Bag of bones

 I think sometimes a book can parallel your life, and give you ironic hints about future events. Sometimes I edit a novel and find certain similar circumstances happening to me in real life. Not the whole story, just parts. It's like the Stephen king novel, bag of bones, where his manuscript is haunted and gives him hints about a ghost. I think that's a mark of great writing, though not necessarily the type that gets published. 

Now that I think about it, it's not just an issue of "prophecy," sometimes your writing can speak to you, tell your future self good advice you didn't expect. That's good writing.

Magic words

 I used to hold to an irrational belief that everything I wrote in a completed novel was magic, and I couldn't change a word of it or jinx myself out of getting published. That's probably why I never got published. I spent a huge amount of time picking alternate sentences for a story, and archiving all its possible iterations, in hopes of striking that magical collection of words that make up a bestseller. 

Now, as I edit my first novel for the, (I don't know, fiftieth time? ) I have come to the realization that I should have focused on just making a book that doesn't sound stupid, and isn't loaded with filler words.

Exodus

 I saw a program on how a lake in Africa turned orange due to a volcano blowing carbon dioxide into a body of water that doesn't circulate enough to disperse the CO2. It killed the livestock.

I have studied textbooks on the Bible enough to understand that God can sometimes use natural phenomena to accomplish a miracle. The manna in the wilderness, for example, was theorized to be excretion from a certain type of insect.

Regardless of whether the Nile turning red was due to a volcano or something else, the timing is miraculous, and it figures in to the part about Egyptian sorcerers being able to mimic the event.

Moses being able to capitalize on such a weird natural phenomenon that even modern Africans couldn't figure out, that's miraculous. Moses wasn't a scientist, but the phenomenon helped the people of Israel to escape from slavery.

I've frequently found that God seems to work through natural events. He created the laws of physics and such, so taking advantage of what He made is probably convenient for Him, although it makes it hard to scientifically prove His existence. Still, you can't disprove His existence, so take it as you can take it.

How film has changed

 Prior to the year 2000, if a movie starred a girl and a gay guy, it was pretty much an absolute guarantee that there would be no pornographic content whatsoever. Nowadays, though, you can never be sure.

Surfing on a dinosaur

 I still use an XP computer to get online. I like it because my XP is my fastest computer, unlike my HP windows 7. 

My windows 7 computer is balanced on top of a dresser. The keyboard is awkwardly positioned on top, the mouse inconvenient. It's in a room that's freezing in the winter. Needless to say, I don't like using it much, except with things I can't do with XP, like video editing. Unfortunately, I seem to be forced to use it more and more these days.

I don't like how the new models look. I don't want windows 10 where everything looks like a phone. I do all my art and writing on XP, I like the speed and how it handles my drawing stylus (on 7 it lags) but slowly things are being phased out, one after another.

I can no longer get windows updates or update the scripts on XP. They said my computer is too old. I can't remember if it's flash or java or something else, but they don't want to help XP with it.

Mail.com is requiring that I disable tracking protection. Okcupid always made me disable it. Recently, fanfiction.net is doing the same thing, but a lot worse. It will tell me that it's checking my browser and to wait five seconds, forever. Explorer is pretty much dead for the task, and now I see Firefox is no better. They changed how you handle tracking protection on Firefox so it's done automatically, and fanfiction's server doesn't like it half the time. Today I had to use a windows 7 computer to get in. Of course, I didn't try chrome. I think that might buy my XP a little more time.

I want to use the renpy program and the point and ags studio, but both those things don't work on XP anymore.

Facebook is still kinda working, but with XP a lot of stuff looks bad, and it gets sluggish due to all those flashy features designed for more advanced browsers.

City union mission's donation receipt page comes up blank in Firefox when I'm using XP. The only way I can tell that the charge went through is because there's a box I can click.

My church has a donation page, and I can't even use it with this particular browser and os. 

My bank doesn't accept chrome or Firefox on XP anymore. It used to let me go ahead and get a security code, but now it just gives me a warning message saying that an extra layer of security is required and refuses to move to the security code page.

I'll add more to this when I encounter further problems.

The blandishments of the world

I've had a few heartbreaking disappointments in my life. As a kid, I tried to get into Nintendo, and do comics for Boy's Life, but received rejection letters.

I got an art degree from UMKC, but it didn't give me an art job. I got a prepress certificate, but I only worked in the field a few months before getting let go and never finding work there again.

When Avatar came out, though, I lost all the joy in my life. 

I'd spent years working on a novel that contained a similar concept, and here's a movie that stole my thunder, making me look like I got the whole idea for the novel from watching the movie.

I was utterly crushed. I decided that I wasn't cut out for the entertainment field, and I should get a real job.

It turns out God was protecting me this whole time, by making me blind to the flaws in my novel, making me give up when I incorrectly assumed James Cameron stole my idea, making me afraid of being called unoriginal.

Why is this protection? Because God knew that if I became famous, I would be like everyone else, making stuff that pleases man, but doesn't please God.

If I had become famous, I would have had to cater to the whims of the gay and lesbian community, like every movie and TV show on the market today. 

Even if I got a job in the art field, like graphic design, I would have had to please gay people. I'd have to tell them their lifestyle is okay and even advertise it.

I don't hate gay people. I care for them, but I also care for serial killers and the people who break into my apartment. Am I just supposed to accept what criminals do as okay when they do something wrong? I hope you said no. Why then do I have to accept the sinful practices of gays? 

What the LGBT people are saying online is equivalent to this:

 "I commit fraud on people's bank accounts. I can't help it. You should accept my thieving ways, and if you don't, you're not a true Christian." 

This is why I am not in the entertainment or art industry. I would have to please everyone at the expense of my morals, or lose my job. God has kept me out of this to protect my soul.

I'm glad I have a job where it doesn't matter what people think of me.

Woke television

 I used to be bothered by the "woke" trend in the media, but now that I think about it, television might not have been so crappy for so long if we had more black people in the industry, back in the fifties onward.

I really wish I could have had a black tv show to watch instead of The Monkees, Gilligan's island, Dick Van Dyke and The Honeymooners. 

Although those shows have their moments, I've seen some of those episodes so many times that I want my time refunded, and a lot of them aren't even funny. The world would be better off without the existence of the "Hamlet the musical" episode of Gilligan, or that racist one about the Japanese sailor.

Understand me clearly: I don't want a black version of these "classic" shows. I want to have black people go back in time and come up with something that isn't crappy, to replace those shows. I would have loved to see a black science fiction program instead of enduring the Brady bunch.

For that matter, being more inclusive would have worked, too. 

Mayberry is a monochromatic world, in more ways than one. Putting African Americans in the story would have prevented it from being the most boring sitcom of all time.

  Again please note that I don't mean merely putting them in the cast. I'm sure there's at least one token already, and I'm sick of remakes. What I'd like to see is an honest picture of where black people belong in this wholesome Caucasian dominated universe. If Andy's such a good guy, we could see him maybe resolving a race conflict between the black character and the family of Ernest T Bass. The show was always a bit seriocomic anyway.