David Ancell's Virtual Home

Apple, Please Listen to Cnet

  /   Monday, January 25, 2010   /   Comments(0)

I have, in the last three and a half years, become a big fan of my Macintosh computer.  I have both an iMac and a MacBook Pro, and I have found them much better than my old Windows machines because I’ve spent less time having to fix them.  Multitasking works so much better as well.

However, that’s not to say that there isn’t room for improvement.  I’m a long way away from a new MacBook and quite a while away from a new iMac, but I really hope that future Mac updates incorporate Cnet’s requested changes.  The iMac already has the more powerful processors, but the card reader, Blu Ray drive, and especially the HDMI output would be very welcome.  This is especially true since Macs are significantly more expensive than Windows PCs.  My sister got a 64-bit laptop with Blu-ray and HDMI output for less than the price of the least expensive MacBook.

Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Technology


We Have Been Waiting Forever

  /   Friday, January 08, 2010   /   Comment(1)

Despite not getting to blog much, I haven’t lived under a cave when it comes to following what is happening in the Church. With that being said, I just can’t wait for the new translation of the Mass and wish they would implement it right away. The language is just so much better than what we have now.

Unfortunately, I am well aware that not everyone shares my enthusiasm. There’s a campaign going on named What If We Just Said Wait that is gathering signatures on a petition. It makes no sense to me; we have been waiting for years. By the way, you can sign a counter-petition here. The donation is optional; your signature will have been recorded as soon as you leave the petition page.

Truthfully, there probably will be some kind of backlash of varying degrees when this is promulgated. One argument, which I believe to be a very poor one, is that the new translation doesn’t reflect the way we normally speak. My own view on this argument can be found on this post from 2005. And to think, the waiting had been going on for years at the time of this post.

However, the real problem that we are likely to encounter is simply ignorance of what the Mass really is and, for that matter, an ignorance of worship in general. In his last encyclical, Pope John Paul II mentioned that abuses occurred in which the Eucharist is celebrated as though it were merely a “fraternal banquet” (see paragraph 10 in this link).Vatican II called for liturgical instruction (see paragraphs 14 and 19 on this link) to enable the faithful to participate fully in the Mass, but this has never been realized. I have found that it is more difficult to find solid cathechetical material on liturgy than on any other topic. I recommend Jeffrey Pinyan’s Praying the Mass.

Our worship is not a matter of our own expression. It is a response to the command of Christ to “Do this in memory of me.” There is something in particular that we are a part of when we are at Mass. This must be brought forth in the words we use. If we do not convey the proper, accurate meaning to what we are doing, then we are not doing what Christ commanded but are doing something else. Unfortunately, in our world today, the “Dictatorship of Relativism,” spoken by Cardinal Ratzinger not long before he became Pope Benedict XVI, has taken hold of our worship just as it has morality. By providing us with a more literal translation, the Church is helping us to better understand what we are doing. The reason it may be shocking to people is because we never were taught the truth about what we were doing in the first place.

In fact, where is the needed catechesis now? The backlash regarding the new translation could easily be lessened by solid catechesis by people whose hearts and minds are with the Church. I hope we are seeing it soon.

Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized


Where Have I Been (Again)?

  /   Thursday, January 07, 2010   /   Comments(0)

At one time, I was a fairly regular blogger. Now, if there is still anyone left reading, they hardly hear from me anymore. Life is much different for me these days. In most aspects, it has changed for the better by far. More on that later.

Before too much time goes by, I am hoping to rewrite my entire web page and even do some more blogging. Right now, everything is running on an application that I built myself. I probably will not have time to have a site like that again, and any blog that I have is most likely to be a WordPress blog. Whether I can keep my archives up remains to be seen. It’s little matter to me because there are many things that I still believe strongly but would say differently today.

You may know that I got married on August 8, 2009 to a wonderful woman. Because of this, I have moved to North Carolina. Married life is going very well. We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon and have since made other trips. We flew back to my parents’ home in Missouri for Thanksgiving, and we took a big road trip back there for Christmas, including a trip back to Memphis to see my friends there.

My work schedule is something else. I took a third shift job in a hospital to get to this area. I work seven nights in a row and then have the next week off. This means that, for one week, I can do almost nothing but work and sleep. The next week I’m free, but I’m having to readjust to human hours. It has given us lots of travel time, but it’s pretty hard to have every other week as a zombie.

Anyway, hopefully I can be around occasionally. Married life is worth the sacrifice, but I still hope to do something on the site.

Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized


           



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