Ok, a new picture….

What is the lesson to be learned from it?  Never, EVER play with Nickolodeon Gak that you just found in your closet that has undoubtedly been sitting there for at LEAST 5 years.  Apparently Gak, after sitting unused for several years, develops some very interesting and different properties then what one wouldn’t typically think of gak as having.

What are these properties?  Well, for one, it is very very….  liquidy I guess.  not to the point of actually BEING liquid… but…  it is no longer thick enough to make the enjoyable sounds that Gak is supposed to make.  It also apparently is very very sticky, and dyes your hands the Gak’s respective color… in this case, black.  However, I am not entirely certain on that.  Theory number 2 is that it causes you to instantaneously contract leprosy of the hands.  If I am missing any fingers by this afternoon, I will have a friend type an update for you.

Otherwise, I will finally write about my trip later today if I decide to not be a slacker anymore.

home now.  update coming.

[EDIT: yeah, i’m a slacker and still haven’t gotten around to updating this page.  oh well 😉  On another subject, neither Aaron the marine nor myself are homosexual, he just gets a little confused and hallucinates sometimes.]

Out of here till sunday.  Hope you all have a most excellent weekend.

Godspeed.

-Jason

I hate shows like American Idol.  It shows how stupid and fake America is.  The prize is someone “becomes” a star.  riiiiiiight.  give Hollywood an attractive person, and they can make them the next big thing for no other reason then because people are weakminded and listen to and like and do as they are told.

Ok, so I had some other lyrics here but.. I took them down.  I am in the process of trying to figure out the lyrics of the new Zao cd “A Parade of Chaos” as best I can.  Note to anyone who doesn’t know: It can be VERY hard to pick up on what Dan is screaming 😉  So, I am not 100% sure on these lyrics I’m about to post, and there’s one little part I can’t make at all… but I actually have a reason for posting them.

Anyone familiar with Zao is familiar with the song Free the Three.  It is the song where “Zao gets political”.  Therefore, I think it is a good song for discussion, so, read the following lyrics, then read what I have written below them. (Note: To understand what the song is about, just read the part under “(voiceover)”).

“You failed to do your job
Superstitions coverup
They’ll pay because of your mistakes
They’ll pay because of your mistakes

You lied you lied you ????
You failed you failed you failed everything (2x)

Superstition of your own children
Blinded vision, false ambition

(voiceover)
“May 5th, 1993: Three 8 year old boys disappeared from a West Memphis, Arkansas neighborhood
The next day at 1:45 p.m., their bodies were found in a creek.
The police having had no previous experience in this type of murder
Trampled the site destroying many important artifacts
There was very little effort to preserve the documents
They were inadequately trained.
Even a man was seen smoking a cigarette on the crime scene.
The police decided that the triple homicide was performed by a Satanic cult.
The three questioned and arrested were Damion, Jesse, and Jason.
Put under by the superstitions of foolish policework
and the inadequacy of their investigation.”

can you show me how they’re guilty? (2x)
you liars
you kill us

you failed your superstition
blame it on your own children
with your false ambitions
and your blinded vision

free the three (2x)”

-“Free the Three,” by Zao

Not the happiest of topics, I know, but the song has me thinking about it and all now…  I will give my opinion on it later, I want to know what you all think.  Discuss.

I hate looking for jobs.  Dumb stuff like this happens: The place I applied at like the first week I was home calls me today and leaves a message saying they want me to come in for an interview.  I’m like, ok, cool, so maybe I’ll actually have a job.  I call them.  I tell them who I am and that I’m calling to schedule an interview.  The first thing they tell me as soon as they know who I am?  “oh, umm… i’m not sure if we want you to come in for an interview anymore”…. ……  …….  MAKE SURE YOU WANT ME TO COME IN FOR AN INTERVIEW BEFORE YOU CALL ME AND TELL ME YOU WANT ME TO…..   yes, I really screamed that at her. she broke down in tears.  I said I’m sorry, and hung up.  I called her back up 5 minutes later and said I changed my mind and I wasn’t sorry, just to spite her.  (disclaimer: previous text may contain some blatant lies).  But yeah, they asked me how long i was going to be here and i told them till the end of august, and they’re like, oh, so just summer then?  we want permanent…  So they’re retarded, because I remember going there and I remember them KNOWING that I am only here for the summer.  blah.

Anyway, I just thought I would complain about that.

Ok, so this is probably theologically speaking the biggest debate in the church today…. someone brought it up recently and I just happened upon something about it and so I decided to sit and think and come up with an opinion on it.  If you want to see what my source on the info is, go to http://home.earthlink.net/~andrepar/compare.htm.

Ok, so the issue is Arminianism vs. Calvinism.  Simply put, Arminianism is the belief that any person can choose to be saved, Calvinism states that right now it is already predestined whether or not each individual will be saved.  There are those that will be saved no matter what, and there are others that cannot and will not ever be saved.

I will be perfectly honest with you and say that I am predisposed to Arminianism, because it is what I was originally taught, and what I have always believed.  However, I have heard very good arguments both ways in the past.

The reason why I still feel that Arminianism still makes more sense is because Calvinism relies on one thing:  Man’s TOTAL and COMPLETE depravity.  I do not believe that that is the case.  Certainly, man is in a pretty depraved state, what with sin and all, but Calvinism says that man is incapable of ever choosing good over evil.  I really do not believe that to be true.  I have seen unsaved people do incredibly good things.  I have read of unsaved people doing great and good and selfless acts.  If they are capable of choosing good there, I think they are certainly capable of choosing good in the case of choosing God.  You can argue that God is different because choosing Him is a spiritual matter, but I think that when it comes down to it life in general is a spiritual matter.  You can’t seperate the spiritual aspect from the physical.

One of the arguments for Calvinism is all the times in the bible where it says that God knows who will be saved, etc, etc.  Yeah, God knows, I agree with that.  The question is: does he just KNOW that they will be?  Or does he DETERMINE whether or not they will?  God refers to his chosen a lot throughout the bible as well.  But who says that his chosen have to  be exclusive?  I think that in a sense, God’s choosing is universal.  It says in the bible that he desires for ALL to be saved.  If man is capable of choosing God, then God will certainly choose them upon their doing so.

This “chosen” and “elect” thing is what I really dislike about calvinism.  It simply doesn’t make sense with a just God.  It is NOT just for him to say “ok, these people are going to be saved for no particular reason other then i decided i wanted to save them, and everyone else is going straight to hell, nothing they can do about it.”  Unless of course “the elect” are claiming that there is something special and greater about them then everyone else which makes them worthy of being chosen.  And that kind of defeats the whole point of Christianity.

So really another thing being argued here is free will.  Calvinism says you can’t resist the spirit, arminianism says you can.  You can choose to do good, or you can choose to do evil.  Free will is the defining attribute of humanity.  It is what sets us apart from the rest of creation.  The Bible fully supports that.  I do not see how someone could believe in free will and still believe in calvinism.  The two do not work together.

The final point is whether or not one can lose salvation.  Is your salvation, once you have it, secure?  It certainly is secure.  I do not believe you can ever “lose” your salvation in Christ.  But hold on, I do not fully agree with Calvinism here.  While you cannot lose it, I do think that you can “abandon” it.  You can conciously choose, as a result of your free will, not to serve God anymore… to not want to have anything to do with him.  No, you will never accidentally lose salvation, don’t sit around fretting that you might go to hell because you committed this sin and maybe God hasn’t forgiven you for it yet…  or won’t ever.  He has.  Salvation is only lost when one chooses to lose it.

But, you know, that’s all just my opinion.

Ok, I just read an incredible, incredible interview… and anyone in the least bit familiar with Zao needs to read it.  Especially if you, like me, had never heard of Zao back when Shawn Jonas was in the band… and as a result never really got to see what their line-up was like pre-Blood and Fire.  Anyway, it is an interview with Jonas and it is really really good.

Oh yeah, and Jonas is starting up a new band called Symphony in Peril.  Sounds like it might be pretty cool stuff.

The whole interview can be found at http://www.hxc.com/interviews/index.php?view=details&id=5, but here is an exerpt:

“When you look back on your time with ZAO, is their one memory that stands out the most?

I guess it would be, there’s one thing that really stands out, and it was just the truest state of ZAO, and it was just we were playing a show in Sacramento, CA. The show was with Strongarm, Focal Point, Training For Utopia, and ZAO, and before the show started I remember that I went off by myself and I prayed, and I did that before every show, I always tried to get off and pray and seek God’s face before the show, and I went out and I remember Jesse, Roy, myself, Kevin, and Ron were all just standing there, and Jesse said, ‘Guys, let’s play this show for God tonight. Let’s not care about the crowd. Let’s not think about the crowd. Let’s play for God tonight.’ And I remember, we played that show like men possessed by something, and it was just incredible. We played the best show in our life. And when the show ended, when the last note was heard, I remember that we sang the lyrics, ‘There’s no other way to explain for what He has done for me / He gave me such a holy way / such a way that I would die for it.’ You know, we sang it, and the whole crowd was singing it right with us. I mean, it was just blaring in the place. And the only member in ZAO that was standing – Jesse was already out on the floor, he was just like crying, Ron was crying, Kevin was crying – and Roy was the only person in the whole entire place – the whole crowd was laying on its face, just crying – and Roy was the only person standing in that room, playing the guitar part to that part of the song, and I remember kids were just so . . . it was like a church service or something. The kids were just so touched by God, and I remember that after the show there was just such unity, and there was such love for one another in all of the members of the band, and I feel that was the truest sense of the way ZAO was when I was in the band. And I will never forget those time. That moment in time was one of the most life-changing things, up to that time in my life. I will never forget that, you know, I’ll never forget the guys in ZAO, I’ll never forget what we did in the music industry, I’ll never forget the type of music that we produced, and, you know, beyond our recordings, there was nothing like our live show, because we just poured out our hearts. And that’s what I’ll never forget. That’s the truest memory of ZAO, just us in love with God, and playing our music that we were wanting to help change people’s view of God. We didn’t want to shove God down anyone’s throat. We wanted people to have an encounter with Christ through the outlet of music.”

I want a live recording of that concert 😉

“Think contraband.
Plastic objects, are you breathing?
Fishing for men
With artificial lures.
Supply and demand.
Fake women look for real men.
But I think again, situation looks dim.

Treat them all like objects
And that’s what they’ve become
Oh, selfish eyes.

Search and compare
Why can’t her body match that cover?
There’s nothing there
To satisfy my urge.
Her chest is bare.
Things will work out if she works out.
Looks lead to care.
Will it matter in 50 years?

So what is beauty?
Who says who’s beautiful?
Media filled minds.
So we treat them like objects
And that’s what they become.
Oh, selfish eyes.

Compared with prettier pages.
Imperfect demanding perfect.
Not to court, only for scoring.
Imperfect demanding perfect.”

“Imperfect Demanding Perfect,” by Crash Rickshaw

Ok, so apparently the new Zao cd has been completely leaked now.  About stinking time.  Am downloading it now.  To anyone who would freak out about me downloading mp3s: don’t worry, i’ll buy it when it comes out, I am just horribly impatient.

And I ALSO found out that Brave Saint Saturn’s new cd will be released on Tooth and Nail Records.  I’m not sure whether or not I’m really glad about that.  Many good bands are on Tooth and Nail, but I’ve heard a lot of bad stuff about them… but.. oh well.  I’m still curious as to what luck Five Iron has had getting signed again….  oh well… hopefully they’ll say something about it soon.