Ray tells me that "My version of Christianity was concerned with the (gasp) teachings of Christ and how he was conceived wasn't really a teaching of Christ." Good deal. I like that version of Christianity a bit more than mine.

Personally, I think Bill and Ted summed up the teachings of Christ rather well. "Be excellent to each other."

-Brian : 11:34 PM

Driving home from work just now I came across a car with a bumper sticker touting the "Immaculate Conception School" located here in the town I live in. Now, I'd never even thought much about the phrase "Immaculate Conception" before. (For those not so burdened, the Immaculate Conception was theoretically the route by which Jesus Christ was conceived.) However, when I thought about it in the car just now, I realized that what they're basically saying is that Jesus was conceived without his mother ever having sex, and that makes it immaculate? As in, clean? As in it would have been a "dirty" conception had sex been involved?

Bah. Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't evil, sex isn't wrong. Sex is something beautiful that can be shared between two people who love each other. It's also a damn good time. It makes for a fun Friday night.

I'm sick and tired of religion taking things that are beautiful and making them dirty. Fuck that shit. I can't believe I'm a Catholic.

My, I'm persnickety today.

(Hmm. On a side note, here's something else I haven't thought about. Do other Christian religions that are more lax on the "sex is evil" policy still call it the Immaculate Conception? I don't even know. I'll have to look it up.)

-Brian : 3:46 PM

Eh, I was going to try to write something deep and meaningful tonight, but when I got home from my hockey game, I was soon greeted by Bobbi, Matt's fiancée. (Matt of bass player in Angstrom and all 'round good guy with forkin' big hair fame) Anyhow, Bobbi had accidentally locked herself out of their apartment when she went to check out Salem, MA with her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend. Matt was off geeking it up in Cambridge, and their balcony window is locked, so she hung out here for a while till Matt got back to town.

As a result, it's really late, and I'm going to bed, and not writing anything. Screw you all, my sleep is more important. :-P

I'd have just written something boring about how I really like how my current band is going, and I'm having a good week, blah, blah, blah. No one wants to hear that, anyway. Y'all want the train wreck.

I ran into a girl around my age at the comic book store today. I should have proposed.

For those interested, blogger's spellchecker is still not working.

Goodnight.

-Brian : 12:48 AM

The blogger spellchecker has been "down for maintenance" the entire time that I've known about it's existence. Now, since I'm not paying for this blogger thing, I'm not really complaining much. However, exactly how much maintenance could this thing possibly need? Did they set it up with too few letters of the alphabet or something?

"Shit! We left out 'Q!!!' We've got to go back and add that fucker into all those damn words! No wonder that stuff all looked strange..."

...that spellchecker would come in handy when I try to spell things like 'maintenance.' I was all about spelling that one 'maintenence' until I went into MS Word to check. Thank god the GRE doesn't test spelling...

-Brian : 11:46 PM

Quote of the day: "Ray is going to pickle me" - Chris

Chris, Ray's roommate, and I have been chatting more lately. This pleases me a great deal. He's a fun guy to chat with, funny as hell, and wears cute sweaters. He's also replaced me, to some degree, as the guy Ray will move to Vermont with if he ends up past a certain age unmarried. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. :)

-Brian : 11:41 PM

I'm seriously thinking about going back to school. There's a program through Raytheon that will allow me to do this for about a year and a half for a masters program. They foot the bill, they give me some cash so I can keep feeding myself and pay my rent, and when I'm done I have to stay with them for another couple of years. There are pluses and minuses, to be sure, but I kind of like the program. I have to be accepted to both the Raytheon program and (of course) a graduate program. So, on my list of things to do sometime soon is take the GRE. It's time to start learning new vocabulary words.

I'm fairly certain I'd like to stay in this area if I pull this off. I'm thinking of applying to Boston U., WPI, and Northeastern. I may apply to some schools nowhere near here, in case I decide I'd like to jump ship for a year or so. I don't see that happening, though. I like it here, I like the friends I have here, I like being close to LI, and I don't really want to move out of my apartment.

As for what I'd study, I'd likely want to study high level software system design. Object Oriented modeling and the like. I kind of like that stuff. It's funny...I went out of my way to move away from theoretical mathematics because it was getting too abstract for my taste, and now I'm looking to move to something that is more abstract than what I'm doing now.

Heh...that's so very like my personality, too. I'm the kind of guy who hangs a picture, moves it slightly right, then slightly left, etc, until I get it just right.

I watched a well done movie this evening. It's called Hilary and Jackie, and is the story of the sisters du Pre. It's based on a true story. Jacqueline du Pre was a world renowned cellist whose life and career was cut short by MS. Her sister was also musically gifted, but chose another path. It's basically a story of how those paths intertwined throughout Jackie's lifetime, and the struggles she had dealing with her stardom, and later, her illness. Emily Watson is brilliant as Jackie du Pre, and has now really gotten my attention as being a wonderful actress. In addition to this film, I've seen her in Breaking the Waves, which was an incredible movie, and The Luzhin Defence, where she was one of the bright spots in a decent movie. I'll likely soon rent Angela's Ashes, as that also stars Watson. Once again, those at home can feel free to note my obsessiveness. :)

But I digress. Hilary and Jackie took me quite by surprise. I didn't really have any particular expectations going into the movie, and was very pleasantly surprised. Not knowing anything about the lives of the du Pre sisters, the film was quite moving, indeed. I recommend it.

I also watched Dead Man Walking the other day, and I'm now convinced that the Penn family simply got more than their fair share of the talent. Michael Penn is a wonderful musician, and his brother Sean is a wonderful acting talent. If yer bored, that's another movie that's certainly worth your time.

Band rehearsal tomorrow. Woo hoo!

-Brian : 11:32 PM

Heh. I found this on some page whose author evidently found it on Nanette's page. Entertain yourself, yo. How to Dress Emo.

-Brian : 12:13 AM

Okay, because it needs to be done... Brian's Top Ten Episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series.

I'd do the High Fidelity top five here, but a mere five just isn't going to cut it. So, you all get ten. Also, feel free to compare and contrast with Ray who will likely be posting one of these also. If you like fun Sci-Fi, and you haven't seen these episodes, you owe it to yourself to check this shiznit out. They're as cool as Gonads and Strife, which as we all know, is pretty farging cool.

10. Mirror, Mirror

In this episode, they set up an alternate universe with an evil Federation that would later spawn a multitude of entertaining episodes of ST: Deep Space Nine, as well as a not altogether terrible series of books by William "Chairman Kaga" Shatner. The episode itself, more importantly, is also a lot of fun.

9. A Taste of Armageddon

This episode is fascinating. The Enterprise ends up on a planet that simulates war by computer, and then forces their civilians to go to death booths, where they're put out of their non-misery. It's somewhat chilling, and the episode brings up all sorts of interesting issues, if you're in the mood to think about stuff.

8. The Enterprise Incident

Romulans!

7. Devil in the Dark

"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer" - McCoy
"I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day." - McCoy
This is just a fun little episode. I dig the Horta. Horta rock. Get down. Oh, yeah.

6. A Piece of the Action

Kirk and Spock in the mob! Wonderfully ham fisted acting by Shatner.

5. Balance of Terror

Romulans, Romulans, Romulans! (Neat trivia note...commander of the Romulan vessel is played by the same actor, Mark Lenard, that later plays Spock's father.)

4. The Deadly Years

Kirk and the landing party are infected with a disease that causes rapid aging. Shockingly enough, Kirk still wears the toupee, even when aged to be 126. Other than that, the episode is great.

3. The Doomsday Machine

The idea for this episode would have made a great movie. Instead we get this kick ass episode, which is fine with me. The music is wonderful. The plot is wonderful. The special effects are cheezy and great. The design of the bad-ass planet killer is awesome. The acting is shakesperian in grandeur. Bonus points for having an insane high ranking federation official around. They're always fun when they turn up. Well worth your time.

2. Space Seed

Three words: Ricardo Fucking Montalban. In this episode Montalban invented the single greatest villian Kirk ever faced. Indeed, the single greatest villian in all of the Star Trek universe. Other folks may have written his character, but Montalban invented him. ...and he did it in an episode that is rich in it's depth. So much so that the episode was later used as the set up for the finest of the Star Trek film franchise, The Wrath of Khan.

1. City on the Edge of Forever

In all seriousness, this is a touching, masterpiece of an episode. The plot and acting are what make this story go 'round. McCoy puts on a show in the beginning of the episode when he gets hyped up on drugs by accident. Bonus points for having a giant talking rock...that must have been fun to watch when on LSD. It's the cream of the crop.

Yay! I'm a geek! :)

-Brian : 12:08 AM