No Grasp of Your Reality

misc/freecycle Someone’s trash is another’s treasure – and with Freecycle the treasure is made to order. Simply post your request on the Freecycle message board for your area, and if someone has the item and wants to part with it, they will reply. If you want to add to someone else’s trove, you can post items you want to pass on. If you’re into sharing the wealth, you can even post “curb alerts” – slang for “trash picking opportunity”. No Freecycle group in your area? Check out the website to learn how to start one.

One of the hardest parts of being out of town is the lack of communication. Yeah, there’s email, but it’s just not the same. So, on my last trip, Sarah and I bought two headsets, and we were using AOL Instant Messenger’s built-in voice chat. The quality was ok, but I knew there had to be something better.

Enter Skype. Skype bills itself as a “peer-to-peer telephony application”. Breaking that down, it’s a distributed tool for voice-chat over the Internet. This is what the Internet should be doing… and what I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. There is also a video plugin available, which I’ll investigate next.

I’m talking to Sarah right now. This really makes being away a little more tolerable.

Bonus points for anyone who can guess the source of the the title (without googling!)

Once again, I’m back in Japan. For the first time, though, I’m not staying at the ANA Hotel in Akasaka. Since I’ll be here for more than 30 days, I’m at the Oakwood Residential Apartments in Aoyama (close to Shibuya). For the same price, this studio isn’t bad at all. I’ll be taking pictures and sending them back to Sarah.

One of my former co-workers lives in the next apartment. When I booked this place, I didn’t even know any of the American guys lived in this complex… I found the apartments through Google. In a city of some 25 million people, I’m next door to someone I know.

Sadly, while I’m here, my friend Berek will be out in Moscow, Idaho, so I won’t be able to hang out with him. He did stop by our house while he was visiting friends in Philadelphia the week before Memorial Day, so that was fun.

It’s going to be a long trip. It’ll be lucrative, but as the kids are getting older, the money is becoming less of an incentive. Once I’m back, though, I’ll be home until at least October. Small consolation, but it’s there.

Many of you have probably been receiving email from a Mr. Andrew Bain. Whether or not I agree with his theological views, his methods of spamming his recipients is clearly undesireable.

If my research is correct, Mr. Bain’s ISP is a company called “The Planet” out of Texas. I’ve posted the research at the bottom of this post, but if any of you recipients would like to comment to his ISP about Mr. Bain’s email practices, you can reach them at “abuse@theplanet.com”

UPDATE: It looks as though “The Planet” is reselling bandwidth to the real host of Mr. Bain… Quadra Hosting. This makes sense, as Quadra is an Australian Company, and Mr. Bain is in Sydney. Anyway, they have their own contact page where you can report abuse.
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Finally saw the newest Star Wars film, and I was pretty pleased with it. While the dialog was stilted (that’s being kind), the visual effects were amazing, and I thought Christensen did a good job in his descent into Darth Vader.

SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!

Death stands out in this film as a major theme more than any other film. At the end of the last movie, Anakin and Padmé are married in a secret ceremony, violating the Jedi code forbidding a Jedi from forming bonds with others. After Padmé tells Anakin that she is pregnant, he begins to have nightmares about his wife’s death, similar to the nightmares he had about his mother before she died. The nightmares show Padmé in pain, and dying while giving birth.

Anakin is petrified by the thought of losing his beloved wife, and goes to Yoda for advice. Yoda begins to pontificate with the normal Zen garbage about how death is simply a natural part of life, and chastises Anakin for forming a bond with another person so strong that their death would be that painful to him. Anakin doesn’t like the answer he’s received from the Jedi Master, and rightly so.

As humans whom God created immortal, death is not as natural as birth. Despite the existence of these characters in a fictional world, they resemble humans created in God’s image, and as such, understand the unnaturalness of death. Despite even Yoda’s Zen stoicism, he was saddened by the death of Padmé. Even the Jedi Master couldn’t mask that moment of hypocrisy.

Darth Sidious, however, knew the just desire of Anakin to have his wife live forever, and him Anakin with the promise of being able to save Padmé’s life. It was this desire (along with his rejection of both the philosophy of Yoda, and the vengeful hypocrisy of Mace Windu) that lured him to the Dark Side.

My point is that Yoda is wrong. There is nothing wrong about Anakin’s desire for his wife to live. Death is unnatural, and no amount of meditation is going to rid us of our natural hatred for it. This is one of the amazing promises that God has given us… the promise of a resurrection, and eternal life. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:54:

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

God grants us immortality though the death of His son… as “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). This is the hope that we have in this life and the next.

I’m not making any attempt to Christianize Star Wars… but I am making an attempt to humanize Anakin Skywalker. His desire for immortality is a desire we all share… and one which God has granted to those who believe.