Baby Steps

Salt Lake City Temple

If you look back in the archives of the site you’ll find a heated discussion on several posts regarding the California Proposition 8.  While I opposed Prop. 8, and still do, and the LDS church’s involvement in it is what ultimately convinced me to have my name taken off their records I still held out the hope that the Church would come around on their LGBT stance, as they did with Blacks in the Church.

It seems that a small step toward fully accepting LGBT into the Church has been taken.  The Mormon church still thinks homosexual relationships and acting on homosexual thoughts is still a sin, but they no longer consider thoughts of such activities a matter for confession and therapy.  This seems like a tiny, inconsequential step, and in many ways it is.  But, it’s also a big shift from what has been standard church policy and not what I expected from a Church run by conservative, old, white men.

I’m hopeful that this is a first step and that as LGBT’s rights are recognized in the United States and across the world the LDS Church will continue to revise its procedures and statements until one day one of their prophets has the revelation that God loves LGBTs just as much as he loves the rest of us.  If it doesn’t then the hope and nostalgia I still carry for what was a very large part of my life will die as will my respect for an organization that does a great deal of good work in this world.

I’m hopeful it won’t come to that though.  They have taken this step and they’ll eventually take the others and the hateful bigots who hide amongst the many good people in the LDS church will have to find a new way to cover their hate.

You can call me a dreamer, that’s okay I’m in good company.

Contra Vs. Probotector Part 3

 

Hard Corps. Edition

 

Comparing the two NES games to each other was an easy task.  The Contra game released on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive is a much more difficult task.  Called Contra Hard Corps. here in the States it was simple referred to as Probotector on the Megadrive in Europe.  What makes comparing these two games more difficult than the last two is the fact that the Megadrive version is relatively rare, making getting a hold of a manual difficult.  Second, the game has four different playable characters ans seven different endings!  Ending in which the character your playing as has a prominent place.  In order to get screenshots of each ending with each character in both version of the game I’d have to play through it 56 times!  That is not going to be happening anytime soon.

I heartily recommend playing Hard Corps. though!  The game has an excellent soundtrack, a branching storyline, and furiously, difficult gameplay.  The western versions are exceptionally difficult as the health system that was put in the Japanese version of the game has been removed.

Covering Hard Corps is going to take more than one post.  In this one I’m just going to compare the various playable characters:

 

Hard Corps on the left, Probotector on the right

 

These are the mug shots you see at the character select screen, except for the last one.  That guy down at the bottom is the military officer/robot who gives the orders at the beginning of each level.  There is another playable character not included in the comparison, it’s the little robot that looks identical in both games. In-game the characters look  like this:

So far there doesn’t seem to be any difference in the enemies you are facing.  But, I haven’t played through the all seven routes in both of the games.  The next post, will reveal changes in enemies and will compare at least two of the endings from the game!

 

How My Garden Grows: Winter 2010

It has been about a month since we put in the winter garden and things are finally starting to grow, as you can see.  The bok choy and lettuce are coming in the fastest but everything seems to be moving along nicely.  So far, the biggest problem has been slugs, much more so now than they were in the summer.  I’ll be putting in new, and perhaps additional, beer traps but am considering using coffee grounds as well.  The acidity of the grounds prevents the slugs from crawling over them, it can also burn your plants too though.  I suppose I could purchase a pesticide of some sort but we’re trying for an organic garden and I don’t want to see it come to that.

notice the holes in the leaves? slugs!

D thinks we can start harvesting lettuce from the garden now… I still think the heads are a little too small and Id like to give them a few more weeks.  The arugula and carrots both seem to be doing fine.  We didn’t lose much seed to birds or other granivores and it looks as if we’ll have plenty of both by harvest time:

arugula
carrots

I didn’t take any pictures of the celery or onions but they seem to be doing fine, especially because it appears the slugs are uninterested in them.  Not enough leafy greens I suppose.  The only other plant we have growing is cauliflower and while they seem to be doing fine they’re a long way off from harvesting.  Seeing as they have to flower first and then be germinated and then… Well, you (should) know how plant sex works.

In general, despite the pest problem, the winter garden seems to be progressing well.  As long as these plants don’t stall on us like the tomatoes and zucchini did in the summer garden and we don’t have a cold snap this season should be a success!

Warrior Dash 2010

Last weekend I participated in the Warrior Dash.  It’s a lot like the tough mudder run, but a lot easier, it’s a feel good run.  The dash is only 3 miles and has about 12 obstacles which consist of: climbing over cars, crawling through a tunnel, and jumping over a tiny flame.  The only truly difficult obstacle, and this is being generous, was the mud crawl at the end.

So, it wasn’t very difficult but  it was a lot of fun!  D and I went with a group of friends and made a day out of the event.  I’m okay with my time, but I know I can do better.  If I bothered to do any sort of real training when it comes to running.  I already swim three times a week as well as doing core training multiple times of week and running only happens sporadically.

I’ve already decided to do the dash next year and I am contemplating signing up for the Tough Mudder, but if I do I’m going to have to come up with a new workout regimen.

Here’s another picture, sorry about the size but there is no way am I paying $25 for a single print.

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