Inspiration Without a Priest

"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." - I Corinthians 13:2-3

I went to mass today because I have stuff to do early tomorrow, but I accidentally went a little late so I did some reading alone in the church afterwards to compensate. I'm realy glad I did that. There was something about the passage above and rereading the beattitudes that really struck me profoundly. It sounds corny, but the context of the passage was just so beautiful because it strove to be true. Love isn't a guy kissing his girlfriend or a husband taking his wife out to a romantic dinner, but rather it's "not rude, it is not self-seeking" and it "never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease." I just thought like the thought of that.

Now onto some more current events. A recent study has found that people who fidget have to work less to lose weight because they burn calories naturally! My old psychology professor would call that bullshit, but it sounds reasonable and I found it interesting considering that I fidget and I still had to work my butt of to get thin! It turns out that the badass known as Tim Berners-Lee has been named Greatest Briton 2004 for his creation of the world wide web. I salute him for it because I wouldn't be able to write this blog without him. Phillip Pullman also won but in the category of arts, and I'm a big fan of his so that's pretty neat.

I know how much you all love the movie news so here's a shot of the Dark Knight courtesy of JoBlo:



He also reported that Tony Jaa's new movie, Tom Yum Goong, will be coming out in Hong Kong around the same time Ong Bak will be released stateside. He even put up a clip from the upcoming movie that's worth a look and I reccomend that everyone check out Ong Bak as well. And while I'm on the topic of movies I might as well mention that IGN put up a good article about twelve franchise games that may actually be good contrary to popular belief. The game on that list that I'm most excited about is actually The Godfather because of all the effort EA is putting into it.

Following up from yesterday's mention of the MySQL worm, it turns out that it has now been reduced to being benign because the external ties to the bot have been severed. Supposedly the cause was not a bug but rather that the worm was exposing some feature, but I'm just glad it was halted. For all you hardcore nerds out there, this article is an interesting read about computers actually being able to learn words just by plugging into Google. And if you're a hardcore nerd, you may also appreciate this comic strip because you know it's true:



And now, the Saturday Six:

1. Who is the first celebrity you recall having a crush on?
I have to say the ever beautiful and talented Katie Holmes. She was the only reason I watched Dawson's Creek! I know, it's shameful, but she's sooo pretty!

2. What was your favorite amusement park ride when you were young?
When I was young I hated roller coasters because I was afraid I'd die on them, so I supposed the Astroneedle? Of course nowadays I love the Serial Thriller.

3. If you could change your name (first or middle but the name you go by), would you, and if so, what would you change it to?
No way. The Elton John references do get annoying, but it flows so well with my last name and it's so short! How many Eltons do you know anyway? Plus it's way easy for people to pronounce and produces many nicknames (Eltinium Processor being my favorite).

4. Go to http://kabalarians.com/ and take the "First Name Analysis" test. Do you agree with what the site comes up with?
I would copy and paste the result here, but it's pretty long. It says that I have an urge to be kind to other but that I have a lot of frustration from a scattered and emotional nature, which is mostly true. It also says that I'm a people-person, which is very true. I don't agree with what it says about liking easy money though because I believe in hard work.

5. Other than Johnny Carson, which former talk show host's tape archives would you most like to visit, and why?
I don't really know. Richard Bey maybe? That's really the only one I used to watch when I was younger.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #44 from Jessie: If you were in good health, would you donate a kidney to a friend who's dying regardless of what your family's opinion are and if yes or no, why or why not?
Yeah, I think I would. Life wouldn't be the same without a kidney, but it would be even worse to know that someone I cared about died when I could've helped.

Most of you can stop reading now; I just wanted to take note of a few personal things. I went to the ACM junior officer introductory event today, and it went well. Do you ever get the feeling that you could've done something better? Not because you totally screwed it up or anything, but because you felt awkward about it afterwards? If not then I guess it's just me! I probably could've been more personable, but oh well. Like I could've gone out to lunch with everyone, but I had so much food at home that I would've felt bad to have eaten out. But anyway, if ACM is half as good as NSC I'm sure I'll have fun and warm up to everyone just fine. Oh, and I broke my second nail this week on Friday, so that really put a damper on yesterday. It was hampered by my talking to an old friend of mine, however. Is it just me, or are all the really cool girls always spoken for? Guess it's just me; I'll just live by a new motto: vive et gaude.