I can’t get over this site I heard about on WAY-FM this morning. It’s called “I am second” and is at http://iamsecond.com. It’s got video testimonies from people from all walks of life, including some celebrities like Stephen Baldwin, Jason Castro (former contestant on American Idol), and Brian Welch (former member of the band, Korn).
From what I can tell, it looks like it was done by a church or churches in Texas, and it was executed with a level of excellence I’ve never seen when it comes to a web-based ministry. This is something I honestly wish I’d thought of. It starts with a list of video testimonies you can scroll through, or you can just click on the random one that is displayed front and center when you visit, and once the testimony is over, you can see other testimonies with a similar theme, or proceed to a basic Q&A about the Christian life, with such questions as “Does God care about me?”, “Aren’t there many ways to Heaven?”, “Why does God allow bad stuff to happen?” — it provides answers to some of the tough questions someone contemplating a Christian faith might ask.
Then, to top it all off, and this is what sort of blew my mind, it provides a link to contact someone, then and there, via e-mail, phone, or live chat. According to the site it is staffed 24/7. This is the sort of thing companies do to provide tech support after you buy a computer (though even that usually isn’t 24/7), not the sort of thing we Christians do to advance the kingdom. But why don’t we? This is just awesome. Like I said, I wish I’d thought of it, but I’m honestly just thankful someone did.
So I couldn’t sleep last night. Kept waking up every hour or two, and was having weird dreams. They’re sort of a jumble, but the thing I remember most clearly is that all of my wife’s friends and family were calling my parents to “diss” me. No specifics, just “I was calling to diss your son.” I remember this so clearly because I don’t know of anyone who would actually use the term “diss” in 2008.
Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede. This is horrible. This is exactly the kind of mass hysteria that I avoid every year, when I choose to work the day after Thanksgiving instead of shop. The nice thing about working the day after Thanksgiving is that unless one works in retail, nothing ever happens, because everyone else is off work. It’s just a mellow day, in comparison to a day of insanity if one braves the shopping experience.
So, it almost pains me to say it, but I’m actually getting used to them, now that I’ve made some space on my desk to shift their position a bit. So long as one monitor is directly in front of me instead of the gap between the two screens, I can cope, and am growing to appreciate the extra space. However, I still miss the extra height, and would have much preferred two 24″ monitors to avoid going below 1200px vertical resolution.
In any case, it’s certainly not the end of the world, and it’s pretty nifty to fire up a full-screen Ubuntu VM in VirtualBox on the second monitor, to work with a real OS for any serious development.
Ah, the simple wisdom of Dragon Warrior. Who among us can’t find at least one instance a day at which the phrase “A slime draws near! Command?” would be useful?
So, my employer recently gave me a new laptop, which is great. They talked about getting us “a couple of monitors” to hook up, as well. At the time, I mentioned that I would much prefer one large widescreen to two monitors. A couple weeks went by, no new monitors, I was happily working away in my 20″, 1600×1200 world. Until today. Below, see my new setup. Now I have two 1680×1050 desktops instead. I feel like some poor lab rat in an experiment where they’re trying to induce a split personality or something. The multiple desktop thing always has annoyed me. I never grew fond of virtual desktops in *nix, either. I just don’t work that way. I’ve promised myself to give it a few days to see if I can adjust, but so far, it’s not looking good. As you can see in the photo, I’m still gravitating toward one display.
And yes, before anyone says anything, I know that’s insane.
