AFter Life

 Seriously.

All those years Harold Ramis was alive, virtually nobody knew who he was.  Nobody visited him in the hospital.  Nobody sent him "get well soon" cards.  Nobody called him up on the phone to say they wish him well.  Facebook wasn't holding any vigils for him.  And now every opportunity that comes up to mention that he's dead, everybody uses it.  Sick.

Enjoy life.
If you miss Harold Ramis, maybe re-direct your attn to the whole lot of people (that are actually IN your life) that you don't cherish enough, before they're dead as well.

Cents and sensibility

 I'm finally in fight mode.  I can only pray that God will keep me in it.  My pastor / counselor has been trying to get it through my thick skull that I need to cut it out!!!  We discussed that it's due time for me to get with it and determine what my "right hand" is and cut it off accordingly.  I don't want to have to give up music and movies.  So I'm trying as hard as I can to be GOOD (relatively speaking..."less vile" I guess) I concidentally have been spending money like crazy.  I don't even know why except boredom.  If that were a solution you'd think it'd be accomplished.  Yeesh.  I need to figure out what I want to do and just do it!!!  I don't need to buy music or movies.  I have a TON of stuff to watch just on Hulu.  And then I have a bunch of DVDs I haven't watched.  I keep thinking that I need to support the music & film industry by buying stuff from it but I've DONE that!!!!!  At least twice over.  I don't even like the new music that comes out.  I mean, sometimes good stuff comes out but usually I'm AT LEAST a year late figuring out what new band is any good.  Most of the time I'm more like 5++ years late.  So obviously the music industry does not depend on me.  I should still support it IF/WHEN I find something new that I do truly like, but I don't need to buy some movie I watched 10 years ago to show my appreciation for it or whatever.  This whole cycle is just crazy.  I need to get down to business.  Time to start chipping away at this mountain of credit card debt I've accumulated with this insanity.

Many a book worthless is atomed

 This is the first sentence of WE WERE NEVER HERE by Andrea Bartz, a bestselling book on Amazon.  

"Kristen trotted to the patio’s edge and crouched, long arm outstretched."

What the hell is a "long arm"?

What's up with "easter eggs"?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)

 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters:_Afterlife#Critical_response

There is nothing hidden in GB3 (Ghostbusters: Afterlife). The plot is not that complicated. Everything on the screen is plainly visible. I really don't know why that headgear thingy that Louis Tully was wearing when he was being tested for whatever was sitting on a work bench in a farmhouse.  I doubt that thing had the same sentimental value to Egon that it did to a lot of kids who watched the movie back in 1984-1990 who saw that and were like "woah...that is some tricked out s&it!"  And why was a 40 year old candy bar stuck in Egon's jumpsuit?  Did it really mean that much to him that Venkman took back "some of things" he'd said about him?  Maybe it did, but the candy bar would have been beyond edible by that point and probably would have ruined the jump suit by the time Phoebe and co. made it over to the farmhouse....that's assuming that the candy bar wasn't just sitting in the jumpsuit for 40 years.....I mean, is that what people are referring to as an "easter egg"?  I don't know how someone could be so vapid as to not connect the dots there.  If you're not a real fan of the first two movies (or at least the first movie), then, yeah, the significance is going to be lost and you won't even care.  To those who do care -- why?  Just because you recognize something doesn't make it significant.  Like "OH, I found the easter egg!"  Okay?  So you have one or two more badges that confirm your geekhood.  Good for you, I guess?

 

The movie was OK.  I really think it was a mistake to be sequeling the movie.  They did an acceptable job with GB2.  If they were going to continue the legacy, they should go more in the direction of Dan Aykroyd's original script, which was more edgy and horror-like.  I don't know if there's enough demand to warrant financing the cost of making such a movie.  I wouldn't expect them to just do a total adaptation, but even a scaled down version of that movie would be risky.  But then again, isn't it always?

Whooah

 I started posting this on Facb but they cut me off ...

My sister wrote me a scripture note on an Index card which she'd mailed out to me. It's of Philippians chapter 4, vss 4 through 7. The last part is transcribed a little ambiguously... I think it rightly says "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus". But the word "the" looks like "He"... But isn't THE Holy Spirit a "He"? (I was actually just thinking the other day about why He is The Holy Spirit rather than Mr. Holy Spirit or ... something... The word "the" implied an inanimate object. Or, in certain contexts it can describe a facet of a person...like "The leg we had to cut off is not going to be able to be re attached, but he will be fine" -- the "he" there not referring to the leg but rather the person who had been endowed with a leg and subsequently charged with the task of figuring out how to make do without it; the "heart" of "him", you could say... The Holy Spirit being referred a The backs up my suspicion that The Holy Spirit is not an eternal presence. I don't have any reason to think The Holy Spirit is going to be gone ever, but I don't think The Holy Spirit is as distinct a presence as God The Father or Jesus The Son. I should probably emphasize I'm not declaring some kind of doctrine. I don't believe The Bible is very clear on this but it seems quite possible that The Holy Spirit might be basically a manifestation of God The Father and Jesus, given to each of His people... When His people are fully saved and in paradise without temptation and evils, what will The Holy Spirit be? It's almost impossible to answer that with any guarantee of accuracy. It's like trying to describe a sound you've never heard. Or trying to hear a sound you literally cannot hear. I had a glimmer of an idea for a scifi story along that thought several years ago, on the notion that if the laws if physics on another planet were entirely different than that of Earth, not just gravity, but all of it,

if we survived the trip, somehow it another, if there were other life forms there, but we couldn't see or hear them... because we're basically looking with eyes that are designed to examine and interpret THIS set of physics.

a total side note from the original notion...but anyway....

Poem of nothingness

 You think I want to know you

You think I want to know what you think

It was a mistake to even consider that a possibility

It was downright stupid to act on it as if were anything less than incredible

I could watch you crying

gasping for air

and feel nothing

You are worth nothing to me

And you think I'm going to give you my money?  You should be grateful I'm even spending the time needed to write this.  

I take what I said earlier back;  You don't quite mean nothing to me

Your meaning to me is that of a fly circling around my ear

I could smash your brain and my life would be better for it 

Nobody needs you.

Nobody wants you.

Nobody should need you

Nobody should want you

Away

Aside from the fact that I'm physically out of sorts due to illness, and I can't have my cat with me whenever, I don't particularly mind not living somewhere not where I live presently.  What I do mind is that where I'm living now is a punishment for my wicked ways un repented.

I find it extremely disconcerting that I would get counseled by two people who know very little about me or what I have put up with most of my life, or maybe just don't care, either way, try and pummel me into "not arguing" my case, to "just accept" -- just accept what?  Injustice?  Those counseling meetings would have gone a lot quicker had I just had my grief and said nothing about it except "Yes, sir"  "Yes, mam" and "Hallelujah"

The anger I feel is not caused by pride.  A person can be just as arrogant as I am and not be burning with anger.  It is possible.  Circumstances cause anger.  The horrid ways people often / sometimes deal with it is caused by "what comes from within" (I guess there's no point in examining the odd nature of that particular phrase, especially since Jesus paid for our "decision" to manufacture evil...)
I do concur that I have not been as gentle and dismissive of my pain instead praising God for the opportunity to be blessed (whatever that entails, who knows?)
I have not BEEN molded into the image of Christ.  I don't know how to mold myself into the image of Christ.  I've read Ephesians and Phillipians etc.  I don't know what beyond that I'm supposed to do.  I do know that I've been molded as children are SUPPOSED TO BE molded BY MY MOTHER, who was nowhere near gentle, was not even loving or caring in her words toward me 70% of the time, or anyone else for that matter.  My sister accepted Christ at the age of 15 or thereabouts and so she's been molded closer to Christ's image than I am.  Even she hadn't taken much less than 10 years to fully shed the ways she'd learned prior to turning 15.  And she never adopted the ways of our mom because she was always too terrified from repeated traumas of the past to stand up for herself.  I didn't cower in the corner, so I'm the bad guy, she's the "sweet lady".  I guess that's why God says to bless those who persecute you and just don't bother putting up a fight.  You can't win.

Friday - Sunday --- woah

I re-swapped my RokuTV (TCL)...mistake.  I knew it was a mistake, if I recall accurately.  I just ...idk...didn't care, I guess...then my conscience grew....I had it for...a week?  Two?  idk...  I got rid of it Friday night.  Listed it on FB Marketplce Thrs.  Rather good turnaround.  I in turn picked up a pretty basic monitor for $20.  It works, and I had $40 remaining.  Using the rest for a DVDNETFLIX subscription and bought a couple $10 CDs.  Goes fast.  Anyway....  

Then my sister got all crazy about something I had said a week or two ago...she sent me this accusatory tude laced email and then I responded without gentleness, and my brother in law spent like two hours exchanging texts with me, essentially "You're wrong and why are you thinking otherwise?"  After telling him everything I had to tell him, the last 3 or 4 texts I'd sent him basically consisted of "Quit texting me."

Then an hour after that nonesense he offered me a ride to the grocery store.  He picked me up and took me over there as if nothing was wrong.  My sister is still apparantly refusing to speak with me.  :/

And now I'm awake.  Just sitting here.  Trying to figure out what music to listen to, I guess...checking email waiting for Google to respond to a refund request for some movies I'd rented and haven't yet watched.  

I saw GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE Wednesday (finally).  I think I might have to watch it again.  I wasn't terribly impressed.  I liked it more than the 2016 reboot.  But it seems like it was missing some of the magic of the original.  Honestly, I don't think Ghostbusters is an idea that has much to it.  The comics and cartoon series are OK, but as far as a movie goes, the 1989 sequel had more of the magic of the original, albeit miniaturized.  They didn't HAVE to make a sequel, but the demand was there, so that was that.  I think my enthusiasm for Ghostbusters is pretty much gone.  Sounds really sad...it kinda is...I spent so much of my life thinking it was a part of who I am....It really sooo isn't.  

UGH The Ventilation....did I do that??!?!!!

 Ayg.  Sorry for my downcastness a few days ago.  I don't think I've ever met a single person that I can't say in some way or another is not an asshole.  Some people are less assholish than others.  But I don't think anyone is exempt from that description.  Not to my knowledge...well, I take that back....my friend who sits in during counseling I wouldn't describe that way.  I really wouldn't.  And, my pastor, and the 3 other pastors I've had while attending other churches, I would not describe as a--holes, but that's only based on what I've seen of them.  I'm sure they have their enemies.  Or, at least, I wouldn't be surprised if they do.  I've certainly caused a lot of hair raising myself.  I'm a thorn in the side of my sister and I'm a pain in the ass to my brother in law.  My mom is physically disabled, so I'm for the time being on fairly good terms with her, since she decided to be nice to me 2 or 3 months ago..  if she were able to do anything, I'd probably be driving her bokers too, asking her for help and being nitpicky like I am...

But anyway...
I really don't remember spcifically what I said in that blog post on 11.26, and I don't claim any of it was not true.  I implore anyone who thinks poorly of my example of Christianity that it is not about The Christian that you / we should be grateful and rejoicing over.  Hope and Joy do not stem from The Christian, but THE Christ!!!  HE is our hope.  HE is our calling.  We are BEING molded to fit HIS image, but we are not HAVING BEEN molded to that fit just yet.  I sure as heck haven't been

The unseen forgiveness

 I feel like I've been punished for not packing up my stuff and saying "bye" to my mom years ago, same way she did to the people who abused her for her whole childood.  She "forgives" this scumbag brother she has, but she hasn't set eyes on him in years and she's still afraid of him.

  People insist that you need to forgive people that do wrong to you, or else, as one of the elders of the church I attend puts it, Jesus doesn't even know who you are.  I sent my mom an email telling her, in common modern day English, that she was a stumbling block to me, and continues to be one and that I can't be expected to be following an example that she nor anyone else has ever provided.  GoshHELL!, I got my ass torn out good for over an hour on that.  I got accused of breaking like 9 different commandments in the New Testament.  My mom was guilty as FUK but nobody cared about that.  Nobody cared about anything except the fact that I was opinionated and felt like I deserve love.  "No", I can just hear it "Nobody deserves love or anything good!  You deserve what Jesus got!"  Which is?  3 hours of Hell?  Followed by an eternal stay in Heaven......uh....sure....yeah.  I don't even know why I'm typing all of this.  Nobody reading this cares more than the people I've encountered in real life do, I'm sure.