I find often times I do not talk much about faith, prayer, and religion. Perhaps it has become a taboo subject to say that one is religious. Being religious now results in the stereotype and label of being self-righteous bigots that spread hate. Many people look down on Muslims, Jews, and Christians now, because of small minority's hateful actions.

At the same time, what about those people who are not of the "Bible thumping" stereotype? The reasonable Christians now live in fear of being accused of being backwards crazies and the peaceful Muslims that are accused of being terrorists.

In the Bible (Matthew 10:32-33), Jesus is quoted as saying:

"Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father."

SINCE I AM A JACKASS..

I am guilty of this all the time. I try to live my life as a "good Christian". I fail all the time. I am the farthest person from perfect. I want to be kind to everyone, but suck at it. I try to be forgiving, but often times I seek out sweet succulent vengence. I brag and gloat because I am not humble. I am too proud with arrogance. I think the worst part is that often times I do not come forward that I am Christian. That makes me a closet Christian with a whole ton of flaws.

Really, what good is being a Christian, if I do not act like a Christian? By acting like a Christian, I refer to living by Christian principles: Acknowledging Jesus before others, being merciful, being a peacemaker, and loving your enemies. Oh, and before I forget, forgiving others and turning the other cheek (that one is a hard one, as eye for eye feels so much more satisfying).

*Forgiveness*

I think the most relevant Bible verses for the Christian community as a whole being persecuted is from Luke 7:

"Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned".

"Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?"

I will pray and have faith, do the best I can, and accept the outcome. I am not holier than anyone.

I am Christian, but it's ok, I won't bite you.

Okay fine, the first five hundred times of watching the looping animation of Zidane using his head was amusing, I have to admit its getting a bit boring.

So now that a cheaply made animated gif has staved me over from writing a blog entry for an entire week, its time I get back down to business.

And now time for some tangential thought diarrhea...

I was out running this morning (yes, 7 am on a Sunday morning) and it was pretty quiet. Aside from myself, a few seniors, and a few other early birds, there was very little foot traffic on the river path. I was going about my business and keeping a reasonable pace. Then suddenly, I realize there was something gaining on me very quickly. Very soon, it was right at my back.

I thought maybe a hungry quadruped or hobo with pointy teeth was looking for its next meal. I turn around a lo-and-behold, it was this lady who was probably in her late fifties running me down like I was some wounded gazelle straggling from the herd. She ran past me, and I decided to give chase to see if I could keep up. I had lost sight of her within minutes. Just when I think I am starting to get good at something, there will always be someone there to put me in my place. Yikes.

I have a nice pair of Rebook running shoes right now, but the tread is really starting to bald. With that in mind, I bought a pair of discount Adidas running shoes at an outlet store in the states recently. I have gone running with them twice so far, and I am starting to think that they are mainly running shoes by appearance only. Sadly, from now on I think regardless of the brand, I will need to fork out some more money if I want shoes that I can actually run comfortably with.

Photos / Prague Czech Replublic - go to section

- 20 New Photos

Italy won!

My high school classmates back home in Calgary were somewhere between one-third to one-half Italian, and the languages taught were English, French, and Italian. My God-mother is Italian as well, so I can't help but to be a little excited right now.

I live downtown, and over the past half hour, the honking of car horns and the rumble of a massing crowd has been steadily growing louder and louder. There are cars driving around with green, white, and red streaming from them everywhere. People are running up and down the streets with Italian flags. Its absolutely crazy right now.

I can't believe Zindedine Zidane head-butted Marco Materazzi during extra time. What a way to end the last match of one's career.

The crowd is getting even louder as we speak. There's someone blowing a bugle right now. And the police sirens in the background. The car horns are of course now a constant "wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" in the background now. Those crazy Azzurri.

Anyway, I hadn't realized the Italian community was so big here.

One would think that there was an official parade right now. Speaking of official parades, the Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Transgender/etc community had their parade today during the World Cup Finals match. I don't think anyway showed up to watch the gay-pride parade, you could hardly hear anything in the streets. If you ask me, holding a gay pride parade at the EXACT same time as the World Cup Final was either very poor planning, or outright arrogance. I prefer the sight of Italians running up and down the streets anyways. They've (The Italians) completely flooded the streets now.

Anyway, the streets are getting louder yet. If its like this here in a small city in Canada, it must be absolutely crazy in Italy right now. Maybe I should go downstairs and join the frenzy.

Viva Italia.

Today I've been mulling how I have been a little slow on catching onto the latest technological trends. Someone brew me a steaming hot mug of Ovatine, and the rest of you children can gather around whilst I begin my self- consoling tale.

Back in 1995, I was an early adopter. I had one of the first Sony Discmans that had prolonged anti-skip, was actually sleek-looking and had its own remote control. Everyone else had these big clunkers that you had to stay incredibly still to listen to the music. Gadgets and trends were my thing.

Okay, so I was a colossal geek back then. However, if by now you have not realized that it is the geeks and freaks that set the trends, maybe you should go back and finish high school.

Thanks to my sister, in 1996 I was on the internet with a v.34 28.8kbps modem and using my 486 computer to encode MP3's using bitrates low that it made AM radio sound awesome. Did you know it took hours to encode an MP3 from CD back then?

Anyway, ITunes 1.0 was launched at the start of 2001. The ITunes store/Windows version came out 2003. I finally downloaded and installed ITunes for my computer last month. I hate Apple, with its proprietary products and all. However, I must say that I have been using ITunes A LOT. Yes I have been using P2P for years, but it is so much easier to fork over a dollar to Apple when I find a song I want instead of scouring for hours and waiting for the download with a P2P ap. Wow, rambling.

Photos / Prague Czech Replublic - go to section

- 20 New Photos