what?

'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and then you shall find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'

Telling muslims that their religion teaches violence will make them angry. In defense they burn churches and cause violent protests to prove such assumptions are incorrect.

Does that make sense?

Islam lacks self control. Radical extremists continue to brainwash others with visions of paradise and glory. This fictional holy war only spreads violence, intolerance, sexism and death. The majority of Islam feels discriminated against by governments, liberal media, and the bad name they get from suicidal martyrs.

I think its hard to be Muslim now. Islam is a changing religion, and it isn't what it was 1,000 years ago.

copy cat

I'm taking a page from Branden, there are some things that must go:

1. Lame 3 page essays that my professors require every two weeks. As if I didn't have enough spare time between classes and work. All my time is spent reading and writing papers on politcal ideology or some place where this guy blew up. It often seems like busy work to me. The only thing I can think of is that my professors want to weed out the weak first year students.

2. Cold apartment. My apartment got really cold over the weekend and the heater isn't hooked up yet. My landlords went to Hawaii, and haven't come back yet so me and my wife are freezing. Well. Not me. Just her. I don't want to think about winter yet.

3. People that argue with me at work. I'm just following the rules buddy- I hate to be the bearer of bad news. People think that if they raise their voices or whine enough they can get away with murder. At a financial institution we have rules and regulations, when you signed your membership agreement you agreed to all the fees and crap that you got because you can't manage your money at all.

4. Traffic in Lehi. I've found a way to get around it, but seriously- if it takes 10 minutes to get through town there is obiously something wrong with transportation between Eagle Mtn, and all the other towns out there. I have to take alternate routes just to get around to work and school. Come on!

5. Big ugly dudes in Hummers. Really... everyone knows that they are over compensating for something else...

nintendo junkie

While I'm still thinking about Nintendo...

I'm excited for the Wii system that Nintendo is going to release. I haven't really played a Nintendo system since N64, and to be honest I almost liked the GameCube. Playstation has really taken over the game console market and their games were just better in my opinion. It seemed that poor Nintendo just wasn't doing so well against Xbox, and PS2...

But the new Wii is looking very awesome. Not only will it come with a variety of new games, the console has an online service that lets you download games from previous Nintendo consoles, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16. The new Wii has WiFi connectivity and an Opera Browser to surf the internets, and wirelessly supports the Nintendo DS. The remote style controller connects to Wii via Bluetooth, and functions with the directional pad as well as physical movement. The controller has a small integrated speaker on it as well (to give it some depth.. I've heard). I've seen pictures of a Shotgun style Zapper too!

While I don't think the Wii system will be the best console out there a few years from now, I think that Nintendo will win back some of their old fans with some of the features that this system has to offer. I just want to play all of the older games all over again.

chiptune

So Chiptune music. Have you heard of it? I'm sure most people have heard the Nintendo remixes of Beck's new album. Chiptune is music created using 8-bit computers and game consoles like the NES, and Commodore 64. There are lots of chiptune artists on myspace.com as well as chiptune.com or the record lable 8bitpeoples.com. This music reminds me of my love for old Nintendo games. Some of the music is quite sophistocated in its... 8-bit sort of way.

When writing music I often feel the limitations are what inspire composers to write interesting music. These days with any musician with computers and unlimited tracks and effects can make music that sounds very stale, too crowded and over-processed. Chiptune music is usually limited by itself: 4 tracks of sound, one square wave, a triangle wave, a sawtooth wave and a white noise track. While some may argue that chiptune is a lame repetitive music style, I say that it is an important part of electronic music culture. Electronic music contains such a wide variety of sounds and influences- its hard to classify a single type. Chiptune however has taken the limited tracks and produced a unique catchy sytle of retro music. That is awesome.

Some chiptune artists worth listening to:

Bit shifter
Nullsleep
Randomizer
Aonami
Maru

Koji Kondo - the man behind the music of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, as well as many other games over the past 20 years. A classically trained musician, many of his game themes have been played by symphony orchestras.

return again

I went back to school today.

All my classes were cool enough. I was startled by a few minor details, and disgusted with what I saw. The school is too crowded to start. Every year a new cycle of teenie freshman start their collegate career, making the already congested hallways impossible to navigate. Everyone is yelling at someone else. If you can get through the hall you can be sure it's because of stupid student government handing out popsicles to reduce global warming.

I feel old. One of my classes is full of little kids fresh from highschool. Everyone looks like they are 17. Two girls have braces. I feel bad for our professor. I should have taken the class six years ago, and I haven't been able to until now. Ugh. I feel so old. I will never graduate.

Two of my classes require four books each. Most of my free time will be spent reading this semester. When I'm not reading about something you can bet I'll be writting an essay or researching something. My math class doesn't require a book (which is odd), and was cancelled today because my teacher didn't want to come to school. My geology teacher is funny, probably because he knows no one really is interested in geology.

I don't know anyone. I don't care.

dumb Tv

My head hurts.

So we got sattellite television the other day. We have 130 channels at the touch of a button. Its funny because I seem to watch the same ten channels. I don't really care for those crap channels like the Women's Entertainment, or BET. I wake up in the morning, watch Most Extreme Video on Spike TV and change between that and some shark show or documentary on Discovery Channel. Cartoon Network is Awesome. Saturday Night Live reruns on E! are great to watch. MTV sucks now. TLC also has some good programs.

My head hurts.

I don't like to watch TV. I really hate it because there are better things to do besides sitting in front of the tube. Here's a list of things I could do besides watching TV:

1. paint a picture
2. read a book
3. eat another meal
4. wash my new car
5. hike a freakin mountain
6. clean the living room
7. do the stinkin' dishes
8. scratch myself
9. prank call my wife
10. make a killer electronic music CD
11. organize my CDs
12. unpack stuff
13. GPS some crap
14. do my laundry
15. make a snack
16. get the mail
17. steal food from my parent's house
18. call dan
19. think about stuff
20. pray towards Mecca

So I guess there are a few things I can do. I just end up watching TV instead.

Must... fight... Tv... can't ... let it ... win...

odd

The other night my friends and I were locked in eternal combat while playing The Game of Thrones. Well not really, but the game lasted like over 3 hours, and by the time it ended I was happy that I lost. Why do people make games with 500 rules? Does it really make the game better? I'll play again, but I'd rather dust off my Magic cards and make the biggest geek deck ever.

Wierd.

I borrowed a Cat Stevens CDs for the ride to work this morning. He converted to Islam a long time ago and realeased an album of kids songs to help them learn more about Islam. I don't know why I'm in a Cat Stevens mood right now, but I can't get Peace Train out of my head.

Wierd.

books can kill

I haven't been doing much lately- besides working all the time. I've been reading some interesting books lately...

I picked up a book entitled: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. I saw this book at a bookstand in the Denver Airport as we were returning from our honeymoon. The book gives a run down of all the different variables that made Civilization possible from pre-history till the time of European global conquest. Everything from epidemic diseases, food production, and warfare is examined to explain the advantages certain societies had instead of others. From what I've read so far, this book makes understanding the why? and how? of world history a little easier. Oh, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for this book. Great read so far.

I picked up another book called The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho. Author of the international bestseller The Alchemist, this book describes the flight of Elijah as he discovers his personal strengths as a prophet of God. I read this book a couple of years ago, and wanted to read it again. I'm a fan of the Old Testament and this book paints with vivid imagry a powerful story.
Another great find.

Books books books. On top of that I've been watching Reading Rainbow reruns on PBS. There is a small voice inside somewhere that keeps telling me to write a children's book someday. I like Reading Rainbow because it tries to prove that kids may actually like to go the local library or bookstore and read something instead of playing Nintendo till their brains have internal bleeding. That, and watching 80's kids cracks me up. I'm a big Levar Burton fan.

I think PBS left subliminal messages in my brain so I would return to watching their programming. They do that so I can force my kids to watch that stuff and make annual pledges of $50 or more so I can continue to watch quality programming.

I'm bored.