251 posts tagged “qotd”
How are you celebrating the 4th of July?
I will be going over to my friends place for an overnight stay. Lots of zombie related things are planned, 28 days later and Shaun of the Dead, plus I'll probably be playing some City of Heroes with my new zombie based character. Also, there will be some Silent Hill 2 which fits in with the theme. Well...not totally since that's not really a zombie related thing...but it's still horror type stuff.
It should be a good time and a good way to forget that the rest of this week ever happened. There's a reason I haven't done much blogging recently, but everything seems to have calmed down quite a bit now, so hopefully this long weekend will be good for relieving some stress.
What is a childhood memory that still haunts you?
I can't remember if this happened when I was suspended from school for a while (that one's a bit of a long story) or if it was when I was sick for a while and couldn't come in. I want to say it was in elementary school so I'd have to go with the sick angle. Anyway, I was out of school for a while long enough where the teachers had been sending me my homework so I wouldn't be too far behind.
And one day, the homework packet came complete with a number 2 pencil, unsharpened. My Mom ended up sharpening the pencil and we used it to do my math homework. But, a little further down in the packet was instructions on how to make a pinwheel for science class...using the pencil that we had just sharpened.
Well, I kinda freaked out because my Mom sharpened the "Science Pencil". And if I recall correctly, it took the teacher reassuring me that the pencil wasn't all that important to calm me down about the whole thing. But to this day, the memory of the science pencil that had been deprived of it's chosen destiny haunts me.
What would you like to accomplish this week?
I'd like to finish off the decluttering project in my bedroom but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. As it is right now, I'm stuck because I've run out of garbage can space to throw more bags of the stuff I'm tossing. So it may have to wait until next week to continue in force.
I'd also like to get back in the habit of exercising daily. I've been severely lax recently on this front and as a result my weight loss has totally stalled. So I need to get back on the bandwagon and see if I can drop another 10 pounds to get back to where I was when I fell off the bandwagon last time.
And also I want to spend more time practicing my piano/keyboard playing. Because it's something I want to get good at but I haven't been putting enough time in to really get much of anywhere.
How many meals do you cook at home each week? What do you do for the other meals?
Usually 4 meals cooked at home per week. The remainder are as follows:
Saturday (or sunday) I'm usually over at my friends place or otherwise out and about with them and we grab dinner somewhere (or Wassy cooks). So that's one weekend day down. Sunday I generally go over to my parents for the homemade pizza my Mom makes, although sometimes I'll stay home and cook something myself.
Wednesday is the day Wassy comes over and we go out to dinner and do stuff that we're interested but Jay wouldn't really enjoy. Usually there's music listening or Anime watching.
So I only really cook 4 days a week. And I mean cook by the loosest definiton of the word.
Look at the first post you ever wrote on Vox. What important developments or changes have occurred in your life since then?
Submitted by Alexandra.
My first vox post was Happy Birthday IBM PC, which was about the anniversary of the PC, unsurprisingly enough. However, it took a few days for me to get really comfortable with what I put up here so for the first week or so, my first real blog post didn't happen until after that when my 4th gen iPod was flaking out.
However, since I started blogging on Vox the two big things were that I've graduated from college and I've gotten to know my friends better. I've been in a bit of a holding pattern for a couple years basically, so there hasn't been much major stuff going on.
There were a lot of smaller things though that changed my life in minor ways. include getting a couple new hobbies (fish and music playing more recently). My penguin obsession has also climbed to new heights and my obsession with Dream Theater has cooled off slightly.
I've stopped playing City of Heroes and started again. Also switched to a Mac for all my major computing needs which was a good thing because all of my other computers exploded at pretty much the same time.
What could we do to create a world with less violence?
I totally understand that what I'm about to say is hopelessly naive and reflects a world view that seems to be so far from the truth of what is possible as to be almost comical. But it's my view anyway.
In order to create a world with less violence, we need to get people to understand that we're all just people and we're all in this whole mess together. While there's cultural differences between different areas of the world, in the end we've all still got the same emotions, the same biological makeup, the same potentials, the same problems. Every human on the planet wants to find a way to survive and be happy. We all value family. (Speaking generally here, and ignore any psychological illnesses that is)
Which is why I don't think there's a justifiable reason for war. It's all because one guy wants that little bit of land those other people are sitting on over there. Or they want something the other people have. And it's justified because the people "over there" are different than us over here. So they must be evil. And nobody ever takes the time to really get to know the people they're demonizing because then they couldn't demonize them. Because they would realize that they're not really that different after all.
The artificial division of the world into separate countries and the development of the nationalism that comes along with that is one of the biggest problems facing the human race right now. And I really hope that at some point, as a whole, we can transcend our perceived differences. But I think we'll probably blow ourselves up long before that would ever be possible.
So, I think that's about enough depressing blog posting for one day.
What's your favorite type of cheese? Or, if you don't like cheese, why not?
Submitted by Draegon Scribe.
When the question of what kind of cheese comes up, I generally prefer Swiss or Provolone on sandwiches. I'm ok with American but it's definitely not my favorite type of cheese. For general cheese eating though, I do like a good slice of Vermont Sharp Cheddar.
I've also tried Munster (after a conversation with a friend where I was called a heathen for never having tried it) recently which I do also like.
As the April 15th tax filing deadline looms, many gay couples are facing higher tax bills because they do not get the federal tax benefits that accompany marriage. The same is true for heterosexual couples who chose not to get married. Do you think this is fair?
No, I think the situation is totally unfair. The heart of this issue is the gay marriage debate, of which there are generally two significant sides. Those who believe that due to religious reasons, the term "marriage" should be defined as a union between 1 man and 1 woman. The other side is those who don't believe that to be the case. That's nothing you probably didn't already know of course...
I take issue with the individuals who are trying to push a definition of marriage that is consistent with their own religious views. Because at that point we're bringing religion into government and the last time I checked, the government was supposed to be separate from religious views on account of the fact that people in the United States aren't all the same religion.
Additionally, I take issue with the view that we need an amendment to the constitution to "protect the sanctity of marriage" and to define the term as a joining of one woman and one man. The definition of "sanctity" is holiness, or the quality of being holy. Writing this into the the constitution wouldn't make any sense at all. It'd be like writing into the constitution that all citizens are required to pray five times a day in the direction of Mecca or eating non Kosher foods is now totally banned. It's a pushing of ones own religious belief on others which, as you know if you read my previous rantings on religion, I detest on all levels.
What should happen is this, in my view anyway. The government should get involved in marriage as far as providing legal protections to the couple. It shouldn't matter who the couple is, 2 guys, 2 girls, 1 guy/1girl, etc. In the eyes of the law, all people should be equals. Discrimination written into law against homosexuals is no different from discrimination written into law against blacks. It's the same thing with a different target. The government should offer "civil unions" to recognize that two people are together in the eyes of the law, with all of the protections, privileges and associated rights that go along with that as far as things like medical information, death benefits, etc. The government shouldn't even mention the term Marriage, because that has a spiritual significance to it which is what got us into this in the first place.
Where religion should enter into it is, well...within the religion. A spiritual bond should be left up to the individual religions. Because not everybody has the same traditions. The sanctity of marriage will be protected in the only place where it actually means anything...within the context of religion. And with it goes all of the spiritual significance that the individual religions place in the term. If a religion feels that gay marriage is wrong, then they are free to not allow such people to be married in the eyes of the church.
So that's what I think. The government should deal in civil unions which provide protection in the eyes of the law. And marriage (or whatever it's termed in each religion) should stay in the confines of the individual religions.
We're already three months, and many, many albums, into 2008. What's your favorite album (thus far) that was released this year?
For those who may not be familiar with Ayreon out there, let me explain. Ayreon is the brainchild of one man, who goes by Arjen Anthony Lucassen. Over the years the formula has varried slightly, but an Ayreon album usually has several key qualities. First, almost all of the music is recorded by and created by Arjen. He plays everything on his albums except for the drums and the woodwind/string parts, excepting the guest musicians he has. Second key fact..lots of different singers. Ayreon albums are almost always concept albums with many different characters in them. Often these characters are voiced by seperate vocalists. In this case, 17 vocalists. Also, third is a very eclectic style. The songs can shift from very crunchy heavy riffs to electronic keyboard driven sections to folks-y type stuff.
This album is an extension of the main Ayreon storyline, referencing a lot of the events that happened in previous ayreon albums. And except for the fact that a couple songs feel disconnected from the rest of the work (And Simone Simons has a tragically small part) I can't say anything bad about it. And I even find myself enjoying Hansi Kursch's vocals even though I can't stand him in Blind Guardian. Arjen really knows how to get the most out of the people he choses to do the vocals on his albums. Add some really nice guest solo spots from artists such as Derek Sherinian, Joost Van Den Broek, and Michael Romero...you've got yourself a winner.
If this gets knocked out of my top 5 in 2008 list at the end of the year, I'm going to be VERY shocked.
How often do you go to a place of worship? What is it like there?
I don't, and I haven't for quite a long time, excluding weddings. I usually don't go into religious type things here because, like politics, it's another one of those subjects where the chances of anybody actually changing their mind on an issue is pretty much 0%. But...might as well lay this one out. First of all, I have the up most respect for whatever you, the reader, believes in. It's not up to me to decide what's true and what isn't for other people in matters such as this and what matters most is that everyone finds their own truth, the one that they feel is correct, whatever that may be (or may not be).
I was brought up Roman Catholic (or at least going to a Roman Catholic church primarily as the only one I can remember) as I grew older, we eventually stopped going to mass on Sunday, but I can't remember "why" particularly since it was a long time ago. But in any case, we stopped going to church and I never really went back.
Through the years I've flirted with various states of being. Went through a period of atheism during a good portion of High School and then settled on being largely agnostic for a period. Going to take a little side trip here, so bare with me.
Over the years I've largely soured on organized religion. I've seen religion used far too many times to control people or to justify doing things which nobody should be able to justify. Whenever humans get involved and create some sort of an organizational structure, it's very hard for politics and power to not enter the picture. It seems to be human nature.
I want to clarify very quickly and very strongly that I don't believe that religion is inherently evil or that it's the source of all the worlds problems. But I have a hard time looking at situations like the child abuse happening in the roman catholic church and their response to that whole thing, just made me very aware that it seems as if the presence of humans trying to interpret the divine poisoned the process and, as humans tend to do if left alone...totally screwed everything up.
And I'm not just picking on Roman Catholics here either. Any large religion is going to experience this sort of thing, from Islam (Radical Islam anyone?) to the Jews, to all types of Christians, to whatever else is out there. It's human nature, this lust for power and control over others. Even if one has the best intentions, over time power always corrupts, no matter what guise it may be...from trying to protect people from themselves to the personal gain of whoever happens to be in power. Even actions taken with the best intentions can distort.
So, back to my story. I was largely agnostic for a long period of time, until September 11th, 2001. In the days following that (like a lot of people I would imagine), I pretty much reevaluated everything there was to reevaluate. From what the point of existence actually was to if there was a higher power. You know, all the good stuff. I ended up coming to the conclusion that, I was fairly certain there's some sort of higher power or calling out there, but I don't know what sort of form it might take. I don't know who's right and who's wrong as far as which religion to choose for myself, so I'm choosing none.
The best I can do is live my life the best way I know how and to try to treat others in the way I'd like to be treated and help out when I can. I'm fairly certain, as well that organized religion isn't for me because, as I mentioned earlier, once you involve humans, it pollutes the process. And I think it's possible to have faith without religion. Humans just mess everything up.
And there you have it. Probably the first (since I don't remember talking about this before) and last post you'll ever get from me on the subject of religion.
