Following the Trend
Apparently, the cool thing to do is to upgrade your blog since Blogger has given us so many fancy do-dads to do it with, so I'll be doing that. I apologize for the inconvenience, but at least it's in English.

   [ posted by William @ 9:33 PM ]

Every Season Needs It's Sideshow
As an avid hockey fan, I must say that I am quite enjoying this season's playoffs. Even though my team lost in the first round, and team management panicked and fired one of the best coaches in the league. As much as I see myself as a moderately successful playoff prognosticator, I did not foresee this outcome.

Last season, there was also a Cinderella story with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks advancing all the way to the Stanley Cup finals. Another event was perspiring that made the whole thing more interesting. A California woman, herself a Mighty Ducks fan, had been pressuring her long time boyfriend to consider marriage. He, also a Mighty Ducks fan, at the beginning of last season's playoffs, said that if the Mighty Ducks won the Stanley Cup, he would propose, and they would get married. Of course the team's run to the Stanley Cup was improbable, given their list of opponents, but on the back of their goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, they made it to game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. Media outlets caught on to the story, and the couple was flown out to watch the games. He proposed at the beginning of game 7, even though his team still lost. And everybody was happy.

This year there is a similar story. I was talking hockey with my friend at the beginning of the playoffs, and since his favourite team, the Edmonton Oilers were already eliminated, he wanted to devise a new method of growing a playoff beard. He had a list of five teams and as they lost, he would shave various parts of his face (ie. neckbeard, mustache, soul patch, etc.). I suggested he pre-assign teams to the regions on his face, which he did. The unlikely part, is that he assigned Calgary to the left half of his beard and Tampa Bay to the right half. Most hockey experts were picking Calgary to last one round fewer than Tampa Bay, but Rob was not deterred. This is the result. So while many people will be cheering for various reasons, Rob (and his wife) will be cheering for aesthetics.

   [ posted by William @ 5:58 PM ]

Nu es aules äwa

Okay, so it didn't last too long. Well it lasted as long as I thought it would in duration, but not in the number of posts. I was hoping to do a few more posts in Low German, but they are tougher than I thought they would be. It's one thing to think up what to say in another language, but when my only knowledge of that language is spoken, not written, then I have to either look up the proper spelling of each word, or transliterate them, which is tough when I'm not exactly sure on the proper pronunciation for each word. The idea was to improve my plautdietsch for my stint as an advocate and translator for a low german woman who was having an immigration hearing. That's over now, and all went well.

So I thought that I'd write up a brief synopsis of the other stuff that is going on with me.
Books: I just made a few purchases that should hold me over for a while. God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible was acoincidentall purchase on a textbook buying trip, as was Anabaptist Preaching. I also ordered up a pocket sized version of the Hebrew-English Tanakh, which I will be using for my Old Testament class. To make that order ship for free, I needed to add another book, so I added The Politics of Jesus, which is a book I had earlier started to read, but hadn't gotten very far before I had to return it to a friend of mine.
Movies: I saw the movie Troy this past weekend. Here is a summary of the thoughts going through my mind as I watched it.
- This theatre smells like urine
- I need bigger pecs
- I have really become accustomed to watching people die
- This action is well done
- Diane Kruger is HOT! I have no trouble believing she would be the most beautiful woman on earth at that time
Music: A friend of mine lent me two CDs by Lyle Lovett, so I'm listening to them on a trial basis. "Road to Ensenada" is a decent song on the album by that name. I'm surprised at his eclectic style. But I guess he did marry Julia Roberts.
Church: I'm preaching this coming Sunday (the 23rd), and I will be using the non-apocalyptic texts from Daniel. They are surprisingly applicable to young adults.

   [ posted by William @ 4:51 PM ]

Am Aunfank
Fleich haud junt jedaucht daut dit wud nich pas'earen. Fonn'doag fank ekj on met miene Plautdiestche schriewen. Jie brucke nich äwa mie sorjen. Ekj sie nu sia te'freed. Miene je'burtdach es nu äwa. Ekj vunt sia viet auf faun fäl faun miene frenden. Dee mutten nich emma bie miene sied sennen. Ekj vaut mien nia Plautdiesche Bibel mea läsen, und ekj hoped daut dit vaut leichta kumen.

   [ posted by William @ 11:41 AM ]

Playing Me
Today I received a birthday gift from God. Time alone for self-reflection. Although I live a stone's through away from my KW social network, I didn't initiate any birthday festivities for myself. Instead I sat at home, semi-awaiting a surprise (I acknowledge the contradiction of that statement), and in the loneliness, I did some self-reflection. It wasn't particularly comforting reflection either. I'm not working hard enough at school or work. My dedication to the kingdom of God is often lukewarm. My desire for improvement/advancement/betterment of myself and my surroundings is weak to non-existent. My vanity and sloth are getting worse with age, not better.

God, purge me of selfish desire. Fill me with love for you, for the world you've created, and fill me with desire to further Your cause, which I have been following.

This blog is partially an artistic outlet, and partially a means of showcasing my thoughts, humour and achievements to cyberspace. As such, I am temporarily diverting only to the artistic element of "blogging". To do that, for the next little while, I will only be posting blogs in Low German. I'm not bragging about knowing another language, I'm not claiming the gift of speaking in tongues, I'm not trying to start a new trend. I am expressing myself artistically and improving my language skills at the same time. Thanks for being patient with me.

   [ posted by William @ 10:45 PM ]

Playing God
I have a new addiction. Recently, I purchased a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and in it was the CD for Roller Coaster Tycoon. I have long ago lost my desire for sugary cereals, so I only bought the box for the game. It was a toss-up between Roller Coaster Tycoon and Battleship, to go along with the Jeopardy CD I received earlier.

In the game, you select a scenario, and given the conditions, you must complete a task (ie. have x number of guests in your park) by a certain time. So I am constantly adding rides, concession stands, paths, scenery and park staff in order to make my park a more enjoyable experience for my guests, and more profitable for me. But my job goes beyond engineer, personnel and marketing manager for the park, there is a heavy customer relations aspect to the job.

It is this customer relations aspect of the game that is perhaps the oddest aspect of it. With a click of the mouse, I can see a categorized list of what every single guest of my park is doing, and what they are thinking. This helps me to meet their concerns. In response to their comments, I hire extra cleaning staff, add more bathrooms, add more pathways etc. The oddest part is that while I'm watching people walk about my park, I can click on any person and view their profile. In their profile, I can see how much money they are carrying as well as a break down on how much they've spent in various areas of my park already. I can see their last few thoughts regarding my park. I can see how happy they are, how hungry and/or thirsty they are, how sick they are, how badly they need to go to the bathroom, and their preferred level of ride intensity. I can also pick them up and move them to any area of the park that I wish.

I only use those abilities for good, as of course using them for bad would lessen my chances of winning the game. Also, if I wanted to be malicious, I have other ways to do that. At any time, I can make changes that put people in serious jeopardy. I can delete sections of path, so people get lost, as my guests are too stupid to find their own way walking on the grass. I can remove active pathways over water, causing people to fall in the water and drown. I can speed up roller coasters so that they crash, and people die.

I'm just afraid that at some point one of the guests at my park are going to ask me what I want, which will cause everything to self-destruct. I am not a park manager, I am Big Brother.

   [ posted by William @ 1:19 PM ]

Points to me for being perceptive
It's no secret to a lot of people that I have a lot of sisters. I often use that fact to claim a higher understanding of female behaviour, but really, to me, girls are still a mystery. I generally don't know why they do what they do when they do it. The other day however, I was in a situation where I needed some women's intuition to pick up what was going on, and I did it successfully. I was talking to a female friend of mine about her plans for the upcoming year. (I still live in a semi-University world, so "year" means September to August.) I had heard what she was initially planning on doing, and I asked if that was still her plan. She looked at me and said, "No, I'm doing something else next year," but she looked at me as if I should know what the 'something else' was. It was the kind of female smirk that I generally despise because I have no idea what it means. So then I thought, "If she said that to a girl, that girl would get it. So what would be obvious to a girl that isn't obvious to me?" And then it hit me, so I said to her, "Oh, you're having a baby!" I said it with the appropriate level of excitement, despite the fact that, if incorrect, I had just issued a pretty dangerous statement. (Of the few things I know about women, I should collect them into a book, a very short book. Female life lesson: When a woman isn't pregnant, she doesn't like other people to imply that she is.) She nodded her head, and we talked about the pregnancy etc, and I gave myself a point for perception.

   [ posted by William @ 11:16 AM ]

A Chocolate Collage
I'm standing there in anguish. Mental anguish because I see the choices before me, and I don't know which chocolate bar to pick. Physical anguish, because I have a grocery basket full to capacity in one arm, and it's off-setting my balance. I'm supposed to decide quickly, so that I shouldn't need to put down the basket, and I'm supposed to only take an individual portion of groceries, so I don't need a push cart, just a basket.

This is my routine. When I by groceries, a task that I don't like doing, I buy a chocolate bar, as a reward for completing the task. I don't like the choosing process though. I want to find a chocolate bar that I buy every time. Some chocolate bars that I had liked in the past are not available at my store or are just too expensive. I had one that I bought pretty regularly for a while, but for some reason it just didn't do it for me. Now I am without a preferred chocolate bar. It shouldn't, I know, but that knowledge makes grocery shopping almost less worthwhile.

   [ posted by William @ 11:29 AM ]