Anybody who misspells half of the words in a two-word insult has no business deriding someone else’s supposed lack of intelligence.
Man, but I miss the days where you could call someone out on the carpet for this one. Now-a-days you’re more likely to be branded a grammar nazi. It makes me sad when someone who is insulted by this is considered an unnecessarily-strict grammarian.
It’s amazing, the amount of trust, the amount of faith, that we need to have in our day-to-day living.
How do you know that Africa exists? How do I know? I’ve never been there. Now, I’ve known people who’ve said they’ve been there. But even there, by necessity I’m presented with needing to decide for myself whether or not a.) I believe that what they are saying is what they believe, and b.) even if it is, that I believe their information to be correct and factual.
“But there’s so much information supporting the existence of Africa! Everybody believes it.” By and large, we as a society believe that people during the time of Columbus believed the world to be flat, when in reality this theory was not taken seriously at this time (See Wikipedia’s “Flat Earth” page). But do you believe the explanation that is contained on this entry?
Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see. There’s nothing mystical about that. The necessity of faith does not require the allowance for the existence of the supernatural.
I’m sure that I hope the red light at the intersection that I stop at will turn green in the imminent future. I’m certain of it doing so, even though I don’t see what is going on inside, mechanically or electronically. I’ve developed this faith because I’ve experienced traffic signals that have functioned similarly, where they are red and then they turn green.
Faith does not happen in a vacuum. It is logical conclusion based off of observation.
Greetings Interwebers.
My good friend Jinky Williams approuched me some time ago and asked me if I would be interested in posting upon this here blog. Now here we are. I am definitely excited to get the ball rolling and see what will come up next.
I guess I should say a wee bit about myself. When I am not playing Bagpipe Hero or crafting tasty treats, I seem to find myself goofing off with my wife or Jinky. I enjoy shooting the breeze, reminiscing on old video games, watching clouds, Seattle Stouts and attempting to be a good husband. I do not really have much to say as introductions really are not my thing. Maybe you all will have to let me know if I am doing theHouse of Jink any good.
Jinky and I have talked about putting some avatars to use.
Best regards and looking onward,
Splintofewnious
So, I just heard that Hellgate:London’s servers will be off life support come the beginning of 2009.
I don’t think I’ll shed a single tear. It’s the only game in which the beta took me from being “foaming-at-the-mouth rabid” to “man, why did I preorder this?“.
I was so wanting to love this game. I talked it up to all my friends, and a couple bought a copy. I was convinced it was going to be “Diablo in present times”. And it had so much going for it, too.
Then I played it. And it was kinda fun. But man, it was no Diablo. And so I tried to play it on its own merits instead of comparing it to Diablo. And it got boring.
I think that’s what did it in for me. Didn’t matter what part of town you were in, it was always the same tilesets, but sometimes with different lighting. Always the same “hell” tileset. Same subway template. And the map segments were not generated with anything approaching the complexity of Diablo (1 or 2). It was always a straight shot through the segment (the posted image is actually a bit too complex). Those things made exploring a drag instead of something to look forward to. After seeing the same tileset for the umpteenth time, I stopped caring about seeing more of the game.
Also, the voice acting. Diablo was a game that took itself seriously, pretty much. And it was a universe that I wanted to take seriously, and wanted to get into. You really felt like you were someone who was present when the winds of change picked up into a storm. It’s good stuff.
But in HG:L, everyone was over-the-top and shallow stereotypical. I’m not saying that Deckard Cain was award-winning material, but I could at least imagine myself in a world where he existed. It’s like Hellgate wanted to interrupt your attempts to immerse yourself in the game as often as it could.
So yeah, it kind of disappointed me.
So, I recently got the G1 phone. It’s awesome. It’s magic. It’s like the best phone ever. One of the things you can do is make wallpaper. Man, for me it’s been like crack (at least, from the descriptions I’ve heard about the addictive properties of said substance). I can’t stop making the durn things.
Let me say though that the vast majority are submissions from DeviantART that have been cropped or resized. Give credit where credit is due, and if you like a wallpaper, I urge you to follow the link to the original piece and leave a comment.
So I made a set (Tmobile G1 Wallpapers) on Flickr for them. I have 75 at the moment. I gotta stop and be productive, though.
For now.
[I originally posted this before I had to migrate hosts. Unfortunately for me, I did not save the rollicking discussion about this conversation that many individuals were taking part in.]
So a random girl from the internet starts talking to me online. What follows is a subject for laughter, yet it makes me want to vomit.
//Session Start
(*)GoOd GiRlS ArE JuSt BaD GiRlS ThAt DoN’t GeT CaUgHt(*) (l)CuTiE PiE(l)siNgLe n SeXy ErE(l): hi huni
[Yes, that whole thing is her screen name. I've shortened it to "girl" for the benefit of readers.]
Jinky Williams: Good day to you.
Jinky Williams: how are you this fine Wednesday?
Girl: kwl, y du u tlk sooo posh
Girl: lol
Jinky Williams: I suppose because it’s not usual.
Girl: is it jst coz im special
Jinky Williams: it’s generally how I communicate.
Girl: arrrrrrrrrrr i no u luv me reali i will send u n email pic ov me
Jinky Williams: all righty.
Jinky Williams: how far, time-wise, are you ahead of me? It’s 11:22am here.
Girl: its 1:00
Jinky Williams: am?
Girl: na u plonka
Girl: tell me wen u get da pic
Jinky Williams: did you send it to my hotmail or gmail account?
Girl: ure hotmail
Girl: y
Girl: ^o)
Girl: Got it?
Jinky Williams: it appears there is an uncurable virus in that picture, and I am not able to download it.
Jinky Williams: Hotmail will not let me.
Jinky Williams: as much as I ask it nicely and promise it nice things should it comply.
Girl: god u stupid twat!
Girl: tlk proply
Girl: i dnt understand u
Jinky Williams: Hotmail won’t let me download your picture. It took away the link because there’s a virus attached to it.
Girl: plzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Jinky Williams: i cnt dl ur pic cuz theres a virs k thers no were 2 clik 2 get it
Girl: THAXS 4 FINALLY TLKIN NORMAL
Girl: ok well how du i send a pic then??????????????????/
Jinky Williams: do u hav anti virs app u can use 2 check da file
Girl: na
Jinky Williams: hm i dont no how ur gonna send me da file then
Jinky Williams: cn u post it sumwere on the internet
Girl: how?
Girl: ????????????????????
Jinky Williams: lol uh dunno hmm
Jinky Williams: an i cant acept ur file wen u send it direct cuz ma firewall wont let me
//End Session
And these people are going to be our world leaders?
This incident happened more than six years ago. I feel I’ve given ample time for this person to fade into obscurity. And with a screen name like that, it’s a good change that she changed it multiple times daily. I did not post this to make this girl feel bad or to single her out. If I wanted to do that, I would have included her high school (which she gave) as well as the photo she sent.
The Bible, from many sources, appears to purport an unexpected view on slavery. At its most moderate, it looks lke it is possibly content to let it go as is; at other times, it appears to outright condone it.
With a conversation about slavery and the Bible, there must also be a discussion about the culture in which the Bible was speaking to and about.
In ancient Hebrew culture, slavery held considerably different meaning.
Curse of Ham = really curse of Caanan.
In the New Testament (Eph 6:5, for instance), slaves and masters are referred to. A better translation is “bondservant”. This is more of a lifetime employment contract, entered into by agreeance from both parties. Paul then gives clear instructions that Christian “masters” are to treat such individuals with the respect that one would like to be treated with. Most importantly, their employment position did not affect their standing in the church.
Leviticus makes many statements of the importance of treating foreign individuals well.
Slavery was already established by the time the Bible spoke regarding it. That it speaks about it is not conceding that slavery is right. Rather, like divorce, slavery is something that will happen because we are fallen, and in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy, He knew that this would take place. So instead of leaving people high and dry if they found themselves on that path, He displayed how we would be able to follow His heart, even in these adverse conditions. Like support for drug users, this should not be construed as an endorsement of the lifestyle. It is simply God meeting people where they are at.
Slave traders are listed as sinners in Tim 1:10. And in Exodus 21:16, it states that one who kidnaps and sells someone shall be put to death.
So, it is evident that slaves in Hebrew culture came to be by their own volition, and that “slave” does not carry the same connotation as today, nor is it for the same reasons.
per christiancourier.com, “It may be stated with absolute confidence that it was never the ideal will of God that one may should own another, as a piece of property. The fact that each human being was and is and will be created in the image of God militates against the concept that slavery is a divinely designated relationship.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2008-10-16-big-burger_N.htm?csp=34
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, but they have huge burgers. I want to go there, some time.
Well, went to the men’s retreat with a bunch of guys from my church. Went to some place up over in Sequim. Discovered a like for table tennis that had heretofore gone unnoticed. Of course, there’s no one around that has a table, so we can’t really play.
However, I kinda wish that the table hadn’t been there, as I pretty much spent all my free time there instead of making rounds and talking to the other guys. There were only a couple of guys who had any interest in playing, so I really didn’t talk much to anyone else. I know all of the guys who went, but it would have been good to spend time with each of them to get to know them better.
With the older guys it wasn’t such a big deal, but I really should have spent more time with the younger guys. At worst I ignored them; at best, I declined to spend time with them. So for that, I’m apologetic as well. Especially as I’m one of the youth pastors.
I’d do things differently had I it to do again, to be sure.
Well, it’s been like a million years, but I’m finally back online. My old web hosting service did now allow WordPress to be installed to root, which totally messed with my analytics and made the website URL an unsightly mess (jinkywilliams.web.aplus.net/wordpress/) instead of jinkywilliams.com.
That, and I was getting so many hits that my account was frozen because they thought I was spamming. So, that’s good and all, but bottom line was that I needed to switch hosting people. So I went to Bluehost.com, which for a paltry $7/mo allows unlimited bandwidth and storage. So yeah.
Unfortunately, I was a monkeyhead and didn’t back up my database, so all previously-existing posts are now kaput. Time to start from scratch.
Bah.
