curtis' blog

I shall now offer an excuse for not writing anything on here for a while:

Sooooo….. I’m not particularly thrilled with the color choices (even though they’re my color choices and it totally works) because I simply don’t like pink or purple or yellow. But I’m told that they are good colors (and inside I know they are, but I’m color-ist).

I may or may not change the colors for Robby’s and Stephen’s to match the coloring in their photos (purple being dominant in Robby’s, yellow in Stephen’s).

Now imagine the sidebar (above the picture of me on the far right) containing sidebar-y things. And imagine the single comment is the five indicated in the callout bubble. Also, imagine cool rollovers for stuff. You now have the finished product. I will have the non-imaginary one for you in [insert indeterminate but likely long] amount of time.

How do you feel about it?

Oh, and by the way, if you didn’t figure it out already, it’s the picture of the new website theme for our blogs.

My fellow bloggers on room2593.com have taken a recent turn to posts of religious depth.  People have been commenting, response-posting, and thinking a lot.  This post is in response to solitarytellurium’s comments on Robby’s original triggering post.  I started to comment, and ended up with a sermon.  Sorry for its length, but I couldn’t stop until I was satisfied with my answer.  In writing it, I affirmed some of my own beliefs.  I hope it at least provokes thought.

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solitarytellurium, for a start, you can find something you most enjoy, be it food, books, music, the beach, and then find a good use for it.  For me, it’s music.  I find great release in music.  During the school year, I help lead out in hymn sing.  During the summer, I’ve been writing music, singing in a virtual choir (Eric Whitacre’s amazing!) and going to a church that makes music a big part of the service (even if I don’t like all the songs).  I also like the outdoors.  I used to bike to work, but now I find even more pleasure walking the 1/2 hour.

If you find something you enjoy, God can use it and use you through it.  For instance, you may have thought mentioning food earlier was either just a poor attempt at a joke, or just plain idiocy.  It was neither.  When I went to Brazil on our choir tour (how’s that for fulfilling all I desire in two weeks?), I could not believe the food!  I tried many new fruits (including the delicious mangosteen, which I HIGHLY recommend) and marveled at God’s handiwork.

Praying is just one way to get in touch with God.  In fact, a very celebrated author once mentioned that music in a worship service was of more value than anything else.  I tend to agree, and I sometimes dream of starting a church service with primarily music one day.  That is my best way to talk to God–through song.

If you’re truly seeking God, that is not emptiness of thought.  Quite the contrary; it is the beginning to letting God in.

You mention that you sometimes feel like letting go.  That’s exactly what you need to do!  God’s love is not under your control.  You cannot “encourage” His love any more than it is.  There is nothing you need to do to gain his love.  Sometimes, working for His love, we make it all about us… when all we see is ourselves, we can’t tell that God has been reaching to us the entire time.  God’s already done the work for us.  All we need to do is accept.

If you just scroll down (or look in the archives just previous to this post), you’ll see that I recently ranted for a good length of time about Comcast.  It’s actually a grand example of the relationship between us and God.  God is like the distraught customer (I don’t dare claim that I, a distraught customer, am even a slight resemblance of God, but this is a metaphorical allegory of sorts).  We are like Comcast.  All God wants to do is heap blessings on us.  We refuse to send Him the invitation, or even provide a way for Him to contact us.  We insist that He isn’t doing enough for us, and that we do want His love, but we continually put up a false front.  God keeps saying, “BUT ALL I WANT TO DO IS GIVE YOU LOVE!!!”  We then continue to ask for his address, for his social security number, just to make sure he’s for real, and not just some guy out to tie up our lives and communications lines with nonsense.  We put Him on hold indefinitely.  We play for Him atrocious music.

I could take this metaphor on forever.  But the point is, the place to start is ground zero.  Just let Him get to you.  He gets to me every time I hear a good chord struck in an Eric Whitacre composition.  What’ll it be for you?

Stephen Barry Tell ‘Em the Original 2.0 is coming back to Southern!!!11!!!!1!!11!!1!!!1111!1!!1!!!!!

If that’s not enough exclamation for you, copy and past the first sentence into a text editor, then add your own.  The 1/! key is near the top-left of your keyboard.

It’s official.  Now, all we have to do is come up with a good AWShow name for him.  When I see the acronym “SBTETO”, I think “S B Tito” or something.  Maybe “Tito Billings”.  How’s that?  I’m horrible at this.  I came up with Alistair Watkins, and that was it.  I’ve used up my creativity.

How about a palendrome (a word/phrase that’s spelled the same forward and back)?  We’ve got do something original for THE Original.  Stephen Nehpets!  Yrrab bar Ry, for a Middle Eastern twist.

Help me out, guys.  Well, actually, I should probably let Stephen have his own say first… but I’ve already written the post.  His answer trumps all, though, so go ahead and make up a name!

Well, we have two AWS videos yet to edit and upload because we had no time at the end of the school year.  Then Robby went to camp (not exactly vid-edit territory) and I have a pathetic computer (which is about to change, as you can read in my last post).  So, I hope to get them up before school starts, at least.  Now to other business.

Stephen (SBTETO2.0, or SBTETO1.0 as Robby would say, because he hasn’t caught up with the version numbers yet) will very likely be back at good ‘ole SAU again in the fall!  He will also attempt to get room 2592 (where we previously shared a room) accross the hall, or 2594, which is a corner room across the hall (like ours, without the extra space).  Soooooooo, he’ll probably be in our AWS videos.  Also, we will start inviting guests (not just Bret Thompson, Bret Thompson, Bret Thompson and the like).  If you would like to be a guest, please tell us!  We would love to have you on our show!

Also, I’m thinking it would be cool to change up our format a bit.  Adding new people will certainly change things a bit.  Maybe we could pre-write skits (written sketches?  really?  after all this ad-lib nonsense?) and have everybody change roles every time (or everybody but Alistair).  Maybe we could have discussion panel meetings about different topics, where Alistair is the moderator/host.  Well, enough of my ideas, let’s hear yours.  What do you want us to do?  (Brooke, don’t you dare….)

Can’t wait for season 2!  And season 1 will come out on DVD (with a nominal disc/shipping fee perhaps) when I get the time to do that as well.  Well, more about that later, when it’s relevant.

Merry Christmas to all!

With final exams through tomorrow, then the long trip home, then the holiday plans, etc., etc., we will not have any more Alistair Watkins videos for you until after we are back in school.  We may post a video today or tomorrow of our room (the ACTUAL room 2593).  We are going to clean it first until the glare almost damages the camera.

I found out at our Christmas concert that I Cantori (my college choir, of which I am a part) will be going to Brazil at the end of the school year for a 2-3 week tour!  It has finally been confirmed.  If you would like to help me out with that, just go to my donation page.

We apparently have fans.  We haven’t found out who these fans are, but we are happy that people enjoy our videos.  Perhaps at the end of the year we will distribute a DVD.  Or tee-shirts.  Or something.  Perhaps you can come up with some good ideas.  So far we’ve thought of having tees that say, “Does eating an ice cream cone exercise your brain?  I think not!”  The DVD would be fairly easy.  Now, the only problem with shipping these things is privacy.  Many of you haven’t even given your real first names.  Giving us your addresses too might be a little much.  If it is a problem, please help us solve it.  We do have an entire semester left for videos, but it doesn’t hurt to plan ahead.

Ah, yes.  I remember.  We need ideas for more videos.  We just need some strange (or just potentially funny) occupations for Bret to have had.  We have only a couple of ideas right now, and it’s easy to make a video after we get through the original idea.

We did sing a Thanksgiving carol for you, but we have nothing for Christmas.  Sorry about that, but there is no familiar Thanksgiving tune we can turn into a Christmas song.

As a special Christmas bonus, you can contact us through our blogs, especially in the forums, for free help with anything.  Wait… we always do anyway.  I’m just reminding you that we enjoy helping others, especially with anything technological.

Sign up!!!  You get special treatment if you do!  Well, you can have an avatar that shows up in comments on some blogs, you can post in the forums, and you may eventually get even more privileges if we think you’re worthy.

I shall be trying to learn French (again, ugh) starting next semester.  I want to take a French course next year, and I want to be somewhat prepared.  If any of you speak French, speak away!  I would love the practice.

This paragraph is not an announcement at all.  In fact, the only point is to see if you have actually read this far.

And this is the end of my post.  It might be a bit long and boring, but it’s mostly informational.  Enjoy your Christmas.  Happy early 2009.  Have fun and eat unhealthful things over the holidays.  Enjoy your pancreatitislessness!  Au revoir!

It’s time to vote, people!  You can vote on this blog until elections are over in the U.S.A.  Then my polls will be closed.  Also, you should vote in the real elections.  I won’t tell you how to vote (if I did, however, I’d tell you to vote Republican), just that you should vote.  Make use of the rights we’ve paid for.  People that don’t vote are being wasteful.

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I never realized there were so many candidates until I went to Wikipedia to look up who Ralph Nader’s running mate was.  I found out Nader is Independent, not Green Party, and I found many other names.  I included many of them in my poll.  I wouldn’t want to leave anybody out, so I also left an “other” option.

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