Zepfanman.com (Stylesheets Off Version)

Day at the cross

When Jesus said, It is finished, as he died upon the cross, he was was at the bottom of the barrel. I just arrived at my brother and sister-in-law's house after seven hours of driving and I've been thinking about Good Friday. Jesus had done all that he could to bring God to humanity. Thank you, Redeemer, for bringing us all together and showing us how to live! A short word, but one that needs to be said on such a significant day in Christian history. (By the way, I'd really like to see The Passion Recut during this holy weekend.)

Ebla Forum projects

I'd first like to mention the new Biblical Studies Carnival (closing Apr3) in which you might consider participating. This is part of The Ebla Forum community, fast becoming a great resource for those interested in religious and cultural studies. There are several projects going on within this young internet group (started in December 2003 by Joel Ng and Peter Kirby). I discovered the website this December when I was looking for help with a possible Scripture Database. I've dipped my toes in a few of the Ebla projects, but I thought it would make more sense to highlight some of the major areas that make this scholarly set of resources so great!

Star Wars III trailer (March)

Hopefully we won't overrun Rian's bandwidth with this 50 MB avi file, but he's willing. Kottke has wisely linked to some torrent files, although I'm not sure how big those ones are.

Anyway, about the trailer for Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. First of all, let me say that I'm ashamed it aired during The O.C. last night; I guess it's a popular show.

Shorten links with SnipURL or Metamark

Ever get one of those long mapquest links in your email that gets split into multiple lines? This is one of the many reasons to use a short URL service. I'll also use them in linking to hard-to-remember stuff sometimes, like a message board post (snurl.com/jjext). TinyURL.com and SnipURL.com (or snurl.com) are probably the most popular, but there are a lot of alternatives; I'm most impressed with the technology of Metamark, which uses xlr.us, admittedly the hardest to remember, though. PURL.org (Persisten URL) goes even further by allowing you to register and change the redirect when you want (thanks to Foghlú for pointing out PURL).

MT 3.15 and MT-Blacklist 2.04b successful!

While it took me several hours to come to a satisfying stopping point, I was pleased that I did not run into any problems while upgrading my blog software. Most of the changes are behind the scenes, so I'm probably the only one who really cares ;-) However… I do plan on editing this post and including the steps I took to get the job done, which might be helpful to other MT 2.x and MT-Blacklist 1.x users. For now, it's late and I'm ready for some early Tuesday Zs.

MT 3.15 upgrade this week

As soon as I get a chance this week, I'm upgrading to MovableType 3.15. I've read the basic upgrade instructions, but does anyone have any red flags they'd like to point out for me? I've made a lot of modifications to to the 2.661 files that I'm currently running on, so hopefully I won't get snagged anywhere. The main thing that has spurred this on is hope for better spam blocking. I got fed up earlier this week and decided to disable commenting on my site temporarily!

March Words: National Egotism

Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. - Galatians 3:28 CEV. Let me start by saying that I love the country I live in. I also support our troops, and am proud to be an American… but, I also believe that too many people in our nation are ignorant of the dangers of nationalism.

If one is born in the U.S.A., does that mean that they are a better person than someone who is not? From Galatians 3, we learn that that a nation (political entity) does not bind people together. We do, however, have different cultures and social groups throughout our nation, just like any other nation. Every country could be called a melting pot of cultures, but America is more of a melting pot of nations (Iraqis, Israelis, Japanese, and Mexicans can call themselves Americans if they are granted citizenship). With this in mind, I feel like the U.S.A. probably has the least justification for touting it's nation's greatness. The whole is only as great as the sum of its parts, and I think overly patriotic Americans get too caught up in excluding certain parts. With this in mind, why is it that Christians are always saying, God bless America? Why not, God bless the world, or God bless the Iraqi peasants? God wants us to be connected to each other through the Spirit.

I made Your name known to them and will make it known,
so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them,
and that I may be in them.