Author: gala5931

The battle between Alex and the blog format continues. Damned if I can figure out color schemes. I tried the high-contrast approach, but that’s just cruel. Now I’m back to the blue, but with a high-contrast banner. This looks weird. Guess I’ll just keep messin’. Don’t be too surprised if you see a rainbow of colors over the next few days.

Here’s a little redesign for you. No new content, but new format — that’s still good, right?

Today’s lunch-time conversation: is it possible to sin in Purgatory? Assuming you buy all that crap. “According to the Catholic Church, is it possible to sin in Purgatory?” is the correct phrasing, I guess. If after death, the faithful are submitted to the refining fires of Purgatory to cleanse them of their sins before entering Heaven, is it possible for them to sin during the duration of their stay?

Answer: No, because the Devil is not present in Purgatory. Thus he cannot tempt Man, causing him to sin.

I don’t buy this. If I’m writhing around in the agonising flames of God’s love, I can still dishonor my parents. As a matter of fact, I’d say it’s pretty likely that I would.

Saw HD hockey for the first time yesterday. Dude I work with recorded an HD re-broadcast of last season’s game 7. I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb here and say that except for the smell of the ice, it was better than being there. You want to see the cuts on the ice? The yellow of last night’s bruises? This is the way to go. Trouble is, the fans are in HD, too. Yikes.

Check this out. Now, I’ve considered doing the same thing ol’ Bats did and go to Scotland in search of my heritage. I know zero about Scottish tradition, but showing up in the town that shares my last name and poking around seems like it might be cool. It also seems a lot like trying to find something to hang my identity hat on, looking for something to associate myself with. I might as well just do some online research — I’d end up with the same amount of stuff, and it would have just as much relevance to my life and experience.

Easter is day about sons and fathers, death and rebirth, sin and redemption. What better to discuss than Anakin Skywalker?

I am still fairly regular player of X-Wing Alliance. Nothing has ever come close. Now and then I crawl the nets looking for new mods, ships and whatnot from the geek community. Several months ago I went looking to see if anyone had developed an OPT for Anakin’s Jedi starfighter from the Clone Wars cartoons, or at least a Jedi starfighter that I could re-skin. No go. Yesterday I gave it another look, and discovered that a site had popped up and disappeared in the space between my searches, and that this site had devved just what I was looking for. Dagnabit. So, if anyone has the MTD Industries Anakin OPT, let me know.

After seeing this post on the RT, I decided to go and have the internet tell me just who it thinks I am. Not unlike our pal Garvey, I appear to be Spiderman. Twice. Now this just pisses me right off. I am not a fan of Spidey, not by a long shot. If I wanted a soap opera, I’d read some damn Bronte — I don’t even care which one. I give not one shit about who Peter Parker like-likes.

Along similar lines, I came close to divorce recently. Her Worshipfulness had the audacity to claim that Superman cheated on Lois with Wonder Woman. Despite my insistence that the stuff they put on the covers is usually just a ruse to get you to read the whole thing, that Superman was likely placed under a magic spell, or that the rumor smacks of Mxtlplk, she held her ground. Held her ground and very nearly found herself tossed to the curb. The very idea.

Oh great. The genius minds who managed to take oldest, best story western civilization has created and turn in into a loathsome, trite mess will now be laying their destructive bent towards the one piece of science fiction that holds a faint, flickering candle to Dune (science fiction’s supreme masterpiece). There are rumors that they plan on slashing my tires, killing my family, and buying me a dog so they can then shoot it.

I still haven’t fully recovered from the 2003 collapse of the Old Man of the Mountain, the natural rock formation resembling a human face in profile which was the symbol of my home state of New Hampshire. In my childhood, I envisioned men on ropes clambering reverently over the face, patching up holes and strengthening the weaknesses created by erosion. This job occupied a place in my mind similar to that held by lighthouse keepers, another patently New England office. Imagine being the caretaker and getting the call, the voice on the phone disbelieving and perhaps cracking just a little. You were in charge of keeping that face, the symbol of the patient resolve of the people who carve a life out of the granite, safe from the ravages of time, and now that symbol has fallen, never to be repaired. The thing stood for uncounted millenia, and it fell in my lifetime. You can never go home again, because your home has fallen to pieces.

Also in 2003, the world’s first openly gay bishop was elected in NH. This is presumably not related.

I’m not sure what city Fight Club is set in, but it’s safe to say it doesn’t have a decent amateur hockey scene.