This Is Not The Best Time To Be Philisophical

Ok, so I bought Half-Life 2 about five days ago, and I just finished it last night, after five marathon gaming nights (and almost one whole day on Saturday). That is not something I need to be doing often. I think I also got a clear indicator that I'm starting to get old. I didn't have as much fun as I did with Half-Life 1. Go figure. It was *very* nice looking though. My PC rhawks.

Right now I'm thinking more about getting some sort of audio recording setup going on the PC. I shopped around online a bit for audio interfaces, and looked at the Tascam US-122 and hemmed and hawed over it a little. It's two hundred bucks. And that's low-end. It does come with Cubase LE, an entry-level recording software thingy. Also, it looks pretty versatile, and it's powered through USB. That means you can use it with a laptop fairly easily, which makes it ideal for roadtrips. I'm of course talking about this mythical roadtrip I have planned in my head that will take me West to places I haven't been to before, and that I probably don't need to go to. Why I would want to record any audio on said trip is beyond me, but it'd be nice to know I could if I wanted to.

Hem, haw.

Aside from thinking about how to set up a budget studio, I've also got a few books I just need to finish reading, so that I quit feeling bad about not finishing them. One is R.C. Sproul's "What Is Reformed Theology?" and another is C.S. Lewis's "Perelandra". Cherie also lended me a couple of books about the origins of the universe from a Christian perspective, "The Genesis Question" and "The Symphony Of Creation". Oh yeah, I also borrowed a book from Doug and Mary Terry about being Christian to Muslims, "Waging Peace On Islam". There's a Starbucks nearby that probably makes a good place to go sit down and read, so I got no excuse. I just need to decide to stop... sitting... in front... of my computer!

So... when am I going to finish writing about suffering? God knows. I'm certainly not close to the heart of suffering right now. Life's great. Well, some things going on at work are a little distressing, but it's not that bad. So, yeah, life's great. What can I say about suffering that's not going to be almost completely speculative? Well, right now I'm just going to keep it scoped to this: What I think about suffering, what the bible says, and what places I could do well to meditate on.

And YES, it'll be completely speculative. It's the best I can do now. Especially since I got a Dwarven Priest I need to be levelling in World of Warcraft. Ack!

And Now We Return To Our Regular Program (Almost)

Well, after about three weeks of putting my life back together, I finally have my own desktop pc in my own apartment. I guess I can get back to blogging regularly now. Big shoutout to Paul Gibson for building this rig for me. It, apparently, is a beast. He was very impressed with how fast it ran.... World of Warcraft. We cranked every single thing we could find in the display options to the max, and it still held at a fairly steady 55-60 FPS. Granted, WoW's not the uber app I was hoping to run on it tonight, but it at least indicated to me that this pc could run *something* really really well. After we were done with WoW, we ran Half Life. Not Half Life 2. Half Life. The first one. From 1998. I could hear the rig mocking us. Paul quothed it thus: "You do not serve s**t on a silver platter".

I'm going to have to give this thing a name. My car's name is Jo (many thanks to Kevin and Lydia for helping me figure that out), and, yes, it's a she. Mostly because it was a she when it belong to Lydia. Being good evangelicals, we do not approve of sex changes. The pc will definitely have to be a guy. Can't have too many women in my life.

I went to my first superbowl party in a while last Sunday. It was at the Slays' house with a bunch of international folks. Godswill was there, he was the only guy rooting for Seattle. For some reason everyone else was behind Pittsburg. I was just there for the ads.

I might pay a visit to YAMs on Thursday night, if only to say hi to Michael Wender and Mark Tichon. One of the last things I did before I left a year ago was play guitar for Mark's wedding... it'd be nice to catch up with him again. However, that means I can't be at Brent's house for small group. Hrrrm... I'll have to call Brent if I do that. Many thanks to him and Marci, btw, for letting me stay with them when I first got back here. I might've wound up on the street if not for them.

I totally forgot to go to David Kendall's taco dinner tonight. I can be such a doofus.

Oh yeah if anyone reading this blog didn't know... I'm back in Knoxville.

I Was Brought To My Senses
Sting

Alone with my thoughts this evening
I walked on the banks of tyne
I wondered how I could win you
Or if I could make you mine
Or if I could make you mine

The wind it was so insistent
With tales of a stormy south
But when I spied two birds in a sycamore tree
There came a dryness in my mouth
Came a dryness in my mouth

For then without rhyme or reason
The two birds did rise up to fly
And where the two birds were flying
I swear I saw you and i
I swear I saw you and i

I walked out this morning
It was like a veil had been removed from before my eyes
For the first time I saw the work of heaven
In the line where the hills had been married to the sky
And all around me
Every blade of singing grass
Was calling out your name
And that our love would always last
And inside every turning leaf
Is the pattern of an older tree
The shape of our future
The shape of all our history
And out of the confusion
Where the river meets the sea
Came things I’d never seen
Things I’d never seen

I was brought to my senses
I was blind but now that I can see
Every signpost in nature
Said you belong to me

I know it’s true
It’s written in a sky as blue
As blue as your eyes
As blue as your eyes
If nature’s red in tooth and claw
Like winter’s freeze and summer’s thaw
The wounds she gave me
Were the wounds that would heal me
And we’d be like the moon and sun
And when our courtly dance had run
Its course across the sky
Then together we would lie
And out of the confusion
Where the river meets the sea
Something new would arrive
Something better would arrive

I was brought to my senses
I was blind but now that I can see
Every signpost in nature
Said you belong to me
I was brought to my senses
I was blind but now that I can see
Every signpost in nature
Said you belong to me...