Lee McKusick

It’s always bittersweet finishing a captivating story. It’s an close on an exciting and captivating chapter, but there are so many good memories.

Enough nostalgia, let’s move to the waxing philosophical.

(Again, there may be spoilers so you’ve been warned.)



So I just finished watching Serenity, the movie set after Firefly. At the very end, as Mal and River are flying Serenity up and out of the storm, we find another instance where we can catch a glimpse of God’s nature.

Mal: Ain’t all buttons and charts, little Albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I’m ’bout to say.
River: I do. But I like to hear you say it.

People have grappled for centuries with the question that “if God knows our hearts and minds, why do we pray?”. Questions of predestination aside, if God knows what we think and what we are going to pray, why should we bother actually doing it?

The simple answer would be because God wants us to. He didn’t create us so that we could just go our own way and live on our own, apart from him. He did it so that we could experience his goodness, love, and community, and so that He could love us in return and take pleasure in our lives. It is God’s joy, and therefore our own, that we pray and talk with Him. He may know what we’re going to say. But He likes to hear us say it.

Mal: Love. You can know all the math in the ‘verse, but you take a boat in the air you don’t love, she’ll shake you up sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down. Tell you she’s hurting before she keens. Makes her a home.

I don’t know any biblical parallel to this off the top of my head, other than Paul’s description of love, but this is such a powerful quote.

Love is the fuel that a true home runs on. If your home isn’t built on a foundation of love, it’ll fall right out of the sky and crash to the ground in a fiery wreck. But a home built on love has the power to soar high above the clouds, lifting you and yours above anything that threatens to tear you apart.

Speaking of which, we might as well finish out the scene:

River: Storm’s getting worse.
Mal: We’ll pass through it soon enough.

Persist through the storms of life, and you will come out the other side. Like Serenity emerging from the clouds to journey back out among the stars.

Shiny!

Firefly is one of the most awesome shows ever made.

I’ve been watching the whole series over the past few days. Why Fox canceled it is beyond me. It’s funny and intelligent, dramatic and action-packed. Anyway, enough raving, if you haven’t seen it, go watch it. Or come watch it with me, it’s a great time.

Also if you haven’t seen it, and don’t like spoilers, you might want to stop reading now. If you don’t mind them, you might see one of the reasons I love this show so much.

To give some backstory first, they just rescued Jayne, and Simon and River (both wanted fugitives) from the Alliance after Jayne ratted them out for the reward money. Mal, being a man who looks after his own, has a little chat with Jayne.

This is probably the most moving (and chilling) scene in the whole series for me, because it directly parallels reality.

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” - Matthew 25:45

The words and sentiments of Malcolm Reynolds directly parallel those of Jesus Christ. “You turn on any of my crew, you turn on me…You did it to me, Jayne.” I said it was chilling because it’s not a far stretch to put myself in that airlock, feeling the same fire of righteous fury directed my way. I imagine that that’s quite similar to how Jesus will respond to those who have sinned. I can’t think that the Creator of the ‘verse would take any more kindly to betrayal…

Another thing that made me shiver a bit was Mal’s response to Jayne’s question:

Jayne: What are you gonna tell the others?
Mal: About what?
Jayne: About why I’m dead.
Mal: I hadn’t thought about it.

Jayne’s betrayal caused a rift so great that Mal would simply abandon and forget him. Sound similar?

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi,[a] lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” - Matthew 27:46

But it’s what happens next that brings hope. Jayne accepts his impending doom, and genuinely repents. And because of that, Mal shows him mercy, and the rift is gone. Well, maybe not gone, as Jayne gets to ride in the makeshift brig for a while, but then again, he’s only human. Atherton Wing can attest to that:

Because of it’s spiritual parallels, and awesome humor, plot, and characters, I love Firefly. You should too. Dong-ma?

Classic. =)

Courtesy of bustedtees.com

I gotta give Lifehacker a shoutout for this one.

I’m the kinda guy who constantly shuffles around his desktop picture. I’ve got a folder in My Pictures that is dedicated to Wallpapers and has somewhere around 40-50 images in it. Some Star Wars, some LotR, Guild Wars, landscapes, etc.

So when I read the Lifehacker article about Desktoptopia I was excited, cause I thought it meant that I wouldn’t have to go in and do it myself, and it would automatically shuffle through my Wallpapers on a regular basis. Well, my friends, I was mistaken. It does not allow you to cycle through your wallpapers automatically.

It does one better.

On a given interval (I have mine set at 15 minutes), it will grab a random desktop from their database of wallpapers, and will set it as your background. You can pick and choose a number of different categories, like Abstract, Illustration, Photography, Film, Games, Architecture, etc. And the wallpapers are top notch. You can browse through them out at the Desktoptopia website. Also, there are next background and previous background buttons to manually cycle through them.

There is a negative thing I’ll point: if there’s a background you particularly like, and want to keep, that doesn’t seem to be an option. I could be mistaken, and there may be some sort of hack to save the image, but if there is, it is not obvious. However, you could always pause the rotation or quit the program to keep it for a while. Also, some backgrounds do have links to the artist’s page, where it may be available there for download.

So, all in all, Desktoptopia is a great application. It’s available for both Windows and Mac.

Happy wallpapering!

Tags: wallpaper, background, desktoptopia, lifehacker

How do you mistake this?
Let’s give a “w00t” for tax-dollars put to good, valid use. I’m sure the cops appreciated it, too.

Which tech industry superstar do you most resemble?

The Technosailor Self Importance Test

I myself am:

most like Chris Pirillo!

You are most like Chris Pirillo. You dominate your brand and do quite well in marketing it. However, you go out of the way to place the focus on other people as much as possible as a decision on power and authority. You may have many followers, readers or fans but you rarely let this distract you from your mission and focus.

Nice. I think it fits me. =)

Who is everyone else most like?