I am so utterly bored

Oh God save me from the horror of programming soccer games.
And deliver me from the evil of the European Championships.

...

Yes I am utterly and totally bored.

Yesterday I was briefed on a new game we are going to design, develop, test and implement for the biggest commercial radio station in NL ... has to be delivered in 1 week (!) I told my boss he was crazy but he is making 13.000 euros with this. You may guess what his answer was. Anyways, for this game they found it necessary to brief me extensively on the rules of soccer. I hate soccer. I always have.

So I got a very serious deadline and a very distracted mind. Not one of the best combinations. I am preparing to write an article on the 11th century philosopher Anselm who in a purely rational manner proved the logical existence of God. Besides that I started my crash course latin. While progging I keep going through the first and second present conjugation ... laudo, laudas, laudat, laudamus, laudatis, laudant, lauda, laudate, debo, debes, debet, debemus, debetis, debent, debe, debete ...

And no, this does not help in finishing the game in time.
And neither does blogging.
Help.

I bet you 2 bottles of Glenmorangie that Anselm was never distracted by feeble soccer games.

Filed my bachelorthesis!

Yaay!! After 8 months I finally finished the research and writing of my bachelorthesis on democracy and corporatism in the medieval chruch during the 14th and 15th centuries.

You can read it here:

Weid mijn schapen - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: Weid mijn schapen

Anyways... suffice to say that I am glad its done! I lost over 2 months of work when some burglars crashed into my house and stole my laptop. The bastards just threw a big rock through the window :( I was not amused to say the least. Police eventually made an arrest and the guy is brought before court sometime next month. They never found my laptop though. Luckily enough I was insured and with help of my dad (big yay for him!) I got a new one!

Anyways, on the life front things are picking up bigtime. Having thoughts about my future as a 925 workerbee, started up a new freelance business and got my first order already. Besides that I am incredibly in love with this wonderfull girl. The only annoying thing is that she lives in Turin... racking up frequent flyer miles currently. I will move to Italy during July and August to see if we can stand eachother for more than just a weekend every fortnight. Currently we are both flying over every other week and saying goodbye is getting harder and harder. As of right now, I just got an sms that she's nearly back home after the weekend here :)

Anyways, time for a book and a bed now :)

ET spiritus sanctus

A highly controversial interview with Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory - the pope's personal skygazers - can be found here.

Quote:
"Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space."

and:

"This is not in contradiction with our faith, because we cannot establish limits to God's creative freedom,"

and:

"Funes even suggested that alien beings might be free of some of the earthly burdens that drag down we poor benighted humans. Not gravity, carnal pleasures or mortgages, of course, but good old original sin. 'In that way, assuming that there would be other intelligent beings, we could not say that they need redemption. They could have remained in full friendship with the Creator.'"

Now let's give some thought about the huge black gaping hole this creates in christian ideology:

God has always existed (father, son and holy spirit). The angels were created first and afterwards some of those beings fell and became what is considered the Devil and its brood. So far so good. Next God decided on crafting creation in 6 days, ending with us humans. Humanity was limited to two happy creatures living in paradise, created for the greater glory of God. In short: We were special. We were God's chosen and most beloved creatures. Now the Devil moved in, kind of corrupted us and thus spoiling God's work. All well and good, we are booted out of paradise and punished as eternal sinners against God and made to work the land, bear babies, fight wars, build cities, sweat, suffer, die and everything. Before Christ, sorry and all, but after death you're going to hell for being a sinner, period. However, God takes pity on poor humanity and eventually His idea, His word, His power becomes flesh, is born as His son from a virgin, preaches, suffers and dies so that the orginal sin can be forgiven -christology in a nutshell-. Thus we have been given a chance to be redeemed and find salvation after death. Woot! thanks a bunch.
Main theme of the story: we are here because we are special, we are God's chosen creatures, most beloved, created in His image. We are here so we can be saved etc. etc.

Oh, and for the record. This is stuff I love to study, but euhm, to me these are really just very powerful mythical stories ;)

Now in comes Funes saying: yeah sure we are all that and stuff but ya know, God was doing some freelance projects besides us. And they were a tiny bit more succesful, no satanic corruption and all, so actually, sure we are special. An especially big burden to be precise. Because these others *they* are perfect. They are actually on the level of angels, they have not fallen into sin, they *tadadum* ... are theologically superior to us (talking about low self-esteem).

So what are we? Are we still anything special? Or are we kind of God's failing project? The bottom of the barrel, as some might call it.
Nice, thought huh?

So... in the end, when we drill down along this catholicism-in-a-nutshell,
the actual question is: when will the big leash Funes is wearing be reigned in? Either by the Pope in person or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Neither will be pleasant and good for your career. But there is just no way that this will become, so to speak, gospeltruth.

A book without verbs

Ok, I confess I haven't read the book. And I won't. Found this on a blog somewhere:

Le Train de Nulle Part (The Train From Nowhere) is a 233-page French novel written by Michel Thaler. It is written without a single verb.

Thaler said this about verbs: "The verb is like a weed in a field of flowers. You have to get rid of it to allow the flowers to grow and flourish. Take away the verbs and the language speaks for itself."

More here...

Rrrriightt... to me it feels like saying: "wooot! see me! what I accomplished!"
About as useful as building a boat from lolipopsticks... oh wait that's been done too...

Nah seriously, cultivated literary gardening is called poetry. I can understand writing a poem without verbs. Poetry is about limiting, cultivating, harnessing words to create something beautiful. I could understand that. However, writing a 200 page novel like that, is stg you dont want to force on any reader. Period.

Got a new toy :)

And it's called scribd.com and allows the upload of most document formats to a webserver. Scribd then reconcstructs the document so it can be viewed from any other page through a youtube like flashplayer. It's hella cool!

So for testing purposes I used a document that I wrote as part of my bachelor thesis. For the final thesis it was significantly cut down but I kept it as a single file for reference purposes. I mean it does describe church history from shortly after Christ to the late 15th century in 14 pages. It might be useful, but for the time being very very dutch too. Oh and remember, this is written from a conciliar perspective because that's the subject of my thesis.

Enjoy!

Read this doc on Scribd: Concilies en Kerkgeschiedenis

Why I love St. Augustine

It is frequently asked what our belief must be about the form and shape of heaven according to Sacred Scripture. Many scholars engaged in lengthy discussions on these matter, but the sacred writers with their deeper wisdom have omitted them. Such subjects are of no profit for those who seek beatitude, and, what is worse, they take up precious time that ought to be given to what is spiritually beneficial. What concern is it of mine whether heaven is a sphere and the earth is enclosed by it and suspended in the middle of the universe, or whether heaven like a disk above the earth covers it on one side?

- De genesi ad litteram
late 4th early 5th century AD.