Now that it’s been two years since I created this blog, where do I go from here?

Looking back, it’s interesting to see how things played out.  When I first started out in 2006, I blogged under the assumption that I would be eventually be attending law school later that fall.  I thought the name “Habitation of Justice” was a suitable name then, and the blog would have basically been a chronicle of my adventures in law school, as well as my subsequent journey into the legal profession.  Since I was so focused on getting everything in place so I’d be ready in time for school, I rarely posted for the first year.

Eventually though I had to defer my enrollment when my hopes for a scholarship fell through.  The deferment lasted a year, but nothing had really changed by the time it ended, so I had no choice but to withdraw.  I made one more try by attempting to go to school part-time at a local university instead, but eventually those plans fell through as well.

When it seemed like my whole future had collapsed, I eventually became fixated on making money off my blog, and spent the rest of 2007 working towards that end.  I devoured everything I could find about making money online, getting more and more frustrated because most of what I read were actually tips that I had already read off dozens of other sites, so I ended up reading the same fricking material over and over again.  Yet this was an idea I wanted to work so bad because I hated my job, and the allure of being able to live off the Internet was a really strong one.  2007 was all about establishing my blogging identity and doing whatever I could to bring in the traffic I needed so I could turn my blog into a money making machine.

That of course also met with miserable failure.  I had a huge identity crisis to deal with in that I just didn’t know what my blog should be about, and I knew I had to find a niche I was passionate about but still could make good money in.  I dabbled in doing paid reviews and other gimmicks here and there, but nothing really met with success.   All I could do was burn with envy at those who had become wildly successful with their own blogs, and nothing I could do could even remotely come near to their level of success.  The kicker was reading about a 19 year old weenie punk of a teenager who was raking in tens of thousands of dollars a month by running fake review sites containing hidden affiliate links.  They seemed to make money without even trying, and they did it with impunity.

Eventually I just gave up.  2008 began with me resigning myself to the fact that I would never get anywhere in life, much less with my blog.  I had no skills, no talent, nothing I could offer that could make this whole endeavor worthwhile.  The initial hope I had during the beginning of the year quickly dissipated as my health started to deteriorate, and I sunk even lower in despair and loneliness, fearing that I would forever be trapped in a dead end job and a dead end life.

But then somewhere along the way, in the midst of all that self-pity and despair, hope once again began to spring eternal.  The more I thought about law school, the more I began to believe God was doing me a favor.  I was happy enough to accept that such was His will, but what I was NOT happy about was being strung along for over a year when I kept asking and begging for confirmation that I was going down the right path.  Yet when I think about it, maybe it took so long to get an answer because I was meant to learn something in all that, and who knows what kind of chain of events that whole experience set off too, which I may not ever truly realize the depths of until later on in life.  They say sometimes the journey itself is more important than the destination, and I think that wise proverb applies here as well.

I also started to realize that part of the reason I had such an identity crisis was because I was trying to mimic other people’s lives (and subsequently the successes they enjoyed.)  I was trying to fit the square peg that I was into the circle of life, and as long as I continued to do that I’d never be able to move forward.  When I finally began to accept that my life was being defined by a complete different set of standards apart from the world’s own, I started to feel much better.  And my blog at long last began to take coherent shape.  My journal here is ultimately, a personal one, a catalog of both my physical and spiritual journey through life.  And that is probably what it will always be.

It also occurred to me that the driving force of my personality was my humor.  It was both sardonic and sententious, expressing an outright disdain of life’s petty silliness and the world’s stupidity, especially those of Christians who should know better.  Laced in sarcasm and saltiness, my voice was a fire breathing one, crying out in the wilderness that is the Internet, and because of it I would alienate all, and yet somehow, I would also allure all.  My life was nothing else, if not a paradox.  Here the laws of physics come to an end, and the laws that only God can control begin to take hold.

I still dream of a life of self sufficiency, where I no longer have to be tied down to one place, but can travel freely and live freely, (writing about these experiences on my blog of course), and doing those things that never would have been possible had I had a wife, a family, and a house that surely would have kept me chained down with obligations I doubt I could ever fulfill.

That’s why I feel the road calling out to me.  It beckons, with its hidden dangers (as well as hidden promises.)  There may soon come a day when I will don my leather jacket, and ride my Black Stallion to wherever that highway takes me, hoping to find that spiritual and physical dwelling where true justice reigns supreme.

The Habitation of Justice.  

BOOYAH!

It’s time to not only celebrate my blog relaunch, but my two year blogging anniversary!!    And dude, the video totally captures the moment here.  I’m talking a blog wrecked to death, only to come back stronger, sleeker, and totally badass with some badass music cranking in the background and leather jackets and cool black vintage cars cruising the highway and let us go have a throwdown and kick some serious scum of the earth hellbags because baby,  I am back!

Yeah, I’m a little excited here. 

But really, what I just pulled off was a miracle that only God could have given me, and I now have the latest version of WordPress along with a new Who-is-your-DADDY theme that is all kinds of awesomeness. 

I still need to work out a few kinks and decide on a new photo gallery to use, but for all intents and purposes the site is now live, with a sleeker, faster look and a few new bells and whistles I think you’ll all enjoy.   For an idea of what’s new, see the little oval thingie jiggy to the right of each post title?  Go give that a click.

Cool, huh? 

In addition, you’ll now be able to edit comments as well.  I also dropped a few plugins, added a cache system and went with a 2 sidebar look again to reduce clutter.  Yes the ads are still there, but they are no longer as obtrusive as they used to be.  To be honest I got tired of having a larded up ad block embedded inside my posts, partly because I couldn’t quote or post any media content on the fly.  The ad would jam it up and I’d have to manually remove it in order for the post to show cleanly.  Not cool.  But I still need the ads though, since the 50 cents I’m making a day is paying for my newspaper, and I just don’t know how I could live without those two quarters a day, ya know?

As for the dark theme, I’m working on creating a white backdrop just for the posts and comments for easier reading (while still maintaining a dark look), so stay tuned there.  I might have gotten it done sooner but the theme kept overriding my color settings.  Regardless, let me know what you think.

It wasn’t easy though, but I got through it, and now I can finally enjoy the fruits of my labor…. except of course, Google just had to rain on my parade by dropping my pagerank from a 4 to a 3 while I was busy upgrading.    Really Google, why don’t you just suck my ass times a thousand?  Dweebs.

But meh, whatever.  I finally made a leapfrog in upgrading without having to spend a fortune to have a designer do it, my sleek black car will get a nice facelift and wax job by the end of the summer, and in a few more months I’ll be out of debt,  cruising the road and enjoying my new lease on life.  All I’ll need then is a weathered black leather jacket, and my life will truly be complete. 

“Let me just update this one file here….”

Sigh.

I had to go update a plugin last night because of a security hole, but unfortunately that update caused another plugin to break, so I had to go upgrade that plugin as well, which of course caused yet another plugin to break, so I went to upgrade that too, and before I knew it my spam blocker goes down in flames, I can’t preview comments anymore, my images no longer show up, my sidebars suddenly disappears, and then finally my entire blog goes up in smoke, the only thing left in its place being some cryptic error message telling me what an idiot I am and hahaha I suck.

Mother*&^% technology.

Things seem to be ok now, but my goodness, I was up till 4AM last night and had to work through the better part of today before things finally calmed down.

You know what, I think it’s time I gear up for a major revamp. I was gonna just say screw it and have a professional designer do it, but I think it’ll probably be better to set up a test blog closed from the public so I can play around with the latest blogging toys without tearing my hair out and spitting at people, and then when it’s stable enough I can release it for prime time with little fuss. That should also keep me busy enough so I don’t waste my time pining for a girl to love me since that’s never gonna happen because women all suck the ass of a hairy moose and should die in some horrible nuclear explosion bunch of monkey-faced harlot whores they be.

*ahem* Except my beloved womenly readers of course, who are all the very essence of perfection, virtue, and beauty.

See how I suck up to you guys so you’ll continue to love me and read my blog despite my crazy wild women-hating rants? I am so awesome.

I realize my heathen audience just went “Uhhhhhh???” upon reading that title, but every now and then I like to discuss a Christian topic on my blog, so like it or not it’s par for the course.

One of my beloved readers recommended that I give the “worship artist” Jason Upton a listen, hoping his music would inspire.

Listening to his music did in fact inspire me with hope: hope that he never releases another album. I keed, I keed…. ok not really.

In all seriousness, I think Upton means well, though I was kinda hoping he would be the real deal, another Keith Green in the making, yet when I started giving a few of his songs a listen, something just seemed… off.

And here we go again. As soon as my spirit gets disturbed about something I know I’m about to step into a pile of fecal matter and start knocking over sacred cows, but then again, it’s what I do, and dude, I do it oh so well.

On the surface, Upton’s music and lyrics would appear to be alright and God-focused, but quite a few of his songs also seemed vague and cryptic, their meanings hidden in obscurity. I also noted the absence of any overt call to repentance and living a life free of sin, two of the most common themes found not only in Keith Green songs but in most of the Psalms as well. It might not be a big deal, but Upton’s musical words presented a rather incomplete gospel to me. Curiosity compelled me to do some digging into his background, and what I learned (so far) pretty much confirmed my suspicions about him.

Upton’s musical career began with his album “Key of David,” which according to Wikipedia was a series of prophetic worship sessions, over half of which were “spontaneously inspired by the Holy Spirit.”

Right away I knew some Christian dweeb in love with Upton must have written this. How did they know such sessions were inspired by the Holy Spirit to begin with? Did they ask Him? Did they test the spirit as the Bible instructs us to do? Did they compare their experiences to what Scripture teaches to see if it lined up? Or was it all mushy gushy feelings and since we’re all happy shappy dappy here it must be of God? And what makes his worship music prophetic anyway? Are we insinuating that Upton is not only a musician, but a modern day prophet as well? Sigh.

Things just get more bizarre as the same Wiki entry suggests Upton was able to stop a tornado with his music, and that one of his tracks contained the voices of actual angels singing.

Sure, and I’m Mickey Mouse.

I checked out the lyrics to the song that supposedly had this heavenly choir singing in it:

I declare over you, God has given you the air!
So fly, it’s time to open up your wings,
To shake off the things that hold you down (to leave the things…..)
It’s time to spread out your wings and fly!

Do you see what I see?
Do you hear what I hear?
Do you know what I know?
Do you want what I want?

Angel: (”…undiscernible… I want you to fly …undiscernible… Fly….” )

Do you see what I see?
Do you hear what I hear?
Do you know what I know?
Fly!

And of course, someone from the audience later claims to have seen one or more of these angels, so we can now accept without reservation that a brigade of angels from heaven just decided to go on tour with Jason Upton.

Really people, can you stop taking everything at face value here? There’s no doubt in my mind that fans have now used this as unequivocal proof that Upton is anointed of God. “Never mind what the Bible says. We heard angels sing! That’s proof enough for us!”

One of the failings of the charismatic crowd today is that they rely too heavily on emotions and experiences for evidence that a movement is of God, rather than on what Scripture teaches. So they never test the spirits, they never scrutinize their experiences according to God’s word, and of course the net result is that they fall away to heresy.

Is there anything overtly heretical about Jason Upton though, other than the fact that he seems to be an ignoramus? It’s hard to say. Reading his website, I noted what a pastor wrote about his first album, Key of David:

The Key of David is mentioned in Revelation 3:7 to refer to the absolute authority of Heaven in Jesus’ hands to open the doors that no one can shut and to close the doors that no one can open. But the Key of David is first mentioned in Isaiah 22:22, where it denotes a fatherly authority, a pivotal place of opening up the riches of the House of David-God’s blessing, God’s presence, and God’s glory-to God’s people. I believe the Lord is going to use worship like this to birth whole generations into His Kingdom in fire.

The Youth in our churches and campuses are going to catch fire quickly and intensely, and they are going to take back for God what the enemy has stolen-they are going to take back the churches, the universities and campuses, and the cities that we, the older generations in the Church, have longed and prayed for in spite of the fact that we have not yet seen the widespread, reclaiming revival fires from heaven that we have prayed and wept for.

Again with this fire thing. Fires and revivals, they’re all the new rage these days, and yet I wonder if any of them even know what they’re talking about. When God’s fire is referred to in Scripture, it’s always in the sense that it consumes sin. Fire purifies and burns away all that is displeasing to God, and it is without exception, a PAINFUL experience:

1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ…

Faith is always described as a precious metal that’s been purified by fire (trials), so if a Christian grounded in the Word asks for an anointing of fire, he is in essence asking God to purify his faith (regardless of how painful that process might be). Yet from the quote above it seems readily obvious that such fire is being defined in a different context, that it instead signifies some sort of vague mutinous takeover of churches and cities by today’s Christian youth.

The more I read, the more I wondered, “What the blue flipping dip are these people talking about?” Then I read about Upton’s strong association with yet another “Christian” movement called The Call, which was founded by Lou Engle. You can see a video of Upton performing for Engle here (what’s with this weaving and bobbing crap by the way? What are we, Hassidic Jews?)

As for Engle himself, he’s a bit of a weenie, obsessed in raising up an “army” of young believers who can help turn back the “black moral morass” that has plagued America since the Beatles, mostly by doing lots of praying, fasting and worship (and a wee bit of political grassroots action.) Some of his bizarre antics have been shown in the anti-Christian documentary Jesus Camp, where he gives a sermon espousing on the evils of abortion and the need to have conservative judges on the Supreme Court… to KIDS. Seriously. Because you know, nothing is more important than making sure children understand the need for having constructionist judges on the bench by the time they’re ten years old. Chuckie Cheese? Pffft, that’s for godless atheists. We’re doing God’s work here.

In spite of this flaming stupidity, some of Engle’s rhetoric still seemed to ring true. Here’s a synopsis of what his movement “The Call” is supposedly all about:

TheCall is a divinely initiated, multi-racial, multi-generational, and cross-denominational gathering to corporate prayer and fasting. We believe that our nation is in desperate need of the mercy of God and a great Spiritual Awakening. TheCall is committed to mobilizing people from all across America to gather together to petition God for His undeserved mercy for our nation in 12-hour solemn assemblies. Just as in the days of Joel, we believe that now is the time to blow the trumpet across our land, to fast, to pray, and return to the Lord with all our hearts.

Sounds all well and good right? Until you start delving into Engle’s background and you start to realize, “Holy cow, this guy’s batsh*& insane!”

It seems Engle’s ultimate goal is really to take America back for Christians, and this “call” is basically a hyped up, Promise Keepers style movement based on the notion that if we just pray really really really hard enough, magical things will happen (and the U.S. Supreme Court will instantly be filled by 9 ultraconservative judges who all graduated from Regent University and are diehard fans of Jason Upton.)

Not that there’s anything wrong with getting involved in the political process, but Engle’s problem is that he apparently thinks God specifically told him to start this movement, in spite of the fact that there’s no Scriptural support for doing such a thing.

The Bible clearly tells us what constitutes a true revival:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. - 2 Chronicles 7:14

Revivals are a call to individual repentance. It’s not the world God is concerned with in this regard, it’s His people. Any revival movement then should always have this as its primary focus: that we as a Christian community have sinned before God and it’s OUR ways we need to change, not the world’s.

Engle’s movement though is not about that. He makes mild overtures about returning to the Lord and all, but what his movement is really about is changing the socio-political climate of an entire nation. His emphasis is on reforming America, not on reviving the church itself, despite the fact that the Bible clearly indicates things are supposed to get worse, not better, as we move ever closer to the end. He and his followers also don’t seem to realize that before God judges the world, He is going to judge His church FIRST:

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? - 1 Peter 4:17

Knowing this, doesn’t it make more sense that we clean up OUR house first before we start trying to save the world? Unless of course, you’re so absolutely mind bogglingly obtuse that you think the church today isn’t facing any serious problems, in which case I’d like to invite you over to my place so I can stomp your face in with my spiked boot.

The fact is, we don’t need a revival in America. We need a revival IN THE CHURCH. The time will soon come when God is going to judge a completely unprepared Christian church before He does anything with the rest of the world. We’re going to be weighed in the balance, and at the state we’re in today, we are going to be found severely wanting.

We are so screwed.

I’d since tossed in the towel when it comes to online dating, but a thought occurred to me: If I’m giving up, I might as well go out with a bang, right?

And since writing a serious profile that highlighted all my positive traits wasn’t doing dinky squats, I think it’s time I started having a little fun and doing what I do best: pissing the ever living crap out of people.

Here’s a copy of my newly rewritten profile for your perusal, which I titled, “NO FAT CHICKS!!” Bask in the glory that is my manly brilliance:

I am, quite simply, the man of every woman’s dreams. I’m also Italian, which means I can cook, I can sing, and I can love in ways you could never imagine, even in your wildest fantasies.

But if you want me, you must be worthy of me. Here are a few things you will need to fulfill before you should even consider contacting me:

• You must be at a normal, healthy weight. Fat, obese chicks need not apply. Please, don’t kid yourself. If you don’t like it, stop eating and join a gym.
• You must have a positive IQ and have a college education. Stupid women are unattractive. In addition, if you think MySpace is the greatest thing in the world then you have no redeeming quality whatsoever. Please go join a convent and spare us men of your vacuous, mind numbing idiocy.
• You must hate liberals. If Obama is your god not only will I not contact you, I will superimpose your face on naked photos of Richard Simmons and post them to Facebook and MySpace for all the world to see, which will include the captions “For a good time call…” along with your cell phone number and email address.
• You must have no tattoos or body piercings in places other than your ears. They are not cool. Such self mutilation is a sign of a mental disorder. Get help you sick, sick girl (and stay away from magnetic material.)
• You must not dress like a 2 dollar hooker working 42nd Street in Manhattan. It does not make you look sexy. It makes you look like a hooker.
• You must not drink (or drink only on rare occasions). If bar hopping is one of your favorite pastimes, then please don’t let me stop you from continuing to enjoy it… alone.
• You must not have children. If you messed up in a previous relationship and got kids out of that deal, that’s not my problem. Go collect welfare if you want a sugar daddy, you promiscuous monkey ho.
• You will treat me as the rare diamond that I am, because let’s face it, you’ll never find anyone better than me. You will treat me with the respect due a man of my high stature and valor. You will love me like a king, and in return I will love you like a queen (maybe.)

If you can manage to fulfill all of the criteria above (and you’re hot looking too), then let’s talk! If not, then I would suggest signing up for TrailerParkTrash-Match.com and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to find your soulmate there.

Think I’ll get any responses?  

I have no idea when this crap aired, but evidently there was a show highlighting the dating woes of 30-something women, which somehow devolved into how Islam is great and we should all go ass up 5 times a day and change our names to Ahmed Akalahu Mukababah Habib Al Mulla Wulla (or some such 50 syllable name that’s guaranteed not to fit on a standard criminal rap sheet form.)

Before it did though, I managed to glean some interesting quotes:

Like many single women in America, Julie is no stranger to the dating scene — but finding dates isn’t always the problem. “It’s not that there are no men to date. It’s that I’m not meeting anyone that I’m attracted to. Nobody that I think is quality and worthy of me and what I have to offer and what I want to do.”

Evidently chiseled, flawless men programmed to hand over their balls and debit cards seem to be in low supply these days. Remember what I said about women looking for sperm donation rather than men? Well now:

Now Julie thinks marriage may not even be what she wants. Instead of waiting around for a husband, she’s considering having a child on her own. “I’m probably going to investigate an anonymous donor and do it artificially … I want it to be my own biological child,” she says.

Funny how that works. For these type of women, marriage is merely a means to an end, and once their REAL objective has been realized, the husband is promptly forgotten and expected to fade into obscurity. The very notion that he might still expect a little bit of companionship and affection after children enter the picture seems to completely baffle them. “I gave you children, isn’t that enough?!? Go away you pathetic sissy!”

Yeah, just can’t imagine why they’d have trouble finding a guy who’d go for a deal like this.

Then there’s the divorced Mommies:

Amy also realizes that a woman with kids isn’t what every guy is
looking for. “I don’t consider children baggage. I think they’re the
bonus piece to the set, but there are a lot of men who don’t see it
that way,” she says.

Mainly because some of us would prefer not to be the new Daddy to your little bastard children. Not that I have anything against the turdlings, it’s just that I grew up in an environment where everyone around me had “step” in front of their names, and the experience hasn’t exactly warmed me to the idea of taking on someone else’s kids. But that’s just me.

I have to tell you though, reading crap like this isn’t exactly filling me with hope here. I know I’m not much of a catch, but I’d need to have the engine of the space shuttle installed up my junky jongs just to reach the friggingly ridiculous high bar these whiny donkey hos set for us men. But that’s ok, in the spirit of equitable exchange they will be perfectly willing to give us… well… nothing.

And they say romance is dead.