Today's Reading

Here's the reading for Mon 22 October. Catholics, enjoy.

The Parable of the Rich Landowner (Luke 12: 13-21)

Then someone from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But Jesus said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator between you two?” Then he said to them, “Watch out and guard yourself from all types of greed, because one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” He then told them a parable: “The land of a certain rich man produced an abundant crop, so he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to myself, “You have plenty of goods stored up for many years; relax, eat, drink, celebrate!”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you, and who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ So it is with the one who stores up riches for himself, but is not rich towards God.”

My Confession

I'm a cheater. There. I've admitted it. I cheat in PC games because it makes my life easier. After all, I play games 2 relax, and the easier the game, the more I relax. I'm also interested in "tweaking" in games- hero stats, special powers, extra resources anything to make my gameplay easier. People have also accused me of this in real life. A certain person have commented that I like to take shortcuts (whatever that mean). But then, aren't we all? If the shortcut is legally and morally allright, then don't we take advantage of it? Fortunately not everything has shortcuts, or we'll be lazybones more interested in shortcuts than good, honest hard work.

Me Singin'

I like to sing. Especially hymns. Mostly because the lyrics are readily available. But I suck at singing. I have noticed other singers closing their ears when I sing with them. If that isn't a sign that my singing distracts their singing, then I'll like to know what it is. But I still like to sing. I should seriously think about improving my singing. Or people around me will flinch (physically or mentally) when I open my mouth.

2 b myself or not 2 b myself?

It's hard to decide when the yourself is considered by many to be weird. I've had people telling me that my weirdness puts others off- that they are rather uninterested in making/maintaining friendships with weird ole me. Which makes me sad, as I not only would like to have lots of friends but also find it difficult to make friends with people who don't approach me first with offers of friendship. Kinda paradox, ain't it? Ah well, at least I have a true friend in JC (the LoG/GtS). He loves me exactly for who I am. Besides, I shouldn't fit myself into a model of others' expectations of me- I've learned from experience that that is a painful thing 2 do. Besides, this is kind of a litmus test [any kind of social indicator used to classify someone either favorably or unfavorably] as those who would be put of by my alleged weirdness would probably not be good friends of mine, ever.

Time difference

Now the time "here" (as in Malaysia now) is Mon 22 Oct 3.09 a.m. I wonder what the time is on blogspot. Let's find out, shall we?

p.s. About 15 hrs difference- blogspot time is 15 hrs behind Malaysia time.

Today's Readings

21 October- Mission Sunday- Luke 18: 1-8

Prayer and the Parable of the Persistent Widow
Then Jesus told them a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people. There was also a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but later on he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor have regard for people, yet because this widow keeps on bothering me, I will give her justice, or in the end she will wear me out by her unending pleas.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says! Won’t God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long to help them? I tell you, he will give them justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Just something for Catholics to reflect on...

Upcoming PC games

Here's some PC games I simply can't wait to get my hands on (4 now at least):

1) The Witcher - http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/thewitcher/index.html?tag=tabs;summary
- This one's different from other action RPGs (think Diablo) is two aspects (at least). The first is its game choices. They are extremely far-reaching, so no save the game, find ur desired conclusion and reload. The other is the skills learnt. From what I gather, it's supposed to be pretty realistic- u can see the difference between one stat less and one stat more.

2) Assassin's Creed - http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/assassinscreed/index.html?tag=tabs;summary
- This one's different as the actions in the game are pretty realistic- you don't climb a wall by clicking the wall, you move towards it and press certain buttons to grip this and step on that. And there's the sci-fi backstory in what is supposed to be a game set during the Crusades (yep, the Dark Ages one).

3) Spore - http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/spore/index.html?tag=tabs;summary
- Now this one's interesting. You get to play a species from its cellular state to it's space-faring state (yep, the one with spaceships).

Status of religious freedom in Malaysia

Here's a website talking about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_religious_freedom_in_Malaysia

Personally I think Malaysia is kinda ok in this respect. After all, we must remember Malaysia is only 50 years old. Young in terms of nationhood. Even the vaunted US of A wasn't much better when it was 50 yrs old. Hopefully (or should I say prayerfully hehehe) conditions will improve by 2020 (still remember Mahathir's Vision 2020?).

Some websites...

Here are some of my fav websites...

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - An online encyclopaedia. Extremely detailed.

2) http://www.gamespot.com - A site reviewing video games. I mostly use it to check the playability of PC games I wanna buy.

3) http://www.tweakguides.com/ - A site with links to patches of games, among other things.

4) http://www.reelviews.net/movies.html - A site with reviews of upcoming movies. The reason why I like this site is that the reviewer is "noted for his lengthy and learned analysis of films and has kept an open mind in viewing films in all subjects. His reviews are frequently peppered with dry humor and offer extensive explanation pertaining to background information on a film. His articles often delve deeper than just the film itself, frequently offering background information or unusual educational tidbits" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Berardinelli). Yep, I do recommend him.

5) http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/ - For those who would rather read a TV show than watch it (like me- who wouldn't, with the actors' accents and all those ads), this website has quite a few scripts. It's not thorough, but it'll do (4 now...)

Learned something 2day...

Attended the Legion of Mary retreat for Kuching praesidiums today (FYI, Legion of Mary is an association of Catholic laity who serve the Church on a voluntary basis with Mother Mary as its head). Father Terry Burke [http://www.fatherterryburke.com/blog/index.php] (the priest conducting the retreat) mentioned something interesting about prayer.

Often we tell God what we need. We demand that God be our Santa Claus. We give Him a list of needs, and we beg/demand that he fulfill it. That isn't right. God isn't our slave/genie. We should tell Him what our problems are, ask Him to solve them in His own time and way, and trust Him to do the best 4 us. That's what I intend to do from now on.

Btw, I read somewhere that our perception of God can sometimes be linked to how we view authority figures, especially our fathers. Which makes senses, since we call God Father. So if we see our fathers as stern, unbending and authoritative, that's how we see God on a certain level. Interesting, huh? Not sure how accurate, though...