Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Star Wars Revelations
For those who care.
This is a fifty minute independent star wars movie that is set to take place between the third and fourth movie. It is decent, especially in the battle scenes. Enjoy!
Only in Los Angeles
It seems that part of Los Angeles has been attacked by a gooey, tarry like substance that is buckling roads and shifting foundations.
The slime from Ghostbusters 2 anyone?
The article from LA Daily News found here, even says that it is a "Slimer-like ooze". It has made one road buckle one and a half feet and the foundation of building from the 1930's has shifted 1 foot. Talk about crazy.
Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters
Where is a proton pack when you need one?
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Flash Love
I do love flash. This is a motherboard flash file from http://www.go-l.com. These guys make the craziest computers that money can buy. That is unless you are in the market for a deep think or big blue.
Oh and a real post is in the works. Sorry readers.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Why think?!
This could take a while.
I was originally going to talk about Cheney giving a guy a mouth full of lead, Saddam is going to starve himself to death (as if we really are going to lose sleep over that), and the cartoon attacks (for an singularly kick-ass article on that issue click here), among other things. However a story that has greater impact on my own life has come to light and I need to rant.
I have come to a point in life where I can respect those who differ in opinion with me (right). It was a long and arduous journey, but here I am (I did not know there were so many ways to get AIDS). Though I am very sure of my own opinions the beauty of this nation is that other people, no matter how misguided, can spew their own incendiary B.S. But when someone (who has, by the way, a Ph.D.) constructs an argument about an important era in World/Church history bases his argument on one fictional account and then attempts to discredit every historical figure of authority during this period I do, on occasion, become mildly upset. To be fair to this man, Dr. Steven Wright, it was not as bad as all that, but it came pretty close.
The class by Dr. Wright that I am taking is the course called Charlemagne to Chaucer. It is the second course of an humanities honors track about the history of the Christian world. The teacher who taught the first course, Jesus to Muhammad, was excellent though maybe a little dry. I had high hopes for a course on the Middle Ages, since it is one of my favorite eras of history. The hopes were shot, stabbed, blown up, disemboweled, and drawn and quartered. To begin with, the material is not studied in any chronological order. OH NO!! That would be too intelligent. Instead, we are doing it by categories. Part of our grade is to make a timeline so that we can keep all the information in order.
You can't study history out of order
Half the time I (and some others that I have talked to) cannot keep the dates straight. This could come from the fact that we will move from 1284 to 1129 within one class and there will be no warning. This could be from the fact that Dr. Wright is not a professor of History or Medieval Studies. He is instead an English professor (what the f*&^?).
OKAY....... I believe his tendency toward looking at history through books (it was the dark ages--that means the arts were in recess) makes him miss some parts of history. One of the books that we read was The Song of Roland. Dr. Wright took every chance he could to poke fun at those silly Franks who admired Roland, despite the obvious fact that this story couldn't be true. Hilarious though it may seem, I am of the opinion that the Franks enjoyed the story of Roland and even sang the poem as a rallying cry during the Crusades because a heroic figure like Roland gave hope and confidence to those fighting the Muslims because they were fighting for God.
Don't be silly
Dr. Wright also couldn't understand why we would like Roland because of his great pride. Not giving in or taking quarter does appeal to my sense of honor and courage. That might play a role.
Today took the cake. We are studying the French romantic poem Yvain and Dr. Wright was convinced that this poem showed a marked change in the character of the Medieval Knight. In Roland the knight was fighting the enemy on a battlefield, in Yvain the knight is winning the hearts of damsels and going off into quests against dragons and so forth. Though these poems are only separated by around 75 years the entire nature of knighthood has changed. I asked Dr. Wright point blank "Did the role of knights change that completely in 75 years." He answered yes immediately and then went back to his tirade. Never mind the fact that there was a Crusade going on at the time. Someone has seen Camelot too many times.
What's more, he related the nobles care-free lifestyles against the lives of the serfs. The Marxist inside came out as he recounted their pain and suffering. He used the pictures of the Les Tres Riches Heures as a way that the nobles were covering up their atrocious deeds. He remarked that the serfs look awful happy and there could be no way that the poor serfs could be happy. Notice the amount of serf revolts during this time of history. The understanding within the church that one is to work in one's place to the best of their ability is an idea that was quite important in feudal Europe. And do you really think for a second that even if the noble was "serf-conscious" he would not draw dirty serfs on his expensive illumination. Duh...
I could go on forever....but I think that about says it all
This has been a an official rant....hopefully I will talk about real news next time.
I was originally going to talk about Cheney giving a guy a mouth full of lead, Saddam is going to starve himself to death (as if we really are going to lose sleep over that), and the cartoon attacks (for an singularly kick-ass article on that issue click here), among other things. However a story that has greater impact on my own life has come to light and I need to rant.
I have come to a point in life where I can respect those who differ in opinion with me (right). It was a long and arduous journey, but here I am (I did not know there were so many ways to get AIDS). Though I am very sure of my own opinions the beauty of this nation is that other people, no matter how misguided, can spew their own incendiary B.S. But when someone (who has, by the way, a Ph.D.) constructs an argument about an important era in World/Church history bases his argument on one fictional account and then attempts to discredit every historical figure of authority during this period I do, on occasion, become mildly upset. To be fair to this man, Dr. Steven Wright, it was not as bad as all that, but it came pretty close.
The class by Dr. Wright that I am taking is the course called Charlemagne to Chaucer. It is the second course of an humanities honors track about the history of the Christian world. The teacher who taught the first course, Jesus to Muhammad, was excellent though maybe a little dry. I had high hopes for a course on the Middle Ages, since it is one of my favorite eras of history. The hopes were shot, stabbed, blown up, disemboweled, and drawn and quartered. To begin with, the material is not studied in any chronological order. OH NO!! That would be too intelligent. Instead, we are doing it by categories. Part of our grade is to make a timeline so that we can keep all the information in order.
You can't study history out of order
Half the time I (and some others that I have talked to) cannot keep the dates straight. This could come from the fact that we will move from 1284 to 1129 within one class and there will be no warning. This could be from the fact that Dr. Wright is not a professor of History or Medieval Studies. He is instead an English professor (what the f*&^?).
OKAY....... I believe his tendency toward looking at history through books (it was the dark ages--that means the arts were in recess) makes him miss some parts of history. One of the books that we read was The Song of Roland. Dr. Wright took every chance he could to poke fun at those silly Franks who admired Roland, despite the obvious fact that this story couldn't be true. Hilarious though it may seem, I am of the opinion that the Franks enjoyed the story of Roland and even sang the poem as a rallying cry during the Crusades because a heroic figure like Roland gave hope and confidence to those fighting the Muslims because they were fighting for God.
Don't be silly
Dr. Wright also couldn't understand why we would like Roland because of his great pride. Not giving in or taking quarter does appeal to my sense of honor and courage. That might play a role.
Today took the cake. We are studying the French romantic poem Yvain and Dr. Wright was convinced that this poem showed a marked change in the character of the Medieval Knight. In Roland the knight was fighting the enemy on a battlefield, in Yvain the knight is winning the hearts of damsels and going off into quests against dragons and so forth. Though these poems are only separated by around 75 years the entire nature of knighthood has changed. I asked Dr. Wright point blank "Did the role of knights change that completely in 75 years." He answered yes immediately and then went back to his tirade. Never mind the fact that there was a Crusade going on at the time. Someone has seen Camelot too many times.
What's more, he related the nobles care-free lifestyles against the lives of the serfs. The Marxist inside came out as he recounted their pain and suffering. He used the pictures of the Les Tres Riches Heures as a way that the nobles were covering up their atrocious deeds. He remarked that the serfs look awful happy and there could be no way that the poor serfs could be happy. Notice the amount of serf revolts during this time of history. The understanding within the church that one is to work in one's place to the best of their ability is an idea that was quite important in feudal Europe. And do you really think for a second that even if the noble was "serf-conscious" he would not draw dirty serfs on his expensive illumination. Duh...
I could go on forever....but I think that about says it all
This has been a an official rant....hopefully I will talk about real news next time.
Monday, February 13, 2006
The Beginning
This blog will cover mostly current news, both national and international, science and technology, religion, and maybe the occasional issue closer to my own person. Rebel Dawn is here!
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