What is the origin of Rolex’s huge popularity amongst the hip hop industry? Who started this trend?

Rolex first came to prominence in the hip hop world during the beginning of the “bling” era in the mid 1990’s. Hip hop was always known to be about marketing a persona as much as the lyrics and musical capabilities of the artist. In order to achieve a persona that was larger than life and successful many hip hop artists started sporting very expensive and boastful jewelry in the mid 1980’s. Around the same time rolex watches become extremely popular among the newly wealthy “yuppie” crowd in New York City. This young nouveu rich community set a trend that was copied around the country and the world that made Rolex watches the new status symbol.
It took a few years for this connection to be made among the hip hop community and the trend started by the “yuppies” but it was popularized and threaded into the fabric of hip hop culture with the huge hit by the Notorious B.I.G., “mo’ money mo’ problems”

In this iconic song the line “throw your rollies in the sky, and wave them side to side” cemented the rolex as a staple in hip hop culture. Now every rapper that wanted to show that he has “made it” and is successful must own at least one rolex.
The only problem with this is that many rappers simply did not have the sufficient cash flow to keep up with this quite expensive trend. This has lead to many aspiring and up and coming hip hop stars to sport the latest replica watches and replica jewelry. Again, in hip hop, building a persona and image is a big part of the game. If they can’t afford the real thing then the next best option is a high quality replica.

In short, Big Stick Combat is the art of self-defense with a baseball bat, a long stick, and a cane. All of these weapons are approximately 36 inches in length, and are realistic, legal weapons.

I am Darrin Cook, and Big Stick Combat is a synthesis of my studies in the martial arts, particularly the following Filipino grandmasters:

1. GM Estalilla of Kabaroan Eskrima. Kabaroan uses a heavy stick of approximately 36 inches in length. GM Estalilla lives in Fresno, California, where I studied with him privately. GM Estalilla authorized me to teach Kabaroan.
2. GM Vasquez of Modified Tapado. Modified Tapado uses a short staff of approximately 47 inches in length. GM Vasquez lives in Bacolod City, Philippines, where I studied with him one-on-one. GM Vasquez appointed me Modified Tapado representative of the Northwestern United States.
3. GM Maranga of Combat Eskrima Maranga. Combat Eskrima Maranga is a style of Balintawak, which uses a short stick of 28-30 inches at very close range. I was a private student of GM Maranga at his home in Cebu City, Philippines.

My ultimate aim is to have a realistic system of self-defense that is modern-day and practical. Although my teachers are Filipinos, I live in the United States, and have adapted the art to life in America. For example, my weapon of choice is a baseball bat, not a rattan stick.

I welcome you to contact me with your questions, comments, and suggestions.

Introductions suck. They are awkward, always formulaic, and usually boring. I would much rather begin spewing information your way like split pea soup (I expect much of it will be Green), and allow you to catch up with who I am and what I’m all about in the meantime.
However, I’m told that’s bad etiquette, and if you’re going to eat my soup you’ll need to know what it consists of.
There’s a fairly simple chain of events to follow leading up to MicroWombat. I could explain them in a linear way, which would be incredibly boring, or I could give you the bare skeleton of my existence and allow you to come to your own conclusions concerning details. I also think this will be useful in creating a persona that will be more easy to relate to in terms of anonymity; I could be anyone, you know.
I know very little about science. In the past, I saw no problem in this; I have a natural predisposition toward things like literature, music, art, etc. I’m awful at math, and even my science teachers seemed bored with the subject. Plus, they were terrible spellers and I just have such a hard time taking an ill-speller seriously; I know it’s close-minded and I hope you forgive me for that.
During my years as a lost and wandering agnostic, I ran across a very important idea: the fact that, thanks to youTube, one no longer has to attend an Ivy League institution to have access to lectures from some seriously hyper-aware minds. The Internet has the potential to be an awesome educational resource, as I’ve discovered, but it isn’t often used that way. Here I found my three ‘wise men.’
Carl Sagan (who I’d known fuzzily all along, his book Contact having become my very favorite movie), Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence Krauss introduced me to science! Of course, I knew it was there in a very vague kind of way…but I had no idea how interesting it could be.
As I’ve grown, I’ve gotten more interested in current politics, the state of the country, and I’m honestly very disturbed with what I see. I’m Green, I believe in civil rights, and I have very strong opinions. In listening to Dawkins and Krauss in particular, and exploring the concepts they put forth I’ve discovered the many ways that science and the public’s understanding of science affects our social and political realities.
So my objective here is to chronicle my exploration of science as someone who is a complete layman, but has been electrified by the ideas I’ve discovered so far. My hope is that you guys can follow along and learn as I learn, and hopefully I can instill in you some of the excitement that Drs. Dawkins and Krauss (whom I am amused to call my Science Jesus) have instilled in me. I also think it may end up being a pretty good example of the positive effects of The Out Campaign, and the good that those in the scientific community accomplish with their public speaking engagements. I would like to present myself as yet another example of why “those dreary and depressed atheists” really aren’t dreary or depressed at all; most of us are pretty ecstatic about things, and I would like to tell you why.

In the meantime, I encourage you to visit http://www.richarddawkins.net, http://www.outcampaign.org, and Dr. Krauss’s university page at http://krauss.faculty.asu.edu/.

When the new H1N1 pandemic virus was first described in April, its unusual constitution was immediately noted. The 8 different genomic segments did not match any known virus. Instead, different genomic segments matched flu viruses that infected birds, pigs and humans. As internationally known flu scientist Robert Webster put it:

“Where the hell it got all these genes from we don’t know,” says Robert Webster, a flu virologist at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. “But this is a real super-mixed-up virus.”

Nature News, April 27, 2009

Ever since then, people have been looking for “the smoking pig” – a pig infected with a virus similar to the one causing pandemic flu. Thus far, this has been a futile search.

Failing finding a good match with a known virus, some researchers have analysed the sequences we do have to try to reconstruct a possible pedigree for the new H1N1 virus. The problem with these reconstructions is that they must account for the fact that the genomic segments best match viruses on different continents. This problem is usually explained as due to transportation of infected pigs from one continent to another.

There is another possibility. Pandemic H1N1 could have originated in a laboratory. It is routine to artificially combine influenza viruses in ways that could produce a hybrid virus similar to the new H1N1 virus. When I first read about the strange background for the pandemic virus, from bird, pig and human viruses, I immediately thought that it might have come from a laboratory. I was not the only one.

Adrian J. Gibbs, a well-known Australian virologist, first suggested that pandemic H1N1 may have come from a laboratory in May (Bloomberg, May 13, 2009). Predictably, the World Health Organisation (WHO) immediately rejected any possibility of this hypothesis. At the time, it was unclear what data prompted Dr. Gibbs’ hypothesis. A paper describing his analysis was published yesterday (November 24, 2009). What follows is a summary of some of the key points made by Dr. Gibbs and his collaborators.

Problems with the natural model

The assumptions and statistical methods applied by proponents of the natural origins hypothesis are discussed. These are highly technical. For our purposes, it is sufficient to point out that the confidence that one can assign to phylogenetic trees is proportional to the amount of sequence connecting key points in the evolution of the organism. In the case of pandemic H1N1, the natural hypothesis assumes that many years worth of “connecting” sequence data is missing. Hence, important corroborating sequence data for the natural hypothesis has not been found.

The natural model also assumes that pigs from Eurasia and North America shared viruses which produced a triple-reassortant virus, the pandemic H1N1. However, the “avian-like” viruses that circulate in Eurasia and are found in the new H1N1 have never been reported North America until the pandemic virus was identified. The North American parental viruses have never been seen in Eurasia. Hence, there is no empirical support for the idea that these two parental virus sources have had an opportunity to mix in nature.

The pandemic virus is suggested to have arisen in Mexico. The first person to have been reported with the disease lived in Perote, a small Mexican village. Much has been made of the fact that there are pig farms in the immediate vicinity. However, Perote is in an isolated valley, 200 kilometers from Mexico City, and surrounded by mountains. The authors point out that this remote location is an unlikely ground zero for the mixing of North American pigs with Eurasian pigs fresh off an intercontinental jet. Further, some of the other early cases in Mexico were in Oaxaca, 290 kilometers to the south of Perote. Finally, since phylogenetic analsyses suggest that the virus first infected humans in January 2009, the fact that the virus was first reported in a child in Perote, Mexico in April is of uncertain significance.

Evidence in favor of the laboratory error model

Occam’s razor, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, suggests that the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true. In the case of pandemic H1N1, the simplest explanation for its odd parentage is that the marriage was consummated in a laboratory. Combining different flu viruses artificially is frequently done when studying the biological properties of different genes and when creating vaccines. The Gibbs paper focuses primarily on the idea the pandemic H1N1 virus might have originated from a vaccine, although he does discuss other possibilities related to influnenza research.

There are a number of sequence anomalies related to the pandemic H1N1 virus. In particular, the authors focused on the PB1-F2 gene. From the paper:

It seems that the peculiarities of the S-OIV PB1-F2 gene, the human-like signature sites and its selectively super-imposed termination codons, probably reflect the outcome of selection…

I will discuss sequence anomalies associated with pandemic H1N1 identified by Gibbs et al as well as ones I have observed in upcoming blogs.

Evidence against the vaccine hypothesis

The authors looked for evidence that the virus had sequence changes in the NS1 protein that would be consistent with preparation for an attenuated vaccine. Specifically, attenuated live vaccines have NS1 proteins truncated to 126 amino acids. Pandemic H1N1 has an NS1 protein that is 219 amino acids long. Thus, one potential line of evidence clearly does not support the hypothesis that the new H1N1 virus was developed as a live, attenuated vaccine.

Conclusions

Due to the controversial nature of this paper and the different ways that it could be interpreted, it is important to be clear on how the authors themselves interpret the results. First, they do not state that they have definitive proof that the pandemic H1N1 virus was born in a laboratory. They list problems associated with the natural hypothesis, provide evidence consistent with a laboratory origin and ask for more intense surveillance so that any missing sequences can be found. Second, Gibbs and his colleagues also do not use the word “bioweapon” at any point in the paper. Although they discuss several possibilities, they appear to be leaning towards some sort of error that occurred during the manufacture of flu vaccine for swine.

I am glad that Dr. Gibbs has been given the opportunity to publish his analysis and conclusions. I do not necessarily agree with all of his interpretations, but considering the full range of possible explanations for the pandemic H1N1 virus is the first step in finding the truth.

Reference

Gibbs et al. (2009) From where did the 2009 ‘swine-origin” influenza A virus (H1N1) emerge? Virology Journal. 6: 207

Dai had grown into a young man and mastered most of his uncle Ishime’s “magic” tricks, in spite of Ishime secretive nature.  He was now able to hide and obtain items with remarkable subtlety.  As the quickness and coordination of his hands had developed, so had his mind.  He was learning to separate his face from his true feelings, to divorce emotion from action.

At his uncle’s insistence, he had begun to drink wine regularly, occasionally dabbling in brandy.  At first, he thought it was some reward or validation of his maturity.  He soon learned it was simply training. When the wine flowed he needed to keep a clear head.  By doing so, the alcohol became a secret tactic.  The welcome feint, the hidden disarm.  The tragic beauty is that he would never need to wield the weapon, for his victims would do it for him, committing suicide of sorts with their will.

One evening, they had a guest.  Described only as “a cousin”, the lean man was remarkably graceful and unassuming.  His wine cup made no sound at any time.  Actually, neither did he.  Dai followed Ishime’s example and did not engage the man in conversation.  Instead, he sat quietly and watched the man as Ishime talked about Dai in the third person.

The faint reek of face paint, like that the actors at the theater wore, teased at his nose.  Was this man an actor?  Why such reservation for a common performer?

“Dai, perhaps you should return to your studies in your room?”  Said Ishime, startling him with the first words directed at him in over an hour.

“Yes, Uncle.”

The next morning, his “cousin” was gone.  As he sat down to breakfast, his Uncle simply said, “Your cousin was never here, yes?”

“Yes, uncle.”

A few days later, a local guardsman stopped by on his usual rounds.  It was tradition that Ishime offer him some Carpen Sushi and Omblic Wine .  Today was no different.  Dai sat with them as they ate.  Small talk and gossip was exchanged.  Ishime seemed a little too practiced in the mundane conversation.  It was if both men were simply going through the motions.  The wine soon gave way to brandy.  Dai was feeling a little inebriated, but his tolerance served him well.   He was certain he could respond to any threats in spite of his condition.  The guardsman was less capable.  Of course, perhaps the guard was also simply appearing drunk just like himself?

Dai noticed a slight nuance in the way that Ishime’s hand moved as he handed the replenished wine cup back to the guard.  Did his uncle mean to poison the innocent man?

Dai did not betray his feelings, but rather sat still and calm.  The guardsman breathed and nodded deeply, the cup before him, cradled in both hands, “Ahh, just the right temperature.  You are such a gracious host, Ishime.”

Ishime nodded slightly, “You are a gracious guest, good guardsman.”

With that, the guard drained the cup and set it down.  He became woozy and started to fall forward.

Ishime watched Dai throughout the occurrence, looking for the faintest response.  Seeing none, he whispered ever so softly, “You are my ‘Little Scorpion’ no more.”

Dragon Age Origins cover

It’s been a few weeks and I’ve played about 63 hours. I’ve wanted to play more, but haven’t had the time. I also appreciate how this game lets me completely disconnect from work and school. It makes me go offline. Well, that’s not true, but my FF tabs aren’t open, so I don’t read feeds, tweets, nor email, which is basically offline.

There is a fine line between being a Diablo-like game and something more of an RPG. There is no doubt that from time to time, DA becomes a little too much like Diablo¹, but the fact of the matter is that it’s more of a game like Oblivion.

I’ve just gone into the Deep Roads in Orzammar, the Dwarven city. I’ve never played a game that simulated so well the Mines of Moria in Middle Earth. The Deep Roads are quite fun, compared to what I expected. The road to Branka is quite long, but it’s interesting.

It reminds me on how long it was when I went into the Lair of the Werewolves in the Elven Ruins in the Brecilian Forest.

My main character is Level 15 and I’m about to spend my other specialization point into Arcane Warrior. I’m already a shapeshifter, and although Blood Mage is unlocked, I won’t take it in this game. Apparently two of your companions will leave or try to kill you outright if you activate this.

I’m about 63 hours into the game and I’ve completed 20% of the game. That’s quite surprising. Does this mean that this game could be played for over 200 hours? I am unsure. We will see once I complete the “A Paragon of Her Kind” quest.

I still don’t have enough gold to purchase the more expensive items. There are items available that cost over 100 gold pieces. The Ring of Ages, 78gp, Robe of Reavers 98gp, a dragonbone staff worth 131gp at The Circle tower. I’ve never had enough gold to get those big ticket items. My money just goes on supplying up and slowly buying better armor. I’ve completed the Drake Armor quest and wonder if I will be able to wear the Drake Skin Armor that was made for me, when I become an Arcane Warrior.

I also expected to generate more money in Orzammar, but I didn’t. There isn’t a trick like potion-making that will generate large amounts of money, like in Oblivion. It’s good and bad. The most gold I’ve spent is about 23 gp on a book that gives you an extra spell point.

My go-to party is always composed of 2 fighters and 2 mages. One mage is my player character, an offensive Primal magus. The other one is Wynne and she specializes in healing spells. The two fighters are either Sten/Alistair or Oghren/Alistair. Since Morrigan doesn’t have enough healing spells, she’s just a bit useless in fights. I’ve never taken out Leilana nor Zevram. I miss out on chests, but most quests need quite a bit of fighting, for which my Champions are best suited.

The most challenging tasks were killing Flemeth, Morrigan’s shapeshifting mother, and killing a Revenant as part of the Juggernaut’s Plate Armor quest. The enemies level up as well, so they get more challenging as you progress. Ogres and Ogre Alphas are fine now.

Supplies are limited, often necessitating a trip back to the Party Camp or Denerim, where all injuries are healed. If you die during combat, but one of your party survives, you end up with a serious injury, which can only be healed with an injury kit. Injury kits aren’t easy to find and not plentiful, although you can make them yourself, finding Elfroot is another matter. There was a lot of it around before, and now there isn’t. The plants that I collected haven’t regrown and, if I’m correct, almost a year has passed in-game.

The Urn of Ashes was challenging as well, especially the Drakes in the wyrmlinglair. Drakes are smaller than dragons, but bigger than dragonlings. They are immune to sleep and do colossal damage. I’ve come up with a technique that works well. I use the Waking Nightmare spell on them, confusing them. Usually, if I’m attacked by three, two are affected and start attacking each other. This leaves 2 of my party to deal with one drake, which is OK, and 2 others to back the drakes up a bit while they kill themselves. It’s important to immobilize those types of foes so that they can’t outflank you and surround you. The same works for Revenants, though Revenants are more resistant to Waking Nightmare and those types of spells.

I’ve decided not to do the Mage’s Collective and Blackstone Irregular quests. They sounded fishy to me. In the Mage’s Collective, you often are involved with blood mages, a bit too much for my character. There is more to the Blackstone missions, especially with the one involved with dereliction of duty, but I haven’t found out much and stopped doing them.

The Deep Roads… It’s taken quite a few hours before I decided to get onto them. I dreaded them because I imagined that they were like the Mines of Moria from Middle Earth. To be honest, they are almost exactly like them. The Deep Roads are one of the few places that I’ve visited, the other place being Denerim, that have another internal map. The Deep Roads used to link different parts of the Dwarven empire, but they have long been abandoned and overridden by darkspawn.

Whispers in the dark… Finding the Anvil that Branka is looking for looks pretty challenging. I’m currently at Orthan Thaig and I have to get through this place, plus the Dead Trenches, the remnants of a city that has been overrun by darkspawn, to get to the Anvil of the Void. Pretty far away.

The game is pretty good. Definitely worth playing in my book. My only problem is with the controls on PC. You can’t have a 1^st person view to look around, which is pretty annoying. I’ve tried looking through the controls menu and couldn’t find it. I tried the up/down, left/right keys but that didn’t help.

* * * * *

[¹]: The Elven Ruins, in the Brecilian Forest, are an example. It takes hours upon hours before reaching the ultimate end of that quest.

The world’s first scuba watch is the Omega “Marine”, developed in 1932 and designed for military and professional use only. At this stage scuba diving watches were only sophisticated and expensive scuba diving tools and not intended for mass production.   

This was just the beginning stages of scuba diving and therefore still virgin ground for scuba diving gear manufacturers and developers.

Inspired by the Omega “Maine”, Panerai – a supplier to the Royal Italian Navy – manufactured his own scuba watches which were not only waterproof at 650 feet (200 m), but also luminescent allowing the divers to read even in darker surroundings. 

World War II increased the need for more underwater time devices and a large number of “canteen” style watches were developed by manufacturers such as by Hamilton, Elgin and Waltham. Again these watches were made for the Navy and were not intended for the public.

Only when the Fifty Fathoms was developed by Lip-Blancpain’s that scuba watches reached a much wider audience when in 1956 was worn by Jacques Cousteau and his divers during the underwater film “Le monde du silence”.

Eventually was the Rolex Submariner introduced in 1954 at the Basel Watch Fair that brought the “Sub” to an iconic status as it became the watch used by 007 in the first ten James Bond movies.

Today with so many brands and models on the market it might be a bit challenging when choosing a watch but as a rule of thumb look for water resistance greater than 10 ATM=100 meters (330 ft). Though the values for an good scuba watch will be around 200-300 meters (660-990 feet) and higher.

Knowing its history makes anything so much more fascinating and valuable to me.  Where it started, why they made it and how they did it….. I’m curious. This is where I spread my curiosities and share some stories.

The traditional English coat, ”Duffle coat” is one of my favourite styles for outerwear and I’ve got one that’s originally made in England by Gloverall. Those two words, duffle and Gloverall refer to pretty much the same thing now. Duffle coat survived two world wars, and the British firm Gloverall made it possible to remain in the vagaries of fashion for nearly 100 years to become a classic, and that’s intriguing to me. 

The word “Duffle” originally referred to a heavy, coarse, woollen weatherproof cloth closely woven for warmth and was first produced in the Belgian Town of Duffel.

Duffle bags were originally made from the same material.

However over the years it has come to signify a hooded coat with distinctive rod-shaped wooden toggle fastenings that passed through rope or leather loops. It was adopted by the British Royal Navy and they issued a camel-coloured variant of it as an item of warm clothing during World War I.

Left: A photograph of Lieutenant Basil Beal wearing foul weather gear, a World War 1 Royal Navy duffle coat (taken in 1914) from the RN Submarine Museum.

The design of the coat was modified slightly and widely issued during World War II. In the Navy, it was refered to as a “convoy coat”, and used by officers and men of the watch to protect against the biting Atlantic and North Sea winds. The toggles could be unfastened whilst wearing thick gloves, and hoods were carefully designed to fit over peaked Naval caps.

[Worth a Watch: Jack Hawkins in The Cruel Sea (1953)]

(Images via LIFE)

Field Marshal Montgomery with officers of the First Canadian Army. Second left, General Harry Crerar in duffle coat next to Montgomery.)

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was a famous wearer of the coat and the Allied hero wore the duffle coat wherever and whenever he could as a means of identifying himself with his troops, leading to another nickname, “Monty coat“.

[Worth a Watch: Trevor Howard in The Third Man (1949)]

World War II British Army officer and  the founder of the Special Air Service, Sir David Stirling

David Niven, right, and Gregory Peck in The Guns Of Navarone (1961)

After World War II, large stocks of army surplus duffle coats were available at reasonable prices to the general public and  the British company Gloverall purchased surplus military supply. When that supply ran out, in 1954, Gloverall began making its own version, adapting the fit and style of the military coat for everyday wear.

All members of the Royal Family wearing Monty coats. photo taken in 1946.

The Gloverall duffle coat proved instantly popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s with young men who were suddenly presented with the prospect of further education rather than military service abroad. Ironically, then, what had started out as rough military garb soon came to stand for bohemian edginess.

Gloverall still maintains this Naval link through the iconic ‘Monty’ and its application to the service highlighted by its namesake Field Viscount Montgomery.

Duffle coats are for girls, too.

(Images via Gloverall Fall 2009)

The design of duffle coats continued being improved. The original jute rope and wooden fasteners, so practical to use during stormy weather at sea, were replaced by high-quality leather thongs and real horn toggles. Flaps were also added to the patch pockets, though they could still accommodate the gloved hand. The bucket hood was turned into a flatter, more stylish ‘pancake’ hood.

(Special thanks for great information @ The Ivy League Look)

Above is my current favourite pick . This combination of heavy itchy wool and the blackwatch tartan is perfect. If you put blackwatch on anything, I have to buy it. That’s just another “my thing”.

-N.

]]> http://theworshipfiles.com/2009/11/23/leading-worship-stressful-or-not/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:55:28 +0000 Jason http://theworshipfiles.com/2009/11/23/leading-worship-stressful-or-not/

So I’ve seen some worship leader types blogging and commenting on this CNN article which lists Music Ministry Director as number 5 in a list of most stressful and underpaid jobs. There seems to be a general consensus that being the music guy is crazy stressful and doesn’t pay enough. The reasons being that everyone has an opinion on what songs should be sung, what styles they should be played in, what instruments should be used, how loud it ought to be, even what the worship leader should look like and more. The music guy is the brunt of all of these complaints and apparently it stresses them out.

Well, here’s why I’m writing about this: I can’t relate! Seeing all of the complaints and theories as to why it’s so stressful has just made me thankful for the Origins community. Look, I know we get too loud sometimes and I know my style can’t please everyone, but it would seem to me that everybody else knows that too. It seems that way because I have rarely if ever gotten any complaints. Some complaints go to Brannen and he always lets me know the feedback, legit or not…and there simply isn’t a lot of complaining. I’d like to publicly say THANK YOU!!! Thanks to everyone who comes on a Sunday morning ready to worship regardless of style. To everyone who knows that making much of God has zero to do with me and my ability to lead well but has everything to do with our individual hearts. To everyone who has come to grips with the fact that Me and Cool have parted ways long ago and there is no way I will be up to date with the latest worship-leader fashion.

I will say that I have been there. I have been at the church where everyone feels entitled to an opinion on everything. I have very little tolerance for entitlement and I feel extremely blessed to be part of a church where people just don’t have that attitude. Thank you, God!

Here are some photos from the Origin into schools outreach at U.C. Berkeley. Sponsored by Living Waters, this outreach provided 190,000 copies of Darwin’s Origin of Species (with special introduction by Ray Comfort) to 100 top campuses in the US. Our team of 30, led by Daniel Beaudoin of NorCal Seedsowers, passed out 2000 copies of this special 150th Anniversary edition.

Students were very happy to receive this free copy, since the bookstore sells it for $29. Many students said since their professors quote from it often, they were planning on getting their own copy. The special introduction features the biography of Darwin, the history of evolutionary theory, Intelligent Design vs Evolution, information on DNA, Darwin’s beliefs concerning God and Atheism, some comparative worldview and of course a Gospel message concerning sin, death, accountability to God, and forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.

There was a campus protest going on (of course!) regarding the student fee hike. On the fringes of the crowds we were able to hand out books and have conversations with students away from the noise. The Atheist club students were following us around, handing out their literature to everyone who took our book. We had some rather civil and productive conversations with them also. All in all many seeds were sown and we are very thankful.

All day long we passed students reading the intro to the book. This one was sitting but most were reading it while they were walking. Most people were glad to get the book. We told everyone this edition had a special intro with discussion on the Creation/ Evolution debate. I only observed one person who was angry that it was a “Christian thing”; that man threw the book down on the ground in disgust. There were several young students who were interested in finding out what exactly was in the introduction, and this led to opportunities to share the Gospel with a few who were genuinely open and interested in hearing.

Adam passing out books and witnessing to students.

Jared passing out books and witnessing!

Sermon Podcast from 2009-11-22
Title: Finding God in Our Redemption
Author: Origins Church in Austin, TX
Speaker: Brannen Padgett

Stay up to date with the Podcast RSS feed: www.theworshipfiles.com/tag/podcast/feed/
Or subscribe and listen on iTunes here: www.originsaustin.com/itunes

You can also listen below or download the mp3 here

1) Sing, Sing, Sing
2) You are So Good to Me
3) Your Love is Strong
4) Lead Me to the Cross
5) How He Loves

Chords & Lyrics for these songs and more can be found here.

Image by Clipartguide

Probably the most famous question among the child and the adolescence because they’d frequently asked the question “Where do babies come from?” when they spot a newborn baby somewhere else and parents’d not tell them the exact procedure in the process of a baby by means of elaborating male and female sleeps together then a baby would simultaneously spawn in front of them. And that’s child’s play. This idea is taken by the game of The Sims.

Lets get in-dept onto the subject of biology shall we? We all know that when a couple is copulating (sexual intercourse) and sperm would usually ejaculate or “Cum” into the vagina of a female. During copulation in humans, about 500 millions sperms are ejaculated into the vagina yet only 1 sperm can be successfully penetrated the ovum’s membrane then the ovum’d create a jelly-like membrane to prevent other’s sperm from penetrating and then the whole whole fertilization start its engine from the beginning of ovulation till the implantation stage. The oviduct produces ovum once in every 28 days which it occur in the ovulation stage whereby it had to go through a process called Oogenesis ( oogonia formation ) elsewhere the sperms go through the same process called spermatogenesis ( spermatozoa formation ).

As I were saying, the spermatozoa travels along the cervix and towards the fallopian tube ( this is where sperms had their first encounter with the ovum itself ) then the fertilization begins. Approximately 36 hours after fertilization, the resultant zygote begins to divide repeatedly by mitosis ( cell division ) as it travels along the fallopian tube towards the uterus. The first division forms a two-celled embryo. Further divisions results in the formation of a solid mass of cells known as a morula. By the fifth day, the morula is a ball of bout 100 cells known as a blastocyst or blastula (a fluid-filled sphere consisting of an outer layer of cells and a group of cells inside the sphere). The developing embryo has reached the uterus with the help of the cilia in the fallopian tube. Seven days after fertilization, the blastocyst attaches itself to the endometrium. This process is known as implantation. The blastocyst with its inner cell mass becomes firmly embedded in the endometrium. An embryo will be developed in the first 8 weeks from the second month of development until birth, it is called a fetus. The fetus is enclosed in a membrane called amnion where it’ll excrete amniotic fluid to protects the fetus by absorbing shock and cushioning it from any physical damage.

If a couple is having difficulties of possessing a baby which it is called infertility. There are several reasons of this cause:

i) Blocked fallopian tubes

ii) Failure of an embryo to exert the process of implantation.

iii) The inability to produce ova

iv) Blocked vas deferen ( sperm duct )

Image by Show-Boat Entertainment

There’re difference ways to overcome the infertility such as (IVF) which stand for In vitro fertilization, the In vitro means outside the organic body. Hence, IVF means the fertilization of a human egg outside the body. This method is used to make test tube babies like you’d seen in Star Wars – The Clone Wars. The test tube contains a nutrient-rich medium for the baby to grow in time.

Another method is that you have visit your local hospital to get yourself a surrogate mother where you need to transfer your spermatozoa and your wife’s oogonia to the surrogate mother’s uterus. The surrogate mother then becomes pregnant and the fetus develops in her uterus until birth.

~One Year Later~

Ishime’s eyes smiled as Dai pulled his tiny mask tight, rescuing it once again from complete collapse.  His uncle had welcomed little Dai into his home with quiet eagerness.

Ishime was Jiro’s elder brother and all of his children had grown up and embarked on their own lives.  He secretly yearned for the chance to train another young scout and pass on his wisdom, but not too much, of course.  His wife Elishiel, though busy with Alanna,  was equally happy to have another child’s presence in their home once again.

Ishime was not unlike his brother in his choice of masks.  He wore a full mask that reflected the idealized face of a wise man.  It was a subtle elegant creation.  The rosewood complexion strikingly offset by the snow white beard which he claimed was fashioned from the hair of a powerful Balaur he helped slay.  Ishime was always a good story teller, though.  One could rarely separate fact from fiction from his words alone.

Elishiel’s mask was a distinct complement to his.  She wore a porcelain mask in the fashion of a dancer’s face.  Bone white except for the brilliant, bright red lips which parted ever so slightly to allow her whisper soft words to travel freely.

Years passed swiftly.  Ishime instructed Dai in the subtle ways of shadow.  He learned of many things that he had come to know many other scouts did not.

“Why do you learn these things Dai?  Is it to offset weakness?”

“No, uncle.  It is a responsibility others are too weak to bear.”

Dai tried but failed to acquire his uncle’s taste for eating live scorpions, but he did not fail to see the wisdom.

“Dai, why do I eat the scorpions?”

“Because you can Uncle.”

“Yes, but more so to demonstrate that I can.”

After a long day of training in the woods and along the lake, Dai and Ishime stopped to rest.  The lazy, warm day drew any desire for consciousness from them and soon Dai was asleep.  He awoke to find a scorpion crawling up Ishime’s chest toward his throat.  With speed that surprised himself, he snatched the scorpion away and crushed it.

Ishime startled him with the words of a fully conscious man, “What have you done Dai?”

“I have killed a scorpion that was intent on killing you Uncle.”

“Brave little Scorpion.”

“To whom do you speak Uncle?”

Ishime’s eyes smiled as he looked at his nephew, “Ah, Dai, you see the duality.  Let us discuss that.  The scorpion, tiny and weak, ascends upon it’s daunting prey, armed with the weapons to kill.  It does not wander about looking for other prey, afraid of the consequences.  He is brave to assault me and you are brave to stop him.  Yet he is not brave, for he
does not do this out of a thoughtful disregard for the danger.  What does he embody?”

“Be loyal to your nature, Uncle?”

“Yes, my brave little Scorpion, but he is still just an insect, he does not comprehend his fellow scorpion.  It is not in his . . . nature.  First and foremost be loyal to those who are loyal to you.  You struck down a scorpion to save a Scorpion, may you always be so keen in your choice of which one to strike down.  Not all scorpions are Scorpions, little Dai.  But realize this, you still killed a scorpion when both could have lived.  You have a grateful uncle and a dead insect, when you might have had a grateful uncle and a deadly tool.”

“I was wrong Uncle?”

“There is no answer just as there is no question, Dai.  Left alive, it may have sought out your throat next, you could not be sure.  The ultimate lesson is loyalty.  How you define loyalty is how you define your soul, brave little Scorpion.  Be sure your actions are one with your convictions, lest doubt distract you long enough for your scorpion’s stinger to strike you.”

“Yes uncle,” answered Dai, unconvincingly.

Ishime tossed his hair and laughed, “Come Dai, enough philosophy, it’s time I showed you how to do that magic trick as I promised.”

Dai’s eagerness betrayed his mature demeanor as he eagerly followed his uncle.

In case you didn’t know, Andy Warhol’s roots can be traced back to Eastern Slovakia’s village of Mikovሠ(at that time part of Austro-Hungarian Empire). Although Andy Warhol was born already in Pittsburgh, Pensylvania, his parents were Ruthenian immigrants from this small village in today’s Slovakia. Andy Warhol’s two younger brothers – John and Paul – were born in Slovakia.

To remember Andy Warhol’s Slovak origins, The Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art was opened in the Slovak town of Medzilaborce on September 1, 1991 primarily on the initiative of Andy Warhol’s brother John. It was the first Andy Warhol’s museum in the world and at that time (and it might be still true today) it was the only museum of its kind in Europe.

The Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art (www.andywarhol.sk)

The Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art in Medzilaborce consists of three permanent expositions of Andy Warhol’s works and precious artefacts about his origins (acquired or borrowed from his relatives and acquaintances). To see pictures from the museum, click hereˆ.

Should you need accommodation in the vicinity, search for Medzilaborce at Booking.comˆ.

Further reading:

• The Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art Medzilaborceˆ
• The Andy Warhol Societyˆ
• Andy Warhol (Wikipedia)ˆ

Thank you to Theresa and Victoria!

Those two lovely gals decided to feature Unknow Blood back in September over at Marked By the Boys, and that in and of itself was such a wonderful surprise.

But now they have decided to feature Signs of Change, which really shocked me and it was incredible to see. What a surprise!

Considering it’s still not done, it made it an even bigger surprise and is the self-confidence booster I think I needed for the story.

So again, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Quite the rough jewel. If it is a jewel at all. Lots of glitches. INdeed. Maybe the useful ones come next.

I find it strangely suiting that this one has almost similar weapon stance glitch Silent Hill 1 does. It is a closely knit prequel after all… the same spirit (or attempt at it, at least).

EDIT: I’m on new game+ now, enjoying the benefits of cutscene break-outs.