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Zixar

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Posts posted by Zixar

  1. Now, George Aar and I could probably argue over the color of a stop sign, but he's right on the money with this.

    Don't waste any time over HOW something was accomplished. If you're a believer, then the exact origin and meaning of the giants in the earth phrase in Genesis got exactly as much theopneustos-type mention as the Creator wanted--zero. If you're not a believer, then speculating over genetic mutations millennia ago with no tissue samples in hand to compare is like speculating who's going to win the World Series in the year 3000--completely devoid of any concrete basis from which to judge.

    It makes just as much sense to say Satan miracled evil humans out of thin air as it does to try to explain some tiny DNA manipulation on his part. How did Christ feed five thousand people with one kid's lunch? "Well, perhaps Jesus reached into the fourth-dimensional hypersolid that underlay the 3-D manifestation in our physical world of the loaves and fishes. broke parts of it off, which would of course have been identical 3-D slices off its 4-D entity, and distributed those among the crowd." Flashy, scientific, plausible...and utterly devoid of any evidence either for or against it.

    Trying to explain supernature through nature is like dividing by zero. Keep perspective! If you want to believe, (like I do), why not just accept that the Supreme Being of the Universe is not bound by our physical laws--having written them Himself. If you don't, then you won't even give such matters the tiniest bit of thought anyway.

    Miracles happen, QED.

    God bless!

    Zix

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  2. For some reason, this just brings to mind a parallel between TWI and Monty Python's Life of Brian:

    BRIAN

    You're all individuals!

    CROWD (in unison)

    YES! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!

    BRIAN

    You're all different!

    CROWD

    YES! WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT!

    MAN IN FRONT

    I'm not...

    BRIAN

    NOW F--- OFF!

    Crowd looks puzzled...

    MAN#2

    How shall we f--- off, O Lord?

    BRIAN

    Oh, I don't know, JUST GO AWAY!!!!

    I totally agree with mudflaps--if the talent wasn't controlled by TWI, it was Eeeeeevil! I still remember LCM's intro to a "Christian comedy" tape that TWI put out in the early 80s. It was just such utter hypocrisy. Instead of ministering to those who might struggle with different religions or lifestyles, it just made fun of them, put them down, or insulted them. Yet somehow that was "godly" (which god, Craig?) and other comedians doing similar things--even against the same people--were "possessed". Sam Kinnison insults homosexuals=devil spirit. TWI does it=good clean family fun!

    To me (and this is just my opinion) it makes the most sense if the "no respecter of persons" bit doesn't mean we're all supposed to be identical--any fool can see that we're not. Maybe it means we were all built on the same number of "points". Most of the kids in school could run faster than I could, but I usually did better on tests. Maybe I got ten points moved from Running to IQ. Maybe the people who are both brain surgeons and Olympic athletes pulled some sort of crippling mental problem to balance them out (-15 points Irrational Attraction to Overachievement, or some such.) I don't know. I just think that our differences are what makes the social bond that much stronger and more important. Not everyone has to do everything--that's frightfully redundant!

  3. Yup, a two-parter with the Silurians, then they meet Vincent van Gogh the next week, then it's James Corden (Smithy from Gavin & Stacey fame), and I believe River Song returns in the two-part season finale, where the cracks in time plotline should finally get resolved.

  4. I thought I was going to hate Matt Smith as the new Doctor, but he's turned out to be absolutely brilliant in the role, thanks in no small part to the switch in producers from Russell T Davies to Steven Moffat. Moffat is a far, far better writer than Davies ever was, and he has given a real humanity and vulnerability to the Eleventh Doctor. And I absolutely LOVE Karen Gillan as Amy Pond. I liked Rose, but Amy is just wonderful. I think she's the most "real" companion the Doctor has ever had, and I'd almost say he cares for her more than the 9th and 10th Doctors cared for Rose. Moffat, Smith, and Gillan have turned Doctor Who from one of my "shows I really like" into "why isn't next Saturday here yet????" Too bad the US is about 3 episodes behind the UK, but at least it's not several years behind like it used to be.

    Moffat has promised that this season's two-part finale will have fans crying at the end of BOTH parts--for different reasons. I believe him. Can't wait!

  5. Thanks, Gen! Love that song! (Been a Python fan for way too many years...)

    Yes, Scorpius is one of those cool constellations that actually look like what they're supposed to be. It's even cooler when Mars passes through and battles it out with Antares for the "who's redder" contest. With binoculars, you can see the clusters M6 and M7 down near the "cat's eyes" in the tail.

    Florida, eh? Well, I'm in middle Georgia now. Let me know if you ever want to take a good look at Scorpius, and I'll set up the telescopes!

    God bless!

    Zix

  6. Hi Gen,

    Just got back on GSC after a prolonged absence, and found this thread. As an amateur astronomer, and all-around science buff in general, the Universe itself is so amazingly and mind-bogglingly full of wonder that (to me, anyway) anyone who thinks that it all just somehow randomly happened hasn't fully grasped the complexities of what's going on.

    I was watching a BBC program on Invisible Worlds tonight, and the presenter was showing all the marvelous things we'd see if we could see into other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, like x-rays, ultraviolet, and so on. All sorts of fascinating things were shown, like, with a high-speed hi-definition x-ray camera, we can actually see how a cat can easily withstand a fall from ten times its own height without any injury at all, while a human being is lucky if it can withstand a fall from twice its own height. (Has to do with the shock-absorbing qualities of cat shoulders and feet versus the relative inflexibility of human knee joints, but I digress...)

    The most mind-boggling bit they showed was an infrared picture of the inner workings of a beehive. On the face of it, you'd think there isn't a ton of difference between any two bugs. Horseflies and honeybees are about the same size, yet ten thousand flies can't do a fraction of the amazing things ten thousand honeybees can do, all with a speck of a brain the size of a pinhead. That certain bees keep their wings going to circulate and cool the air in the hive has been known for a while now, but the IR camera shows something startling--there are actually "heater" bees that shiver their flight muscles constantly to precise temperatures in order to incubate bee larvae in the wax cells of the nursery. Heater bees of a certain temperature incubate in-hive workers, while heater bees who generate higher temperatures incubate the flying workers--and it's solely the temperature of incubation that determines the larval bees' final development. So these bees shiver constantly--and other bees go bring them honey to "refuel" them. Thousands of times over, in millions of beehives around the world, and all from bugs with barely enough brain to keep their skulls full. That there are so many ridiculously-specific tasks these little blighters all perform to perfection is just wondrous beyond belief.

    At least it is to me, anyway...

    God bless!

    Zix

  7. Galen: Broken mirror? Harrumph! Do I look like the sort who would go for such superstitious nonsense? I chased a black cat under a ladder after I spilled the salt on a cracked sidewalk. Everyone knows THAT...

    :rolleyes:

    God bless!

    Zix

  8. No, actually things are going REALLY bad for me, truth be told. In the past seventeen months I've lost pretty much everything I had. Lost my job, then my house, then my pets, then my new job, then my apartment, then my car, and now my second wife is divorcing me. Hopefully no one else is that bad off here!

  9. Sorry, never visited FB, MS, or Twitter, and I don't intend to. My personal life, as boring and mundane as it is, is just none of the public's business. Dunno why anyone here would want to know about it anyway, but at least it's a semi-selected public here...

  10. Garth: Scooter and Cleo say "Meow" back to their littermate, as do his younger siblings Stormy and Smudge...and his mother Missy....don't think he ever met Buster, Gracie, or Teddy, and I know he never met Walter or Marty...

    Raf: Wait, you have a son? Congratul--wait, you have a MRS.????? Geez, can't a guy vanish from the face of the earth for a few years without people changing everything around? Congratulations! (x2, even!)

    Rascal: Black belt, eh? The Force is strong with you!

    New peoples: Greets, grats, and other kind thoughts! You missed very little by not knowing who the heck I was.

    Old enemies: Remind me again who you are? Or really, don't.

  11. Several years further on, and it appears that the old Cafe is still going strong. How many midnights has it been, O Greasespotters? What news from the Wayfree side of the tracks?

    Yours belatedly,

    Zix

  12. I only got to speak with Dave briefly on the phone one time while I was on the WOW field in St. Paul. I was stunned to find out that the guy who co-wrote D&D was a PFAL grad, even more stunned to find out that the believers in St. Paul who put us up the first few days had either bought or were renting (can't remember which) Dave's house from him--and it still had a sign on one of the downstairs rooms that said "Dungeon" on it. Dave called my Branch leader one day while I was over at his house, and that's when I got to geek-out at him. He was gracious and kind in the brief conversation we had, and I'm truly sorry to hear he's no longer with us.

    Rest in peace, Dave, and thanks for all the happy times you gave me and my friends through the years, goofy dice and all.

  13. The re-imagined BSG was pretty good, all things considered. Not exactly sure I like the way some of the characters' storylines were resolved, but all in all, it was one of the few standouts of modern televised science fiction. I think I still liked Babylon 5 better (except for the tacked-on Season 5) but I'd still recommend BSG to anyone looking for a good drama.

    Oh, and to the poster who bemoaned the lack of the made-up terms from the 1979 version of the show, "frak" was from the original series, and in one of the last episodes, the tube of toothpaste that Starbuck offered as a prize for the first pilot to spot a habitable planet had the brand name "Felgercarb". (Yay for HD television...)

    Regards,

    Zix

  14. Here's a little cat-whispering trick that has been known to work wonders with skittish cats:

    If they ever make eye contact with you, immediately blink slowly two or three times, like you're just about to yawn and fall asleep. Direct eye contact is very threatening to a cat, but by slow blinking, you're showing them that you do not consider them a threat, and you are not about to attack them. Over time, they will come a little closer to you. If they're still skittish as you walk by them, blink and turn your head away. Don't touch them unexpectedly. Talk to them in questions so your voice rises at the end.

    Most of all, don't expect immediate results. My smallest kitten, Smudge, took two years to become a lap cat, and she's still not all the way there yet. She'll jump on my shoulder and ride around in the mornings, but she'll only sit for about two minutes on my lap. But she was once the most don't-touch-me cat I'd ever had.

    Good luck!

    Zix

  15. From Hope on the last page:

    Ive never listened to much punk stuff, but in the last month or so Ive discovered and have been overwhelmed by the Dropkick Murphys. Its a whole new way for me to listen

    I love em, sort of a blend of old celtic/irish tunesand instruments with straight forward kickass rock and roll

    Their Warriors Code CD is first on my rotation lately

    If you like Dropkick Murphys, you may also like Flogging Molly, another high-energy Irish band of the same general type. Try the Drunken Lullabies album.

  16. For those who liked John Simm as the new Master, I highly recommend watching his previous series, Life on Mars. Simm plays Sam Tyler, a cop in Manchester who gets in an accident and wakes up in 1973. He doesn't know if he's insane, in a coma, or actually thrown back in time, but it's like living on another planet. Only two seasons were filmed, of eight episodes each, but it's well worth watching. A follow-on series, Ashes to Ashes is set to debut next year on the BBC.

    God bless!

    Zix

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