« May 2003 | Main | July 2003 »
June 30, 2003
National Do Not Call List
Have you heard of the new "Do Not Call" list that has been created by the FTC? President Bush kicked it off on Friday, and since then over 10 million people have signed up.
Here are a few good articles:
Anti-Telemarketing List Opens for Registration
Thousands Sign Up for Anti-Telemarketing List
10 Million Sign Up for 'Do Not Call' List
Now, I know this all sounds great. No more dinner-time interruptions, no more people mispronouncing your name when you answer the phone, and no more people wasting your cell phone minutes to sell you something you don't need. However, does anyone agree with me that this is a violation of first amendment rights?
It looks like the government has gone to great lengths to keep charities and non-profit organizations off the list, but according to a recent survey, many people are saying they'd like the list to cover all telemarketers and that they'd like similar programs instituted for spam email.
The problem happens when you try to draw the line between what is telemarketing and what isn't. Could girl scouts get fined for calling people to sell cookies? Could I get fined someday for sending my friend an email? I think door-to-door salesmen are even more annoying than telemarketers. Will the government stop allowing those people to do their jobs, too?
The fact is, we all have to make a living somehow, and telemarketing (as strange as this seems) is an inexpensive and effective way for businesses to find customers. What would you do if the government made laws against the way you make your living?
Posted by Joey at 04:54 AM | Comments (1)
June 29, 2003
Film Series
Every weekend, Janene and I visit with Granny (Janene's mother's mother). Granny has some health issues (she's been using oxygen on and off for the past several weeks) and she doesn't have many visitors, so it is a good time to keep her company and dispell the loneliness that creeps its way in during the week. Granny always has a jigsaw puzzle on hand, and we have probably helped her put together three or four of them (most over 700 pieces, and one that had 1000). Jigsaw puzzling has sortof become our weekend tradition.
All that changed last night. Janene had never seen Princess Bride, so I decided it would be fun if we watched it with Granny. We took the movie over there and had pizza and soft drinks—sortof a little pizza party. After Princess Bride Granny suggested we pop in The King and I. Stuart and Shilo recently invited Janene and me to see the musical live at Hale Center Theatre. We both thought it would be interesting to see the video, so we went ahead and watched the first half. As it was playing, I thought about how fun it would be to watch all the classic movies: The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, Gone with the Wind etc. When I suggested that to Granny, she seemed delighted.
It's fun to see her get excited about all of that. She couldn't stop commenting during The King and I. She really was familiar with the story and reminisced about how much cleaner movies were back then. I've always looked forward to our weekends with Granny, but even more now that we've started a new tradition.
Posted by Joey at 12:08 PM | Comments (1)
June 26, 2003
Almost Instant Messenger
I was just chatting with a friend over AOL Instant Messenger. It was the most whacked out conversation I've ever had in my life. Neither of us realized for the first half an hour that the entire conversation was being delayed by about ten minutes. I was trying to respond intelligently to his comments and questions, but little did I realize he had made them five minutes ago and wouldn't receive my answers for another five minutes. He kept saying things that just didn't make any sense. I really worried that he was smoking crack or something.
Later I was able to piece the whole conversation back together and realized that he wasn't just acting crazy. He was really trying hard to reply to my comments, but he probably thought I was smoking something too. We're talking now over MSN Messenger and it seems to be working fine, but that was sure weird.
Posted by Joey at 06:20 AM | Comments (0)
Friends Section
I've finally recreated the Friends section. It was lost when I moved from Hosting Matters over to Onsmart. Nobody seems to have thrown a big stink about it being gone, but I'm glad it's back up.
The only complaint I did receive was an automatic message sent by a bot that was trying to traverse the site. I guess the bot was programmed to send a message when it encountered a broken link, which I suppose is kindof polite. I already knew about the problem though, so it wasn't very helpful.
Posted by Joey at 05:24 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2003
Dad's Birthday
My father's birthday is today. I've always thought his was the ideal birthday. June 25 is exactly halfway between Christmases. He left this morning to go on a business trip, so he's not around to celebrate anything :(.
Happy Birthday, Dad! Just thinking about all of the crazy stuff you do (e.g. the heat convection pipe and water powered engine in the backyard) makes me smile. It also makes me realize that my dad's a pretty cool guy. I hope that everything goes well on your trip and that you are blessed with safe travel. I love you, Dad.
Posted by Joey at 10:56 AM | Comments (2)
Adventist Encounter
It happened yesterday. There I was sitting in Taco Bell, minding my own business, eating a chicken enchilada bowl and reading my Bible. These two girls walk in (about high school age), they notice what I’m reading, and they immediately come over to introduce themselves.
They started out with, “We noticed what you are reading, and we think that’s really cool. Do you have a religious background?” I told them yes, and they explained to me that they are Seventh-day Adventists. Then they asked if they could sit down and have lunch with me. I thought to myself, what the heck, so they ordered their food and sat down.
The two girls are from California, where they attend some kind of Adventist academy, and they’re in Utah to sell books to raise money for their school. They said they’ll be here for three weeks and then they are going somewhere else for three more weeks. Half of the things they said and the way they acted reminded me of when I was a missionary. They were talking about what a character building experience it has been for them so far.
They shared a little bit of their beliefs and invited me to church with them on Saturday. They wanted to sell some of their books to me, but when I informed them of my current financial situation they offered to give me the books. They said they could pay for them with donations from other people.
Adventists claim to be evangelical Christians, but a few of their beliefs clearly set them apart. For one, they have church on Saturdays, so I asked them what they thought about other Christians who meet on Sundays. They told me they don’t condemn other churches, but they feel it is more in keeping with God’s word to keep Saturday as the Sabbath. Another thing they brought up was that they don’t eat pork and certain other kinds of meat. They don’t view diet as a factor in Salvation (or so they claimed in our conversation) and they don’t condemn others for eating meat. In fact, one of the girls said she is not a vegetarian, but she is still a member in good standing. I think they toned down this teaching quite a bit, though.
I remember talking to Seventh-day Adventists on my mission, and I used to know more about them, so when I got home I immediately looked them up on the Internet. Their website, adventist.org is pretty plain and does not publish a lot of doctrine. I found the following on their “Fundamental Beliefs” page: “Along with adequate exercise and rest, we are to adopt the most healthful diet possible and abstain from the unclean foods identified in the Scriptures.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but all of the unclean foods they’re talking about were identified in the Old Testament.
It seems strange to me that a group of Christians would want to go back to the strict laws of Judaism and try to make it compatible with Christianity. It seems to me that scriptures like 1 Corinthians 10:25-27 are quite clear:
25 Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience’ sake;
26 For the earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains.
27 If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake.
And see Colossians 2:13-17:
13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—
17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.
Don’t get me wrong here. I agree that healthy eating is important, and that it is good to meet together as a body of Christ regularly to fellowship and worship Him. But in light of these verses, I’m not sure how they can say that Christians are under any obligation to eat certain foods or honor a specific Sabbath day.
Here’s the clincher: The Adventist movement came out of the Millerite movement, so named because it was led by William Miller. Miller had prophesied that Jesus would return in 1844 (the Bible is clear in teaching that no man knows the day or the hour of Christ’s return, but that we should always be watchful; see Matthew 25:13, Revelation 3:3). Christ’s return did not happen as predicted. Later, Ellen G. White declared herself to be a prohpet and claimed that Miller was right about the time, but wrong about the event. She claimed that in 1844 the heavenly sanctuary had been cleansed—whatever that means. Anyway, she continued to teach many of the false teachings of William Miller, while adding many of her own.
Anyway, enough doctrine for one day. I’ve decided not to go to church with them, but we had a fun discussion and I will probably read the literature they provided me with. I appreciated their kindness toward me and I admire them for taking time out of their summer to do something they feel strongly about. It’s good to see young people willing to do that.
Posted by Joey at 01:43 AM | Comments (4)
June 24, 2003
Belated Best Wishes
Sorry it's been such a long while since I've said anything on this site. I feel bad because I missed three very important things during the past month:
Happy Anniversary, Janene! (Janene and I celebrated the two year anniversary of our first date on June 7. We had a lot of fun hanging out at Lagoon.) I just want to tell you how important you are to me. We've been through a lot of ups and downs together, and I want you to know that I have loved you completely through the good and the bad.
Happy Birthday Merissa! (Merissa's 22nd birthday was June 13.) I just want to say that I love you very much. Congratulations are also in order for the precious bundle on it's way in December. I'm excited that I'll be Uncle Joey soon!
Happy Father's Day, Dad! (Father's day was June 15.) I'm extremely blessed to have you for my father. You have always been a solid example for me in a world where examples are sometimes hard to find.
I just want to say that I'm sorry to all three of you for not posting anything here sooner. I love you guys and wish the best for you all!
Posted by Joey at 02:18 AM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2003
Restoration Websites
For the past few months I've been reading Mormon America, by Richard and Joan Ostling. It is probably the most objective book about Mormonism by any non-Mormon writer, and I've found it to be a painstakingly accurate and non-confrontational book. It presents the details of the Mormon faith very meticulously and mostly positively, and leaves the reader up to his own judgment as to what sort of religion Mormonism is. I would highly recommend it to any reader.
The other day I was flipping through and found an interesting appendix in the back that lists a handful of websites related to Mormonism...
The list includes the obvious lds.org and mormon.com, but adds to these the Reorganized Church's website, rlds.org (which, incindentally, now points to cofchrist.org, which stands for their new name, "Community of Christ") and another intriguing site, restoration.org.
Restoration.org lists over a hundred splinter churches from the original LDS church, most of which are located in or around Independance, MO. One of the more interesting splinters is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) ("Latter Day" is not a typo. That's how they write it. They also do not include the article "The" at the beginning of the name). They claim that a man named James J. Strang was appointed by Smith himself to lead the church after his death. They also claim that Strang translated a set of plates said to be the actual plates given by the Lord to Moses on the Mount Sinai. These plates were included with the brass plates that Nephi took from Laban, and were hidden with the Book of Mormon in the Hill Cumorah. The translation is called "The Book of the Law of the Lord". Strang was martyred in 1856, similarly to Joseph Smith, twelve years after he supposedly succeeded Joseph. Since then they have been without a prophet, and they do not regard this situation as compromising to their faith in any way, though many of their membership have since defected to the RLDS church.
Another interesting link from restoration.org is iNephi.com. At this site, you can view actual photographs of every page of an original 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. The photographed book belongs to a fellow named John Hajicek, who also oversees two other websites: mormonism.com and hajicek.com. Mr. Hajacek owns the largest individually held collection of Mormon historical documents, third in size next to the collections held by the LDS church and Brigham Young University. He lists his entire collection on mormonism.com and his (very interesting) personal convictions on hajicek.com.
I found all of this information extremely intriguing, and hope that many of you who read this site may also. Please note that I have not shared any of this information out of criticism or offense toward any of my Mormon friends or family members. I only found these links interesting and thought I should share them.
Posted by Joey at 08:01 AM | Comments (1)
June 10, 2003
Keyboards May Replace Cursive
This board has been slow for a bit, so I'm going to add something. I found this article online today at MSN. I remember learning cursive in 3rd grade. I remember slanting my paper... and lining up each letter and having it reach clear from the bottom to the top. I think David and I talked about this once. I remember being more meticulous in my practices... while he said he just didn't really do the lessons and just sort of quickly wrote things out. Guess which one out of the two of us has better handwriting today? ;)
It's so odd that many people don't use cursive anymore because of computers and keyboards. The article goes on to add some quotes from an artist about how children don't even know how to properly hold a pencil. This is so true! I can't even tell you how often teachers in my drawing classes will actually explain how to hold the pencil because most individuals hold it completely incorrect. We are even encourage to practice basic strokes because it further develops your hand coordination, which many people don't have.
The article later goes on to say that penmanship is a "part of your inner being, your core, your worth. ..." I always thought it was really neat to see how people wrote. It certainly says a lot about someone and how much effort and care they are willing to put into something... something so small as your own handwriting. I still use cursive today... in fact I prefer it to regular handwriting. What about you? Do you still use cursive? Do you think children should still be taught cursive in today's schools? Do you think you're handwriting could be improved? I love cursive, yet I know very few people who are older that still use it regularly. I think if people really knew how much their own handwriting says about them... they would try and improve it.
Posted by Kristen at 12:14 PM | Comments (2)
Rube Goldberg Commercial
A friend at work sent this to me. It is a Flash version of a Honda Accord commercial that has been airing in Europe for a little while now.
Before you watch it you should be aware that no computer generated graphics or digital effects were utilized to create the finished product. What you are seeing is what really happened. To obtain all of the parts, engineers dissassembled two of the only six handmade Honda Accords in the world. The commercial required 606 takes before everything worked as planned.
You may need to watch it two or three times to figure out what is going on in a few of the situations. Note that the new Accord features windshield wipers that activate automatically when water is present on the windshield. That was one of the only parts that really confused me the first time.
To watch the video, click the “Continued” link below.
There have been several articles published about the commercial. I’ve listed a few of them below:
Daily Telegraph: Lights! Camera! Retake!
Daily Report: TAKE 606
The Oregonian: Mechanical Marvel
Slate (MSN): Honda’s Incredible Driving Contraption
Posted by Joey at 02:07 AM | Comments (5)