Stop the presses!! I have some very important news! I figured out who the coming antichrist is. It is none other than Spiderman. There will be a day when our cities will be in grave danger and out of nowhere this man with spider senses will appear. He'll put on a show for us, making us think that he is on our side. Then, when we least expect it, he'll betray us and bring a web of doom upon Israel. Just how did I figure it out? It's easy. I went to the Phonetic Numerals website and found out that the phonetic numeral of 6 is the letter "J". Then I typed "JJJ" (representing 666) into the Acronym Finder website and it yeilded the following: J. Jonah Jameson (Spiderman character). If we are familiar (which I am not) with Spiderman, we know that JJJ is always accusing Spiderman as being one of the bad guys. Now I know that JJJ was right all along. What I knew then, I could not keep to myself.

Happy birthday, Brandon! You're such a great husband, and I love you so much. I hope you have a great birthday today. You're my favorite! And now you're even more vintage. Yay!

We got a cable connection! Yay, I can get online again. No more annoying dial up, and I don't have to worry about the stupid phone line anymore. What a great feeling. Thought I'd share that with you. Oh yeah, and Brandon's birthday is coming up on Tuesday, so go ahead and mail your presents and stuff.

By the way, if you are making a movie, and it involves a scene where a female clumsily falls on her face and it's supposed to be funny, stop right now. It's already in three movies I can name off the top of my head.

In case you have not been following the whole Laci Peterson story, let me bring you up to speed. Laci Peterson was a twenty-seven year old pregnant woman. She lived in Modesto, Calif. with her husband Scott. People said that they had a healthy relationship. During her eighth month of pregnancy, on Christmas Eve 2002, she went missing. Scott said that he was out fishing that day. He also helped lead search parties to find Laci. A few weeks after Laci went missing, it was revealed that Scott Peterson was having an affair with a Fresno woman. A couple of weeks ago, the body of a baby boy was recovered in the bay area. The next day, a torso of a female body was discovered near the baby. The bodies were found not too far from where Scott had claimed to have been fishing. DNA results identified the bodies as Laci Peterson and her unborn son (Conner). The police arrested Scott in San Diego just over a week ago. He knew that the bodies were discovered and it was only a matter of time until he would be arrested. But, like I thought he would, he was trying to make a run for the border. A basic knowledge of geography would yield that San Diego is the border city between California and Mexico. When he was arrested, Scott had in his possession $10,000 in cash. He also changed his look—bleaching his hair and growing a beard. Even more convincing is that he had his brother's ID and an application for a passport. He was about to skip town. Luckily, the cops put a tracer on his car and had no problem arresting him. Now he's in jail and probably not enjoying it so much.

Now the reason that I mention this story is that Wendy pointed out a very striking similarity between the Peterson story and Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. In that novel based in the 1920s, the main character (Clyde Griffith) becomes infatuated with a girl (Roberta Alden) whom he supervises at the collar factory. Clyde was probably more in love with her for her body than her personality. He finally impregnates her and, at her request, agrees to marry her. At the time that this is going on, he falls in love with a better/wealthy girl (Sondra Finchley) who is everything that he wants. Sondra even likes him in return. Clyde decides that he must choose between the two. On the one hand he had Roberta, a social thorn who will bog him down with difficulties of finances and a child. On the other hand he had Sondra, the beautiful girl accompanied with wealth and prestige. The decision was easy for Clyde—he must kill Roberta. Clyde tells Roberta that he'll marry her and takes her out on a trip. He takes her to a lake with the intent of taking her life because he knew that she could not swim. The boat capsizes and she's hit on the head and Clyde ceases from helping her. Roberta's dies. Clyde, with not much regret, runs to spend the remanding time with his new love, Sondra. It is short lived as Clyde gets arrested and later sentenced to death.

If Scott Peterson is guilty (which hopefully the court will settle), this seems like a good working paradigm. It seems that Scott, like Clyde Griffith, saw his future as being dull and tied down with having to father a child and etc. He wanted the life of passion that he would only find in his new love. This new love related to the Sondra character. Laci Peterson, what seemed to be Scott's Roberta, must not have been exciting enough for him or something. The solution that he came up with, like Clyde, was murder. He dumped his pregnant wife out at the lake—the same crime scene chosen by Clyde.

Both stories are sad, but what is most upsetting is that Laci Peterson's life, not to mention the unborn child's life (Conner), was taken. The person responsible for such an obscene act should be justly punished. The fact that I was making a comparison of the Peterson story to An American Tragedy does not in any way downplay the reality that two lives were taken.

Also, if you don't have time to read the 800+ page novel, you can rent the movie A Place in the Sun starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor.

The best way to get your dosage of SARS is to drink it! Enjoy.

We are all probably familiar with that lovable guy named Bishop John Shelby Spong. I just found a recent article that he wrote with regards to Easter and the resurrection. In this article he says, "Easter's power lies not in resuscitated bodies but in the mind-expanding experience of knowing life is more powerful than death." According to him it is not whether or not Christ was resurrected (because of course he was not in Spong's eyes), but the main issue of Easter is that all Christians should know that life is more powerful than death. What Spong is overlooking is that life is not more powerful than death if there is no resurrection. Death has power. Death has sting. Death has victory, unless one is resurrected. The very hope of Easter is the resurrection. It is only after Christ's resurrection that life has the ability to be more powerful than death. Spong fails to see that, yet at the same time he is right on the money. When there is no resurrection hope, this present life is all that one can hold on to. There is nothing to look forward to.

Spong also states the following:

Does anyone really think, for example, that a physical resuscitation of a body dead for three days is actually possible? Would anyone believe it if someone today made that claim? If it is not possible today, can we seriously argue that it was ever possible? Does Christianity fall unless a supernatural miracle can be established?

In answer to his question, I for one truly believe that a physical resuscitation of a body that has been dead for three days is possible. "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible" (Mt 19.26). Remember, we are dealing with the One who created the world and the sea and all is within them. He is able to raise the dead, and Christ was indeed risen. Of course we have much liberty to debate our beliefs, but the resurrection, however, is not just some unimportant point. The resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith. The teaching that Spong represents is not Christian if he proposing that Christ was never resurrected. I think that I'll side on the side of the Gospel on this one.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor 15.12-19)

Oh yeah, I would like to say to all of you guys who are going to receive a check from IRS

Happy Tax Day.

To everybody else, "Sad Tax Day. :-(

I am going to begin a Hebrew class tomorrow. Now Hebrew, as opposed to Greek, is very intimidating to me for a few reasons.

1. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet (or should I say "alephbet"?) look nothing like those of Latin origin.
2. Hebrew is written from right to left. Okay, so this isn't a serious concern of mine.
3. There are no vowels, only vowel points, which I'm sure won't be that big of an issue.
4. The grammatical terms are also foreign. You have words like, "Qal", "Niphal", "Hiphil", and "Hithpael" describing the action and time of verbs.

I know that once I begin to learn the language I will have a longer list.

Commercials get on my nerves. Too many of them begin with the word "because." For instance, McDonalds: "Because you don't have a lot to spend. Because you have a taste for a classic. Because you want to treat your kids. Because your kids are undisciplined brats that won't stop screaming until you go to McDonalds. For whatever reason, McDonald's is the place ." Our poor elementary school teachers. They drilled it into our heads, over and over again, "never start a sentence with the word because." All that hard work for nothing.

So I heard on the news that Snoop Dogg's entourage was shot at. Apparently one of his body guards was injured, but not badly. I have to admit, I was not shocked when I heard this news. In fact, if Snoop Dogg had been killed I probably would not have considered it a grave injustice. As far as I am concerned, any one who sells countless records in which they portray a "hard core" or "gangsta" image should expect gangstaesque repercussions. I never mourned the death of Tupac or Nortorious B.I.G. because they promoted a lifestyle that warranted violence. They basically had what was coming to them. Maybe if I liked their music I would have been affected.

I'm sure we're all familiar with South Central LA. It has always been associated with words like, gangs, murder, violence, and slum. Thankfully those smart folks at the Los Angeles City Council found a way to get rid of this bad image. Instead of cleaning the streets up and making it a safe environment, the City Council members decided to change the name of the area from South Central to simply "South Los Angeles." So now when some unsuspecting fool drives through the area he can now say, "I think we're safe—at least it isn't South Central!" The Council members fail to realize that the area will still be slummy and it won't take much time for the name "South LA" to be associated with ghetto violence. You have these guys to thank! You can read more about this here.

Why haven't I blogged in more than a week? Because we still haven't gotten our phone line fixed, and we have a dial up connection. We got cell phones, so we've been getting by, but I've really been missing getting online. Boy, it sure would rock if Brandon would sign us up for a cable connection. Yep, it would.

I attempted to make guacomole tonight and felt pretty darned stupid. It was partly Brandon's fault, though. He knows I'm a sweet southern girl who knows nothing about avocados. Yet he managed to bring home some seriously not ripe avocados. I spent thirty minutes fighting with those things, reading the directions that said I should be able to scoop the middle out of the peel with a spoon and smush it with a fork, but I was having to hack into it with a knife and even the blender wasn't getting the job done. It made me feel like the idiot in the Carl's Jr. commercials. Bleh. So I gave up and fixed pop corn.

We got this 150 year-old Hebrew lexicon at work and the following photograph was inside. We don't know who he is or anything about him—just that he lived a long long time ago. I think we shall call him Cicero.

So far the coolest thing about having a new cell phone is that I set ring tone to the Simpsons theme song. Yeah, that's right, I am easily entertained.

Yesterday Wendy posted the following but we were having technical difficulties so here it is, again.

Don't forget tomorrow is April Fool's day! Unfortunately, It's the one day of the year practical jokes are expected, so what's the point in trying?