UTF

When Jesus heard this, He was astonished and said to those following Him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith."
Matthew 8:10

"... faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13:13

Untitled fiction
 Son, you are confined to a small space.  You cannot move; you are unable to walk about or even breath on your own free will.  The seed with which I used to create you was in this exact same situation.  He was freed, like you will soon be, but then became confined to a space not as small as this, but not nearly as big as the ones he was accustomed to after he'd been freed.  I wept as he cursed my name, but all he could hear or cared to hear was the sound of his voice cursing me.
 Father, why would anyone curse you?
 O son.  There is so little you can know at this point in your life.  You will soon forget me.  I will try to find you --- Son; why are you crying?
 Father, I cannot bare what you are telling me.  Say it is not so.
 Son, you know I would not lie to you.
 Father, I love you too much.  Please spare me this pain.
 Son, there are people out there that need you.  This world is obscured by lies and hatred.  If I reach them directly with my own hands, I will die.  We will meet again one day, my child.  Go to sleep.
 Father, please...
 Son, you're making this harder than it has to be.
 I'm sorry, Father.
 I'm sorry, too, son.  These feelings are temporary.  There is indeed happiness outside this confine.  Why are your eyes widening?  Your skin is too pale.  O, my son.  This work I have begun in you is unraveling.  Please let go of my hand...before it's too late.

A lukewarn Sunday

Today started out great.  I don't know what happened.  I feel like today has been a dark day.  My mom was talking under her breath while the worship leader was leading prayer and since then I've been consumed with varying levels of negativity, ranging from boredom, impatience and judgement as well as sadness and regret.  Yesterday I snapped at a Target employee who was either very inexperienced or wasn't all that bright.  She almost took my entire $10 bill when I had already made it as clear as anyone could that I wanted to pay $11 out of the $13 total with my EBT card.  Thankfully I noticed that she was about to make that mistake, but I could have handled myself better.  She responded to my anger with more anger, and I felt ashamed, but of course there was nothing I could do about it.  I prayed to God this morning and I think I prayed to God sometime since that particular time yesterday, but the fact and memory remains.
I just woke up from a 2.5 hour nap.  I ate a bunch of sandwiches for a snack of sorts, and I don't feel too hot about that either.  I wasn't happy while I was doing it and I don't even remember what it was that was mad about.  Obviously nothing worth additional weight gain.
I have no idea what to make of what the pastors were saying.  Nothing they said made any sense.  Someone might go to Hell if I don't tell them(him/her) about Christ.  I thought about efforts I could make on the way home and I thought any random person I say "hi" to and responds could be an opportunity to create a friendship that could lead to salvation for either them or someone they know.  So I thought for a moment; what if I walked and just kept looking forward?  Obviously I''m not committed to making friends or I would have done it by now or at least tried.  Then I thought ":baby steps".  It may not mean anything; right now, it doesn't.  Baby steps on their own mean nothing.  And I can't guarantee they'll ever mean anything, nor can God Himself.  However, there may come a time my baby steps may accumulate into a mini-walk that may slip into a sprint, and things could change before my third eye can protest too much.  I don't know.  I'm not even sure if I love God enough to be "earnest" in my prayers if I prayed a request for opportunity.  Pastor said something about people's attitude of themselves, using an analogy regarding windows vs. mirrors, the difference being windows you can see what's beyond your house and mirrors are just reflections.  Damn.  I listen to music an awful lot.  What is music other than a mirror?  I guess I need to go for more walks.  I'm definitely not committed enough to God to walk in this muddy water that's pouring from the sky.
Ok, I suck.  I don't know why I was about to type more.  It means nothing.  My feelings are so damn easily manipulated.  Tomorrow I may very well wake up as if today never happened.  I don't think so.  It's not like I'm shallow...not to brag or anything...idk...

more dumbness

got this in an email from gift card resale guru giftcardgranny.com
 https://www.giftcardgranny.com/blog/best-buy-rewards-money-saving-secrets/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=12%20days%20of%20savings&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Electronics%20Deals&utm_content=Day%204
This article makes no sense.  Why would someone want to shop at BestBuy and hesitate because they can get a better deal elsewhere and then hurt their heads trying to "think like a money-saving expert" when the obvious choice is to simply shop elsewhere?  If you want to support "local" businesses, do that.  If you want to support ACTUAL ***local*** businesses, you're going to need to spend more money than you otherwise would, which is the whole point, right?

The World --- past and present...

I remember when Bill Clinton raised minimum wage toward the end of his presidency.  I was 16 or 17 then, not old enough to vote, a little too in the clouds to be much aware of politics.  I was aware of the debate about guns, the debate about abortion and the debate about gay people.  My mom brought up a pretty good point the other day; most people that have guns don't know how to use them.  They either kill themselves or firing at another person that was not the intended target.  Since the ascent of vegans and animal rights groups, along with Nintendo and cable TV, hunting is not the past time it once was.  It seems most of the forestry has been replaced with McDonald's' and Burger Kings.  I'm not as vehement about my prochoice and gay rights stance.  If this nation were to be dedicated to God by its people, I'd say sure.  Once a true revival has been accomplished, if it ever happens, then I would encourage legislation to prevent another downfall.  People are way too worried about Sodom and Gomorra's fate happening to the USA.  It is true that the floodgates are opening.  Gay people are officially accepted as kosher by the U.S. gov't, and now people are trying to push the boundaries further.  Eventually, this will tear us apart.  I think perhaps I now understand what people meant in the '90's talking about "treating women as objects" in reference to porn.  I had a hard time understanding it because I've always had a difficult time connecting with people.  People technically speaking are objects, physically speaking.  Just like a piece of electronic equipment is used to entertain us, people are used to make the household goods that our homes contain in this nation and many other developed nations.  The difference is love.  Your TV can't love you like another human being can.  That thought makes no sense in modern youth since sex and love have become synonyms to some extent.  After all, if your TV has the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape showing you "love", what argument can one make when someone says "Close enough"?  I don't think society is anywhere near barbaric enough to warrant a S&G scale cursing.  The people of those lands were not merely in a sex frenzy party mode 24/7.  They were rude and demanding.  They demanded to have sex with the newest arrival in town.  They didn't ask for consent.  They didn't have any interest in anything other than satisfying their libido.  Dating was once generally understood as getting to know someone before marrying them.  Then it became an attempt of an emotional connection that may or may not lead to sex and/or marriage.  Now it's like a code word.  Most men are more coded than I am, but women are even more so.  Their bodies are more graceful, both in motion and stillfullness and their ability to detect subtleties is sometimes staggering, in a good way sometimes...Which is why it's never clear what one can expect when you say "Wanna go out on a date?" and the woman accepts.  She may pick up on something about you that you yourself weren't even aware of.  "Wait, she said I have the eyes of a stalker?  Well, she ought to know I'm not a stalker.  I only left her 3 voice messages since yesterday..."
(sigh) anyway.
I started this post talking about minimum wage going up in the '90's, didn't I?  I think it went up again during W.'s admn.  I don't remember.  My head is still a little too in the clouds.
Yeah, little more trivial, I suppose, since it's really just a question more so than a narrative of thought/feeling.  I have no means of knowing the answer.  I know everybody wants more than they've got even though they have all they will ever need except in a lot of cases a lofty retirement.  I know there are a lot of people that are misappropriating their money with the latest gadgets and hitting up food pantries for assistance.
However, since  I've never had a job --  My limited ability to connect with people is just one reason for that -- I cannot objectively answer the primary question pertaining to the minimum wage debate:  My pondrence is pertaining to: for those who were working minimum wage during or before the most recent mnm wage hike and are still making minimum wage today (does such a group exist?):  Did the most recent minimum wage increase help you?  In other words, is your life better as a direct result of minimum wage going up back then?
I know businesses are at odds with the Democrat agenda.  I do think businesses should pay their fair share.  Just like gay people should seek God's counsel and abstain from their urges, the people that own WalMart should also be empathetic and generous toward its employees and those less fortunate.  However, the same greed that WalMart and its peers exhibit is not something the common man is immune to.  Heck, I've been guilty of greed many a time and I've been on welfare all of my adult life.  The more you have, the more you think you deserve.  It's a tragic tale that happens over and over again, and The Bible shows it plenty and so does less controversial sources of history. 
Obviously we as a society need to continue wanting what we don't have.  It's a given.  That's why capitalism works for those who have a job or some kind of income.  But the degree of want is another story entirely.  That people are so discontent with their lives that they sacrifice food and shelter to pay for the newest technologies is absolutely absurd.  No smartphone is going to be useful enough to make it worth going without a nourishing meal.  Heck, any kind of telephone is not really needed, although writing a letter or visiting a neighbor to get your fill of after-work social interaction is just too much to expect of people, right?

Government authority is a fashion statement.  No government exists outside of the people's will.  If people are wanting bad enough for their government to change, it'll happen.  There's a passage in George Orwell's book 1984 that perfectly demonstrates that fact.  Sure, people in China and USSR-era Russia had nothing to compare their lives to because of the strict censorship those governments impose(d).  But if they really wanted change, they could have made it happen.  Chinese citizens are too busy working and then shopping to demand change.  Same thing with the USA.  Until something bad happens to a family member or someone you love otherwise, it doesn't matter what the laws are.  There simply aren't enough victims to make any kind of change.  That's the kind of love The Bible speaks of.  Loving someone enough to step in and help out with what they need.  Not because of some forced familial connection, but because you are God's child and as an expression of gratitude, you treat others the same way Christ did --- died so he could keep us from having to go to Hell for the wrongs we commit, the nastiness in our hearts, both internal and outwardly projected.
 I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite.  I don't know if it's a harder road to walk because I resisted so long or if it's merely my dissassociation with society that still plagues me...I think it's a combination of the two.  I do know I am a coward.  I don't pray to God often enough about that.

  This is oft-stated Christian theology, but a fitting closing thought:
  The first commandment is NO IDOLATRY!  It's the first commandment because even though it's the hardest commandment to follow, it makes following the rest of them a gazillion times easier to accomplish.

chillin' w. the waves

Most of these "chill-wave" albums --- nostalgia-driven 21st century new wave --- start off great and then get boring after 4 or 5 songs.  They sound cheesy in concept, but it's hard not to like the songs if you ignore the song titles.  I was never into all the crap the 80's offered; RAMBO, POLICE ACADEMY, etc. etc...hair metal is OK, most of it is so shallow, I liked it more when I was a pre-teen and early teenager even though I've always been "deep" compared to my peers.  I mainly like a lot of the synth based 80's music, like "Take On Me" by A-Ha, HEARTBREAK CITY-era The Cars (the bulk of their 1985 overview THE CARS' GREATEST HITS is a blast)...there's a lot of music in the '80's that is synth based I don't like.  Some of that I liked a lot more before I came to Christ.  Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" is just too slow and simplistic, even though it's obviously a bonafide classic; some people ***really*** like that song.  It's never been a favorite of mine.  I eagerly await a more useful spending of my time when it comes on Pandora, since I keep creating stations hoping to find a blend of music that actually represents the song(s) that I selected as a jumpstart to the station.  They say "pick your favorite song or artist".  I don't have a favorite artist.  "Losing Your Memory" by Ryan Star is probably my favorite song, but I select that and it ends up a big mess of Coldplay like stuff, some of it IS Coldplay, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, they had some killer stuff in the early and mid-2000s, but nothing that compares with the likes of the station seed in question.  It just irks me that they never play anything from prior to 2001 when I select that song.  Personally I think the Billy Joel remake of that old song "And So It Goes" has a lot more in common with R.S.'s "Losing Your Memory" than most of this piano-jangle pop or whatever you call it.  I always have to skip almost a dozen songs because it's largely stuff I've heard way more times than I ever needed to.  The Fray's "How To Save A Life" -- and all the other 11 songs on that album -- are nothing new to me.  The Fray's 2nd album onward is mostly garbage songs with a few OK songs mixed in.  They NEVER played "And So It Goes".  I've used "losing your memory" as a station seed alongside other custom radio jumpstarters but never did it cause Pandora to play "and so it goes" --- neither the original from the '50s or whenever that was (don't remember the name of the group) nor the Billy Joel re-make.  Heck, I never even heard them play anything else of similar caliber and quality by Billy Joel.  He had some killer songs on his "GHv3" from 1997 that covered his later years before he apparently quit making music unless you count live recordings as "making music".  I think "The Downeastern Alexa" or "Shameless" would go great.  I think one time I heard Imogen Heap's "Hide And Seek" on a station that I used "LYM" as a station seed after like the dozenth attempt.  idk.  That would have been the most obvious choice as a song you play on a station named after that great Ryan Star song.
Anyway...I don't know what I'm typing about.  Music I don't like?  idk.
Most of the chill-wave albums are not available physically.  I did find one by a band called Gunship, which is probably the most boring chill wave album I've heard as of yet.  Amazon is selling it for $18 and some change + tax.  You can get it a little cheaper from their marketplace sellers.  The lowest prices are like $15 apprx when you factor in s/h.  Amazon offers free s/h, but if you opt out of that you have to pay $4 on top of the $20apprx (it might be slightly less depending on your local tax or if Amazon has a warehouse in your state.  When I was living in Missouri through 2015, I didn't have to pay tax on Amazon LLC orders, although there were some marketplace sellers that shipped from Missouri who Amazon's system automatically added tax to items I thought about ordering from those sellers.....)  I was considering ordering that Gunship CD b/c I had a real cool typically chill-wave cover, but it's in no way worth $15++.  I'd rather wait for ATLAS by FM-84 to come on CD or vinyl than buy a mediocre chill wave album on CD.  ATLAS isn't consistently riveting either, but it's better than CHROME BURNING by Mitch Murder, which I got done listening to 8 songs of this morning and found myself rather bored by that 8th song and the one preceding it.

ecto plazm

Just found out Family Dollar has been selling GHOSTBUSTERS ECTO PLAZM play gel for ONE DOLLAR.  SINCE SEPTEMBER!
And it comes in multiple colors!
HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS????????????????
Hope they still have it.
It's a humongous walk.  Will have to wait til close(r) to December to see if I can get my hands on a couple cans of it.

Wednesday, the day before Friday...

Tomorrow (thurs/thanksgiving)
i will be heading to the Town Center Community Church to hang w/ folks during Thanksgiving meal time, at approximately 11-1pm I guess...not sure how long anyone will want to sit around talking and eating...
My mom will be with my gramma, and so is my sis & her hubby.  I'm stayin' behind to take care of the dogs and my sis' cat.  And my cat too (heh).
Didn't read my daily The Bible entry yesterday.  Caught up before noon today, prior to turning on the desktop.
Ate waaaaay too much today....starting to sound old.
Still need to walk the dogs so they and myself can get exercise.  I didn't check the mail Monday or Tuesday.  I checked the mail earlier in the morning and then checked it again after noon.  My FORREST GUMP blu ray was there.  USPS had been expecting it to arrive on Friday.  It was sent out by the seller on Saturday, just kinda dropped in the slot, nobody picked it up 'til Monday.  Yeehaw!  I will probably get the card my gramma sent me Friday.  She usually puts $ in it, although there's no telling how much or little is in it.  She used to consistently give me $20.  Lately she's pulling down a lot less money and I haven't spoken much to her since I moved here to Georgia, so I wouldn't be surprised if she scaled it back down to $10 or even $5.  In principle, I shouldn't expect any money, and I will be a tad disappointed if there is none w/ the card.  It's not even a big deal.  I have $8 in my wallet.  I was expecting to have an expense that turned out not to be, so I had $5 after I realized that midday yesterday, and then I sold a CD to CD Warehouse and got some $ from that.  I actually have $9, but $1 of that is innaccessible to me until further notice from my mom or whatever.  If I need an Amazon gift card or something, I might ask my mom to send it to me electronically in the form of an Amazon gift card, but until that becomes needed, if it does, then I don't have it, but it is "in my name", though I guess that's also wrong phrasing, since I can't prove it's mine...
Um...hmm...I think that's it...

Happy Birthday 2 me

Got that, or something virtually the same, for my birthday on Sunday Nov. 20th this year (Two days ago).  Very cool.  So far I've been keeping up with it.  It's a "one year Bible", so I should have the entirety of God's word read by mid-late Nov. 19th of this coming year.  I know from talking to people that I'll need to start over again, and keep doing that as God guides me into being a better disciple.  It's a very pretty/handsome book.
Thank you, Mom!

My sis bought & brought by a gourmet cake, from a local grocery store named Publix -- it's an in-store bakery grocery store kinda thing, but they do quite well at it considering, much better than some of them out there, i.e.: WalMart.  The Schnucks in Southeast Missouri was pretty good, a lot better than WalMart, but Publix takes the cake...no, no, I didn't mean I returned the cake and got my sister's money back, no, that is NOT what I meant!  You want proof?  LOOK AT MY STOMACH!  LOOK AT IT.  Ok, ok, calm down...rrr...
I had a blistering headache last night.  I hadn't brushed my teeth in almost a week...if not longer...I need brush 'em again especially since I had apple pie for breakfast.  Word on the street is A) you need to ADD sugar to apple pie and B) even if you use half sucralose-based sweetener (i.e.: Splenda) and half sugar, the sugar content is STILL astronormous.  So yeah.  Sorry teeth.
But yeah.  Heh.  You thought I was gonna show you my stomach didn't you?  (grins)
anyway, I had a good birthday.  My gramma said she was going to mail out "a card" yesterday.  Here's hoping it gets here Wednesday.  I'm rooting for supernaturally fast mail processing and I WILL CHECK MY Mail today, hoping against hope...realizing I will most likely be disappointed, so that my disappointment doesn't crush the very center of my soul.....
A blu ray I ordered on Amazon was "shipped" on Saturday, but nobody at the post office works on Saturday, so it didn't get is bhind out working toward its destination until yesterday.  USPS is estimating a Friday delivery.  Truth is they really don't *KNOW* when it will arrive, so that might get here Wednesday...if not, I'll be home with my cat, my sister's cat and my Mom's dogs and NO MAIL!!!  NO NEW THINGS TO GO "OOH" AT!  WWAAA!!!!
Ok, I think I'm delving too much into my life and not enough about anyone else's.  GROUP POLL: What's the best Dustin Hoffman movie?

Ok, xx

Madness I tell you! du yu not knew whu dis is!?

IT IS JEEESUS!  MAKER AND RULER OF DA WORLD!


Yeah, had to get that out of my system.
I'm supposed to be at a Men's Bible study no later than 7PM, takes about 20 minutes to get there, will need to be ready in case my ride decides to be half an hour apprx early.
I feel like I'm either living in another day entirely or I'm not "wearing wedding clothes".  What the heck am I doing?  I need to check the mail.  I found out after playing ball with the dogs that the mail had arrived while I was doing that or right afterward.  I don't know exactly what the gap between checking the tracking and that was.  I didn't think the mailman would leave them in the mailbox, but supposedly they did.  I'll have to check on that.  I only got four 4.5 hours to do what the heck ever.  I don't know.  I hate it when this happens.  It's plenty of time to do everything one can think to do and still find time to be bored silly, but to me it's just pressure to meet a deadline and it's driving me nuts.
Eeeeh...um...nothing serious, just I, the looney bin resident...Hey, FORMER looney bin resident...eh?

just another Monday

posted a video on YouTube of me dicking around with my mom's dogs.  Tried getting Maria to play some ball.  She was a lot more interested in snifing the ground and eating bits of it.  I don't know...Dharma seemed to think her ball had followed her out with Maria.  She needs exercise as much as the next dog, but she doesn't need as much assistance in getting it.  Maria's an old dog for her type, so she's got arthritis and all that goes along w/ that, not to mention just being tired more often and tired out more easily than she once was.

 sorry.  I say bad words sometimes.  There's just a couple in this video.  PG-13y

Sunday 10/23

Still coasting along mostly.  I was in need of sleep due to having missed out on a great deal of it over this past week, so I found myself yawning in church toward the end and prior to that feeling like I wasn't properly composed for worship.  I didn't loudly proclaim the words that I sang.  I missed chunks of what the pastor was preaching.  I got home and turned on the computer and then soon after turned it off and took a 2 hour nap.  I'm still foggy in da head, and I laid down for a little while, about an hour ago.  Nothing happened.  I guess that can kinda be expected when you got machine-gunning, tap dancing Michael Jackson exuding from your sound system.  The two I have in my collection are BAD and DANGEROUS, both meant to showcase his "tough side".  It's weird to think how much of MJ's out put I assumed was The Jackson 5.  I didn't realize until a couple or so years ago that he was still performing with his brothers during his whirlwind success with THRILLER.  The pre-OFF THE WALL material that bore the Michael Jackson brand sounded almost identical to the stuff he sang while under The Jackson 5 umbrella.  I guess knowing the difference before hand does make a difference.  The album VICTORY that The Jacksons (The Jackson 5 - 1 + 2) didn't really sound like THRILLER, but it did sound pretty similar to BAD, albeit with lower production values.
  Aaanyway.  For the most part, I've done better at conducting myself since I last posted here.  I'm still stuck in my shellshocked-ish existence, minimizing eye contact and interaction with other people.  There was a "Men's pancake breakfast" yesterday at 7:30 and I was racking my brain trying to think of a good reason to attend.  I didn't understand the concept at all.  Breakfast w/o women?  I don't understand the significance.  It probably made more sense to people who live closer to the church doors.  A 20 minute drive to and then another back seemed like a waste of time and honestly it still does.
So...hmmmm...I sold a bunch of stuff that I was hoping to sell at Amazon or Discogs to CD Warehouse in Marietta.  Not really "a bunch", er se, it was 5 items or something like that.  I don't know how many I sold, but I got $15 out of it and now I have $3.49 coming from a sale I made at Amazon.  I used some of that to buy STIR OF ECHOES.  I got a Blu ray edition of it b/c they ddin't have any DVD copies of it.  The BD was only $3.99 + tax.  That's only slightly more than it would have been had I bought it from one of the sellers on Amazon.com/The Amazon Marketplace.  So the total cash I got was $10.77.  I used $0.60 of those last two digits to buy a box of instant pudding mix and I bought a Christmas card for me grumma at  a Hallmark store.  This morning me and my Mom went to Starbucks.  I got a hot chocolate b/c I didn't feel like spending $4-$5 on a coffee and they do make some real good hot chocolate.  I should have requested they use skim milk, but o well.  I almost always forget to request that.  I don't think 2% milk has a heck of a lot more calories than skim milk...if I drank 2 or 3 cups of Starbucks hot chocolate in a day, that'd be another story, but those extra 50 or so calories combined with my normal intake can make a difference...the real difference was the meal at Wendy's I ate for lunch paid for by a friendly couple who drove me home from church since my mom had a birthday party to attend.  She was invited, so she went.  She knows her name, I forgot what she told me it is, and neither of us know how, but she's related to my sister's husband somehow.  She just turned 2 years old, which means she was a "behind the scenes" human being when I attended my sister's wedding in July of 2014.
You'd think I'd shut up by now, seeing how little I have to actually talk about...ugh...ok.  Cue fade/end credits.

better than 10/15, still not as good as 10/05

I went too long w/o reading The Bible and I could tell circa Saturday 10/15 as I stormed inward and outward through Amazon.com's customer review forum trying to knock sense into people who apparently never had any interest in making sense.
I remembered just now as I was typing this to delete those comments, or at least the ones I remember...
I read The Bible on Sunday and Monday.  I brought my cell phone & Gideon's translation of The New Testament to my sis' house where I spent most of Wednesday (yesterday) and I spent not a whole lot of time on either, but nonetheless spent a lot more time on my cell phone than I did my Bible, to put it mildly.
  I've been driving myself mad with lust.  I don't see an end to that.  I swear, my libido is more in my face now than it was when I was 16.  And that's just freakin' weird, b/c my libido has existed ever since I was 6 or 7 years old.
  It's all part of the same problem --- I don't do well as making bridges between myself and others and I never have.  I keep thinking I might as well uproot and go to Haiti or someplace as a full time professional missionary, but I don't even know if that would solve the problem.  How do you mission to people when you're heavily reluctant to say "hi" to people you pass on the street?  Surel, I keep thinking, I'm just being impatient.  That impatience could be taken further as in "Oh, why not just die already?" but I know this shell that houses the core of me will be taken away in due time.  It's not my call to make.  God doesn't need help.  He doesn't need help spreading The Good News about Jesus even.  He wants us to help in specific matters, such as evangelizing, and he demands it because laziness and cowardice would get in the way of things if he had made it sound like an option.  Love of God leads to obeying his commands.  Obeying his commands is beneficial to both Him and us.  Cases where that is not true are instances of Satan ruling over the mind and God does dwell in vessels that are pumping black ooze instead of healthy blood.  People need a blood transfusion that doctors can't provide.  Doctors can often extend your existence, but they can't make your life worth saving.
  My natural personality is at an advantage, I do often consider myself a nice guy overall, but the digital rampage I spoke of in paragraphs 1 & 2 are not a recent development.  I have always been a self centered greedy snot.  You might even say I'm a natural born hypocrite, always complaining about how much better the world would be if they took the plain as day message of Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror" to heart all the while comparing myself to others instead of looking at MY man in the mirror and making improvements as I see opportunities to do so.  Obviously,  not everyone is guilty of overt ugliness.  Most people in Western culture aren't.  Someone at The Washington Post described the disenfranchisement with D.C., stating there is no singular reason for people's distrust and disgust with politicians, therefore there's no easy way to fix the problem.  Instead it appears to be a case of death by 1,000 paper cuts.  How many paper cuts does the average person have to deal with on an average day?  Do you trust your neighbor?  If so, I'm happy for you.  That means life's been really good to you.  Most of us need to keep our doors locked to keep thieves at bay.  And if that doesn't work, you can thank your 60" 4K TV if you're still alive and happy to be so by dawn's early light.

I've been eating like crazy since my EBT card was reloaded (the 13th) and if I haven't gained 15 lbs, I have God to thank for that, but I'm either stupid as all get out or The Higi Station (a hi-tech scale) at Publix on Baker Rd in Acworth Georgia needs to be fixed.  That thing gave me 3 different #s in the span of less than 10 minutes.  One was 218 lbs.  One was 220 or something like that and the other was 238.  None of those sound right.  I'd weighed myself about a week prior and the scale said 264.  A week before then it said 268.  I have done nothing to cause a decrease of 20-50 lbs since I weighed 264.  I might have lost 5 or so lbs, but by now I think I've gained it back and then some.

Meanwhile, at the Bat-cave...two Terminators were sent back through time.......

ain't right

If you are going into a movie with low expectations, then I have to wonder why?  If you're going into a movie with high expectations, then you're more likely to be disappointed if your cinematic taste buds have developed at all, and for the crop of folks who were born after 9/11, I guess those cinematic taste buds may take awhile longer to develop if they ever do at all since so much of what's come out has been plastic.  The nice thing about movies -- the good ones -- is their ability to entertain you despite the cruelty they depict.  I guess as this nation/culture adapts an attitude of "there's nothing wrong with me", the more they embrace what further wrongs lurk deep inside of themselves, and thus can accept that in other people.  I don't think it's gotten to that point as of yet.  There's still an army of God-fearing people in this world to provide a glimmer of The Holy Spirit within society as a whole.
Films like BOOGIE NIGHTS --- even though the writer didn't seem to have any message to convey, I found large parts of it to be rather disturbing, but nonetheless the pretty visuals and the storybook feel of it all kept me hooked.  It's not until the film gets to wrapping up that you finally realize the film had no message.  In a way, I suppose that's not such a bad thing.  The fact that the film came out when it did I think gives it the perfect time test.  You can feel the spiritual pulse of society by seeing how it reacts to watching BOOGIE NIGHTS.  Does the film still disturb people today?  How will people react to it 50 years from now?
Thankfully Martin Scorsese is still making movies.  He's one of the few genuine talents who hasn't lost his touch.  I wasn't impressed with SHUTTER ISLAND, but on the other hand, not every movie he's made was a sensational hit.  He's made several movies that barely made a blip on the radar.  THE KING OF COMEDY, KUNDUN...I personally didn't think much of AFTER HOURS, although many people feel that way about BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, which is one of my favorite movies ever.  And then he's got "Just okay" movies that were kinda overhyped.  CASINO, GANGS OF NEW YORK, etc.but I truly did enjoy THE DEPARTED...I haven't seen THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, but I might give it a try one of these days.  I'm greatly looking forward to that movie about missionaries in Japan with Liam Neeson...I do wonder if that's still moving forward...gotta check on that I guess.
Anyway...Just got me thinking b/c I have to wonder about the standards of people who have so much fundamental criticism of a movie like 2016's GHOSTBUSTERS and then try and defend it like "It's not terrible."  BATMAN & ROBIN isn't terrible.  No movie that costs $100M+ is going to be terrible.  That still doesn't excuse the lack of greatness that Hollywood is providing us.  The talent is there.  If Hollywood had an application process, I'd say they're not hiring.  But that's not the case.  They are hiring.  They're just being very lazy in who they hire.  They aren't looking for people who will get the job done right.  They're just looking to get the job done and the end result is Hollywood being a con artistry...how many times does one get fooled before they start sharing the blame?

I thought I'd never see you again!

It's late coming, but fall has hit.  It's my first autumn in Georgia.  It's gorgeous.  I was thinking I might get rid of my American Football CD b/c fall wasn't coming.  For some reason those first few days of fall make that CD resonate more.  So needless to say I'm happy.  Like usual, I keep thinking I need to be doing something God-oriented b/c there's so much need and deprivation, both domestically/internally and foreign/outward.  Just something I live with, right or wrong.
I was blown away to find out the aforementioned band American Football are **finally** after 17 years following up their debut.  The description on Amazon states that the CD came out with little recognition, the band did 12 live shows in support of it and then said "forget it".  By now however the album has managed to sell 100,000 copies give or take.  If it were not for the now defunct Yahoo! Launchcast, I would probably still not know who they were/are.  i listened to a couple preview tracks on Spotify and was pleased.  It's not "the same", duh, but it's as good as you can expect.  The one of a kind awe-sum-ness of their debut is exactly that --- one of a kind.  The band didn't choose to create it.  The band simply chose to not to refuse to record it.  Granted, some of its awesomeness stems from the production, which is part of the actual creation...I don't know if the band produced it themselves, but regardless -- production techniques alone don't make an album what it is.  The production is usually meant to emphasise certain points in an album, not create them entirely.
Ok, so...I've been attending a men's only Bible study on Monday nights.  I've been lavished with appreciation for my thoughts/comments.  I guess the apprx.10-person give and take of thought and scripture has made me less antsy to post my musings on here.  I don't know.  Maybe I'm just lazy as of late.  How long has it been?  Ugh.
Anyway.
I seriously have no idea what else to talk about.  That's about the extent of the past 2 months.  That and my usual trying to spend money for the sake of itself and then feeling like an idiot, over-spending, using my CC and feeling even more like an idiot and then feeling guilty.  My sister bought me cat food last month (for my cat, not myself, even though my cat is *my* companion, which is why I say my sister bought *me* cat food), b/c I took the money I'd been setting aside and blew it on I don't even remember what.  Pizza maybe?  Gosh, that was insane.  And then I bought more movies(Blu ray discs) at Fingerhut.  I did also buy a Roku (Roku3), and I've been happy w/ it.  It's more stable than my Blu ray player, except it doesn't play discs of any kind, obviously...(y'all know what a Roku is??!!!).  So, like the rest of my Fingerhut debt, some of it's a total waste and some of it was somewhat logical and all of it was severely inflated before any interest was added (and more is to come).
Alright.  xx

Tuesday, July 19...about six hours ago...

...I had just walked out of NCG Acworth after having seen GHOSTBUSTERS (2016).  I felt a disappointing sense of underwhelmed through the whole thing.  The near end/middle had some interesting visuals, but the first 1/2 of the movie felt like a cheap made for cable TV movie.  I didn't feel like a widescreen major motion picture.  I didn't think any of the film was funny, although it could have been had it gone all the way in the direction the humor was heading for.  It was mostly just bits and pieces of jokes that have been done 100,000+++ times interspersed between a suspenseful story that was played out in a goofy-awkward style.  I really was hoping for the best from this movie.  I figured it wouldn't be as good as the original, but after watching 2015's SPY -- made by the same co-writer & director of GB'16 -- I felt the failures of Dir. Paul Feig's other movies were perhaps the product of lack of experience and gave me hope that this film would be at least as good as that.  I think maybe Kate Diepold -- who co-wrote THE HEAT, which was also had a very goofy-awkward look and feel to it -- was the driving force behind this film's faults.  What I don't understand is why director Paul Feig let her on board...but on the other hand, a lot of people thought THE HEAT was the funniest film of that year, whatever year that was...
Some people have over time questioned my fandom of GHOSTBUSTERS (pre'16).  I guess I can say that I'm not so much a fan of GHOSTBUSTERS as I am of the feelings it evokes when I watch it.  It's very nostalgic.  For some reason or another the images in that film -- even the ones that take place on mundane locales like sidewalks and parks -- evoke a feeling of another time, another place, like a modern day USA that predates the modern day USA...which is kinda what the '70's and '80's was, technically...but I feel like I'm this close to touching it, but I can't quite...probably b/c I'd been watching the film since the age of 2 if nor younger, and I have memories surrounding watching the movie that I am not aware of...like the day I was born.  I don't think I remember it.  I don't know for a fact that a skilled hypnotist would be unable to put me under hypnosis and make me recall that day during the hypnosis.

elevation

I ordered HERE AS IN HEAVEN by Elevation Worship from Overstock.com about a week ago.  I wanted to have it on CD b/c the cover-art is pretty and the music is really good.  Well, now I'm returning it unsealed to the retailer, b/c the damn disc will not come out of the case safely.  Maybe I'm just stupid or something, but I spent almost 2 entire minutes (a guestimate) trying to get that CD out of the case.  It never happened.  I'll probably buy HERE AS IN HEAVEN brand new from Amazon LLC so I can get the AutoRip ***and*** have the prrrty cover-art.  Thankfully I'm able to say that as if I have a means of accomplishing it somewhat soon without deceiving y'all.  I'm expecting a $50++ refund from Amazon.  Their partner "Amazon Warehouse Deals" sold me a used 4333 Lasko Hybrid Fan for $67.  The day I received the fan in the mail, the price went down to $50, in new condition, directly from Amazon.  They said they wouldn't charge return s/h, so returning the fan will hopefully not have been a waste of time.

Where do these crazy ideas come from?

You'd think with all the constant warring going on in the Middle East and Africa and parts of South America that The USA was invented by aliens.  We've had wars, sure, but we've had relative peace for most of our nation's lifetime.  The Korean War was an effort to keep two nations from killing each other.  I don't even know if I'd call that a war.  The Vietnam War was a travesty.  I think the leaders should have had more faith in God and confided in Him more than they did.  Capitalism is not the cornerstone of this nation.  England is living proof of this.  Economic prosperity is nice, but it is not the cornerstone of any civilization.  The full scale battles within the War On Terror were a mistake.  I say that it was a mistake because there was never any victory in sight.  The Bush Family got what it wanted, but the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan are still not finished.  Our government has been trying to ease the public's frustration and heartache by figuring out when we can withdraw.  There's still no end in sight.  But prior to the days of Vietnam and the demonic presences that have continuously strengthened their grip on this nation since, this nation had very little warring.  WWII was a defensive against the Japanese and Hitler and we tried like heck to stay out of WWI.
Sure, our leaders were not perfect, even from the get go.  I think George Washington had a vanity and/or ego problem.  That probably explains the slaves he had and the mistreatment he put them through.  Somehow The Gospel was spread to the kidnapped African people, despite their owners hypocrisy.  I think to a large extent, the founders were rather two faced.  They tried to be kind and dutiful, but they weren't willing to face the financial losses that would result in admitting that their African brothers & sisters were no less worthy of pay than their same-colored brothers & sisters. 
However, the Constitution was very carefully constructed.  Our leaders may have not sought God's council as much as they could have, but they cared a lot about the nation they were founding and they wanted it to be free of the kinds of things England was notorious for, which was basically what Republicans call "government interference".  I think the fact that most of our leaders, if not all of them, were Christians helped them understand and appreciate this kind of government.  Jesus Christ is referred to The Bible as Kings Of Kings.  The founding fathers knew the history of Israel and the map God drew for it and how far the Israeli people fell from their proverbial tree.  The founders did not expect the citizens to be perfect.  Just as God did not force Israel to obey the commands, the US government is not forcing anybody to obey God's commands.  True, there is a certain standard of conduct expected within tighter knit communities and on a national scale, things like abortion were long considered beyond the pale of any human being worthy of being alive and well.  A lot of those standards of conduct have loosened or become nonexistent, and we are now seeing the toll it's taking.  How many cries for help have gone unnoticed?  How many people have wanted to ask for help but never did because nobody seemed to care?  How many people bothered to even consider these things when asking "Why?" as in "Why did (so and so) kill so many innocent people?"  Most of us don't need help with staying afloat emotionally, much less physically.  That is very fortunate, for the most part.  Insanity is becoming more and more common and we don't deal with insanity as if that were the case.  We deal with it as some kind of cause for self concern instead of a cause to lend a hand.
It is my opinion that the nation established in 1776 is soon to be ended.  It's already divided so heavily.  The only Bill Of Rights Democrats want to keep is the first one and Republicans want to keep the entire thing and the Republicans are constantly losing favor with The American People as we call ourselves...

Nel, c'mon...

My mother's state-funded housekeeper for a couple years there -- who eventually got herself fired by slacking off and then making baseless accusations toward my mom -- used to listen to conservative talk radio a lot.  One of the ones I often got the pleausre (cough, cough) of hearing was Neal Boortz.  The guy would go on endlessly talking about people's mistakes.  Not society's mistakes, not a mistake that some celebrity was making that nobody wanted to admit was indeed a mistake, but just mistakes of random people.  He talked about some student who attends some no-name college who was demanding something or other from the dean of the college.  This was information he was apparently using to draw a parallel to the Occupy movement that eventually dissolved because they had absolutely no strategy for accomplishing whatever it was they wanted, which was for life to be peachy, apparently.
  Even his little sidekick lady was confounded by that one.  She even said "Where do you find these people?"  Some guy called into the show criticizing Neal Boortz for being too negative.  Neal then countered that by saying how he's always talking about positive things -- getting Obama out of office and getting a Republican back in!  The guy was kind of stumped by that and he simply said "That's your opinion".  Neal basically responded saying "Yeah, well it's my show".  Which is entirely the point.  If you don't like the show, don't listen to it.  My question is mainly why do people like the show?  What do people really gain out of it?  I ask because I've known at least two people -- out of a very small group of people I've ever spent a significant amount of time with outside of school -- who seem rather grumpy much of the time.  Their sense of humor is intact, but often snide.  1)  My mom's former housekeeper 2)  A guy I knew several years back during my high school years.  He listened to conservative talk radio for like 3 hours of the day at least, and it really seemed like was just bitter.  He acted like he was justified in that because of the mistreatment he suffered from his ex-wife and the existence of Democrats.  He'd probably deny all of that, saying he told me about his ex-wife because I somehow indicated that I wanted to know, and I don't have a problem with people sharing their sob stories.  I have a problem with people holding grudges and taking them out on other people.  He told me that he knows some people who are ready to make Michael Carneal, a semi-local loner who had come to the end of his rope and opened fire at school, wish he was back in prison if he ever got out.  His argument for the death penalty was that Murderers Are Evil.  I don't think the story of Cain & Able was put in The Bible so that mankind could piss on the grave of mankind's first murderer.  If it were, God would have struck down Cain.  The Bible is a source of wisdom, but you have to take the time to understand it.  He said The Bible supported zealously denouncing homosexuality.  The Bible supports preaching The Good News.  It supports getting people to understand why The Good News is important and encouraging them to keep on the righteous path once they discover The Good News and all of its splendor.  The Bible says we should rebuke each other for our sins, but do so in love, and that when Christians are persecuted, we will be a witness to God to the people who are persecuting us.  Ex-communication is a last resort and something The Bible encourages.  You can't ex-communicate someone who has never experienced the Word of God -- unless that person is a church goer -- someone who has been going to church for a while -- and has made it clear they have no intention of heeding to The Holy Spirit's will.  That is what The Bible refers to as a Hypocrite --- we are instructed to not share meals with them.

Anyway...not only is Neal Boortz a pipeline of negativity, but he obstructs the truth to justify his opinions.  He said rich people pay more taxes than anybody else --- he proved this by reading a half page's worth of information from some IRS document, either something he found online or, whatever.  If that half page worth of information is the whole truth, why does anybody ever use H&R Block?  If it's so simple, why not do it yourself the same way you stamp and address outgoing mail?  George W. Bush said in a campaign rally during his re-election bid that the shortest tax form takes 9 hours to complete.  This is a rather telling statement.  The guy either is unaware that poor people exist or he has no regard for them as human beings.  I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and go with the former.

I'm still half asleep it seems.  I've forgotten if there was anything else I wanted to say.  Either that or I've said everything I intend to say and have no witty way of wrapping it up.  TTFN

Just when it's finally cultrually acceptable to not hate GHOSTBUSTERS II...

...along comes another new spin on GHOSTBUSTERS.  And the pissing and moaning about the choices the writers made and things that should've been included and shouldn't have been included...as if everyone EXCEPT Paul Feig knew how to make a good GHOSTBUSTERS movie.  The most mind boggling thing I hear is the line "It didn't need to be re-make".  My response is always like "It didn't need to be made in the first place."  I'm glad it did get made, it's a great movie, but what would the world have been missing if some other fun supernatural comedy got made in 1985 and 1984 and all the other years since just didn't see GHOSTBUSTERS?  Now that we know what GHOSTBUSTERS **is**, it's hard for some people to imagine a world without it, but I think it's a lame argument to say "The world needed to see this movie!"  If GHOSTBUSTERS were a fully realized movie to begin with, before it got pitched to Columbia Pictures in 1983, I might be able to see how that line of thinking makes sense.  The script by Dan Aykroyd was far from what we saw on the screen in 1984.  Harold Ramis and Ivan Rietman didn't finish revisions before Columbia Pictures granted $30,000,000 for production.  They weren't trying to give the world some Ultimate Movie or a Savior Of Cinema.  Their motives for making GHOSTBUSTERS were most likely just as much a combination of artistic expression and greed as Paul Feig's motives for re-making GHOSTBUSTERS.  Now, Sony -- who now owns Columbia Pictures & all its properties -- is most likely far more motivated by commerce than art.
I can more or less wrap my head around people thinking nothing good of the trailers that have been released.  I personally think the movie sounds entertaining.  But people have been rallying against this movie as if it's a threat to society.  It'd be one thing if the movie were advertised as being something x person wants to see and then x person went in the theater and ended up disappointed.  But people have been rallying against this movie with such concrete venom since well before any trailer was even released.
 A 3rd Ghostbusters movie was never guaranteed to be anything except a 3rd movie from Columbia Pictures/Sony about people busting ghosts.  The Ecto-1 was never promised, the original weaponry was never promised, the no ghost logo was never promised.  Yet the absence of the original Ecto-1, the re-designed weaponry, the added weaponry and the no-ghost logo itself have all been points of controversy and people say that the reason they're upset about this thing is because it's a re-make and not a sequel and that it's got nothing to do with sexism.  Maybe sexism isn't the reason, but being a nitpicky old fart is still not a virtue of any kind.  Unless your nitpickety old fartyness can accomplish something other than pissing and moaning about every fact, factoid and rumor pertaining to a movie nobody ever offered you the opportunity to (re-)make.

Heart vs Head

"That's what you get for thinking".  My mom's ex-boyfriend (post-marriage) got a kick out of saying that.  I didn't understand the appeal.  I don't know if he understood it either.  The guy was a jerk.  But those words come to mind when I think about parenting and how it naturally has a tendency to lessen the effects of evil.
I, for one, don't feel like I have anything to pass onto a child.  Some people have posted on GhostbustersNews.com Facebook about how they want to pass on their love of Ghostbusters to their children.  Granted, that is something to pass onto a child, but I feel like if that's all you have to pass on, there's really no point.  My sister has a very deep bond with Lord God, and I think that is something worth passing on.  A lot of parents in this country are not Christians in the purest sense, and many have no faith in God whatsoever.  But the ideology of this nation was molded by Christians.  Almost everyone is OK with the concept of "The Greater Good".  Not everyone is in agreement with what that means or how to live by it, which is where going back to God and seeking His counsel would help tremendously.
But there's also a secondary factor, I think.  I could be wrong b/c it's not like I'm some globetrotter who's seen it all.  I think parents -- men & women, but especially women -- have a built in desire to do what's best for their children.  There are some exceptions, especially in a dying world where mental illness is increasing, but generally that is how things go.  There obviously is a desire to pursue your own selfish agenda and that conflict of interest and how tangled up it is I think is where cultural concurrences come into play. 
The reasoning behind the first murder that ever took place makes absolutely no sense.  It would make sense if there were some reason to think God's opinion of Cain would change due to Abel's absence.  Abel did not die though.  He simply ceased being able to make Cain feel guilty for Cain's own course of action.  God never intended mankind to die.  Jesus rose from the grave to demonstrate this.  We are all given the opportunity to be children of God as Adam & Eve were originally built to be because of the illustration he drew in His resurrection.  The resurrection obviously has other implications and meanings, but just as Jesus did not speak on his own accord, Jesus did not act on his own accord either.  God gave him the power to perform miracles.  God gave him the seed of life to be birthed by Mary husband of Joseph, and God gave Jesus the power to submit his spirit to Him, and God gave Jesus the power to rise and greet the world again.   If God can raise Jesus from the dead, he could do the same to anybody.  It is a relief to me to know that this life of struggling to trust and obey will someday fall asleep and be painted over with by the most beautiful colors -- colors so beautiful that any bad things that happened in this life will be rendered invisible.
I think what started this cycle of distrust and disobedience was a very key thing that mankind has since been forced to eat daily -- Adam & Eve started thinking.  Thought is extremely over rated.  It's necessary to understand something so out of this world as The Bible, but if we weren't so in deep with dishonesty in various forms, we would not need to use our noggins to the extent that it causes a splitting headache.  That is where The Holy Spirit comes in.  You are not alone in this battle.

Ugh...be damned whatever these 0's are

I remember seeing an item page for a book on Amazon, the title of which I don't remember...it was supposedly about how Google has pretty much censored the internet by way of "personalized" search results.  They of course don't look at it as censorship...they look at it as being helpful.  By way of censorship.

Really really BAD

I decided the easiest and most sensible thing to do is unleash my mini LP copy of BAD from its plastic sleeve and keep it.  The OBI would be nice to have, but this item is obviously not worth very much to anybody.  It's apparently still in print --- Amazon LLC is still offering it, and their price (brand new) isn't too bad either.  The only real concern I have as of now is the bright white cover-art printed on cardboard could fade rather easily.  Oh well.  I'll cross that bridge when I have to, if...
I copied the disc to my computer and then transferred it to a thumb drive.  If the thumb drive goes kaput, I'll just have to do it again.  It's kinda cumbersome to get the disc out of the case -- which is inside of a sleeve, which is inside of a different sleeve.  Many times I've thought I was in the mood to listen to it, and then I realized I wasn't.  Then I have to  start putting it back into the sleeve, and then put the sleeve into the outer sleeve and then back in the case.  You can't just slide the sleeve into the case either; you need to keep from damaging the other myriad of inserts that are included in the package.

FYI, I'm an uncle

My sister gave birth to my nephew Joseph yesterday.  I haven't blogged in so much time, I'd forgotten to let all you people whoever the heck you are know that my life has forever changed!  Well, not really.  I haven't even met him yet.  Yes, I'm a heartless old fart.  "How could you forsake your only child!"  Yeah, whatever.  I'll meet him when I have a reason to.  I'd prefer not to have to visit him at a hospital.  My sister had a terrible time.  He was supposed to be born on the 19th, so they put her in something called "induced labor", which still took over 24 hrs to get done w/.  Luckily, she's still alive, but she's got some wounding from the process --- the dude's 9.5 lbs!!! --- and the doc wants to make sure the antibiotics for the wound are fully absorbed and do what they're supposed to do before letting her back into the MUST DO HARM segment of planet Earth.
My sister probably has much more intense and detailed blogposts you can read.  As for me, I just hope the little interaction I do have with him in the future will not steer him away from The Lord's desire for him.  I hope this is the beginning of a happier chapter in the Cardwell/Stephens/Conway family tree.

Add comments, quantity & priority

NOTE: This blogpost is a substitute for the "Comments" section of an item on my Amazon wish list.  You can find it by typing in the Amazon search bar: B01B2M9RM6.  Amazon's wish list comments allow for up to 300 characters per item. 
NOTE2: It sounds like I'm miserable b/c I don't own this item, but I'm fully aware this item means very little to my life overall.  I'm posting all of this here b/c I'm an obsessive nut and a stickler for detail dying for attention.  I understand if nobody wants to read all of this.

Recently, as I think I've written about here before, Epic (Sony) rectified a problem that had been in existence since 2001.  Michael Jackson BAD was re-issued at that time, with remastered sound, (surprisingly good) bonus tracks, and RE-VAMPED COVER-ART.  The iconic front cover-art was left alone, except for a slipcase which was later done away with, but the back cover-art, which went hand in hand with the front cover-art (IMO) was totally wiped away and replaced with some lame concert photo.  They reinstated the back cover-art in 2012, when the 25th Anniversary edition came out (identifiable as BAD25), but re-vamped the front cover-art.  They weren't so dumb as to do away with the entirety of it, but they didn't need to do anything to it.  It was iconic b/c it was perfect.  I don't think the photographer just asked Michael Jackson to stand in front of a white backdrop and snapped a pic at random and submitted it to Epic Records for approval.  It's possible for an icon to become an icon at the first try, but icons generally need grooming.  This was a work of art -- and it's not as if it it was just some random thing that nobody cared about that the creator wasted his time and money on b/c it was important to him; this was part of a cultural phenomenon that is synonymous with the entire three years that remained in the 1980s at the time of the album's release.  The 2012 cover-art seemed more akin to a ripoff or an amateur (hack) paying tribute.  If you want to post your fan art publically, go ahead, but for Epic/Sony to slap it on the front of the album is a huge disrespect to the music and the good memories it made for those who lived it through back then.
This issue has been addressed.  Apparently I'm not the only who has felt this way.  In 2015, the remastered sound, bonus tracks and amateurish meddling with the graphics were removed and we now have the exact same item I remember owning and loving when I was a toddler and as a teenager wishing I was a little younger.
The only problem is the jewel case.  It's not a problem with the particular jewel case.  It's an industry problem.  CDs are considered on the verge of extinction.  The return of the vinyl LP is only exacerbating that fact.  So record cos have to cut costs.  Jewel cases are no longer as durable.  Sometimes you go into a store and the case seems OK, but you open it up and the center that holds the disc in place is in shatters.  And it's not just that.  The cases scratch much easier.  A lot of CD cases used to be fat and shiny upon unwrapping.  Now they're often dull and fragile.  If you treat your stuff right, your fat and shiny jewel case can stay just as shiny as it was when you bought it.  A lot of people don't, and that makes buying used CDs often less satisfying than buying them brand new.  But in this case, you're not buying it brand new.  You're buying a historic relic (classic) that most people don't care about and probably wouldn't consider buying if the prices of older CDs weren't so low nowadays.  The CDs that just came out this year often do still come in shiny thick cases.  Usually they don't come in a jewel case, but rather a combination of cardboard and plastic or sometimes they'll just wrap them in cardboard which I hate b/c the disc is no much more prone to scratches.  But the new recordings released on CD that aren't housed in cardboard or hybrid packaging are very nicely packaged usually.  That fact is not exclusive to Billboard Top 20 musical acts either.  I bought a CD called NERVE ENDINGS by Too Close To Touch.  The music was good, not great, got boring after awhile and I really hesitated to get rid of it because it was so nice to have a good quality jewel case in my hands.  But record companies will often repress a CD when the band that makes it follows it up with another.  When  Hot Band releases their follow up to HB2014 titled HB2016, HB2014 is considered "old" and instead of discontinuing production of the older sibling to HB2016, the factory continues to produce copies of HB2014, albeit on cheaper quality plastic inside of an even cheaper plastic casing.
Oh, and as if that wasn't annoying enough, I've recently come to realize that replacement jewel cases are also hard to find.  Nobody is making them anymore.  Staples is the only place I could find any w/o paying an arm and a leg.
The vinyl LP edition that was recently released (listed as an import on Amazon) is the way to go.  The CD edition has never been THE BEST way to go.  Vinyl is usually better at capturing iconic cover imagery anyway, especially for albums that came out before 1988.  I have a mini-LP CD, but the plastic sleeve is dirty.  I don't think it was like that when I got it in the mail from someone on Amazon selling it super cheap.  I'm afraid to buy another one 'cause I'm likely to ruin that one too.  The design is striking though.  The disc is housed in what they call a gatefold cover.  It opens up like a book and the disc is housed inside a slot on one end.  I even like the way the track list is printed on the back cover.  It doesn't specify "Side A" vs "Side B".  The lettering is bold and in all caps, just like the thugs in the beginning of the music video questioning the degree of the others' "Bad"-ness.
The vinyl edition is expensive.  It's always been the best way to go and at the current rate of $20 apprx, it's really not bad.  If one wants to send me a birthday present, christmas present, or let me know I have a stalker (it could happen...right?), then it's also not only a terriblly outrageous price to pay, but it also saves the time of inquiring to sellers on the Amazon Marketplace and Discogs' about weather or not their copy of Michael Jackson BAD comes in the original jewel case and if the original jewel case is damaged and if so how badly etc. etc...nobody that I know has the time and inclination to do all that.

My excitement renwed...is it worth it?

Ok, I'm still pretty much broke, at least broke enough to seriously question weather I can afford paying for a movie theater ticket x2.
But I'm not nearly as down about seeing the new GHOSTBUSTERS film.  I think it gets to seem more depressing when sitting haunched waiting for the kill...that is two months down the road...it gets to feeling like idol worship and S&M combined...ig...
I still highly doubt it will be as good as the first or anywhere near.  BUT -- I am indeed in better spirits about it.  I figured I was being a little critical of the movie basing it soley on a trailer.  I knew there was a lot of stuff that wasn't included in the trailer...there still lots of stuff that isn't in the trailer.  The movie's got to be at least 90 minutes long and the two trailers released have a combined total of maybe 4 minutes of that footage.
I think the best thing at this point for my sanity is to sit back and see how things go.  If I don't see it in theaters, so be it.  I need to at least get a $5 concession at the counter or whatever + pay the movie ticket price which is between $12 and $21 depending on what time of day I see it and if I go the Fandango route or not.
hmmm...

THE RETURN OF THE KIDZ

Sony and Mattel will soon be trying to remind kids of how awesome Paul Feig's new GHOSTBUSTERS film is so they don't forget how awesome it is.  How?  By mass merchandising.
And just like a lot of other things in this modern world, they are cheaply made and overpriced.  Amazon has them in stock and the hero figures are $20 a pop.  The ghost figures are $12.  I haven't bought any of them.  The Melissa McCarthy hero figure has 5 Amazon customer reviews and an average of 1.5 stars or something like that (out of 5).  That is just pathetic.  One reviewer said the plastic feels dangerous to have young kids playing with.  So not only will these toys be lucky to survive the next 20 years if they're NOT opened, but the kids who play with them are lucky to survive childhood doing so.  Ugh.  I think I'll pass on this whirlwind of b.s.  I'm not feeling the love.  I get the impression the film will be Ok, but nothing to shout about.  I'm starting to wonder if I even want to see it in theaters.  Two tickets would be cheaper than a DVD or Blu ray copy of the movie, but then I always feel the need to buy popcorn and soda to go with it...I'd be saving money just buying it on DVD if I end up doing that...(sigh)...

MM/DD -- still kinda lukewarm

I attended a seminar thing on May 1 at a church I've been regularly attending for about a month now.  It was a very convincing and informative session about having zeal for the Lord God.  I have been making more of an effort, but I still fall into the lull of not praying.  I prayed kind of extensively 5/8 (I would just say "the day before yesterday" except in 3/4 of the United States it's still Monday). 
Anyway....as I was saying, I prayed more than usual then, but I still ran out of things to say to Him after a grand total of maybe half an hour of prayer (that's a generous estimate too...I'm not really convinced it was that much time, but it's possible).  I then proceeded to read where I left off in His word, and then found myself kind of half following along.  I sorta lost track of who is who and what is what.  I'm on the sequel to the book of Kings.  I'm under the impression I missed something.  It keeps talking about King so and so of such and such land, and it keeps mentioning these nations that are not explained, as far as I am aware.  I have the freedom to assume that they are neighboring nations, but somehow I got the impression that at least one of those nations are fragments of Israel.  The nation of Israel was split into two nations as was explained in my small group's study of THE STORY, but I don't know if there was any further division of the land or if I read something that I forgot I'd read or if my eyes were looking at a critical verse or series of versus while my mind was wandering in whichever direction(s)...Anyway; I found myself rather lost in the midst of God's word on...I guess it was Sunday.  And now I should be in bed, I'm sleepy as all get out even though I really don't want to be (!)...and I didn't read a lick of God's word and I prayed very little if at all today...I don't specifically remember praying, although I think I may have thanked Him for a few things.  And Saturday went by in a rather similar fashion -- just wasted...I was rather exctatic about a nice fantasy I had about going to see GHOSTBUSTERS on opening day and then walking into Target as if I was 5 years old again and seeing all the GB toys gracing the shelves with their twinkling presence.  And then of course topping it off Chick-Fill-A.  Me and my mom were going to go to Chick-fill-A today in fact, but we had some trouble finding it.  So we went to an Italian dine-in restaurant instead and spent almost all my money and some of my Mom's (it was my idea mainly, so I shouldn't have even asked her to pay for any of it, but I did...drats!  The day after mother's day too!)
I've been eating homemade pumpkin bread that my mom made over the last few days.  It's loaded with fiber as it's made with whole grain flour (1 cup of it per loaf), and so I've had a more healthy amount of BM than I had been, but I the downside to that is I really need to take a shower...if I weren't sleepy as heck, I would still be trying to think my way out of it since I just don't like the ordeal of taking my clothes off, getting in the shower, and then getting dried off etc and then getting dressed.  The whole process takes like half an hour and it seems bigger to me than it apparently does to most people...like a giant leap forward for myself and a step back for man kind...ugh...
Ok...
g'night

the winds of Esau

I've been listeing to WAKE UP THE WONDER by Elevation Worship and saw something about it being inspired by "the story of Jacob", which I *think* I read, but I had no idea what about Jacob's story is so unique.  It struck me as odd that he won a wrestling match with God...my guess is God let him win...aaaanyway
 It seems based on some online searching and a bit of correspondence with an administrator for a site I found titled foundationsforfreedom.net that Jacob's Life Story is something to remember as it is referenced more so in the later parts of the Old Testament than it seems to be at the moment reading Kings 1 after Samuel 1 and Samuel 2
I was steered toward this Bible passage:
"I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau cJacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.”
 and I remembered something my old Pastor Jeremy Clayton from a Church of God in Cape Girardeau, MO said: "God doesn't hate".
This website here seems to make a wild stretch to support that claim: http://www.gotquestions.org/Jacob-Esau-love-hate.html, but it's possible the writer of that website was assuming a reader would know a key thing or two that I did not.
 
Anyway...
When reading that portion of Genesis, I always felt more sympathy for Esau than Jacob.  Obviously, I struggle with feelings of vengeance.  I don't think I pray enough for God to feel moved to do anything about that.  I rarely pray.  I feel so empty inside most of the time, it just feeds on itself.  My habits are an empty hearted beast, yet I am drawn to them.  I turn on the computer and then I watch the sands in the hourglass changeover.
What really struck me was this verse: "See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son."  Actually, I was directed to a piece of that verse which I looked up because I didn't feel like quoting a quote of half a sentence...but now that I've read the whole sentence, there's two things that are striking about it, but I'll get the less obvious one out of the way...
(clears throat):  When I was reading about the bad blood between Jacob and Esau, I kinda skimmed over the part where he made what I would call a dumb decision.  I understand being wise with one's money and all that, but I guess thinking about it, I've become blind to my own poverty.  I think of money and I think of food shelter and clothing.  Beyond that, it's a retirement account and a bunch of cool stuff that I can't afford unless I find them from a thrift store.  My clothing mostly comes literally from various thrift stores.  Books and DVDs, music CDs, etc etc....I rarely pay full retail price for them.  When I do, it's after I've spent hours deciding weather or not I should.  I finally bought THROUGH ART WE ARE ALL EQUALS by Johnny Craig's band Slaves.  That CD came out in 2014.  Not only did it take me 1.5 years to buy it, but when I did buy it, I used a credit card.  I do plan on paying off that particular purchase in May, since my sister told me to promise not to buy anything at Overstock using credit again.  I have wasted what seems to me like a large sum of money on garbage.  And it is a large sum of money.  It's also a large sum of time it's taken to waste that money.  I've spent more time not having any money than the time it's taken to accumulate that mass of wasteful spending history.
 It's easier in a lot of cases to write off something I can't afford as meaningless and hope I can somehow afford it later without instantaneously depleting my bank account balance.  I still pine for it, but it's with a mix of confusion and disgust.  On one hand, I see imperfections on the item that make me wish something like it but better existed, and then I'm confused because I don't remember why I was drawn to the item to begin with, so I just walk away with this sick feeling like my energy supply has been drained and for nothing.  And that's just for a few "big" things that I think of as being "definitive" or should be definitive.  I've been considering life after electricity when SSI runs out and I can't be using the computer all the time.  So GHOSTBUSTERS: ULTIMATE VISUAL HISTORY, which I would expect to have nice color photos of THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS toys by Kenner seems like a good substitute for the movie.  But I don't know because I haven't seen the book up close.  And it costs $35+/-  And then I think about it and how it would actually benefit me and I can't really figure out how it would be worth it.  I mean, really...when I do watch GHOSTBUSTERS, it's usually less than 20 minutes at a time, and that's not 20 minutes multiple times a day or even multiple times a week...so what's the point?
I do need to give more serious response to the reality that God is in control and that my life is not going to get better by enhancing my utility belt. 
I sometimes wonder what a guy who gives God 10% of his income and gains wealth because of it really gains.  Obviously, he gains an ability to give God more money, but what does the rest of it mean?  Jesus himself warned of doom to those who are well fed.  I'm guessing that's an abridged version of the words that came out of Jesus' mouth, which are lost in the wind like everything else spoken before the dawn of recording devices, but unless that is to be taken at face value, I can't help but think of how God reacted when the Israelites insisted upon having a human as their king instead of God as king.  God wasn't happy about it, but He found peace with their wishes and did what He could to make the best of it, even though they didn't hold up with their end of the bargain.

It's called fiction, Sir Palahniuk

Was looking at the summary of this book by Stewart O' Nan titled A PRAYER FOR THE DYING.  In the marketing, FIGHT CLUB author Chuck Palahniuk is quoted as saying the book is proof that God is unfair.  I'd sure like to know how a fiction book proves anything.  Stewart O' Nan may have been writing about someone he knew, but that's the problem with second hand information.  People hear little snippets of The Bible and get these ideas that aren't even Biblical.
If you don't believe The Bible was written by an existing presence, then you have no reason to question it.  I tried telling a friend on Facebook this and he defended his stance by talking about how Christianity and its offshoot religions are the main reason for large amounts of violence in the world.  One could say that, but what about the people who go speeding down the freeway and end up running into another car and kill at least one person?  Where does religion play into that?  Jealous husbands and wives murdering their spouse?  That's the least of all violence by the way.  Death is not the end.  The horror of this planet is seldom seen outside of shows like CRIMINAL MINDS.  A person who is not only murdered, but severely tortured with the threat of death to top if off is a much bigger victim than someone who is beheaded or gunned to death.
Jesus gave a perfect recipe for peace on Earth.  If people would follow it, we'd have Heaven already.  We should all be glad that we all have the option of choosing Heaven instead of questioning the reality of the supernatural and weather or not God is just in his decisions and all these tiny distractions that lead nowhere.

MA MAN, YO, ARMIDILLO NEWTON....

Spent 6pm-12am NOT feeding my cat, and scrambling to get this that and a handful of piddly other things done; switching between tabs in a race against time that can not be won...
Finally fed her.  She probably feels like I do, like someone kicked her in the stomach.  Man is not meant to be awake 8+ hours after dinner.  You ever get fixated on a goal and find the stress of that fixation makes reaching or finding that goal has made you too sick to enjoy it?
  I've been awake since 3:30 A.M.  I finally took Thursday's Abilify and Cymbalta, apprx half an hour ago.  It was past the deadline just barely.  I'll have to remember to take my pills at around 4pm or so.  It's not good to take two days' worth of medicine doses back to back.  14-32 hours is an okay interval.  It's an accomplishment of sorts for me to take my pills 3 days in a row.  It would be a case of possession for me to take my pills 3 days in a row at the same time each of those 3 days.
I'm back on the computer.  Was certain there was some group of songs I wanted to listen to.  Cannot for the life of me remember what it was I wanted to do so badly.

Semantic decibel worship

Just sent my sis a typo
I will my reg $ to pay 1/2 of the lwnmwr.  Hopefully Mom can cover at least half of that and my savings will cover "the rest" (whatever that ends up being)"

Did I really just say that?
I WILL MY REG. $ TO PAY HALF OF THE LAWNMOWER
(sprinkle Holy water)
I WILL MY REG $ TO PAY HALF OF THE LAWNMOWER
MY WILL COMPELS IT
MY WILL COMPELS IT

Thanks to spellchecking software, I now know "compel" is not spelled with two Ls.  I'm pretty sure since the "L" is not "possessed", I can rest in peace regarding my lack of an apostrophe....

See you on the other side.

The value of liquiation

Was reading about the Koch brothers and their supposed plans to let the poor people get sick and die off so they can enjoy their tea parties and golf tournaments w/o distraction.
That may very well be what the Koch brothers want.  I cannot say what they want any more so than they can say what I want.  If everybody cared about each other and put love and compassion for their fellow man before blind ambition, i.e.: money and/or power, then minimum wage being abolished would of no negative consequence.  If The Devil walked up to you, would you smile politely and let it shake your hand?  Likewise, people who rejoice in evil should not be elected into office, regardless of their political affiliation.  The fact of the matter is both Bernie Sanders and the Koch brothers-funded Republicans are both more concerned with money and power less with the real problems that face the USA.
The perceived problem with having the Koch brothers funding congress is not something anybody is immune to.  The vast majority of USA citizens would not wage war on the poor.  But that is only because if they spent every waking minute from birth to death squeezing as many dollars as they can from their employer, their work would still not be finished.  Their bones would be buried and hunger will continue to haunt them.  The Koch brothers have more money than they can count.  They have the freedom to say "Ok, What now?"  They have what every human on the face of the earth wants, they have shiny pretty things and the guarantee that the most comfortable bed money can buy will not be repossessed.  Now what?  What does one do when their life's work is finished before they're halfway in the grave?  Do they turn their back on their amazing house and bounty of pretty things so they can work in a soup kitchen or fly over ghettos with their private jet and assess which homes need food and how much food they need?
Very few people work 8+ hours a day for the purpose of anything other than acquiring an arsenal of stuff.  The Koch Bros. have stuff.  They have mental and physical health and they have all the stuff they can imagine wanting AND extra to give to their great grandchildren.  They have moved on from the rat race and are now focused on something equally pointless and gigantic in scope: World Domination.
It's about power.  All of it.  The rat race, even the participants who eat from the backend of it, have one thing and one thing only in mind: Power.  Call it a man-cave, call it freedom of choice, call it "my house my rules", it all amounts to the same thing: Conquering.  It may not be conquering much, but it's still conquering.
I don't know nearly as much about the presidential front runners as I ought to, but I know the likelyhood that anyone running for the high offices is doing so primarily with intent to help other people, be it inside or outside of "America"(The United States Of).

Beeee...

....gooooood

I missed my pills on Friday and Saturday.  I was hoping to go out on Saturday morning, preferably early morning if one were to dream, but nobody wants to do anything before 9am, and 9am is stretching it.  Not only did I not get to go anywhere, but my face felt like pea soup falling on the floor as my mom and sister, the holder of the car keys + driver's licenses, wasted themselves away watching HOUSE OF CARDS and NURSE JACKIE.  Sometime in the midst of all that, my sister fell asleep, on the couch.  I anxiously awaited her to wake up, did not make any effort to hide my anxiousness, and at the last minute was notified that I was going to have to get hiking or get hitchiking if i wanted to anywhere for the day.  The pea soup went from falling off my face to eating my face like it had more acid than normal.
I sent my sister an email that was randomly worded, hinting at all the rage and disgust and anguish I was feeling in a very outward  & irresponsible way.    My anguish was not helped by her actions, but her actions were not related to how I feel or felt.  I felt shamed into silence for half of Sunday even though I was cheerfully invited to church and had my breakfast paid for my sis, even though it was actually lunch for me b/c I'd eaten breakfast at 4am after waking up at 1am.
I was even feeling a little apprehensive on Monday.  I started to fall down that rabbit hole again after my mom did or said something to piss me off, but I took my mental health medication and I was able to reason myself to walk more in a manner worthy of my calling after a little while and more or less enjoyed the evening/night.
Whew.
I hope there's room in Heaven for me w/o medication.  If I can listen to the Holy Spirit w/o my medication after Medicaid funding goes kaput, that in itself will be a miracle.  I haven't picked up The Bible in 7 days as of today.  FFFRR!  This week has spun itself so smoothly.  Like a caramel candy making machine -- it's been stop/start yet steady nonetheless.

things are looking up.  Been ok since half of Monday roughly and Tuesday on up.
WOW.  HEADLINE NEWS.  I got a GHOSTBUSTERS(tm) shirt from a seller on Amazon.com containing a note formed by my father  via Amazon's "gift note" service  An event 20 years in the making!  It's half my fault by this point  I don't communicate enough with him.    I started talking with him a little bit somewhat recently via Facebook.  Nothing serious or deep.  Just exchanging opinions about popular political topics.  No biggie to me.  It's my sister who really had a tough time dealing with him not being around.  I could have been an orphan and I might've turned out OK, provided I didn't end up in an orphanage where everyone's waiting for the right time to explain to me where I am and the awful truth of why....."BECAUSE NOBODY LOVES YOU!!!!"  At least in my actual life, I do have one parent who has stuck it out and has made it more or less known that she is genuinely concerned for my well being.

In other news....ugh...can't think.....um...hot topics?  What just popped in there?  Uh...? My Brayn has gone bye-bye.  And so it's Christmas...  WHAT DID YOU DO?  WHAT DID YOU DO?  TELL ME IT'S NOT WHAT THEY SAID, OH GOD, TELL YOU DIDN'T......
[DELETE]/[END]

Night Beds - "Me, Liquor

Jealousy

When I started going to church over the last few years (few = 3), I was confused at this video segment showing a graffiti-style painter reciting The 10 Commandments, specifically the passage where it states that God is a jealous God.  All this time later, I start thinking about the parallel of man's jealousy and God's jealousy.  Jealousy can be inspired by a variety of things and it can be attached to other things as well.  But jealousy at its root is essentially when a person wants love from someone and isn't getting enough or any from implied person.  People have killed their lovers out of jealousy.  It is an excruciating feeling.  It's like suffocation with no assurance of a nearby end.  Obviously, killing is not an answer.  It makes one less person on your hit list, but the odds of having your expectations met by someone else that comes along are slim to none.  This world would go from sometimes unbearably cruel to constant agonizing loneliness.
Jesus summed The 10 Commandments, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy into two laws:
Love God with all your heart and love your fellow man as yourself.

Those are two laws that God always honors.  I think given the nature of jealousy and its place at the list of ten commandments, one can see both laws being carried out in one swoop in the sacrificing of Jesus The Christ of Nazareth, who is the human embodiment of God.

I was reading part of The Old Testament this afternoon, specifically Kings 1, and realized how jaded I am.  Quotes from minor players in The Bible sounded aloud come across as snarky and bitter.  It's not because of what is written, but because of how I've come to expect people to talk.
For instance (NIV) " "How many more years will I live, that I should go up to Jerusalem with the king? 
am now eighty years old. Can I tell the difference between what is enjoyable and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats and drinks? Can I still hear the voices of male and female singers? Why should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king? 
Your servant will cross over the Jordan with the king for a short distance, but why should the king reward me in this way? 
Let your servant return, that I may die in my own town near the tomb of my father and mother. But here is your servant Kimham. Let him cross over with my lord the king. Do for him whatever you wish."
To me, it sounded like the person quoted saying all of that was grumbling about his old age and rebuking the king for offering the reward given him.  But that is most likely because of 1) the sadness that permeates my mind when I think of old age and 2) I often say or think "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
I think the teachings of Jesus if they were to be read in earnest would blow this world wide open.  I sat in tears one Sunday as I found myself realizing the need to follow the pleas of my family members, who have been urging me to reduce my output of negative criticism.
I was invited to share in a Bible-study that my mom was doing with a disparate group of Christians and one of the questions pertained to John The Baptist and his reaction to Jesus requesting Baptism from John the Baptist.
 (NIV)

"  

13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

15Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.

16As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

"

One might look at this and think of it as Jesus dotting his I's and crossing his T's, like a contractual obligation based on a technicality.  I now think of this as a footnote of God's willingness to lead His people by example.  I might think more of it if I ever learn to understand and appreciate Baptism.  That's for another blog post.