unconfused?

I started graduate school today.  I think that I’m going to like it quite a bit.  I’ve never been much for the corporate ladder…but I think that this coursework will help me quite a bit in my job too.   I’m looking forward to all this.

I was listening to All Things Considered on NPR today and heard this gem linked below. Listen to the audio, which is in this case more entertaining than the text.

A Shorter Route to Communication
by Mark Allen
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106397694

My favorite line in it:

“It is probably because he’s very into the one-sentence social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, which he uses constantly because speed and brevity are more important than facts, words, or information.“

Hey all. Give this a listen. This is Timothy Brindle feat shai linne – “Faulty Doctrine”. Thanks to Brooksfor pointing out this video. Yeah, it is a rap song warning about the evils of prosperity ‘gospels’.

K…this was too good to go un-re-posted. Yeah…un-re-posted…got that?

Just watch it.

Yeah, I’m on the force.

This is truly tasteless, and simultaneously suggests that your porn viewing is okay if you use IE8. Can’t believe that they would think this is a decent promotion for their products. Watch it before Microsoft’s lawyers pull it from YouTube…if you dare…

This Independence Day was quite a stack of things.  This morning, after a very late night…i.e. a 5:00 am bedtime, I woke for the day at 9:00 am to say goodbye to some good Hungarian friends who came down for the past week or so from Rochester, MN.  I couldn’t sleep again after I woke up, so everyone else in the house went back to bed and I sat down to a breakfast burrito and some coffee.

I played a couple video games, and talked to a good friend on the phone for a  few minutes, but the lack of sleep caught up with me, so I took a 2-2.5 hour nap.  When I woke another friend of Heather’s and mine had called asking us to come by for some food and fireworks, which of course fireworks are illegal to set off in the city limits where we live, but since there was no show put on by the city…the city’s skies were especially ablaze with lots of explosions and light.

We had a nice time with our friends as we haven’t seen them in about 6 months or so, which is entirely too long of a time.  From there we went to another friends home to where our girls were going to spend the night, set off more fireworks illegally in the city limits with their neighbor, and were fed strawberries and spongecake.

We came home to a dog that wouldn’t go to the bathroom outside because he is petrified by fireworks, thunderstorms, and even rain in general…of which we had both fireworks and rain, and even the thunderstorm in the distance.

I heard back from another good friend about grilling tomorrow.  His weekend apparently hadn’t gone very well concerning some family issues.  So, I’m praying for and thinking about him and his family.

I practiced my set for worship at church tomorrow, and hope that it works out well for everyone that hears it.  I’ve also just finished an episode of “Mental”, which is a show I’ve gotten attached to on Hulu recently.  I have heartburn from too many fatty foods, so I’ve taken a Zantac 150…and I’m finally feeling pretty tired.  I should get to bed as I have to wake at 7:00 am to get to read for and drive to church at Milestone.

Interesting day.  It didn’t really make me reflect upon what we declared independence from that created this holiday…but more about what I have the freedom to enjoy (or lament), from the hurt that my friend is experiencing to the joy of hanging out with people you care about.

My 5 minutes are up.

Though there are quite a number of areas where their ideal wind generation is very far from population centers, the potential to generate the great majority of our power using is amazing.  President Obama should put a moratorium on the building of any coal, oil, or nuclear power plants to make room for this.

Here is news of the study from the National Academy of Science:

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0622-hance_global_wind.html

“Large-scale development of wind power in China could allow for close to an 18-fold increase in electricity supply relative to consumption reported for 2005,” the researchers write. “The bulk of this wind power, 89%, could be derived from onshore installations. The potential for wind power in the U.S. is even greater, 23 times larger than current electricity consumption, the bulk of which, 84%, could be supplied onshore.”

I broke down this week and bought a Xbox 360 for myself to play a couple game titles that are only on the 360 or on a Windows machine. The title that I bought first was a game called “Mass Effect”. It is one of Bioware’s RPGs.

I bought the 360 second hand…about $300+ worth of stuff for $200. But what strikes me is how crazy loud this thing is! I have a PS3 already…but it is very quiet in comparison.

Just having the Xbox 360 turned on is louder than my PS3 when it is hot and running all the fans on high. Now, the PS3’s power supply is inside the box, whereas the 360’s power supply is external…but yet the 360 still runs hot almost immediately. And when it does, as is the case as soon as you start playing a game, the fans really get loud! I had to turn up the volume on the TV just to hear the dialog over the 360’s fans.

I’m enjoying getting to play Mass Effect, but wow is the Xbox 360 a very cheaply made system.

Two weeks ago I posted that I was going to do a social experiment.  And for the most part I kept to my own rules, except for in a couple cases to preserve at least working relationships at work.

Basically, the experiment’s rules were these:  1. That I would discontinue ALL types of passive communication…i.e. instant messengers, social networks, Twitter-like services, etc.  2. That I would only return calls if called.  3. That I would only return e-mails or pages if e-mailed first.  4. That I wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything, but wait to be asked.

The point of those rules was to only have proactive and active communication with those who were also wanting to communicate with me in some manner or another.

In the process I found out a number of things about who is indeed part of my life, and who really depends on ‘passive communication’, if that really is communication at all…it is really more like electronic spying, to be up to date with me and things in my life.  And really the point was that simple.

So, let me say that I appreciate very much all the people in my life that haven’t bowed the acceptance of ‘passive communication’ and those who actually keep up with their friends.