Faith Through Logic

This is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s something I’ve been asked about enough times I though it’d be worthwhile to go ahead and post here. I’ve mentioned before that one of the main reasons I decided to follow Yeshua (Jesus) is that in college, I sat down and figured out logically that that was the best option for life, and the one that made the most sense to me.

How did I do this? I asked myself a series of questions, going from general to specific, and researched and studied each one until I came up with an answer that satisfied me. I based each question past the first on my answer to the previous question, until I got to the point where my conclusions forced me to make a decision concerning my life’s path.

I’m not going to post my full thought process because frankly, that would take a book-length post, so I’m just putting up the questions themselves here. They’re not magic bullets, but they helped me think through the issues and break things down logically. If that’s helpful for you, feel free to use ’em.

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nook: not a gadget

Disclaimer: No, I don’t get any money from Barnes and Noble or anyone else for touting the nook. I spend most of my time giving money to them in exchange for still more books.

I wasn’t planning on writing a post about my nook for two reasons: first, I kinda already did with my rant about the iPad, and second, I think I’ve established my love for it such that anyone who reads this blog will not need reminded.

But then I saw the need.

I was explaining the nook (The people at B&N, for reasons entirely their own, do not capitalize “nook”…hence the title of this post, as capitalizing just the other words gave me nightmares.) to a friend over the phone who knew that I recommended it, when she stopped me with this statement:

“Yes, but you know, you’ve always been more of a gadget person than I am.”

I blinked. I very nearly dropped my phone. Of course the above statement is a correct one – I am a gadget person – however there was one glaring error.

The nook is not a gadget. Continue reading

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Why You Should Play Dragon Age. Again.

I am somewhat slow to complete video games, as a general rule.

For example, I finished Portal, for the first time, a few months ago. Portal was first released in 2004. It was a relief to finally understand all the cake jokes, although I did identify with this a little too much.

Many games I simply leave unfinished. I played FF X-2 to within probably 4 hours of 100% completion, got to a part I didn’t like and just stopped. The reason for this is simple – I play video games because I enjoy the story. More often than not, the actual gameplay tends to bore and annoy me after mere hours. Expressed in a simple equation:

desire to see how the story turns out < amount of suffering from actually playing the game = point I turn off the game system This also explains why I consider watching my husband play through a game as essentially the same thing as me playing through it. So when I tell you that I have completed Dragon Age:Origins three times, one of which I actually held the controller for the entire time, and that I and my husband have additionally started five more characters and logged well over 200 hours of gameplay, you can surmise the following:

Damn. Good. Game. Continue reading

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Dear Apple: Please Explain?

Dear Apple,

First of all, thank you for the new product, and thus the new world of fun blogs for me to pursue and stupid people on the internet (ie anyone who doesn’t agree with me) for me to laugh at. Also, thank you for calling it the “iPad”, because, like the Wii before it, that name means several months of joy ahead for the world.

Now, I admit I’m new to your company as a customer. My dad once worked for IBM and, as I’m fond of saying, my family was barely allowed to eat apples when I was growing up. Indeed, I’m a strong proponent of open source software, and my main computers are generally running some form of Linux. However, I love my iPhone. Granted, I jailbreak mine, but that’s just what I do to gadgets I love. I love it so much that I bought one for my mom, and she loves it so much that every time I talk to her her first question is “Any new apps I should know about?” And she’s had it for a year. I even took the plunge and bought a Mac Book Pro for our new laptop, and I have to say I enjoy using it. It fills a need.

So when you said you were coming out with a tablet, I was excited. I figured if anyone could do a tablet correctly, it would be you. I did not expect it to be perfect, and I assumed that I would need to modify it some to fit my own geeky needs, but that’s a given with most new gadgets. I, like many people yesterday, looked into the footage, read the live blogs, and examined the specs, pics and video. I believe I have absorbed everything you’ve given us about this new device, the iPad. I just have one question for you.

What is it for? Continue reading

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Zombies, War and Sharp Pointy Sticks: Why Men Must Knit

There is a technique, passed down through generations, which has provided for mankind’s survival since ancient times. Long ago, exclusive male-only guilds toiled for years as apprentices to master this art alongside the like of blacksmiths and carpenters, for this skill was used to serve all from the lowest peasant to the highest king. Amazingly, only the very basic sets of implements were required, consisting mostly of sharpened sticks in various sizes. Even today there is much demand for its products, and the most popular stories we tell often include its artisans – giants of men toiling in difficult conditions, for example, or underground efforts to free slaves.

Yet this incredible talent is under attack. Its very tools are banned from air travel, and men daring to learn it often do so in secret – knowing that they will be met with derision and scorn by the very people who benefit from the craft every day. Yet they must continue to work – for if it were to vanish, lives may very well be lost. It has won wars, but the masses ignorantly mock its name.

We call it “knitting”.

And though the above is a little over the top dramatically, it is all true.

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File this under: “things I thought were simple but aren’t”

So, I was doing really well at blogging regularly – once or twice a week – and I thought to myself, “hey, I really want to be spending time writing novels. Why don’t I do that instead?” The plan was as follows:

  1. Stop blogging
  2. Use the gained time to write fiction
  3. Finish a book!
  4. Conquer world!

With this in mind, I boldly began my plan. Unfortunately, this is what actually happened:

  1. Stop blogging
  2. Stop writing altogether
  3. …yeah, that’s about it

All that to say, I’m going to try to get back on a schedule of writing, which includes blogging mainly because I feel a lot more guilty if I don’t post something than if I don’t write on a novel that no one sees but me. Go go gadget shame…

We will now resume our regularly scheduled, Most Thursdays, Some Tuesdays programming.

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Schedule Change Again

Well, my experiment with posting twice a week has come to an end, and I’ve decided not to continue. The purpose of this blog is to get me writing again, and it’s certainly done that, but now I need to focus more on what I really want to write – fiction books.

So, as of now, one of the days I used to write a blog post in I’ll instead devote to fiction writing. I’m still a long ways off from my goal of writing every day, but this is helping, so that’s good. Life as Geek will now return to it’s regular, “most Thursdays, some Tuesdays” schedule. So ok, sometimes twice a week, but usually not.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

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How to Start (or start someone) Knitting

Knitting is one of those social hobbies that most people don’t learn from a book when they’re first starting out. Usually what happens is you see someone else knitting and think “Huh. I wonder if I could do that – it looks kinda fun.” And you either go ask that person to show you a little of what they’re doing or attend some kind of official event and have someone teach you there later.

I knit in public fairly often, so this happens to me a lot. I’ll talk with the person about how anyone can knit and no, it’s not as complicated as you can fool people it is, and hopefully when they leave they head straight to a yarn shop. ::grin:: Sometimes a person even has time to sit down and go through a few stitches with me. But what happens then? How do you actually get started? Here’s a few things to keep in mind when picking out your first project or guiding someone else choosing one. Continue reading

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New Kingdom Hearts Card Set!

There are days when I just really, really don’t want to sit down and write something. Today is one of those days.

Therefore – pictures! Continue reading

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When Depression is a Good Thing

I struggled a bit with the title of this post, and I’m still not sure it’s exactly what I meant to say. I mean, I don’t really ever think that depression itself is a good thing. Speaking from experience here, it’s miserable. It’s free-falling in an endless black hole. But I do think that good things can come out of it, and that’s what I wanted to ramble on a little today. Continue reading

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