May 2015 Monthly Entry
Before I go on my midwest trip later today, I'd thought I get my monthly entry up early given how busy I'll be when I'm back home (LOL!). I should quickly mention that I'll be going to the third Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses concert in Vancouver on Friday, May 22. I'll sneak some pictures and let you guys know how it goes.
It's almost feeling like summer now. Most days have been sunny and beautiful though earlier in the month we had a little rain (pic below was over 10 minutes of heavy rain and hail that then just disappeared and sun came out about an hour later). At work, the common areas sans the stairwells have all been repainted and it certainly looks cleaner after around 4 years since the last time. The painters did a good job on filling in the scratches on the walls and painting over them. I just hope people will take better care of the freshly painted walls but I know better. They'll still be around quite awhile longer I found.
I forgot to mention a few things in last month's entry...
It's been over a year since I acquired my Windows Phone and a few weeks ago, I got a major OS update that took quite awhile to install. It adds some new features to make it more in line with Android and Apple's phones. It added a few new apps and changed others. For example, the music player is different (I prefer the original to be honest) than before in that it no longer plays videos so they made a separate video player app. Cortana - the Microsoft equivalent of Apple's Siri - has finally been released here in Canada. Plus, if you swipe from the top of the screen down, you get a notifications page and easily access settings. One thing I like is that instead of using a single custom colour of the tiles, you can choose a picture for the home screen and some of the tiles will show it (others cannot and will show the colour instead). Here's a sample:
My only complaint about the upgrade is that it seems to require more power and resources to run. My battery drains a little faster and I notice the new music player app is much slower than the previous version. Strangely, the email app for my Hotmail address is updated more frequently to check for any new emails which is a nice upgrade.
I did nothing for Easter weekend, not even an Easter service at a church! I instead watched a DVD of the debate between Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong on the Resurrection of Jesus that took place at Bethell College in Indiana 10 years ago. You can watch/listen to it here (Part 1 and Part 2).
My niece, Noelle, had her 9th birthday party last month too. I got her a free downloaded copy of Mario Kart 7 for her Nintendo 3DS via my platinum prize from the soon-to-be-defunct Club Nintendo and also the original Sonic the Hedgehog game (3D Classics version) which I bought and downloaded. Before her birthday though, I snuck a copy of the original Kirby's Dream Land on her system as a surprise. She liked her gifts and now she wants me to download more games for her LOL! Ah well, she'll have to wait...
I'm about a third into Season 4 of Star Trek DS9 so likely I'll have it done and reviewed by early next month.
David and I saw Magic in the Moonlight on Netflix. It was an okay romantic comedy. It's about a magician who meets a young woman (played by Emma Stone) who claims she's psychic but he's skeptical and goes out of his way to show she's making it up. Of course, he ends up slowly falling for her.
I haven't started Parasite Eve II yet but will begin sometime after my trip. Not much has been done in Kirby Mass Attack but Suikoden is coming along great.
I'll make a quick mention of the Book of Revelation as a part of the completion of my Bible Reading Project in my previous entry. Revelation is one of the most hotly debated books in the entire Bible. It was written by "John" but it is unknown who this John is though tradition has it that it's the same John who wrote his Gospel. He receives an apocalyptic prophecy and writes it all into a letter to send to seven churches in Asia Minor. These visions have numerous interpretations but the conservative view is that it relates to events that will lead to the end of the world, the Second Coming of Christ, the final defeat of evil and suffering, and the blessed eternity of the faithful who will be in the continuous presence of the Lord. An increasingly popular view (called Preterism) holds that some of the prophecies have actually taken place around the destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD and the eventual fall of the Roman Empire. Revelation is where we get a lot of references that have become a part of pop culture: the use of 666, the "Mark of the Beast", the Rapture (the itself word is not used in the Bible), the "Great White Throne Judgment" (also called "Bema Seat"), etc. There can be a lot to comment on but I'll close that the end of the Bible promises that Jesus will return and establish his Kingdom forever.
Last Movie: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies 3D (Theatrical), Magic in the Moonlight (Netflix)
Last Book: KJV Holy Bible - Revelation
Last Game: Parasite Eve (PSone)
Current Book: The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Mere Christianity
Current Games: Parasite Eve II (PSN - PSone) & Kirby Mass Attack (DS) & Suikoden (PSone)