I've got some more time to write! As a follow-up to my previous post, I wanted to write about the Faith aspect of what I'm going through-- it definitely deserves its own blog entry, by itself. That previous post was the natural reality of my situation. Now I'll talk about the supernatural aspect.

I've gotten through the first three sessions of this teaching, and I've been praying a lot about it. It says in Isaiah 55:9:



God has been working my heart towards pursuing the diaconate. I went from, "This will be impossible, it can't work" to "I can see in my mind's eye how it can work". I went from, "I'm not sure I want to do this" to "I want to do this because I can see how the charisms God has blessed me with would allow me to be a great servant to others as a deacon".

I had an experience a few weeks ago, where there was an elderly woman whom I see at church pretty frequently. We had coffee and donuts in the basement after one particular Mass, and something compelled me to go up to her and ask how she was doing. At first she gave me a generic sort of, "I'm doing ok." Then, after a moment, something caused her to open up to me. She became tearful, and said "My daughter is mentally challenged-- she's down in the Twin Cities in the hospital because she's been having seizures."

The words came to me immediately: "Well, just never ever forget that Jesus is here by your side. He's always there with you, standing right next to you." She smiled and said, "That's why I'm here [at church]."

Last weekend, I saw her again, this time at the pancake breakfast I was helping with. Things were going a hundred miles per hour, and I'd walked out there just to take a quick headcount before I had to flip pancakes again-- so I didn't get a chance to stop and converse with her. But she saw me, looked up, and I have never, ever in my life had someone look at me that way: it was the warmest, most sincere smile-- like seeing me again had lit up her entire weekend. I just gave her a big smile back, and a wave.

And it was all just because I'd reminded her of how much Jesus loves her!

Going back to Isaiah then, "my ways are higher than your ways"-- I believe that the Lord is giving me these experiences in response to my claiming my healing. What He's doing is showing me the way to obtain the healing-- the path I should walk. We had a finance council meeting on Tuesday, and our business administrator said that we were looking for opportunities to increase outreach ministries. I asked him what this meant, and the first example he gave was "bringing the Eucharist to the sick and homebound."

I prayed about it last night, and the Lord told me that I should pursue it! In fact, I can bring The Word and the healing ministries to people this way! In fact today I emailed the aforementioned business administrator, to see if he can connect me with the right person to get me started.

This all reminds me of those exercises people do at work retreats, where they have to be blindfolded, then fall over backwards, trusting the other person to catch them. There is an action which needs to happen for the outcome to occur. It's like it was written in James 2:26: "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

In the case of Faith in God, I believe He's asking me to perform a similar exercise: He's asking me to fall over backwards, so-to-speak, by performing works. After all, it was only through Him-- on that Holy Thursday, after receiving the Eucharist-- that I was able to experience, if only for a handful of seconds, pure love of those around me, without the derealization and without the barrier.

So He's already proven to me that it's possible. It's like he gave me a brief taste, just to see what it was like. I think I can combine the above with some of the things I wrote about in my previous post. It's like that old parable of the drowning man, which I'm sure you've all heard-- He's sent me "two boats and a helicopter" in the form of all the above, plus some medical help, the possibility of taking a leave from work, and a whole host of other things.

He's given all of the components-- now I need to have Faith through action.

My motivation to do anything has been in the negative territory lately. I maintain a health log, and among the things I write down are my sleep quality. My rubric:

• A: A normal night's sleep. Before I was the age of 32, I got an "A" every single night. It broke at that age. I'm 43 now.
• B: A decent night's sleep, feeling pretty good and productive the next day.
• C: A poor night's sleep; focus begins to become a struggle, and disassociation begins to get bad.
• D: A truly awful night's sleep; awake most of the night, not really functional in the real world.
• F: Can't even call this sleep; may as well have stayed up all night. Disassociation is on another level.

Here is a chart of my sleep over the last sixty days, by category:



I am on 100 mg of Trazodone, 3 mg of Lunesta, plus I pop a Melatonin pill as well. The only "A" and "B" records above were nights when I took, on top of my normal pill routine, a couple of Benadryl, or a serving of diphenhydramine. My psychiatrist is switching me from Lunesta to Ambien, so we'll see if that helps. Hopefully that will arrive in the mail today or tomorrow.

Over the last seven nights I've had three C's, three D's, and one F. And I'm supposed to work today-- I'll be lucky if I can remember my own name, much less be able to do anything productive. The issues causing this sleep are, in order:

• My Career: Can't do much about this, I have a wife and kids to support, plus I'd be leaving ten months of full-time severance pay on the table should they lay me off at some point-- so I don't want to quit.


• My Living Arrangement: I'm stuck here for the next six years, when my son will be 18 years old. We're trying to mitigate this by spending more time in the Twin Cities, in the in-law's house living like a normal family, by ourselves, where I'll feel safe.


• Church Stress: The work I do for my church is the favorite part of my life-- but I do get performance anxiety. Last weekend it was nerves operating a griddle for a pancake breakfast; this weekend it's altar serving with my son for the first-ever time (I've done it before, but he hasn't).

Another thing I'm looking at is potentially taking an FMLA leave. My employer's policies regarding this are somewhat difficult to understand, so I may need to meet with an HR person for clarification.

Other than all of this, just been playing a lot of "International Superstar Soccer 64" on an actual N64 and CRT TV; "Avowed" on my gaming PC; mixed in with some "Super Street Fighter II" on Genesis on my CRT via the OLED Steam Deck and RetroArch, and a plethora of 3DO games, also on my CRT TV.

I've been in a period of spiritual dryness the past few days, to the point where I've been impatient, irritable, and even angry. It's been due to pretty intense sleep deprivation. Thankfully, I had an appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday, and he's switching me from Lunesta-- to which I've developed both a tolerance and a dependence-- to Ambien. I think it's sort of like crop rotation: once in awhile you need to switch what you're using.

But then this morning I listened to some missionary information a super dear friend of mine sent me, and it was both moving and re-invigorating! I'm rattling around different ideas right now: he told me they pretty much always need IT help plus project management experience abroad; also, I wonder if I could weave a Catholic flavor into things if I became an ordained deacon-- like, help with IT infrastructure, and also teach the Bible, the Catechism, do liturgical services, and so on?

On a different note, in just a couple of hours Lazio take on Juventus in a game which, if Lazio loses, any even remote chance of finishing in fourth evaporates. But even sixth place becomes a challenge! I'd like to see us finish in the Europa League spots minimally, so we have some extra funds to continue our nearly "from scratch" squad overhaul project, in which we're in year one of probably three.

I've been playing Obsidian's "Avowed" on my PC with all the settings cranked up almost to max. The game's ray-traced global illumination is phenomenal! The only settings I turned down to second-from-best were shadows, and the aforementioned RTGI. With FSR3's "Balanced" setting, I'm getting between 80 and 100 fps at all times, with VRR enabled to my LG C3 TV.

The PC is a Ryzen 9700x with a Radeon 9070 XT. Just check out the indirect lighting in this game, especially the shots where the character is indoor and the outdoor light is flooding in through the opening-- it looks like "Minecraft RTX", except with modern texture resolutions and geometry! Click for the full resolution versions:

I had someone say to me tonight that women should be allowed to be priests in the Catholic church, because "it was just Paul saying otherwise". I didn't want to pick a fight, but it warrants writing about, even just briefly.

Peter was quite literally the rock upon whom Jesus built the Church-- and Peter trusted Paul implicitly. So if you were to rank, out of the countless billions of human beings who have come and gone, all people according to "likelihood to have been divinely inspired", then line them all up like a huge downward mountain slope, surely Paul would be way, way, way up there at the summit-- like, top ten of literally all time or something, right?

At that point it becomes a question of, "why believe anything in the Bible?" Why believe the Gospels, or even the Old Testament? I mean, it was just Luke, right? C'mon, it was just Moses, for goodness sake! Let's get real here!

And that leads me to my next point: this person isn't Catholic-- and isn't even Christian. She doesn't believe the Bible. So criticisms of the Church just comes across as concern trolling. And few things are more irritating than concern trolling, if I'm honest, no matter what the subject.

Now my final point: who cares if women can't become priests? Like, quite literally-- why should anyone care? Prove it to me that I should care. Men can't become sisters. So what? I don't care about that either. How many women did Jesus select as Apostles? Both men and women have plenty of roles to play within the Church-- there is plenty to go around.

I've been watching a lot of football even outside of Lazio lately, and one game I caught a little of was Roma's win over Fiorentina today. The announcers were doing indecent things to themselves during half-time: "Oh, going to be unbeaten in eighteen games, oh wow Claudio Ranieri, oh wow oh boy!", and on and on and on they want.

Eighteen games is almost half a season. It is a very good stretch, to be sure. But let's also provide a little context to balance the conversation, which none of them were doing. I'm going to compare Roma with Lazio, since that's the team I follow of course-- but the comparisons could be made in any number of other ways too:

• It doesn't matter what you do over eighteen games; what matters is what you do over thirty-eight. Roma have a whopping 82.9 million EUR payroll, fourth highest in the entire league. They should be finishing in the Champions League spots-- that's not impressive-- it's expected, given their wage bill. For reference, Lazio spends twenty million less on wages, and have the same number of wins this year, at eighteen. If anyone is impressive, it's Lazio not Roma-- or even moreso, look at Atalanta!


• In four of the past five seasons, Lazio have finished above Roma in the table. In many seasons teams like Atalanta and Bologna also finished higher than Roma, despite having way less of a wage bill.


• This past fiscal year, Roma ran an eye-popping 81 million EUR loss. That's in one season! Lazio? 38.5 million EUR profit.


• In terms of overall debt, Roma are the third most in-debt team in the entire league! They have 636.3 million EUR in debt! This versus Lazio's 282.7. In terms of net debt, the numbers are -139.4 and -38.1, respectively.


• To clubs like Lazio, Bologna, or Atalanta to name a few, making the Champions League is just icing, and a massive overachievement. To Roma, they need to make it just to have any even remote possibility of even halving all of the red on their balance sheet next year!

The fact is, this streak Roma are on brings them to the bare minimum of what they should be achieving, if you just take two steps back and add in some context.

With the amount of money they've over-spent, requiring almost a billion EUR of cash dumped into the club by their owner just to keep them solvent, they should be Scudetto contenders. But looking at the league tables over the past several years, what has this money gotten them exactly?

Barely going on four hours of sleep today, so I'm taking a brief respite from work to wrap up some writing. I thought it'd be fun to address a few "what do Catholics believe"-style questions which I've heard recently.

Disclaimer: I'm a lay person who has only been returned to the Church for a few years! Please do validate whatever I say with a priest, the Catholic Catechism, etc. before you take them as any kind of truth! The below is just my understanding at this point in my own learning journey.


Do Catholics Read the Bible?

Yes, they do! Every Catholic church I've ever encountered has one-- sometimes several-- Bible reading groups. Every devout Catholic I've ever met has several Bibles in their house. I've been Lectoring for a couple of years now, and I've read significant swathes of the Bible to the congregation over that time, just during the course of the Catholic Mass!

But there is also some truth to the stereotype. Being 2000 years old, the Catholic Church has had a gazillion ecumenical councils, where over the literally millennia it has distilled the Bible and other sacred sources into a living document called "The Catechism", which you can read online here. As well, all of the Church's Traditions are based on sacred scripture-- for instance, you can read about the Catholic Mass here; most things in the Mass, down to many little details, have some kind of rooted explanation behind them, if you drill down deep enough.

So Catholics in general aren't as good typically at quoting scripture off the top of their heads like our Protestant brothers and sisters are-- I think this is something Catholics can do better. But on the flip-side, devout Catholics are phenomenal at following both the Catholic Church's "big T" and "little t" traditions, which are the "playbooks" and models for how to live-- so they wind up living the scripture in their moment-to-moment existences, even if they haven't necessarily memorized which verse of John something was originally from.

Personally, I find the Catholic churches with their beautiful stained glass windows, their cruets and their monstrances, lavabo pitchers and purificators, sanctuaries and altars with glowing red sanctuary lamps; the priests with their chasubules and amices; the thurifers leaving behind a smoky trail of burning incense; the organ, piano, and sometimes even blaring trumpet music; all it really brings the sacramental life to reality, and speaks directly to me of the glory of God.

None of those things are necessary by the way! Wherever followers gather, there is the Church. But they are nice add-ons, to help us more fully devote ourselves in prayer and worship to and of the Lord.

My wife is the Bible study kind of person. Whereas for me, I've found myself extremely drawn to the liturgical aspects of the Faith, and that's why I've become so involved in that respect-- I sort of absorb pieces of The Word indirectly via other means. I'm not saying this is good or preferable-- I'm just offering an explanation for the stereotype, for which I'm partly to blame I suppose! I should do a lot more direct Bible reading than I do.

The Catholic Church also has an almost unfathomable history of upper-case Saints, many of whom participated directly in miracles from the Lord Himself, and many of whom communed directly with God on a more attuned level than most of us, to the point of having direct visions of and overt, actual conversations with Jesus, Mary, angels, and other figures. I've only just started to delve into what can be gleaned from the various things God has directly communicated via these Saints.


Do Catholics Hate Gay People?

No! In fact, there are tons of queer, practicing Catholics. I recently read that twenty five percent of religious LGBTQ people are Catholic.

The Church teaches that the model for sexual relations is: a man and a woman, married-- not in the civil sense, but before God (it's a pity and source of confusion that the two concepts share the same word of "marriage" in English, because they are two, discrete concepts)-- with children, and having sex for pro-creative purposes. Anything outside of that model is considered outside of God's plan for us, where sexual matters are concerned.

It is not sinful to have sexual thoughts outside of this. What is sinful is indulging in them. It's like Mel Gibson once said: "I can't control my first thought, but I can control my second thought." The sin comes in when you give in to the temptation, either by rolling around in fantasies, or through overt sexual acts. Here is the "Confiteor" prayer, which is said at most Masses, bold emphasis is mine. It's a beautiful prayer!



There are a couple of things to note in the bolded section. First, the emphasis on not just deeds but thoughts as well! Second, it's not just what you do, but what you fail to do. More on that latter point in a second.

LGBTQ people are not in any way, shape, or form being "singled out" or excluded in even a remote way from being Catholic, or being part of the church! I happen to be straight, and in full disclosure I struggle with sexual sin as much as anyone. I can't even count the number of times I've looked at a beautiful woman walking past, and indulged in sinful thinking. This is something-- again, as a straight person-- I am constantly bringing to Confession.

About queer relationships being blessed within the Catholic church-- once again, LGBTQ people are not being "singled out", as if every kind of heteronormative relationship can be blessed, whereas other relationships can't. This is not true! My wife and I are one woman and one man, and we were "married" in the civil sense-- but even we couldn't get our marriage blessed within the Catholic Church! We had to make some changes to bring the relationship within God's parameters. It was only once we'd completed those steps, that we were able to get our marriage blessed.

So to reiterate, it's not that the Catholic Church is "anti-gay"-- it just puts forth a specific model for what constitutes proper sexual behavior, whether the relationship in question is straight, gay, lesbian, queer, or whatever it may be. The alternative for sexual relations outside of God's parameters is chastity: many holy orders, such as priests and sisters, take life-long vows of chastity. And even straight, married people are often chaste if there is some aspect of the sexual relations which is not pro-creative, or which is closed to the pro-creative aspects of the act.

My personal view is that way too much emphasis in our society is placed on sex. Out of all of the people I most dearly love, there is zero sexual element involved in any of the relationships other than the one with my wife-- and even then, the sexual portion is a tiny part of what makes our relationship meaningful. The Catholic Church wants us to have intimately close relationships with one another-- that's a good thing! But just without the sexual aspect in most cases-- that's all which is being asked.

So what about that second part of the bolded statement-- that it's not just what we do, but what we fail to do? God loves us all perfectly and completely. The Catholic Church also teaches that we are to strive to love one another as God loves us. Jesus also said that the first person to throw the stone should be the one who has never sinned.

Being sinners-- sexual or otherwise-- does not exclude us from being part of the Catholic Church. Otherwise there'd be no one in the Church!

However, Jesus also told the woman, "Go, and sin no more." What God does ask of us is that we repent: we should approach God through a spirit of humility, authentic contrition, and obedience through the Sacrament of Confession, to do penance and thus repair the rift we've created between ourselves and God, and ourselves and the community (no sin is committed in isolation-- it harms others as well!).

Failing to love others-- something we may fail to do-- is also a sin! So if we find ourselves condemning others due to their sexual activities or for any other reason-- focusing too much on the splinter in someone else's eye while ignoring the plank in our own eye-- we need to also take that to Confession, and repent of it. Everyone is on some kind of journey with the Lord.

I think I'll end this section with a story I read recently. At a particular Catholic church, there was a transgender individual who would come before every single Mass and light all of the candles. We all have "our things", and this was "her thing"-- lighting the candles. Interestingly, she dressed very flamboyantly, with bright colored hair and clothes-- so she became a real fixture in that church, happily lighting all of the candles all the time in a very visible way.

One day, she didn't show up. There were murmurs: "Where the heck is she? Is she ok?" After Mass, some members of the congregation did some digging and found out: she'd had a stroke, and was dying in the hospital. Everyone in the congregation chipped in, and filled that whole hospital room not just with themselves in this individual's final moments, but with so many flowers they couldn't even all fit in the room.

The people in the congregation undoubtedly recognized that some of this individual's proclivities were sinful, just as the same thing could be said of many of their own proclivities. Some people suffer from sexual temptation; others to rob banks; others to slander; or any other number of things. Everyone has a cross to bear. But we should still choose to love and pray for one another!


Do Catholics Believe People Who Don't Believe in God Go To Hell?

My daughter asked me this one recently! "Let's say there is this super good person, but who doesn't believe in God-- you're telling me they go to Hell??"

To answer this question we need to ask: what is Hell? And to answer that, we need to ask, what is Heaven?

Heaven is eternal communion with God. God exists outside of time and space. He lives in an "eternal moment". If we choose to be humble, authentically contrite of heart, and we ask for God's infinite Mercy-- if we choose God, to have a relationship with Him, to fully unite our hearts with Him-- then that is what we will receive! When we die, we will be one with God in the eternal moment.

But what if we actively reject the relationship with God? Well, then we won't have the relationship with him in eternity! The lack of a relationship with God in eternity is called "Hell". It's sort of like if you say, "do you want to be my friend?", and I say "no". That means we aren't friends! To be friends, we both need to say "yes"! The whole concept just doesn't make any sense if one of us declines.

God always says "yes". He loves us so much, that we quite literally can't even process how much. He desperately wants us to love Him! He wants all of us to live in the "eternal moment" with Him! You want proof as to how much He loves us? He loves us so much, that he gave us free will. He could have made us dumb automaton robots-- but He didn't! Because it's not love when it's merely pre-programmed.

But as a result of His great gift of free will, we need to choose to also have the relationship with Him, from our side of the picture. This relationship is "Heaven".

The Catholic Church also teaches that we'll be judged contextually. Let's say you are like the character in "The Horde", raised exclusively by a pack of wild cows, and were never taught about God-- then you die. You are not going to be excluded from communion with the Lord simply due to a lack of knowledge. Similarly, let's say you were only ever told lies about God, and rejected Him solely on the basis of those lies-- you will be judged with that context in mind as well.


Do Catholics Really Believe Three People Can Be One Person?

This is more of a general Christian theology one and not Catholic-specific, but it's a great question!

Catholics believe that God is three persons in one nature. Your nature is like a well: when you take a thought or an action, you draw from the well of your nature. If you are kind-hearted and gentle, you'll draw that bucket up and take a gentle action; if you're violent and evil, you'll draw the bucket up and probably perform some kind of violent or evil act.

Human natures can change by the way! The process of a changing nature, from evil towards good, is called conversion.

In the universe which God has created, there is a 1-to-1 relationship between "person" and "nature"-- each person has his or her own nature. Even in the case of identical twins, they have their own separate natures, which differ in probably a million different ways! They may even be similar, but they are two distinct wells, to stick with my metaphor.

In the case of the three God persons-- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-- they are all drawing from the same well: the same nature. It's not something we can wrap our human brains around, but that's what it is.

While we're on the subject, what if you could-- within your very mind-- encapsulate someone else, totally, down to every single molecule, every single atom, every single thought, word, action, down to their very nature, completely and 100% totally? Then, what if you could blink that encapsulation into reality? What if you could even do this with yourself?

That's who the Son is. The Father made a 100% perfect "copy" of Himself, so-to-speak, then created the Son. Of course, the word "then" isn't correct, because it implies time-- like, there was a time when it was just the Father, and the Son hadn't been "created" yet. Again, this is something we can't understand with our human brains.

Time is the measure of change. God is unchanging, and exists outside of time and space. He lives in an "eternal moment", and even the word "moment" there isn't ideal. "Time" doesn't make any sense when talking about God. But because human language is limited to human concepts, we just have to do the best we can.

So who is the Holy Spirit then? The Father and the Son together spirate-- or breath-- the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is just as completely God as are the Father and Son, sharing the same nature, and not missing anything or being incomplete in any way.

When Moses asked God for His name, God replied: "yhwh", the letters being Yod, Heh, Waw, Heh. Adding in some vowels, "yahweh". Some have commented that this is the sound of breathing; perhaps we are ourselves spirating God's name when we simply breath? "Yah", inhale, "weh" exhale. And perhaps death is when we can no longer breathe, and thus can no longer say God's name?

Food for thought.

Oh, and on the subject of the Trinity, it's what's called by the Catholic Church "a mystery". The Church doesn't view mysteries as something we can understand-- rather, they are like a fountain, or a waterfall: you can keep returning to it for a drink, and every time you take a drink from it, you understand the mystery and God just that little bit better.


Do Catholics Worship Mary and Statues?

This is an easy one: no!

Mary is the virgin mother of God. She conceived of Jesus divinely. As the immaculate mother of God, Catholics view her as a most holy of figure, for sure! But she is not God-- Catholics only worship the Lord! Mary-- and the Saints for that matter-- are what Catholics call intercessors. It's like if you have a super devout neighbor, and you ask them to pray for you for an upcoming cancer treatment or something. We too can ask Mary to pray for us!

As for statues, that's just plain silly, yet I do hear it from time-to-time. Statues and their like are called devotional materials. For example, I have a small copy of the Divine Mercy painting on my wall: I don't worship the painting! "Oh most holy metal picture frame, most holy piece of paper with inkjet printer blots on it, I worship you!"

Rather, the picture is just something I use to help me pray: it reminds me of the Lord's endless Mercy! It helps me devote myself more fully to God in prayer-- that's all.

Went to the Minnesota United-Vancouver game with my dad this past Sunday! Click the picture for the full-size version.



Unfortunately, the match itself was rather poor quality, plus Minnesota United got routed in the second half, total mental collapse on the two latter-most goals they conceded. It was a big six-pointer too, but Vancouver really are a class above-- their number 7, Jayden Nelson, and their number 26, Jean Claude Ngando, really stood out watching the game in person: most of the danger was flowing through those two for much of the match.

Despite the low quality of the game, I loved the stadium and atmosphere so much that if I ever do wind up moving back to the Twin Cities, I will undoubtedly buy season tickets. I'm also going to subscribe to the MLS season pass so I can watch the rest of the team's season.

My daughter and I had our little "Switch 2 Pre-Order Party" last night, were up past midnight but managed to land two of the bundles-- one via Walmart, and another via Best Buy! Not only that, but I managed to land a third bundle this morning for a friend of mine, again via Walmart-- she is going to pay me back.

Beyond that I ordered:

• Street Fighter 6; excited to play through the totally zany open-world mode again, plus this edition has all of the new characters, stages, and colors, not to mention it's a handheld version of my favorite fighter of the last twenty-plus years.


• The new Pro Controller.


• Two of the official carrying cases, one for each of myself and my daughter.


• A 256 GB microSD Express card; 256 GB of internal storage is going to fill up fast with how big modern games are-- so doubling that seems like a no-brainer to me.


• I even bought the camera. I figure my daughter will have a lot of fun with it once her friends get Switch 2's, and even I'll use it. It's kind of nice to have in the house.

I'd like to order Cyberpunk 2077 as well, sort of debating it. That's a game which would be fun to enjoy again, but on a handheld. I might wait for full reviews once it comes out, to see how performance is. If it can maintain 40 fps, it actually might be really pleasant on the Switch 2's 120 Hz VRR display. But if it always dips into the twenties or something, I think I'd just get frustrated with it.

The Duality of Purpose involves two things which seem contradictory at first, but are in fact complimentary.

First, we are called to aspire to love one another in the same was as does the Lord. This means putting ourselves last, and in total service to others. To accomplish this, we must have fully compassionate and open hearts, pure motives, and a clean spirit so that we can recognize and understand the needs of others. We should smile and turn our warm countenances towards these poor souls, with mercy, as the Lord does unto us.

Second, we must also recognize that relationships to things on Earth are ephemeral: people pass away, kids move off to college, churches close, houses burn down, cars get damaged in accidents. Therefore, our happiness can not be based on ephemeral things, because they fade into nothingness. At the worst, they can become a source of great ego and vanity. So what then is the rock upon which we must rest our souls?

Our relationship with the Lord! It must come before all other things. It is the one constant upon which we can always depend. If we truly love the Lord, and unite our hearts with Jesus so that we can constantly be in communication with Him, even in the noisiest periods of our days, only then do we have the strength, the direction, and the will to know how to love others completely.

If we let the Lord shine upon us at all times, then we can face any challenge! Because we will always have that unweathered foundation, which is stronger than diamond or any substance in this universe. This gives us a form of healthy detachment from Earthly things: we can love them deeply and keep them within a Godly perspective at the same time. They compliment because in fact this inspired orientation is not possible in any other way but through unity with Jesus.

This is the Duality of Purpose, as it is being interiorally described to me. It was inspired within me as the culmination of some observations I had at a Pastoral Council meeting, some words spoken to me by the same priest who channeled the Lord during my confession last month, and by prayer to our Holy Father.

I survived Holy Week! Unfortunately, Pope Francis only barely did-- God rest his soul, please pray for him. As a result of the Pope's passing, the Lazio game today against Genoa got delayed.

About Lazio, I haven't had time to write about their European defeat. The thing to remember about this Lazio team is that they are in year one of a complete rebuild, from the front office, the scouting, and all the way to the players. The team doesn't have a lot of quality yet, but it does at least have a spine which can be built on. Players like Mandas, Gila, Tavares, Guendouzi, Rovella, Belehyane, and Castellanos should all have key roles in the project moving forward. Maybe even Noslin and Tchaouna, although I suspect they will be sold for further capital investment.

Regarding the Bodo Glimt disaster in general: imagine two people fist fighting, and you've got money on the outcome. You cheer "your" fighter on every time he lands a big blow. But after a while, both fighters' noses are broken, their eyes are sealed close, one of them has a broken arm, they can barely walk anymore, there is blood absolutely everywhere-- it's a nightmare. At some juncture, you stop caring about your bet, and the humanistic aspect takes over.

That's how I felt about the second leg. Half of the players on either team could hardly stand anymore. It went back and forth, with 94th minute stoppage time goals, multiple counteracting goals in extra time, the ugliest, worst, lowest-quality penalty shootout I've ever seen, where their captain couldn't even finish it off only to have a one-legged Castellanos also miss... the whole ordeal was so exhausting and brutal, at some point I stopped even caring who won. It was terrible. Either team would get knocked out by Spurs in the next round anyway.

Even in the league, there is every chance Lazio will finish outside of the European spots altogether when all is said and done. I watched Bologna beat Inter at the last second yesterday, so there goes the Champions League money at least. But again, this team had "potential relegation fodder" written all over it going into the season, so I would stick with Marco Baroni for next year and see what he can do if we buy a couple of high quality players.

Back to Holy Week, saying all of those readings at the beautiful Easter Vigil really felt like a gauntlet. I feel like I did really well with them. Then, up bright and early the next day, I really went out with a bang on Easter Sunday. I was altar server for only the third time ever, plus had a little prayer of mine answered that I could try being "the incense guy".

I sort of made a mess of it: I came out and went back at all of the correct times. But when I went to incense the congregation, I just imitated what I'd seen at the Chrism Mass-- I went to the right, incensed over there, then went central and did that, then went left and did over there. Afterwards, Father told me that in a small church, I should have just stood centrally and pivoted my body to incense right, then left, then center.

I also was completely unable to get the motion correct, to get the chain to clank. My spectrum-brain makes mechanical motions super difficult for me to learn as compared to a more "neurotypical" person-- it's been a pattern my whole life. I can do it, but it just takes me like four times the "normal" amount of practice (for example-- I can throw a baseball quite well now, but I had to do it a thousand times to get it down). So I am going to get there early to the church next time I'm a minister, and get that extra practice in with the thurible until I can do it correctly.

This might be a reoccurence of my ego issues. Do I want to do better for the glory of God and to serve the congregation better? Or do I want to do better so I can show everyone how cool I am? I need to do more prayer and introspection about that, to make sure my motives are correct.

I also tried to play some video games yesterday, but got bored really easily. Part of it was just being tired. However, I'm getting fatigued playing older games, because I've already played and mastered all of those genres. And I am not the target demographic for modern games, clearly. I'm curious what the future of the hobby will look like. I know numerous children, and not one of them has any interest in consoles-- so I don't think that's the model going forward.

From what I've seen kids just play Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite on "blue light special" laptops and crusy old iPads. That's all they want or need, probably because there isn't much new which is very exciting. And I've seen statistics where the average age of a PlayStation 5 owner is like 41, that seems like a demographic death spiral to me.

For anyone who prepares Sacred Chrism Oils in a very old church such as mine, you may find the Latin abbreviations on the vessels instead of the English ones! Here they are, just for reference in case it helps anyone:

• Oil of Catechumens (OS): Oleum Sanctorum
• Oil of the Sick (OI): Oleum Infirmorum
• Sacred Chrism (SC): Sacrum Chrisma

At the big church in town, which is much more contemporary, I noticed that they have the English abbreviations on their vessels, which are:

• Oil of Catechumens (OC)
• Oil of the Sick (OS)
• Sacred Chrism (SC)

A very good friend of mine sent me this, which does a deep dive into how not only did Christ die on the cross to atone for our sins, but also to heal us. He felt compelled to reach out to me due to all of my anxiety issues-- I can't wait to get started on the material.

It's Satan who puts all of these doubts and anxieties into my mind, to try to stop me from doing the Lord's will. He waits for a moment of vulnerability, then tells me I can't do it-- that I'll make a mistake and be humiliated. My friend also pointed out to me that in succumbing to those fears, I am elevating the opinions of man above God's. After all, if I made a mistake, would God love me any less? In fact, perhaps persevering past and through a mistake would inspire others: "Look at him, he keeps performing ministries, even after what happened!"

Last night we had the Holy Thursday Mass at "the big church" in town. I was blessed with the opportunity to carry and help present the Oil of Catachumens during the opening procession and just after. I also got to wash people's feet immediately after the Homily-- it was incredible watching the love on people's faces, the pureness of heart, with which husbands and wives washed each other's feet, or with which a mother washed her child's feet-- it was etched all over their faces.

While praying after having just received the Body and Blood, I started paying attention to everyone around me. And I mean really paying attention. I watched one of the Extraordinary Ministers, with the cup-- another friend of mine-- shifting his weight a little, like perhaps his back was bothering him, or he was nervous putting himself out there to perform the ministry. I observed everyone going up to receive the Eucharist, and their facial expressions, their little tics, or the tenderness of their smiles.

And for the first time in my life, for just maybe thirty seconds, I felt genuine and heartfelt solidarity-- communion-- with others. I loved all of them. Even the strangers felt like brothers and sisters. I had to hold back tears. I hope I can return to that state again, or eventually maybe live in that mode?

After the Mass was ended, we processed to the old church, which is interiorly adjoined to the new church complex. The priest reposed Jesus in a box, symbolizing His being in the prison cell awaiting trial with Pilate. We spent an hour in front of the Lord, kneeling and praying. During this time, I had a clear mental image develop in my mind's eye. The image was like this:

I saw multitudes of people, in all directions, as far as my eyes could see. Some of them were merely walking, or sitting, or standing still. Others were doing unspeakably bad things to each other. Above each person, there appeared a sort of giant water droplet-- like dew. These giant dew droplets represented God's mercy. Every person within sight had one above them. The water in these droplets was held in by a sort of invisible membrane, as water droplets tend to form ordinarily.

Most of the people-- nine in ten, at least-- either didn't notice their water droplet at all. Or if they did notice, they took no heed of its presence. But some rare people reached up with their hands, and punctured the membranes-- at which point, they were cascaded with water: sopping, dripping wet, hair, clothes and all. This was a showering for them in God's mercy. As the water fell on them, they would raise their hands and their faces up to heaven, and a bright light would shine down on them.

I felt very sad for the people who didn't see the water droplet, or who chose to ignore it. God's grace, infinite love, and mercy was literally right there, right above their heads, on offer freely! All they had to do was reach up and grab it, with a contrite heart!

I need to leave in exactly one hour to help preparations for the 3:00 Good Friday service. I have the great blessing of being able to narrate The Passion for the congregation today. My fellow lector and sacristan, Mary-- who has been an excellent role model for me, she is a very holy woman-- will be in the choir loft as "voice". I'm feeling a little nervous, I have questions about some of the minutae, which I need to clarify with our pastor-- but I always feel more confident once I am within the confines of the church itself, surrounded by everyone, and in the moments performing the actual ministries.

Then tomorrow night it is the Easter Vigil Mass, where once again I am blessed with the responsibility of being lector, and also sacristan. It feels good to be in service to others! I also volunteered to handle the transferring of the new Sacred Oils into their vessels, along with burning the old oils. This feels like a very holy duty for me to perform, and I'm looking forward to doing the job well, with great relish.

Got up in a horrendous mood; my pattern of waking up at 3:00am every morning has continued. Popped an Abilify for the first time in a couple of weeks though, grabbed some coffee, and I'm feeling much better. So much more motivated in fact that I updated the Steam Deck, and started fishing around for the plethora of screenshots I'd taken of "Soccer Kid" on 3DO, hoping to write a blog post about how much I like that game. But I can't find them! I checked the Deck, my gaming PC, the server-- nowhere to be found!

I guess next time I play through the game I'll need to re-capture a bunch. I'd like to do a whole series of blog posts about various 3DO games, with lots of screenshots. Maybe I'll pick a different game for today? I found a ton of "Escape from Monster Manor" shots on the Deck. Speaking of the Steam Deck, what a cool device, being able to hop into KDE, I've got my wallpaper set, the taskbars all organized-- it's literally a handheld GNU/Linux PC! I should find more excuses to play it-- it collects dust most of the time, sadly.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's game against Bodø/Glimt. If you go back and watch the first leg highlights of their last round where they absolutely took apart Olympiacos, you'll see that they are in constant movement, and continually have late runners both overlapping and moving towards and into the area.

Lazio's players need to approach this game as if they are about to play Barcelona-- because I think in real-world terms, the challenge is comparable: it'll be played in frigid temperatures, in the snow, on a synthetic pitch, against a team exploding with confidence and with absolutely nothing to lose. They will be playing out of their shirts.

My take is that Baroni should instruct the defenders to always be looking over their shoulders, especially at the far post-- because against Olympiacos, the Bodø players were constantly running off the back shoulders and behind. Further, our wide players should be prepared to do a ton of defending: they will need to absolutely sprint their butts off to tightly mark all of the late runners.

I do think we can overmatch them in terms of footballing quality in the center of the park, on counterattacks. So if it were me, I would be prepared to defend, defend, and defend some more-- then try to get outlet passes into the center of the park, and let our technical quality hopefully give us some opportunities from there.

Conversely, if our players come out arrogant or are looking past Bodø and towards the derby, I could see Bodø putting numerous goals past us, just like Inter and Bologna did.

Just posted a couple of new reviews over at the 'Wharf-- two PlayStation 5 games, "Astro Bot" and "Monster Hunter Wilds". I haven't been reviewing many games because I haven't been playing many games-- funny how that works!

Had one of those awful nights where I woke up about fifty times, and basically didn't sleep after 3:00am. I'm essentially non-functional today-- just loosely monitoring work messages, but otherwise incapable of setting my mind to accomplishing anything productive. Also unable to take a nap, because... I can't nap. Sleep is one of those magical things where it only happens to me when conditions are just so. It's very tenuous and unstable.

My favorite metal album of all time is Yngwie Malmsteen's "Rising Force", which you can listen to here. For the first time in a while I gave it a listen this morning, while exercising. I love everything about it-- the musicmanship, the song writing... I even love its imperfections.

I have a co-worker who is a former classical guitarist, and who was quite technical himself in his prime, able to play stuff like this, which is extremely impressive. I was talking to him once and he criticized Yngwie as being "sloppy"-- but to me it sounds wild and out of control. To me Jimi Hendrix has the same sound and vibe going on. Go look up Yngwie Malmsteen live in the 80s on YouTube-- he was quite literally karate kicking and throwing his guitar around himself right in the middle of solos. He wasn't aiming for laser precision.

There's even a term for that in art, which I can't recall at the moment-- it describes human imperfections as making the art better. A band I used to listen to way back in high school, called "Fear Factory", used a drum machine to record the double bass for their album "Demanufacture"-- it was literally computer-level perfect. But they realized it was missing the human aspect, so for their next album, "Obsolete", they just had their drum player perform it himself in studio. The album received great praise from punditry compared to its predecessor as a result of that change. "Obsolete" was less perfect-- but better.

In any event, I might go eat an early lunch-- I'm super hungry-- then try to accomplish even just a little work-related stuff, if I can get my brain to even remotely focus. I might also try eating dinner right before going to bed; some people online suggest that plummeting blood sugar levels can cause persistent waking very early in the morning.

Probably everyone by now has seen that Nintendo has delayed the Switch 2 pre-orders in light of the new tariffs introduced by the Trump Administration. People such as one of my favorite game-related YouTubers, VG Esoterica, have done a great job covering the topic.

Everyone is talking about how they will now have to pay more to get the latest and greatest video game system. That sucks, right?! But one thing I haven't heard even a single person explain is: why the tariffs? Surely it's not some random and malevolent plot to just make things more expensive out of pure spite, is it?

Thankfully, I spent over a decade avidly studying the boring subject of economics so you don't have to!

I was brought up into the economic thought process of pure liberalism-- schools like Keynesianism, then Monetarism, then later the Austrian way of thinking. All three of those schools more or less agree that tariffs are bad. Why? Well, because if two parties are willing to make a voluntary exchange, then by definition that exchange must benefit both sides, lest why would they agree to the exchange in the first place?

Thus, wealth is created! Introducing a tariff just throws gum in the works and prevents people from generating wealth and thereby raising the standard of living. On paper and in the abstract, that makes sense! Unfortunately, when you get into the real world that model winds up being way too simplistic.

There is a competing school of economic thought called Protectionism. Under that line of thinking, it is recognized that trade imbalances occur between nations: some economies wind up as producing economies, while others wind up as consuming economies. That's exactly what's occurred with the United States in relation to other nations such as China, with whom the US is perpetually setting new all-time trade deficit records.

I've watched how, just in my lifetime, liberalism-- as the dominant economic way of thinking-- has directly resulted in the middle class in the United States getting pretty much completely erased as virtually the entire manufacturing core has been wiped out by corporations closing all of the factories and shipping all of the middle class jobs overseas. Hardly anyone in this country can even afford groceries or housing or anything else for that matter because the only jobs left for traditionally working class people are in the poorly paid service sector!

An entire class of people have been left behind by the globalism / liberalism paradigm. I think it's very sad.

This has also created national security risks, as all of the expertise in making so many things has "brain drained" out of the country, along with all of the tooling and capital machinery. Additionally, many of these liberal "trade deals" have been horrible for the US worker, as they were negotiated in bad faith to further enrich the wealthy.

The aim of Protectionism is to reverse those trends.

As an economic way of thinking, Protectionism has a long and rich history going back centuries, even within the United States itself. It's not new by any stretch. In fact, tariffs are widely used all around the world today by other countries, against the US. What Trump is attempting to do is create a renaissance in manufacturing within the United States, and also use the tariffs as a bludgeon via which to negotiate trade deals more favorable to the middle class.

For me personally, I have absolutely no clue whether this new wave of Protectionist economic policy in the United States will have its desired effect: the idea is that the country will be able to politically endure short-run pain in the form of a slumping stock market and higher consumer prices, in exchange for a mid-to-long-term economic renaissance for the middle class, if the plan works.

The old model failed-- so I'm willing to try something new for awhile and see how it goes.

The risk is that we're so far gone as a country economically, so far into debt, with the working class so impoverished, that a crushing depression could occur, causing an out-and-out "rebellion", either figuratively or literally, to happen-- flushing out the current administration, and re-introducing economic liberalism with the next one in a desperate attempt to right the flagging ship, and return to the imbalanced-but-somewhat-stable status quo of the past forty-odd years.

The only reason I bring this all up is to offer some badly missing context and perspective, which I'm not seeing from anyone else. Yes, you might have to pay a little more to buy a Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025. Yes, that qualifies as short-term pain, and pain sucks. But the missing part of that equation why these policies are being enacted-- it's not random; there is a method to the madness.

My wife and our kids went and saw the Minecraft movie last night-- and had a lot of fun! Yes, it's a stupid movie with a paper thin plot, which is trite and superficial, which has zero emotional impact, and which leans on cliches and ninety-miles-per-hour story developments instead of creating any kind of authentic character development or connection with its audience.

But as someone who as been playing Minecraft since it was in alpha back in 2009, seeing the interactions between well-known game concepts and real-world actors-- like watching a creeper sneak up on one of the characters-- carried it for me. That, and Jack Black's incredible energy plus Jason Momoa successfully playing what looked to me like an obvious parody of John Romero, made the acting at least watchable.

Of course, it's getting deservedly terrible reviews-- I love this quote from one of them: "Mine all you like. You'll never find any smarts in this cavern of stupidity." But for people who have sunk a gazillion hours into the game, I would categorize the film as unmissable frankly, as a cultural event as much as anything. Just make sure to watch all the way to the end of the credits...

My daughter and I followed through with our plan to watch the Switch 2 presentation together this morning! I put it on my TV while I worked, and she pulled out the bean bag chair.

We both walked away mildly disappointed-- we're both still going to buy it, but we were expecting a little more than what we got. It kind of starts with the price; at $500 for the bundle plus tax, plus I know I'll want to get the Pro Controller, that's one heck of an initial expenditure to get into the new platform. And if you want the camera, tack on another $50. Additionally, it looks like retail games for the system are going to be a whopping $80!

So then you start to analyze, "Well, what do I get with the new platform?", and the value proposition is just not very high out of the gates. Nintendo basically only showed two first-party games, Switch 2-exclusive games that I can remember-- Mario Kart World, and the new Donkey Kong title. The rest of the video was mostly very rough looking third-party ports of games we've already had for years on the PlayStation 5, and which look and run about ten times better on that system. And the PS5 is actually cheaper than the Switch 2 if you get the version without the disc drive!

But the PlayStation 5 isn't a handheld-- fair enough. Tack on a PlayStation Portal to quasi-equalize the feature set, and you're looking at a $600 entry point to the PS5 ecosystem, if you want to lay on the bed and play on a smaller screen.

So how about compared to the Steam Deck then? Given the dearth of first-party games shown on the Switch 2 so far, all that's left is a "it can run Hades 2 and Elden Ring" sort of a deal-- but so can the Steam Deck, which can also run literally tens of thousands of other Steam games, which you can buy for pennies-on-the-dollar from places like Kingguin and CD Keys! If anything, I thought today's Switch 2 video was a good advert for the myriad of PC gaming handhelds out there.

I'm also worried about the Switch 2's level of power.

I was hoping it would be at least a small upgrade in performance from my OLED Steam Deck, if not even a bit more than that-- but every game Nintendo showed had lousy framerates and tons of shimmering plus aliasing. Overall it just doesn't look as powerful as I thought it'd be, based on the game footage they've shown so far at least. This is a problem, because the Steam Deck is basically incapable of running 2025-era triple-A games-- which means the Switch 2 will be a completely non-viable "primary console" just like the original Switch was.

Again, it goes back to value proposition: now we're talking a $500 console, where you still need another platform just to play the latest games!

All of that said, having a Forza Horizon with a Mario Kart skin on it is going to be super fun, especially since you just know it'll have that trademark Nintendo level design, with clever little secrets filled in all over the place. And I'm sure Nintendo has a lot of first-party games brewing, including an inevitable Splatoon 4, for which both my daughter and I are excited.

For us, it's worth getting into the system on day one if we can, since we know we'll inevitably buy one anyway. But for a lot of other people, I'd tend to recommend a PlayStation 5 or to at least do some homework into the various PC-based handhelds-- especially the superb, essentially hassle-free Steam Deck.

I played around with "Minecraft RTX" on the 9070 XT today, and not only got the path tracing fully functional, but with FSR 2 on top of it! The game runs at least as well as it did on my 4070 Ti, and looks brilliant!

First, install the Bedrock version of the game using this third-party launcher. Second, install plus launch the game via the aforementioned launcher. Third, download and install the Vanilla RTX pack, along with any add-ons you want-- simply run the Bedrock version of the game via the launcher, and double-click on the .mcpack files, then activate them in the game's menu. Third, download this mod and follow the instructions. When you run the game, there will be an FSR 2 option in video sub-menu.

Flip to ray-tracing mode, toggle FSR 2 on, and prepare to see AMD veritably and almost unbelievably caught up with Nvidia in terms of ray-tracing! Now if only I could get "Super Mario 64 RT" working-- for some reason it draws the HUD, but nothing else. Oh well, one step at a time!

I had an extraordinary thing happen during confession a couple of hours ago.

Last night, our Pastoral Council group was asked for volunteers, from our council, to wash feet during Holy Thursday, symbolically right after Father and the other priests present would begin that portion of the Mass. I was extremely reticent and mostly avoided making eye contact with the chairman as he was soliciting for the help.

This had been weighing very heavy on my heart all day, but I made no mention of it to anyone other than Jesus.

During confession today then, I opened my heart to the confessor, explaining in very high level terms-- not mentioning the feet washing, Holy Thursday, or any specifics at all-- how much I'm struggling with anxiety, and how I've wished and prayed for sometimes even preposterous circumstances to spare me from having to do the various things of which the Lord is asking me. In other words, I've been disobedient to His will.

To my complete and utter astonishment the priest said, "For your penance, I want you to be as involved as possible during the Holy Week liturgies." Stunned, I left the confessional, drove home, and emailed the chairman to tell him I'd do it.

The other thing my confessor said was that to get over my anxieties, I needed to say to myself "To heck with my role in all of this, it's not about me it's about the needs of others, and I can't do a single thing without the Lord anyway." I had been wondering for some time if, deep down, my anxiety was borne out of pride, ego, and arrogance which is why I was and am so afraid of making mistakes. The priest confirmed this suspicion of mine.

Imagine a soul as a ship on the open waters. At slow speeds, it dips and slops deep into each undulating wave, whereas a speed boat moving at high velocity will merely skip and leap from crest-to-crest. When I go several days without taking Abilify, my soul feels too deeply, and I fall into each dip, barely able to handle the emotions, both good and bad. When I go on Abilify for even just a day or two, my soul is the speed boat-- I don't wallow in fear, but I can't connect with positive emotions very well either, and I experience great spiritual dryness.

Knowing which mornings to pop one of those pills, and which mornings during which to abstain, is key.

On a totally different note, I've been enjoying the PlayStation 5 a lot more as the system ages. In terms of creativity I still think this is the weakest the industry has ever been-- but at least the experiences, however derviative, have been fairly robust. Just in looking at my shelf I see "Astro Bot", "Gran Turismo 7", "Monster Hunter Wilds", "Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart", and "Street Fighter 6"-- all solid games which give the system at least some identity. They are all sturdily-made games with good graphics and lots of content.

It's nice that the PlayStation 5 has literally all of the mainstream stuff on it too. Also on my shelf I see "EA Sports FC 24", and a pair of "Maddens". Not to mention, the unit plays almost every single PlayStation 4 game, and also has almost every downloadable or indie game one could possibly want to play. I've been using the built-in guide videos for "Astro Bot", it's really neat having that integrated right into the dashboard without needing my laptop and YouTube. Plus, the controller is a total gem.

All-in-all it's a solid system on which I've made some decent gaming memories over the past few years.

On a church note, great change is coming to the organization of the diocese of which I am a part, and I learned some of the first details last night. I've been in almost constant prayer and reflection since then. Tonight, it's a community soup & sandwiches reconciliation event, and I've been spending a lot of time examining my conscious in preparation to have a thorough confession, as well as coaching my kids through that kind of preparation.

"...in my thoughts and in my words; in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do..."

In the spirit of making myself available to others in service, I had a really nice phone call with an elderly friend of mine today. I am going to his house next Tuesday to help him install a new laser printer he bought, plus to take him out to lunch at our favorite Chinese buffet. It's always a pleasure to hang out with him, he's a good friend, and a good person.

Yesterday I entered into a crazy week. So much so that I decided to go back on the Abilify, just for these several days.

I was lector at Mass; today I have an afternoon full of errands, including the chiropractor plus getting the summer wheels put on the 86; Pastoral Council meeting tomorrow; a parish Lent and reconciliation event on Wednesday night; then a Stephen Dinner on Thursday evening. Friday and Saturday will be the days I hopefully return the myriad phone calls I need to make, plus finish the first phase of helping my friend out with his gun shop business website. I also have a lot of cleaning to do.

Then on Sunday, I am going to step up and help be an altar server at Mass again, something which fills my heart with great anxiety, but which I know the Lord wants me to do. If we have three servers, we can have two hold candles on either side of the ambo during the Gospel reading, which adds that extra bit of reverance. Eventually I'll bring my son into the altar serving.

As for work, I have a hard go-live on April 1, and a ton of work to do between today and then to get all of the various pieces in place. And on top of that, I am on call for support all week, including through next weekend. I also just remembered that I need to order more liquid propane-- I used up everything I had on contract, so that will be a multi-hundred dollar bill. Thankfully, money is one thing I have no need to be stressed about, which is a blessing.

Speaking of God's graces, I was asked by Father to attend the April 10 Chrism Mass in St. Cloud at the Cathedral, over which the Bishop presides, in order to collect the sacred oils which we will use at my church over the course of the liturgical year. What a blessing and an honor!

Other than all of that, I have had a little time to continue playing "Astro Bot" and "Monster Hunter Wilds" on the PlayStation 5. I also pulled the "Street Fighter 6" disc out and refreshed myself on how to play the characters "JP" and "Manon". I'd enjoy buying the other, DLC characters but they are so expensive! It would cost the entire price of the game all over again, virtually, to purchase the two "season packs" or whatever they are called.

It's also my son's twelfth birthday coming up very soon! We are going to the Pizza Ranch buffet tomorrow to celebrate. Parenting at this age is difficult-- my kids are both phenomenal, but it's the most confusing time of life during human development. I pray every day for the Lord to help provide me with the tools to parent well, and for them to turn to Jesus in times of question or need.

Pray for me during this trying week, and I will pray for all of you!

Monster Hunter Wilds is such a mixed bag, what a shame!

Wifey wants to get into the series, so she's exploring getting the Windows version to play with me over on the PS5 Pro-- but apparently the PC port's performance is awful, with microstutters and the like no matter how good your system is. I also think the game's art direction is extremely hit and miss: some scenes and fights look truly cutting edge, with particle effects flying everywhere, while other moments-- such as at a camp, during a storm, and so forth-- are muddy and ugly, with no self-shadowing on the characters and poor lighting overall.

Also, from a co-op standpoint apparently you can't do the story missions together! And for some bizarre reason which eludes me completely, Wilds is extremely story-focused, to the point where you're dragged into lengthy cut-scenes and story elements constantly. I'm not even through it yet at the sixteen hour mark, albeit I am doing all of the optional quests as I go. So in other words, there is a perhaps twenty hour barrier to entry to have a functioning co-op system, before it becomes a "real" Monster Hunter game; you can do optional quests together, but need to constantly re-join each other's parties before each one.

A temptation is to just buy two copies of Rise and its expansion on CD Keys for thirty bucks each, for Windows, and just play that with my wife. Yes you're not getting the triple-A graphics, but Rise has superb art direction, brilliant screenspace reflections on its water-- better than Wilds' ray-traced ones to be honest-- and I'm sure I could run it at 120 Hz at 4K on my RX 9070 XT, being it's a port of a Switch game.

In any event, we had seventy degree weather where I live yesterday, now today we're getting perhaps eight inches of snow. Incomprehensible weather patterns! My daughter's workplace messaged and they are closed today-- so we'll just bunker in and play lots of video games I'm sure, which will be fun in any event! I really want to get back to the Nintendo 64 at some point here, I should select a game to play and review next.

Installed the RX 9070 XT into the PC just a bit ago, and dropped the 4070 Ti into the wife's PC-- which I can finally deliver to her, it's been waiting on a video card since December! It's really weird being back in camp AMD after something like a straight decade running Nvidia hardware.

The kind of sad part; which games did I run to make sure the new card was working? Path-traced Doom, and Shogo. Sometimes I wonder why I bother keeping up with modern game hardware, because modern game software just doesn't do it for me, by-and-large. I'm playing "Monster Hunter Wilds" on the PS5 Pro, and boy is that one ugly game-- I think triple-A games are getting worse looking over time!

Then I look at lists like this, and literally every game is a sequel, or continuation of some existing franchise. What happened to all of the new and novel stuff? Seems to have disappeared about twenty years ago, and never came back. And yet, I'll probably be a sucker and buy a Switch 2 anyway, playing Mario Kart 57 and Metroid 25.

Back to the 9070 XT, the only thing it doesn't do well is path-tracing-- it's just a hair slower than the 5070 Ti otherwise, and that includes ray-traced workloads. But path-tracing has been such a disappointment! I don't even care about it anymore. It's been relegated mostly to poorly-supported tech demos-- and the handful of triple-A games which use it, "Cyberpunk 2077" aside, frankly don't look as good artistically as triple-A games from maybe ten years ago, with baked lighting and software GI!

All of that said, path-traced Doom runs fine on the 9070 XT-- the game supports some form of FSR in the menu, and after I enabled that performance seemed about the same as my 4070 Ti, looked really smooth. Minecraft RTX is a different story, super glitchy with lots of weird artifacts-- unplayable, and performance isn't very good either.

Lots of church stuff going on lately: I lectored at the Ash Wednesday Mass last night, then I'm volunteering at both a fish fry tomorrow evening, and a pancake breakfast on Sunday. I also served at Mass last Saturday and Sunday both. I'm feeling much more relaxed today. I think Mass serving will be fun once I get the process down; I did ok on Saturday, even going in cold with no real training.

I've been taking Abilify all week: it speeds up my brain so that the mental freight train zooms past anxious thoughts, at the cost of feeling unable to connect with my emotions. Some weeks it's a net benefit to take it, other weeks it's a net loss. This week it's been a net gain.

I finally managed to land a new video card! I've been trying for weeks to get an RTX 5070 Ti-- at which point, my 4070 Ti would go to wifey; I've had a PC one hundred percent built for her since December, it's just been waiting on a GPU. After carefully studying benchmarks, I decided this morning that I was going to try landing a 9070 XT-- and I was able to do so! It arrives on Monday.

The card is a PowerColor Hellhound RX 9070 XT, with 16 GB of VRAM. In both raster and, almost unbelievably since this is AMD we're talking about, ray-tracing performance, it's a small upgrade from my 4070 Ti-- not to mention the extra 4 GB of VRAM. I'm also sick to death of Nvidia, between melting power connectors, them lying about the RTX 50x0 performance levels, 5090s starting on fire, missing "ROPS", exorbitant prices, and all the rest.

This feels like a Ryzen moment for AMD, just on the GPU side this time. Even though the 5070 Ti is faster-- and at least two hundred dollars more, mind you-- I'm willing to take a small performance loss to support AMD, just like I did with my original Ryzen 1600, which I bought the day those came out. I think AMD have the platform with RDNA4, onto which they can build additional software support, such as FSR4.

Also in gaming news, my copy of Monster Hunter Wilds came in on Monday. I haven't had much time to play it, but in the little bit I have it seems ok so far. I'm running in the balanced mode, with no framerate cap, on the PS5 Pro, on my LG C3, in a 120 Hz container. It's amazing how much graphics have plateaued, I don't think Wilds looks radically better than World, and in fact I prefer the more Japanese aesthetic from Rise. All the same, it's Monster Hunter and I'm sure I'll have fun with it.

Back on to a God note, I thought this model was cool-- it's the three conditions of good prayer: humility, perseverance, and conformity with God's will. I've been reading Saint Faustina's diary, and hit this part-- bold emphasis are the parts where Jesus is speaking:



This passage reminded me of Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14:



The gate is narrow... even the smallest transgressions will have to be accounted for... it makes me realize just how superficial my past confessions have been. I need to do a much more thorough, prayerful examination of my conscience: really dig deep and turn over the furniture.

God's mercy and love may be infinite, but at the same time this isn't a game-- the fate of our souls is on the line, and He has told us how to act, how to think, and how to live. Heaven is not automatic, and in fact I now suspect it's even more difficult to get there than today's church and Christian culture at large lets on! It makes me all the more want to live a pure life, the way the Lord wants me to.

Yesterday, my kids and I got a few hours in a local arcade with all of the machines set to wide-open free play, thanks to our 4H club. This arcade is in the middle of practically nowhere, yet has so many great machines! I took some pictures of just a few:













From the top, Galaga is one of my favorite arcade games of all time, it was surreal playing on an actual cabinet, even if I don't think it was a 100% authentic original. He had some great combo machines, like Double Donkey Kong and Centipede / Missile Command / Millipede.

My kids are total suckers for racing games, so my son played a ton of rounds of Cruisn' Exotica, and was just busting a gut at the antics the whole time. The three of us rotated for quite a while on Daytona USA 2, holy buckets are the graphics in that game good.

The final picture is an authentic Asteroids Deluxe cabinet he had. It was super tough to capture what I was seeing with my phone-- you basically duck your head into the cabinet to block out surrounding light, and the experience is incredible! The vector graphics have aged super well, but the most amazing thing is the contrast as the phosphorous bullets streak and blur as they move: the contrast ratio is insane, better than any 2025-era OLED TV even I'm sure-- and this is a game from 1979!

It shows how we've gone forwards in a lot of ways like resolution, but backwards in a lot of ways too. The people working on the technology for these games back then were absurdly talented. I also give major props to the owner of this arcade for keeping all of these machines running-- that is no easy feat, there are some serious soldering, oscilloscope, and electric understanding going on behind the scenes undoubtedly.

In other news, I've finally decided to burn a vacation day at work, this is exactly what the doctor ordered! I got to sleep in, and sit here on the MacBook, sipping coffee while puttering away on some things. Wonderful! My copy of Monster Hunter Wilds for PS5 should come in today at some point as well, via Amazon. I'm currently plugging through Astro Bot-- solid game, with some occasional moments of real creativity.

For the first time in literally months, my in-laws are all gone for twenty-four hours and I can live with my wife and kids like a normal family, versus being trapped in the basement by myself like some kind of prisoner. It's weird being near so many windows, feeling actual sunlight on me, listening in on the normal daily activity of my own children, the tick of a nearby clock, hearing cars drive by, and so forth.

Just for one day, we get to be a normal family again. It's a very emotional experience for me-- like I was released from jail for a few hours' worth of visitation.

A couple of nights ago I read the intro to the diary of the woman who was receiving the visions of Jesus's Divine Mercy, and who instructed the course of the painting. I don't have it in front of me, but the intro contained excerpts like "I never said 'no' to God", and "even though my nature quaked at what He would ask me to do, and even though those things seemed beyond my capacity, I did them anyway."

That's how I'm trying to frame my present ordeal: God has me on this crazy road for some kind of purpose that only He understands. I'm trying to say "yes" to things even when they are challenging. But at the same time, what I wouldn't give to "undo" so many things in my life.

My latest tribulations have involved running multiple church-related meetings over the past few days. I'm good at it and I see that the need is there, which is why I've stepped in to fill that void. But boy is it stressful. We also have a need for more Mass Servers, and I made an agreement with my son: if I learn how to do it first, he will join in after I can instruct him. But that's yet another source of anxiety for me, as I have to perform this new function during Masses on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.

So it's another church meeting presentation on Friday, followed by the two Masses this weekend. Then you get to my career, which is a complete cluster.

I've been tasked with "modernizing" some applications, which involves re-writing chunks of them so they work in what's idiotically named "Kubernetes". I have twenty-seven years of professional IT experience. This "Kubernetes", "Terraform", "Azure AD", "GitHub Actions", and all the rest of it is the worst technology stack I've ever encountered. It's duct tape and bailing wire. Rather than solving business problems I'm having to spend hundreds of hours just getting what used to be basically automatic stuff going, like deployments and security. I'm absolutely miserable at work.

I also have a lot of stressors with parenting, in large part because I essentially don't live with my kids-- so rather than being present on a daily basis to make little course corrections, I'm finding out about stuff sometimes weeks later, then having to do re-teaching and damage control. It all just feels so wrong.

On a different subject matter, the kids and I have been trying to squeeze in episodes of the anime "Code Geass", and have been really enjoying it. In fact, we think it's something of a masterpiece. I've also been watching "Gintama" on my own, lots of hilarious episodes-- my favorite of which was the one where the ninja chick is supposed to assassinate this rat crime guy, and convinces the tagging-long Gin that the crime boss is her father, and that Gin is to ask for her hand in marriage. "Who are all of these guys??" "Uhhh, they're... all ex-boyfriends!"

Finally, my daughter just had her fifteenth birthday and is going to start Driver's Ed soon-- she is very much looking forward to that. The old WRX is just sitting there waiting for her!

It's been another several days since I've been able to write here.

Life has felt like a tornado going a thousand miles per hour; the Lord has me on this path where I'm taking on more and more responsibility with the church, but with my anxiety every single meeting is a source of distress for hours beforehand, and hours afterwards-- to the point where I feel like I'm on the outside of a train car, holding on to the handles, my hair whipping in the wind, hanging on for dear life as the locomotive careens down the track.

It's like I need a day of vacation after each "burst" of activity-- but don't have the adequate time to decompress from it or digest it all-- like I'm perpetually "running behind", so things feel very harried, and I feel deeper and deeper underwater as I go.

This past weekend for instance I spent helping a church friend with the website for his business. I'm happy to do it, but it definitely took away from my ability to unwind and relax. Yesterday, I went to Mass in the big town near me, and was initiated into the Knights of Columbus-- again, happy to do that, but it was a big source of stress as well, socializing with strangers whom I'd just met, which has always put me in difficulty.

This week, I have a Faith Formation class for my kids on Wednesday night; I got invited to a dinner to explore becoming a deacon, on Thursday night; then on Friday night I am running my church's Liturgy Committee. I'm "on call" for production support at work even through this upcoming weekend, where I'm lector and sacristan; plus the usual full slate of work involving my actual career. I wish I could take a multi-month sabbatical from work to sort of "re-form" my identity, or wrap my arms around everything.

At the end of the day, how I unwind is doing fun video game-related projects. But when I do have the spare time, I don't have the energy.

Add to it my living arrangement, where I feel like I live in a different home from my own wife and kids, and it's a lot to deal with. I've also been stressed about my weight; I was 147 lbs when I first moved "up North", now I'm 162 and counting-- yet I just can't seem to keep my eating on track through all of the anxiety. In all of this, I've been just trying to turn to the Lord in prayer, asking Him for some relief: I know He wants me on this road, every single signal he gives me is "full speed ahead"-- so I just have to trust in Him!

Tonight I'm supposed to attend my first-- one day after becoming a part of the group-- Knights of Columbus meeting. But it's at 8:00pm, and just to get some semblance of sleep in the midst of my constant "fight or flight" mode, I need to have "lights out" at 8:30pm, otherwise I'm trashed the next day. And unfortunately, my team at work has sprint planning first thing in the morning tomorrow-- so I'm going to need to set some boundaries and, sad to say, skip tonight's meeting.

If only I didn't have this anxiety and derealization! I'm broken, somehow.


The Diaconate

The aforementioned meeting I have on Thursday involves a few people trying to convince me to become a deacon. The diaconate is a funny thing: I did a lot of prayer and reflection, and came up with a "pros and cons" list. On the "pros" side is that I think I would make an awesome deacon: I have a lot of passion for liturgical matters, and I can readily envision myself in my "mind's eye" doing baptisms, funerals, giving homilies, and the like. It's a great intersection of my gifts, and the act of serving.

On the "cons" side is everything I just described above. How in the world would I add years of training, getting a master's degree in Theology, and so forth to the mix? Even setting aside my anxiety issues, mathematically when would I even have time to attend class, or study? I'm going to need to head into the meeting with the communicated expectation that I'm only there for information-gathering. Maybe in my fifties, if I can retire or go down to part-time work, I could become a deacon for the latter decades of my life?


The Pope

I thought that this article was well-written. I don't know enough Theology to say whether God can be proven purely via reason, but the back three-quarters of the article really strikes a chord with me. The crux of it is here, bold emphasis is mine:



It's important as a Catholic to remember that the Pope is human and thus fallible, just like the rest of us; the only time what he says is treated as official church doctrine is under very specific conditions. This concept is explained in great detail in articles such as this. So when the Pope speaks off the cuff and expresses some political opinion which doesn't quite seem to make sense on a Theological or even logical level, that shouldn't put us Catholics is any kind of grave difficulty.

It's important not to lose faith, even when the Pope is playing politics.

The trouble is, these actions do set a bad precedent. Many lay Catholics I know, at this point, ignore just about everything the Pope says-- even in those situations when it is an "official doctrine" kind of situation! In fact, people sadly tend to roll their eyes when the name "Pope Francis" is even mentioned. Just as the author puts it, the credibility of the Church starts to take a hit, and I've seen it myself.

It's a shame because the Pope also says a lot of really good things-- but one "bad apple" remark tends to ruin the bunch, as it is with anyone.

Finally got the mighty GR Corolla back from the body shop! Way back in early December, a pheasant flew out of the ditch, struck an oncoming vehicle, then point-blank, rapid-fire spiraled into the engine bay of the aforementioned Toyota. Even though it took almost exactly two months to get it fixed, it's good to finally have the car back without a smashed-in front end.

I have a dinner coming up on February 20 with multiple deacons, and other men who are considering becoming one. I need to start kicking up prayers for discernment up a notch. I'm at this juncture where I'm trying to decide what to do for this chapter of my life. There are reasons to suspect that permanent work-from-home positions like mine are in jeopardy, broadly speaking-- what then? Does the diaconate have some role to play in that future? Or will I need to relocate back to the Twin Cities?

I've had the flu since last Thursday, finally feeling a bit more "over it" this morning. I was able to go to Mass yesterday, but not much else over that period. I laid in bed a lot and played "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" on the OLED Steam Deck. The battery life on that system is so bad, I just leave it plugged in the whole time I'm playing. But the game looks very modern, and performance is great! It's cool to see something like that running on a handheld.

It's really neat having a living, breathing, fully-Catholic world in a video game, with zero percent wokeness: just pure history. The codex entries discuss the liturgy, complete with liturgical terms I still use with priests while preparing the Mass in 2025, like ciborium, paten, and monstrance. All of the buildings in the game are modeled after the real things, and it was incredible for me to wander into a Catholic church in the year ~1400, and be able to compare and contrast it with my real-life church from 1916.

As a game I'm of mixed opinions: on the one hand I installed the "Monster Hunter Wilds" beta on PS5 and found the lack of realism-- the fantasy elements-- to be ridiculous and off-putting; so "Kingdom Come" makes it difficult to play other games now. On the flip side, the latter is a very fussy game; not being able to save anywhere is fine, makes it feel like "Shenmue", where you have to plan your day out-- but many times deaths feel a bit random or unfair, sometimes due to bugs, sometimes due to strange quest designs or other odd happenings.

I'm a little worried about the sequel: apparently there is a gay sex part, plus there is a woman soldier on the cover art. Did the developers cave and ruin the good thing they had going?

"Monster Hunter Wilds" is interesting. I'm not sure I like it. The game looks and plays fine on the PS5 Pro. The artwork is so-so, not sure it's as pretty as "Rise". Does the game not have a proper hub town? I don't like how the mounts run on their own, was fishing for a setting to turn that off completely, but couldn't find one. No wirebugs either? Instinctively I kept trying to use them to recover after a knock-down, and nothing would happen.

I think I'll still buy it, but overall I think I like the gameplay, art style, and music better in "Rise". Maybe I'd have more fun just buying the "Rise" expansion on Switch, which I've never played? Oh well, better get to work.