy.

Lent in 2 days..

Isn't it Funny 001

Isn't it Funny..

• that we want kids to behave and act responsilbly, but us "adults" aren't always held to such honorable standards

NExt on "Isn't it Funny"
What your parents taught ya.

Reaching Out

Album: The Bee Gees, Spirits Having Flown (1979), track 4
Instruments: Synthesizer, Guitars, Vocal, Drum, Stereo, Studio Effects
Style: "Pop", not so Disco(?), methodical
Features: Polyphonic Harmony, Falsetto
Duration: 4:07
Modern Discovery: October 2004

[cue synthesizer]
[Barry vocal] Watching every day go by.. [cue acoustic guitar]
living in a foolish game
just the way I feel today
Living my life without you. [in harmony][ans guitar]

Never hear a single word
living in a lullaby
prayin' every tear I cry
Living my life without you.

Watching every day go by.. Living my life without you.
The acoustic guitar helps make the song feel like its flowing through.
Then the song kicks into high gear:

And everywhere you go..! ..I'll fly
(Love you with a special feeling)
Darling till.. the day I die
(Baby never stop believing)
[I'll be Reaching Out,] aaaahh
[I'll be Reaching Out, aaaahhha-aaaahh]
[Reaching Out]

This is the kicker, my favorite part of this song. "And everywhere you go.. love you with a special feeling." The joke is, I'll show you *my* special feeling.. haha. There's also the double meaning of "Reaching Out" since I'm on an "outreach" committee ;).

There's a woman going through me
[I'll be Reaching Out]
Got a chance for you to me
(aaaahhha-aaaahh)
Everything is lonely and I need you
Living my life forever, forever, -er

Everything is lonely and I need you
"classic"

Watching every day go by
living on the one I love
what I got is not enough
Living my life without you...

The "What I got is not enough" line always jabs you. Do you really want to think like that?

I.. believe in yesterday
(Yesterday was once tomorrow)
With love, with love wide open
(Baby you're the light I follow)
I'll be I'll be
[I'll be Reaching Out,] aaaahh
[I'll be Reaching Out, aaaahhha-aaaahh]
[Reaching Out]
There's a woman going through me
[I'll be Reaching Out]
Got a chance for you to me
(aaaahhha-aaaahh)
Everything is lonely and I need you
Living my life forever,
[I'll be Reaching Out,] aaaahh
[I'll be Reaching Out, aaaahhha-aaaahh]
[Reaching Out]
aaaaaaaah! [I'll be Reaching Out,] aaaahh
[I'll be Reaching Out, aaaahhha-aaaahh]
Living my life forever, Reaching out (aaaaaaah)
[I'll be Reaching Out, aaaahhha-aaaahh]
[Reaching Out]
[I'll be Reaching Out, aaaahhha-aaaahh]
[Reaching Out]
ohhhh! [Reaching Out]

That's my best attempt to put the Bee Gees harmony on paper, lol. It looks messy. This song really hits the spot. It was a toss up between this song and "Emotion" but I went with the less popular one. We'll probably do Emotion next time.

Baby, never stop believing.

Reconciling Evolution and Creationism: Short version

So last night we all went to the Burke Lecture on "Evolution and Divine Providence: Are They Compatible?"

The key (again) seems to be a harmonious co-existence and melding of the concepts. The trouble always seems to be a certain extremism for either side. As a Catholic, I've never felt that if I purported one, then I would have to deny the other. That's where all this trouble began, people think they only have one slot for one explanation.

The lecturer was John F. Haught, 'a distinguished research professor from the Department of Theology, Georgetown University.' He divided the explanations for universe into three layers. First, there's the scientific -Darwinist (not necessarily materialist) explanation. Second, there is the creationist/divine providence explanation. Science tells us that the universe is 13.7 billion years old. The image Haught used was that if you divide these years into 30 volumes of books humans are on the last page of the 30th volume. Deep time/divine patience can be put together.
The third is that these two thought processes are reconciled in divine patience, God's wish to foster a world in His own image, yet separate from his infinite nature (in the sense that the world is finite, and God is infinite). Our evolution is our attempt to reconcile our finite universe with the infinite universe of God.

A scientific explanation of life does not remove the value, lesson, and truth of the fall of Adam or the redemption by Christ Jesus. Sin, including the original sin, is the going against the grain of evolution. Evolution is love. People like to say that we should separate ourselves, and that way we will grow, which is wrong. We need to love together and build community and evolve. It's the humility of God to become incarnate and serve, sacrifice, and become the lowest of the low. It's just silly to "cage" God into "He can only do this, or He only belongs here, or there." We can't even fully take in the concept of the trinity. So it's arrogance to think we can out think God and that "the buck stops here" with us.

So with this, 4 things are established. We still have the scientific explanation, the divine explanation, a respect for the infinite, and a purposeful life ahead for us.

*subject to expansion/addition, gathering more notes --attempting to sum it up like this probably isn't going to do it justice [2/26 edit]

Lent in less than a week

Just a heads up that the season of Lent begins Wednesday, March 1st, Ash Wednesday. A day of fast and abstinence and to go get your ashes. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

During Lent, the 40 days leading up to the most important Christian/Catholic Holiday (Holy Day), Easter Sunday, Catholics all over the world prepare themselves for the great celebration of Easter. [Abstaining from meats on Fridays, fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday]

When the time comes I'll post a link that EWTN has hosted over the past few years which features a daily Lenten reflection.

This is the time to get in touch with your faith and see what really matters and remember the essentials to basic human needs, the needs of the world community. With the great freedom and prosperity of life in the United States comes a call for us to answer, the responsibility and obligation to fight injustice and respond to the need to respect the dignity of all human life.

Lent is a time for reconciliation, almsgiving (charity), fasting/abstinence, and prayer/contemplation. It's basically a call to humility, that there is more beyond us and what we can "see" in this life and that we are in this life to serve one another.

24 Day 5: 3:00PM to 4:00PM

24 - Twenty Four
I got hooked on this television show (which rarely happens) thanks to Bruce. The show takes place in real time, so each episode is an hour (so things happen during the commercial breaks, so there's only about 40 minutes of show per episode). Even my family even got hooked on this show now.

It follows Jack Bauer and the efforts of CTU - Counter Terrorist Unit to stop the threat of assassination attempts, weapons of mass destruction (found them), kidnapping, conspiracies. It's edge of your seat stuff.

Throughout the show, Jack is shown to be a man of responsibility, who takes responsibility for his actions and respects the dignity of human life. --and that's awesome. (The ends don't justify the means here.)


Thoughts on Season 5 - Episode Nine:

-Right when Jack and Curtis were getting sentimental, Jack knocks out Curtis, and leaves him unconscious on the curb --classic.

-Lynn, the former hobbit (I'm still not used to seeing him so tall), is starting to stress over CTU all thanks to the resolute (-sarcasm-) President Logan.

-Nathanson can't justify all the things he's done to help in this (terrible) plot (that Palmer thing.. GRRRR ;) ). But Jack helps him out against the hostiles. Jack vs Helicopter --helicopter down..

-Buchanny, who's been cool this season and last, gets put away by Lynn, into holding. Hopefully Buchanny, the laddy, will be alright.. insubordination, hah.

-Then the episode ends with Logan sending the Russian president off with a bang.. (4 more years, hah)

Featured Songs: Spirits Having Flown, Cucumber Castle

Will you still laugh, and be a clown, When love runs out?

So this will be the every once and a while Bee Gees highlight post. Just wanted to bring up two (maybe three) particular songs, not the most popular ones, but the typical "gems" you find when you listen to an album all the way though. Similar to what I've done over the years with the Beatles, I'll eventually get around to listening to every song/album thoroughly.


Spirits Having Flown (1979)

• Bee Gees - Living Together

"Why ain't we living, living together, instead of being so, so far, apart"

The disclaimer I attach to this song is that I don't wish to advocate co-habiting, living together before marriage --since it asks society to treat you as a married couple when it's completely outside of Matrimony --thus leading to an ugly end for all. I see it more of a call for people to live and interact with one another. If the idea really is that we're here for other people, that purpose needs to be fulfilled for the greater betterment.

"I lay my heart on you, and you can show the way, I give my everlasting love until my dying day. Take this lonely soul, water or the wine, I lay my body on the line, a chance to make you mine."

Cheesy, or corny, whatever you want to call it. But isn't it a great line: "I give my everlasting love until my dying day." That's close to the marriage vow. Then next is the parallel set of lyric on the same melody:

"My life was emptiness until you came along, I nearly fell apart, you took my heart and made me strong."

The strength of love he he he.

• Bee Gees - Until

"You were a lovely child, and you hair was like the morning sun. And I knew we were in love, we were a love to dream a dream, we held our love that held our hearts.

Until: very peaceful and soothing. Love, just a dream .

"Every lonely sad mistake, every change and every change we made. We held our love and then held a heart. Until.. until."

Mistakes.



Cucumber Castle (1970)

• Bee Gees - Bury Me Down By the River

"I wasn't born in the morning, no. [sounds like "in the morning, Lord] I must have been born, in the night. I've done my load, and I've carried my load, but all I own is my life. I wasn't born to be lucky, Lord, luck had no future with me. I've done my wrong, but I'll sing, sing, sing my song, stand beneath the hanging tree."

This song feels like it's a hymn. I'll admit it kind of has a martyr tendency, but it's a joyous and peaceful resolution.

"Bury me down by a river, let all the townspeople see. Their enemy's dead, let me lay, lay my head, yeah. Just put me down and set me free."

It's a nice imagery of the townspeople seeing that their "enemy's dead" and finally being put down, and set free, which sometimes, is all you need.

Mozilla Firefox Extensions

These are some of the Firefox extensions I use myself:

Adblock http://adblock.mozdev.org/
Lets you filter out any particular images or sites from showing up in your browser.

Flashblock http://flashblock.mozdev.org
Requires you to click on any flash related object for it to initialize.

Forecastfox http://forecastfox.mozdev.org
Places local weather into your browser toolbar.

The current Firefox release version is 1.5. I've been using the 2nd Deer Park Alpha for about a month now. The only gripe is that the close tab button got moved on the tab, so it's harder to close many tabs quickly. Hopefully an option will let you change this in a later release version. Funny, because this is a feature that is implemented by many tab-related extensions, but now part of the default features --while I'm used to the now alternative way.

My Sweet Lord

Thanks for visiting my new "blog," although I've decided against using that term. Anyway, this seems to be the most efficient way to post content onto the web and still use the kus-numa.net server, soon to be 4 years on the web.

And yes, I've got a great feeling about this. haha

From the description here, "Computers, Film, Music, Catholicism," hopefully all sorts of findings and perspectives can be published here. This should be an interesting experiment.