frissonic

if ever there were a legitimate reason for an online petition, this is it: Jules Winnfield for Sabres coach. Make it happen, everyone.

joined. will probably get my humiliation game face on early, but whatever. always fun, right?

does anyone have a good idea for helping a particularly raw throat? mine started feeling rather hamburgery about 3 and a half hours ago. no particular reason, of course. :)

*waves hello* oh i've been in lurker mode for a while. :) just too busy to get into commenting. new job, new responsibilities ... it's a great new gig, but it is *drastically* different than my last job.

Watching this team over the course of the last year, there have been some steady gains; grittier, playing much better in the corners and along the boards, better passing (all of this to say that there's still room for improvement) ... There have been games that I've watched this year where this team was actually the better on-ice product ... and they still lost. Not because they weren't trying, but because they *stopped* trying. Literally just ... quit. Blew leads well into the 3rd. The Chicago game is the most recent example I can think of. I may be out of my gord, here ... but I swear, there have been games I've watched this year where I swear the team was showing who they really are ... and then just stepped back and let the other team win. Maybe it's my imagination; maybe I'm strung out on "the good cough syrup." It would not surprise me at all to see this team make it to the playoffs next year. Not one bit.

cuz i'm not waiting until 2 hours after the game ends to celebrate. :)

see, every time i see this stupid word, i automatically think BAE.

he was playing for boston at the time, and he was just the biggest goon i had ever seen (which, at the time, was a very limited sampling, but holy shizac, he definitely defined the part for me). i don't remember if it was 88 or 89, but yah ... he was a presence. EDIT: it was the 87-88 season, and the only goal he scored in the NHL playoffs, according to hockeydb.

holy crap, you just made my day. i didn't think anyone else knew who he is.

nice. i love it when shows do that (even if i personally don't get all the references). Haven did that a lot during the first couple of seasons. they kept referencing just about every stephen king book or story ever written. it was awesome to catch all the little things they threw in.

for those of us not finely inculcated in the history of the characters, what easter eggs are there? honestly, i binge-watched the first two seasons and blazed through the first 5 or 6 of this season on sunday morning, but that's it. not familiar with any comic book references (if there are any), or any backstory ... i do really like watching the show, if for no other reason than felicity. cuz ... damn.

Most excellently. :)

Good questions. Again, to kind of turn it around, I think the full evolution of the human form is that we will become as God is. There's a quote in Mormon-dom that goes something like "As man is, God once was, and as God is, man can become." I know that concept flies in the face of *everything* mainstream christianity teaches, but it is what it is. As for whether God is eternal or created being, my thoughts are that He's eternal, but in the same sense that matter neither is created or destroyed, I guess? It's hard for me to understand a concept as insane as "no beginning/no end," so in my secular mind, I try to tie the two together by saying that God is eternal because the elements that make Him God have been around forever. That's easier for me to understand than "God has been God forever," ya know? I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but neither does eternity, in my mind. I mean, plants come from seeds, right? *Babies* come from seeds (if you want to be absolutely technical about it, seed and egg, but whatever). Everything has a beginning. But where does one draw the line in what constitutes a beginning? Have these elements always existed, and therefore we are are ALL eternal? Maybe. Probably. And ... yah.

i look at it the other way: we possess a god-like body until such time that we ourselves actually *are* gods.

Are the two mutually exclusive for God? ;)

Yup.

If you accept the bible as being accurate and true (and i realize that for some on here, that's not going to happen, and i understand that), there's a verse in the new testament that, when i first read it, jumped out at me like a mack truck and knocked me for a loop. Read St. John 5. The whole chapter talks about how Jesus healed some guy on the sabbath. This guy couldn't walk. The Jews all had a hissy fit and wanted to kill Jesus. They confronted him in the temple. Then we get to verse 19: Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. Verse 20 goes on: For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. If Christ can do nothing but what he sees God doing, and Jesus has a body even after his resurrection and perfection, then it stands to reason that God also has a body. So whether God has a body or not is one for scriptural debate, but that's my go-to stance when someone argues that God is some ethereal misty blob.

that's literally *the* question, in my book. and to that end, i have absolutely no idea. and while i find it interesting to question and wonder about, i don't particularly need to know the answer right now. while i'd like to know the answer, i'm content with just knowing that *a* God exists, He created all this, and someday there'll be answers to everything. and i fully admit that all who believe in religion and afterlife and such could be dead wrong (unavoidable pun, right?) because i have no tangible proof ... but i have my experiences, i have my beliefs, and i have my hope that this is not the end, but barely the beginning. i look at it as kind of a reverse of the one-year calendar concept presented in cosmos: if the entire history of the universe were condensed into one year, we are literally at December 31st, 11:59:59.7 pm or something like that. my existence is the opposite of that: January 1, 0:0:0.3 am. if anyone wants to discuss where God might live, i have some severely wild, out-there theories. ;)

Interesting question, Matt. I don't have a solid answer for you, but I can tell you what I believe: I believe that there are a finite number of natural laws, but "finite" doesn't necessarily mean "small number." That finite number could be in the hundreds of thousands. Or more. Or less, of course. But think about how many natural laws you know, understand, and can use to do something. I know about gravity because when I drop a sledgehammer on my foot, I swear. Ask my wife. I also know that the moon is a gravitational force that causes tides, but it is slowly moving away from the earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches per year. That's about all I know of gravity. And I know next to nothing about thermal dynamics. I'm 42, soon to be 43. I haven't devoted my life to studying natural laws, so maybe I'm behind the curve, but someone like Neil Degrasse Tyson has a great edge on, say, astrophysics, as would Sagan or Hawking. BUT what would they know about biology or chemistry compared to a world-renowned expert? Probably not a lot. So yah, there's probably a finite number of natural laws, but who knows how many? And who knows how many we haven't even contemplated yet?! Now ... as for once we learn them, do we become gods ourselves? Short answer: yes. Long answer: ... yes, but how long will that take? someone asked which came first: God? or the universe? my answer would be God, but then that begs the question, where did *HE* come from? and did someone create Him? And 'round and 'round we go on the eternal version of chicken and egg.

Rare as we are, there *are* those who believe that science and God are absolutely intertwined. I have no proof for God. I have my personal convictions and beliefs, but no tangible proof. My "proof" lies in science, and even that is tremulous at best. I was riding the bus one day to work back in the mid-90s. Bus driver was listening to some NPR station. The hot topic of the day was how someone had just discovered that eggs are contain 1/3 the amount of cholesterol that they originally thought. No, I don't know who "they" are, but whoever constitutes that group, they determined that you can eat 3 times the amount of eggs before clogging your arteries. Or something like that. My point is this: science discovers new things all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. Would it surprise anyone to learn that we are not the only inhabitants of this universe? or even this galaxy? Probably not, but we have no definitive proof that aliens exist ... just a list of exo-planets that keeps growing and growing. Someday, we'll have that proof, and it will come through study and patience. Do we have proof that GOd exists? No, and I highly doubt that any amount of study and patience will change that. Religion is faith-based for a reason. I dunno. I don't have a problem with either. I love them both. Science fascinates me. So does the concept of God.

Mormon here ... so, you know ... take this for what it is. In the Book of Mormon, there are scriptures that discuss the very nature of God, how He is able to "control the elements," and *why* He is able to control those elements. The elements obey His commands because He has earned their respect through his absolute and utter compliance with eternal laws, such as physics, chemistry, etc. In short, He obeys natural laws and does nothing to contradict those laws. With our understanding of what these natural laws are, we have a good grasp on how the universe was created. We have a great understanding of how stars and planets form. We know the speed of light, what constitutes a "quark," and why black holes exist. However, with all of that understanding, I don't think we've even scratched the surface of all the natural laws that exist, and how they all interact within the universe. God, by way of comparison, does, and He uses those laws to create--whether that creation is a birth or a death of an object (think about that for a second ...). Now, here's (just one of many examples) where Mormon theology differentiates from mainstream Christianity and religion in general: *God can, indeed, lose His power to be God.* How does this happen? Through His disobedience to natural laws. Some of these laws are inexorably tied to justice and mercy--the building blocks of our ability to return and live with Him again. "No unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of God." If God plays favorites and lets in someone who's sinned without the proper procedures of repentence, He loses all his powers, the elements revolt, and at that point, we're all screwed. God walks a very, very fine line, keeping this universe running. He is bound by title to obey natural laws. And don't even get me started on *where* God lives. That's another whole topic that Neil Degrasse Tyson discussed in one of the Cosmos eps, though I'm fairly confident that, in his atheistic stance, didn't mean to discuss, but boy howdy ... when you stop and think about who God is, and study "the deeper doctrines" of Mormonism ... it was incredibly interesting hearing his take on certain aspects of things like black holes. Are these theories out there? By all accounts, yes. Are they plausible? Sure--but so is the possibility that Arizona will indeed become a bay when California slides into the Pacific and mom comes 'round to put it back the way it ought to be ...

That's not another Sith ... that is Luke. Everyone in the galaxy is trying to find him. Two factions have zeroed in on his location, and are actively hunting him: the reborn fledgling empire, and the rebuilt republic. The storm troopers you see in the teaser are preparing to jump into what looks like a stormy area. The x-wings are flying low over a mountainous, cloudy region. There's snow on the ground. Luke has been in hiding in one of the most remote corners of the outer-rim since his attempt to repopulate the galaxy with Jedi failed miserably. Almost all of his trainees turned to the dark side. He lost his mind, went into exile, and has been in hiding for the last 20-25 years. This a rescue/destroy mission, depending on whose side you're on. Or I could have made that all up after watching the trailer about 50 times (that's not an exaggeration ...)

Cellulitis. That is all. cancer took my father when he was 57. my grandmother suffered from breast cancer. I sincerely hope your MIL pulls through again.

I know this is going to sound petty, but it is what it is. I start a new gig on Tuesday. The reason I'm starting a new gig is because this past gig wasn't really a "gig" at all. It was paycheck stealing, and it was horrendously boring. I know some people will balk at the chance to sit around and surf all day *and* collect a paycheck, but that's not me. I hated going in and staring at my monitor all day, trying to pretend to be busy, and not at all being productive. I asked upper management for direction, what my roles and responsibilities should be, and was met with dead silence. Went to HR to push the issue and get some answers, and again, brushed off and ignored for over 2 months. Finally having enough of it, I threw my resume out on indeed.com and immediately got some hits. After a couple of interviews with one company, we came to a salary agreement and I accepted their offer. But that's not the awesome part ... The awesome part was the email I sent to my department PM and his deputy PM. In short, it basically said that they need to figure out what the actual roles and responsibilities should be for that particular position. I was told when I was hired that it was a "work in progress," but that it would definitely be hammered out in the very near short-term. It never was, and I got sick of not having anything to do ... and I let them know that it is squarely upon their shoulders that I'm moving on. Being that this is a government contract, they now lose out on money for not having a body in a chair. Their assumption was that I would be happy to sit around and not work. Being that they're all ex-military, that shocked the hell out of me. Anyway, I was happy to send that email. I even watered it down significantly over the course of 8 or 9 edits. It's easy to write hastily and "vent," but that tends to burn bridges, which I'm not a fan of doing. My email was direct, but it wasn't rude or vindictive. It explained the real reason why I was walking away (not the "my wife decided to stay home and home-school our girls" reason that I was floating to most people who asked), and I laid the reasons directly at their complete lack of regard for me as someone who wanted nothing more than to be productive. Anyway, I'll hit the ground running with the new gig. We laid out a 4-5 year game plan for their immediate documentation needs, and I'll be jumping right into the deep end. That's perfectly fine by me. I prefer working my butt off to sitting around doing nothing.

has anyone toggled the goalie cams in GCL? between the two goalie cams and the game feed, not one feed is synched. the goalie cams are about 10 seconds off from each other, and the game feed is about 5 seconds off between the two. is that just me? or is anyone else noticing that?