James Chapter 1
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Bible
Usual disclaimer: if you are't into this particular thing, just skip to the next post
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There are basically just two theological points. First of all, you shouldn't view bad things that happen to you as being caused by God. It's actually caused by the evil desires of other men. Second, actually do what you are told to do in the scriptures. Don't just listen to it at church, nodding the whole time, and then go home and ignore all that you'd heard.

I don't have much else to reflect on with these particular chapters.

Time for sleep...

God and The Matrix Universe
Mood:  chatty
A couple of days ago I finished The Gospel Reloaded. It was a really good book and was much more objective than I thought it would be. Interestingly enough, this ended up being a catch-22 for me. I liked how the mentioned the films' connections with greek mythology and other ancient texts in addition to the Bible. However, at the same time I felt as though I was a little gipped. There are countless books on The Matrix and how it relates to philosophy and stuff like that. If I'd wanted a book that talked about non-Biblical references then I would have bought one of those books. So their spending time on these other topics took a little bit of editorial space away from the Biblical comparisons. No biggie though because it was very well written. I'll use this post to talk about the Biblical references.

Each character seemed not to be a direct port of a Bible character, but in fact seemed to be a mix of a bunch of Biblical characters as well as characters from mythology and certain Christian splinter groups such as the Gnostics.

Morpheus was identified as both God and John the Baptist. His role as God has to do with the fact that he's the leader of the group. Additionally, if you consider the trinity of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity, respectively, then the parallel is pretty obvious. I'll comment on this a little more later. The John the Baptist parallels have to do with the fact that John's role was to prepare the way for Jesus. In a way, Morpheus is preparing the way for Neo by getting everyone ready for him.

Cypher is very obviously identified with Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus to the Jewish and Roman authorities. Thus I won't go into that role. However, interestingly enough they identified him also with the role of Satan. He tends to try and both tempt people and sow doubt in their minds. He offers Neo alcohol, tells Neo that he isn't the one, and commits other acts of sedition.

Trinity is associated with the Holy Spirit by the book. This is one association that is a little less obvious. Their reasons include the fact that the HS is identified with female qualities in Christian tradition. It is often referred to as the more compassionate part of God. Also, she brings Neo back to life. Some Christian lore holds that the HS went and rescued Jesus after he was crucified and brought him back to life.

Finally, there's Neo. Neo's parallels to Jesus are really obvious - his rebirth, ability to do miracles, etc.

All, in all it's a good book. If you have a working knowledge of the Bible and Greek mythology, as well as concepts such as archetypal characters then I reccomend the book. It's not very preachy or anything so you can actually enjoy it if you're not a Christian and just know a lot about Christian beliefs.

What happened to the heat?
Mood:  loud
Why is it so bloody cold all of a sudden? I was walking around in a tshirt and jeans for the past week or so and now all of a sudden I need a jacket outside! Yes, I'm being selfish because as I write this there are people up north trying to dig out of their homes. But, dang it, I come home to Florida to get away from the cold (and be with my family of course) and have some heat before going back to snow-covered Ithaca.

Speaking of bloody cold: Rich, if you're still reading on a daily basis, I really love your British accent. (Same goes for you, Jing Quing) I don't know why, but I've always loved to hear it. Just before High School started I met this girl from Hong Kong and I used to talk to her for hours just to hear her accent. It's one of the reasons that I love the movie Snatch. (check here to see what my brother thinks of the movie)

Today I was watching the movie Rhaji on the Beach because it was a movie filled with British speaking Indians. I've got a slight fascination with India stemming partially from my involvement with the Bhangra team here so that filled two addictions at once.

Hehe...anyway, don't lose your accent, Rich or Jing, while you're here in the States. (Especially Rich who's been living here for five or six years in Vermont or somewhere up there by Maine) I think your accents are the dog's bullocks. q;o)

Artwork of the Day
Mood:  happy
Topic: Artwork

Mother, There's A Bear On My Bed
?2003 Eric Mesa @ drop the bomb productions

Enjoy, and for more artwork click on my Binary World link on the left there

(Oh, let me take this time to remind you that you can buy my artwork if you want by emailing me. Some of them make nice poster prints...I've got a few in my apartment living room)

A little about this piece: This bear featured is actually a real bear from the Central Park Zoo. The bed is my girlfriend's bed. Both were shot with a Kodak 2.2 megapixel 3600DX camera. Editing done with Adobe 7.0.

A random, but hopefully long post...
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: The Movie Formula 51 (I know this is supposed to be music, but so what? q:op )
I don't claim to be an expert on Neitzche (I probably even spelled his name wrong), but I do know of his famous quote, "God is dead". If I understand this quote correctly from the context arond it, it is supposed to mean that whether God exists or not, if we chose to ignore His existance, then He's as good as dead. I like to build upon this concept. In a sense, what matters as far as what is truth or fiction is in a large way dependent upon what the largest amount of people think. If everyone thinks that you're crazy, then it really doesn't matter if you're sane. Anything you try to say or do that would otherwise be thought over, will instead be considered the words of a madman. So imagine if you had some knowledge that could be considered conspiracy theory-ish. Say, for example, that you knew without a doubt who killed Kennedy. If the powers that be were to label you as crazy then no one would listen to you.

Let's look at it in a more dramatic way. Let's say everyone in the entire world decided to ignore you. Would you have any way of validating your existence? No! As far as the world is concerned you don't exist and you might as well not exist. Crazy eh?

Oh, man...at this moment I'm having a bit of writer's block, but I know I have stuff to say....maybe it's my thirst...let me go quench it...

I'm currently watching Formula 51. It's a good indie film starring Samuel L Jackson. Just like Pulp Fiction, SLJ is a bad-@$$ protagonist who isn't necessarily good - however he's not an evil character. He becomes a drug dealer because on his graduation day from UC Berkely with a degree in Pharmacology, he gets arrest for smoking pot and is no longer able to work in that field. When the movie starts he's working for the drug dealer The Lizard and he's created the ultimate designer drug. He then betrays The Lizzard and goes to sell them off in the UK. And it takes off from there. The dialogue is pretty good and the plot's pretty good. It's currently playing on HBO, check it out if you can. I've seen it twice already. Oh yeah, and just like the movies that I mentioned in my Seinfeld post, this one takes advantage of one stereotype: namely that black men are well endowed in certain areas.

I started reading the Love Hina manga that my girlfriend got me for my birthday and Christmas. She got me books 5-9. It's a fun story. Basically Keitaro Urashima is a total loser. He's never had a girlfriend and the only girl that ever liked him was a girl that moved away when he was young. He pledged to go to Tokyo U with her when he grew up. The problem is that he can't pass his entrance exams for Tokyo U. Unlike SATs which are kind of subjective, in Japan you take entrance exams which tell you which schools you can get into. His parents are about to kick him out of his house when his grandmother calls him and asks him to manage her hotel. He hasn't been there since he was a young child. Turns out that Grandma Hina's hotel has been turned into a girl's dormitory. Eventually the girls agree, with some convincing from his Aunt, that he can be the landlord of the dorm. Without a landlord it'll have to be shut down. So 20 yr old Urashima is put in charge of the dorm. Living there are a bunch of girls.

First is Naru Narusegawa, she's 18 and also studying to get into Tokyo U.

Kitsune, is 21 or 22, I can't remember. She's the more "american" of the girls. She's always getting drunk, betting on horses, and making lewd passes at Keitaro just for fun. She also gets the other girls drunk very often.

Motoko is a kendo girl. She's very strict in her training and can use her sword to shoot out blasts of air that knockout her opponents. Both Motoko and Naru are always beating the crap out of Keitaro because he's isanely clumsy and always ends up accidentally tripping and falling into the girl's breasts, into the baths, etc stuff that make him look like a pervert. He's not any more of a pervert than your average guy and in a lot of ways he's very polite and proper with them. He never really deserves his punches. Only a few times did he do something deserving of his pounding.

There's also Kaolla Su who's an exchange student. She's in the 8th grade or around there, but she's ridiculously smart. She's always building computers and stuff like that. The authors tend to hint that she's Indian, but they specifically say that she isn't in the book. She likes to hang on the different residents, most often off of Motoko. Also, she often says a lot of sexual things, but it's funny because she's a little kid and you can tell that she doesn't understand it, but knows that it makes the others uncomfortable. She also likes to "greet" people with a kick to the face and loves eating. In the first few books she often asks what certain Japanese words are, asking if they are food.

Finally, there's Shinoubu. I feel very sorry for her. She's in the 8th grade and is extremely shy. I mean, she is THE stereotypically shy asian girl. She also can cook really awesome. The reason I feel sorry for her is that she's very innocent and she's always losing part of her innocence by hanging out with those girls. They get her to drink, try to get her to kiss, she accidentally sees Keitaro's "manhood", the girls use her body as bait for Keitaro and she is walked in on accidentally by Keitaro numerous times. It seems pretty obvious in the manga that she likes Keitaro.

In fact, at least at the point where I am now...most of the girls have some kind of feelings for Keitaro. Naru is beginning to develop feelings for him. Kitsune seems the type of girl who wouldn't mind having some casual sex with him. Motoko deals with possible feeling for him here and there. Su offers to kiss him a couple of times. And we already mentioned Shinoubu.

I like the manga much better than the anime because the manga seems to be for an older audience than the anmie. There are a lot more sexual jokes in the manga version. For example, when Naru and Keitaro get stuck in a hotel together, the inn-keeper tells them that there are condoms are in a drawer in the room. A couple of other times, Naru accidentally grabs Keitaro where she shouldn't. I like the jokes because it kinda adds a level to it that makes the characters a little more realistic. That's just my opinion. Also try to read at least through book two. Manga has become a lot cheaper since I first got into it. Graphic novels used to be $20 and now they're half that price.

If you're new to my blog, I'd just like to mention a few things. First of all, the first date is 2 November. Second, I *LOVE* reader comments! So far, most of the comments are just from a handful of people. But, if you read something and feel like commenting on it, just make a comment. Third, I tend to make quite a few posts in a day so if you're already read a certain day, you may want to check it out again and see if I didn't add anything else. Fourth, my posts are pretty random. Sometimes I do the standard "this is how my day went" post, somtimes I do a news post and sometimes it's just whatever happens to be in my head. It can be silly, serious, or philosophical. So if a certain post isn't your cup of tea, just check out some of my other posts.

I think I may put up the next episode of my fanfic today. I've got some ideas dancing around in my head. If I can get them down and have it work out without any writer's block, then we'll have it up. I may end up making a shorter episode if I can't get too much done in this episode. That way I'd get a bit of story out since I made you guys wait so much on the second one. I hope you guys liked episode 2. It takes a bit of time to get a story going so just be patient.

Ok, the next post will be another picture of the day from my gallery. Then I may do the episode or I may wait until later. However, my afternoons tend to be filled with reading as opposed to writing, so if I don't get it up before bed, it may not be up until tomorrow.

Final thought, why does smoking look so bad-@$$ and cool when it's so deadly?

More Random Googling
Mood:  chatty
I googled Seinfeld and found the following cool site. It's a Seinfeld blog - http://www.stanthecaddy.com I'll be adding it to my links soon.

edit
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I usually don't mess with a post once I make it, but I just didn't want to make another post and this fits in the same category. We've all heard of the Mile High Club, well, here's a website devoted to it! http://www.milehighclub.com/

WOW
Mood:  chillin'
Boy, there were a lot of posts yesterday AND they were mostly pretty long. Hopefully you enjoyed that. Perhaps you even had to split it into two readings. Today, we'll see how much I write, but probably not nearly as much.

Artwork of the Day
A piece of artwork featured from my gallery:


The Q Rolls In
?2003 Eric Mesa @ drop the bomb productions

Enjoy, and for more artwork click on my Binary World link on the left there

Finishing Hebrews
Mood:  bright
Topic: Bible
The one thing that stuck out from these chapters was the fact that God disciplines us as a Father. Indeed, this is not the only place in the Bible that says that a loving father should discipline his child. Think about what that means. You should punish your children. But why? Because when effectively done, punishment molds a child away from actions are incorrect and towards actions that will ensure that the child will have a productive life and not continually end up in jail.

Well, God wants the same for us. He doesn't want us to always be getting into trouble that's why he may sometimes punish us. Now, whether the troubles we face are punishments or not, the passage is meant to get you to learn from your mistakes and punishments. If you get caught stealing, for example, and then say "oh I should be more sneaky next time" and sulk about getting caught, then the punishment has not served its purpose. However, if you say, "oh, I shouldn't steal anymore" then it has worked.

That's all that it really spoke to me.

Episode II
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: "Yappa Pa" - Doco (Ranma Season 1 Themesong)
Topic: Novel I
A Fanfiction by Eric Mesa
(C) 2003
All characters belong (in the US anyway) to Viz, LLC.

note: to distinguish differences in languages, if a character is speaking in a language other than japanese then his quotes will be surrounded by '^' and '^'

Episode 2

The punch missed Ranma by a split second. "Ranma, one of these days I want you to stop messing around and actually train with me," Akane protested, as usual. Yet, Ranma noticed, there was a little less edge in her voice this afternoon. He went back to his manga. The fact that he could be reading a manga and fighting her both amazed and enraged Akane. She was slightly turned on by his martial arts skills, but she felt as though he was making fun of her. She picked up her pace, but to no avail. Well, they had 15 minutes left, she'd get him by the end.

***

Akane was drenched in sweat. She wasn't even sure whether Ranma had even broken a sweat. "So, where're we going tonight?"

"Oh, get dressed to go a dance club," Ranma responded. When he didn't hear a quick response he looked up from the manga. Akane was giving him a look as if he'd said, "get your spacesuit for the moon."

"You-you dance Ranma?" she asked, just barely able to get the words out.

"Yeah well, it ain't nothin' special you know. But don't get to thinkin' we'll be doing any romantic dancing. We're going to a rave club. That stuff is practically the same as martial arts. Saotome School of Anything-Goes-Raving," he said with a smile.

She was still shocked, but she figured he wasn't lying. "Ok, I'm going to take a shower then,"

"Oh yeah, pops and your old man think that we should have a chaperone so Nabiki will be coming along."

***

Ranma was dressed in his usual red shirt and black pants. He had a couple of glow sticks in his pocket and some string to tie them up when they got to the club. Akane decided to wear a modest skirt and a red top. 'Wow, she looks hot when she dresses like a woman,' Ranma thought to himself. "Wow, you can actually look really hot," he commented.

"Actually look really hot?!?" she began to fume, but was thrown off when she saw her older sister's outfit. She had a short skirt on along with a shirt that exposed her belly button. "Daddy's going to let you out like that?" Akane asked, almost rhetorically.

"Oh, Daddy won't be seeing me in this, I think they'll be a little absorbed in you two and I'll just sneak around to the front," Nabiki winked, "now, go see them so that we can get out of here. Otherwise I'll charge for wasted time." With that she walked down the stairs and out the back door.

"Well, let's get this crap with our parents over with," Ranma said.

When they walked down stairs one would have thought they had announced that they were getting married. There were streamers all over the house. Tendou was crying out loud and a panda was holding a video camera. "Fer cryin' out loud pops! Turn that crap off!" He held up a sign that said, 'that's my boy! Finally show your manhood and begin your duties with Akane' "Aw, shoot, cut this out. Let's go Akane."

"Where's Nabiki?" Kasumi asked, coming out of the kitchen.

"I'm out here!" Nabiki called from the unlit porch. It was impossible to tell what she was wearing. "You guys coming or what?"

***

"We have a special gift for you, our patrons, tonight! All the way from America, the famous DJ Otaku!" The DJ stepped up to the DJ booth, put his headphones on, and turned on the music with one swift movement of his hands.

"^Back once again, it's the renegade master, people punisher: power to the people^" the music blared through the speakers.

Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki had just stepped into the club and were still getting their bearings. "You two kids go dance; I'm going to find us a table." Nabiki told the others. She stepped up to the bar and ordered a cosmopolitan.

Ranma activated his glowsticks and attached them to the string as if they were part of nunchucks. He began doing some katas to the music. Within minutes he had a circle of people watching him. Soon, nearly the entire club was watching his skills with the glowsticks. Although Akane couldn't participate at the moment, the fact that the entire club was watching her date made Ranma seem so attractive. Why didn't she feel like this at other times? 'I know why, because your damn macho attitude always gets in the way' But now...now she was fascinated with his moves.

***

Nabiki was slightly troubled. She felt a little empty as she saw all of the couples at the club and people who were just hooking up at the club. She took another sip of her third drink. The fact that she was having these feelings is what bothered her. She had more money than she'd ever had thanks to her shrewd attitude and charging interest even to her family members. She also enjoyed the fact that she was independent of others and completely unvulberable.

She took another sip and grew a little ancy over the feelings. She knew it'd be a long time before the alcohol could help her forget - she'd developed quite a tolerance for alcohol.

"Moshi-Moshi!" came a voice from behind. She turned around and was surprised to see the American DJ standing there. "^Do you speak English?^" he asked, "^my Japanese is not so good.^"

"^Yeah, I took a few years of English as my language elective. What do you want?^" she eyed him suspiciously.

"^Well, I was wondering if you didn't like my music or something. You were the ONLY person not dancing while I was spinning.^"

She continued to eye him. Was he trying to come on to her or something? Well, she could play along. "^Well, no one asked me to dance.^"

"^I see, you just looked a little sad,^" when he said the words she let her guard slip momentarily and showed her shock as to his proper reading of her feelings. Quickly she put her poker face back on. "^You look like someone who's missing love in their life. But who am I to say these things? I'm just a DJ. Anyway, I'm not sure why you feel that way, but if you can dance to techno music, I've got the need for some dancers to travel with me on my tour of Japan. Next week is going to be at some small town...I think it's called Hinata Springs. I need to check with my promoter. What do you think?^"

"^I don't know how those American girls are,^" she reponded, "^but I'm not about to go on tour with some strange DJ^" and she ended the conversation with a glance in the opposite direction.

"^Ok, well, I hope you have some luck with whatever's making you sad. I'll be back in town in a couple of weeks. I hope you dance next time.^" With that he left towards the VIP room.

As Nabiki watched him go she was steaming. What was wrong with her? Not only had someone been able to read her emotions, but she'd let herself slip too. Who the hell did that American think he was? Suddenly her drink wasn't intoxicating enough.

At that moment a shift guy showed up at the table. "Can I interest you in some happiness in dreams?" he asked while a displaying a white pill on his index finger. Nabiki decided to go ahead and buy one. Her reality seemed to be unraveling so why not go ahead and take a break from it? She downed the ecstacy with the rest of her drink.

end ep 2

author's notes: This is slightly different from the original episode 2 that I had planned, but after the first one got erased partially through my writing of it, I decided to redo part of it.

We'll be continuing with the club scene in the next episode. You'll notice that a pretty good part of this is about Nabiki, and that was my intention. This series will end up focusing quite a bit on the secondary characters too. However, the next one will bring us back to Ranma and Akane.

I hoped to really shock you guys with the fact that they are going to a club because on the one hand it really is out of character for Ranma, but if you've seen people raving, those who use the martial arts to dance tend to look really good.

The reference to Love Hina up there is just a small one. I don't intend for this to be a cross-over fanfic, I just wanted to mention it for fun.
DJ Otaku is a reference to my own DJ moniker. I just felt like inserting myself into it to help in a deus ex machina way and set Nabiki on her quest for the fanfic. Also, I've read a few fanfics with self-insertions and I thought they were pretty fun.

For a really good one check out the one titled revengefic under the Nekophobia fanfic by Dave Eddy. (Btw - that's an awesome fanfic too!)