Ever since reading in Matthew 6 that you cannot serve both God and Money, I’ve been uncomfortably trying to let go of my desire for things (electronic things usually high on that list), money, etc. It’s something that we see everywhere, and it’s preached as the most natural, “right” thing to do: worry about how much money you’ll have at retirement. Buy a new car. And a new truck. And a new SUV (which, of course, has to be a Lexus). Just today I saw that Best Buy Ad: “I commit to…[having the nicest stuff]“

It’s really pathetic, actually. Whatever happened to committing your life to Christ? Denying yourself?!? The first and foremost concerns that the world teaches us to look out for are ourselves (gotta have things, gotta have prestige, gotta have money) and our futures. Those are the last things Christ commands us to worry about. (Actually, he tells us not to worry about them at all). Now, yes, we should be shrewd and faithful with what we’ve been entrusted with, but our concern should be on glorifying God, and on spreading the good news of Christ.

The saddest thing, perhaps, is just how much money this country spends trying to convince ourselves that we haven’t yet arrived, that there’s still one more thing we need to buy. And if you can’t afford it, just write yourself a check that creates an instant loan on your credit card (for an immediate fee of 3%, plus interest).

And then you go to church and the preacher tells you that this is what God wants for you, and if you’re not successful monetarily, you need to pray more and have more faith and not burden yourself with negativity.

(Now watch as I dutifully paste in my AdWords links…)

Booyeah.

Um, ok, so I opened up the Jahshaka video editing module today. I don’t get it.

Need I say more? I’ve lost all most of my interest in the program. Downloaded a free 30 day trial of Adobe Premiere 2.0. (Which is sweet).

Open Source is great. It’s too bad that people don’t make money off it somehow. Because it usually sucks pretty bad in at least one way. Even the good stuff (OpenOffice) has bugs that make Microsoft look like premium software.

Take for instance FileZilla. It’s great in almost every way, but recently has just been dropping stuff like it’s going out of style. How hard can FTP be? (Especially considering you can run FTP connections from a command prompt with about 0 knowledge or experience)

Gimp is great, except that I can’t figure out how to use the dang program efficiently. Normally, I just teach myself how to do stuff, but it’s impossible to get any advice/help about open source stuff, because the only people who know how to use it right wrote the code and speak only geek. (I’m not quite fluent)

I guess the obvious solution is to just work for a company that buys the expensive software for you.

[sigh]

I got a new 250GB HD from woot a couple days ago, and just yesterday the necessary sata cables to hook it up with. This, of course, means that now I need something to fill the drive up with. Easy enough: I’ve still got raw footage of my wedding sitting around here, begging to be edited.

I’ve been meaning to try out Jahshaka for a while now, because using a “real” program would mean one of two things: either shell out a couple hundred bucks (ouch!) or pirate the software (eh…don’t like doing that). Jahshaka is an Open Source (free!) video editing and compositing tool that has just recently hit version 2.0. Might I say, it’s quite impressive.

OK, so I haven’t actually tried editing any video yet, because I discovered that I forgot to add a FireWire card to my PC back when I built it. Nevertheless, curiosity got the best of me, so I walked through the few tutorials they had on Animation and Effects, and I’m pretty excited about this program. It’s smooth, powerful, and so far pretty easy to use.

Once I get the FireWire card and start the editing process, I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m hopeful, as Jahshaka claims to be powerful enough to even do HD editing.

Jahshaka can be used on a PC, Linux, or a Mac. While it may not be as polished as the super-high-end stuff professionals use, it looks like it should be capable of doing a lot more than you’d ever want it to. Check it out!

…or at least, people do. Today I was thinking about blogging my opinions until I was blue in the face, and then I remembered something I wrote in a previous post:

Proverbs 18:2
“A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.”

On a completely unrelated note, I got my free iPod from Key Bank today. They were doing this thing where if you signed up for a checking account with direct deposit, they’d give you a free 1GB iPod nano. Fortunately for me, Apple stopped making 1GB iPod nanos, so they bought me a 2GB second generation nano. Sometimes, life just isn’t fair like that.

do you ever find yourself wondering I often find myself at a place where I question the behaviors that I’ve always been taught were the “Christian” thing to do. In fact, that prideful, rebellious part inside of me occasionally wants to do things specifically because I’ve been told not to. What does it mean to be “holy”?

Recently, it’s been the subject of alcohol. My parents never touched the stuff (post-conversion to Christianity), but their reasoning was pretty sound: they had seen a lot of alcohol abuse, including family members dying prematurely due to the stuff. They always taught us that drinking alcohol in itself wasn’t a sin, but getting drunk was.

I, in my infinite young wisdom, then began to judge people on a subconscious level. I would never admit it, but it seemed that those who didn’t drink were “better” Christians. Yeah, right.

It’s only recently (last year or two) that I’ve begun to see things in a different light. I learned to love Sangria in Spain, so I started making it infrequently. We’ve got a friend who loves to drink wine/sangria/margaritas/whatever with us. I once had beer and pizza at Bible study. (Everyone was 21+ yrs of age)

Granted, I won’t be bringing beer to church. I won’t be preaching beer in church. And please, if you can’t have a drink without having twelve, you should not be drinking alcohol. But for those who can maintain control over their lives and have a drink, enjoy your freedom when appropriate. Just don’t encourage others who may abuse the stuff.

Alcohol is not a sin in and of itself. The Bible warns us not to get drunk, (Prov 23:21, Rom 13:13, 1 Cor 5:11, 1 Cor 6:10, Eph 5:18, 1 Pet 4:3) but some called Christ himself “a drunkard” because he dared to drink wine, (Luke 7:34) and Paul even told Timothy to drink some wine, (1 Timothy 5:23) so we really need to get off this “alcohol bad, prayer meeting good” kick.

Take a note from Christ. Go and eat with (spend time with, share your lives with) unbelievers, love them, and quit trying to prove how much better you are by not doing things that aren’t really wrong in the first place. Be real. Your “righteous” acts are just filthy rags to our perfectly holy God anyways. (Isaiah 64:6)