perspective

life – as seen through the eyes of ezra (or, 0x)

Rants

Sep 24

Posted by Ezra in Rant | 8 Comments

The following paragraphs lack coherence of any kind.

Humans suck. There is a reason why I really don’t have people I call friends. Guys I occasionally hang out with are mostly colleagues or acquaintances. The girls, fuckbuddies or potential ones. Oh yes, if you’re a girl and we hang out or talk, chances are that I’ve at least pictured you naked, or gone as far as imagine what it’d be like to have sex with you. Most times, I just want to run away from everything to a faraway plain, with my cats of course.

I like to think of myself as homosexual, or bisexual, or bicurious, or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days. No, I’m yet to have my first sexual experience with a guy, mostly because none of my friends are willing. There is this colleague of mine that gives me a hard-on anytime I picture him rubbing my thighs. Thankfully, he actually does this. But he doesn’t know it actually excites me.

I’ve always wanted to own an owl simply because they can turn their necks about 270 degrees from side to side. I’m yet to see one for sale on this side of the world but…I will settle for a parrot, or two.

Oh, if you’ve at one point or the other engaged in a blogger vs. “twitterer” fight, you should get your cranium checked.

Once upon a time, I thought I could rap. Forget that was ever typed.

I have a problem with multitasking. Surprisingly, I was good at it about 3 years ago. Right now, it’s difficult for me to shift focus from one project to attend to another. Needless to say, this has affected my income as a substantial part of it previously came from completing non-office work. The only project I’m currently directly involved in at work is actually one that demands that I totally commit myself to it so I can’t really help it right now.

Sometime in July, my Galaxy S’ screen cracked and I had to send it in for repairs. About 2 weeks and N33,000 later, I got the phone back from Samsung Care. I already had my eye on the Galaxy S II so I sold the S as soon as I got it back…for N40,000. Considering the fact that a new one went for N60,000, there was really no way I could have sold it at a higher cost. I counted my loses and moved on, bought the S II for N102,000 and misplaced it the next day. Nevermind, I’ve done the whole flogging myself already. The good Samaritan who found the phone is using it though, instead of trying to track down it’s previous owner. Who can blame him? Its the S II we are talking about here. However, the thief accesses the marketplace with my account, meaning that he (or she) didn’t even bother to restore the phone to factory settings. According to my marketplace account, this device was still active as at September 21.

I would probably have to pay for this randomness in future, but who cares?

I don’t care if the President’s wife didn’t actually say “I’ll rather kill myself than commit suicide”. It’s not beyond her. Besides, that’s a whole lot better than beginning a speech with “My fellow widows…” if you think about it.

Fuck Boko Haram.

Highlights

Jan 21

Posted by Ezra in Rant | 6 Comments

I know I’ve not posted shit in a long time. Heck, I’ve not posted anything at all in (*trying to calculate number of days… *giving up). Twitter is really the death of blogs. Haha, it wishes. This is more like a comeback post. You really don’t have to remind me of the fact that I’ve said this before, do you? Anyway, what better way to do this than list the highlights of my life between July last year and today? Here goes…

 

July last year, I was half jobless. My company was distressed. It was only a couple of days since we were paid for the month of May. Trust me, it wasn’t funny. Second week into the month, a meeting was called and it was announced that the company was shutting down. My getaway move for this period was posting crap on Twitter. It helped, I guess.

 

August, I was still jobless. I wasn’t actively searching for a new job though. Why? Two directors of the defunct company, along with myself and another colleague came together to start a venture. Bla bla bla. The new company kicked off in September. It wasn’t really smooth in the beginning but the future seemed bright and all that.

 

I got a new girlfriend in October and lost her in November. Oh no, she didn’t die. She left me. Ouch! Got my dream phone late December. I should do a review of the device soon. Hey wait, come to think of it…sounds like I’ve led a very boring life right? Ok, I met a couple of great people who I wonder how I lived without being friends with previously. @NonPareilZeze for one. I met a number of ‘twitter people’ too.

 

That’s all basically. I’ll try to do this more often. Post on this blog, that is. Not bore you the way I just did. :)

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On God, football, and the octopus

Jul 12

Posted by Ezra in religion | 5 Comments

Over the weekend, myself and a couple of friends started talking about the FIFA 2010 World Cup and the octopous that suddenly gained celebrity status for correctly predicting the outcome of 8 matches. Needless to say, I don’t follow football so I’m usually the last person you’ll find in a conversation about it, but the lure of the possibility of something supernatural was impossible to ignore.

During the afore-mentioned conversation, the octopus’ ability to predict the outcome of matches was attributed to the devil. As one of his numerous gimmicks to deter people from concentrating on what is important. It was even said that God would one day srike the octopus or something. You know, the usual overly religious christian crap. Rather than call BS on the whole Devil/God thingy, I decided to go by the Bible itself for starters.

The two interesting cases of divination in the bible was said made possible by God himself. We have the Balaam dude whose donkey spoke like a human because an angel was in the way (like seriously?). Then we have the occassion where Saul went visiting a witch to talk to Samuel’s familiar spirit. God supposedly caused Samuel’s real spirit itself to manifest. Considering these examples, I find it funny when christians are quick to attribute supernatural events to the devil… well, except for Catholics. I’m guessing the only place where Catholics are yet to see an apparition of Christ is on a girl’s face just after a facial. Wait, I should tweet that!

Maybe God is speaking to us through the octopus. Surely, an all-knowing God already knows the outcome of any football match. This should not destroy freewill in anyway. There are a lot of factors to consider such as amount of, and dedication to training, tolerance to varying weather conditions, level of both natural and acquired skill, etc. Attempts have been made to predict matches using a series of simulations while adjusting the variables. At least football manager games are based on this premise. With the right amount of computing power, these simulations should become as accurate as the octopus, who is yet to exhibit the ability of telling what the exact scores would be.

An all-powerful God’s brain would be the entire earth’s computing muscle to the power of infinity. Combine this with being all-knowing and every move/mood/emotion of the player can be taken into consideration when he simulates the match in his head. Thus, rather than pray to God on the pitch to win, just ask him what the scores’ll be. :)

That said, there’s the possiblity some dude somewhere has built a super-awesome processor that can accurately predict the outcome of matches. This dude lures the octopus to the “right” case by putting a more delicious looking (at least to the octopus) in it.

Whatever the case is, I’ll love to read about more successful predictions. Heck, I should ask the two year old oracle if I’ll end up dating a certain girl like that. :)

Yay! I got my Twitter back!

Jan 22

Posted by Ezra in Uncategorized | No Comments

True story. And guess what my first tweet was…:) Thanks to a Twitter rep called ‘tiger’. What a weird name for a cool guy (or girl?). Maybe he helped me out because of my extreme feline love.

So its back to (the) business (of tweeting)… And oh, before I forget, a huge middle finger to the attacker, whoever the fuck you are!

Oh My Twitter!

Jan 22

Posted by Ezra in Rant | 5 Comments

pwnedI forgot to add TM. And no, this is not another joke post. My Twitter account has been hijacked for about a week now.

The attack was classic (I feel so probably since this is the first time I’m a target of one). My email address (ezra@cfezra.com) was compromised at around 10pm on 14th of January, 2010. I must admit, I use a very weak password. Even by 1999 standards, its a pretty weak password.

11:52pm, a password recovery was performed on my Twitter account. About 3 minutes later, the associated email address on my account was changed thus relieving me of any form of control over my account. I knew this from a mail sent by twitter to my email address notifying me of the change. Problem is, the new email address wasn’t stated.

Complained to Twitter, got a reply after three days that a support ticket was opened for me with a message that needed my response. I followed the link and arrived at a page requesting me to login to view the ticket. WTF?!

Long story short, I’m yet to regain control of my account 178 hours after the ‘theft’. I really hope to get it back as soon as possible as I miss it already. It was my favorite ‘hang out’ spot.

Now playing: Nothing – I’m Pissed. (LOL)

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Happy New Year, bitches!

Jan 12

Posted by Ezra in Rant | 2 Comments

IMG_0788 It feels so good to be baaaack! Erm, did I really go anywhere? I know, its January 12 already. Guess a lot of peeps have forgotten they even had a holiday. No, I’ve not. I’m still living it. And hey, did I say I had the best Christmas break ever? Mum should definitely not see that – we haven’t seen each other since April last year. I’m currently less than 40 kilometers to her so I should go say hi to her very soon.

A lot of things have happened since I last blogged. I’ll mention two notable ones.

Michelle, my queen, gave birth to 4 kittens. Junior, Brenda (the girl in the picture), Alex, and Kaytee. The kittehs are soooooo cute. Two of them have gotten themselves good foster parents already. Seriously, I would have loved to keep them all.

Next, I made a really good friend. ‘Nuff said. :p

Anyway, I’m looking forward to an awesome year ahead and I’m sure you guys are doing the same.

Now playing: Black Eyed Peas – Meet Me Halfway

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Cats on Tuesday: Dear Henry

Nov 10

Posted by Ezra in Cats on Tuesday | 15 Comments

Snapshot_20090317_3 Dear Henry,

Last week Tuesday morning, you woke me up from sleep. It was so unlike you. I felt loved and couldn’t resist playing with you before going to the office.

You were on my mind all day at work. On my way back, I got you your favourite treat – mackerel in tomato sauce (popularly called geisha in these parts of the world). I knew you loved it. Yes, it was written all over your face.

I don’t know why I had to spoil the fun by letting that girl have you for the night. She came to me asking that she needed one of you guys to stay in her kitchen for the night to scare the shit out of the rats in there. I knew I wasn’t supposed to honour her request…but I don’t know why I still went ahead and did. I picked you. I believed you would make a good soldier.

On my way down the stairs, I saw the fear in your eyes but I chose not to acknowledge it. Stupidly. Heck, you even buried your claws deep into my flesh to let me realize what I was doing wasn’t funny. I still ignored you. Stupidly. We got to her place, I hurriedly dropped you and locked the door behind me. I knew you wanted to follow me back upstairs. I could see it. You jumped on the cabinet and looked at me through the window. I looked into your eyes, told you we’ll see in the morning. Little did I know that was the last I was going to see of you.

Early Wednesday morning, I came downstairs… only to realize you had gone. I know you wanted to come back home, but couldn’t. I shed a tear, tweeted about it, cursed myself for letting you out of my sight for the night… but all that could do nothing to bring you back home.

I can imagine how much you must have been bullied by other stray cats in the neighborhood, but I’m sure you’re ‘repping’ where you came from. Seriously, those cats have got nothing on you. I’m sure you’ll survive. And maybe one day, fate will bring us back together again.

Yours faithfully,

Dad.

 

Now playing: Kanye West – Coldest Winter

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Wikinews: The unsung news source

Aug 25

Posted by Ezra in News, tips | 5 Comments

240px-Wikinews-logo Anytime I want to look up a wikipedia article, I usually just Google it…or more recently, Bing it. Yesterday, I decided to go to Wikipedia’s home page, to see what’s new. I noticed something I was seeing for the first time – wikinews.

Wikinews? Ok from my knowledge of wikis, I should believe this “wikinews” is user-generated. I don’t know what surprised me the most. The fact that a user-generated news site exists, or the fact that users actually ‘generate’ news on this news site. I fired up TwitterFox and posted this “and how exactly does wikinews work” hoping someone would be kind enough to explain. A little over 2 hours later, the official English Twitter account for Wikinews responded and the following conversation started.

@en_wikinews: Wikinews works much like any other wiki. Collaborative journalism min this case. Plus we add an editorial review before publishing.
@xolubi: I’m surprised people actually submit news stories. And on time too.
@en_wikinews: We do have a policy about stale news. Many people contribute to Wikinews because they want to help provide Totally Free News.
@xolubi: How do you handle cases where news is submitted without the ‘actual’ source getting proper credit?
@en_wikinews: In order for news to be published on Wikinews, it must go through a 5 point independent review. Part of which is a copyvio check. (copyvio is short for copyright violation).
@xolubi: Care to share what this 5-point independent review comprises of?
@xolubi: Here’s hoping you don’t mind my questions.
@en_wikinews: Don’t mind at all, happy to explain. Wiki’s are open to all. The review process is documented in a template: http://enwn.net/9A37
@xolubi: Ok. Noticed a “post your opinion” link but no opinions posted yet. What will you say about traffic and how people see it as a news source?
@en_wikinews: There are “Opinion” pages for each article, welcoming comments from readers. Some articles get many comments http://enwn.net/cA24
@en_wikinews: As for traffic/news source: We’re not the biggest, but we’ve got a following. In July we had 5.9m page views http://enwn.net/3229
@xolubi: On a side note, look like wikinews has a URL shortener (from your tweets). Is it open to the public or for internal use only?
@en_wikinews: It is open to the public, but for WMF url’s only: http://enwn.net/bookmark.php – The instructions/interface are a work in progress. (I’m sure WMF is short for Wikimedia Foundation)

Whew! Sounds interesting to know a “user-contributed” news source exists and that it is actually active. I’m certain that as more people embrace it, the contributing community will grow and Wikinews will be inching a step closer to being a de facto news source. I may be wrong, but don’t say I didn’t say it. :)

And yes. We have yet another URL Shortner. Altho this works much like Digg’s digg.com or Stumble Upon’s su.pr in the sense that its specialized.

Now Playing: Linkin Park – Bleed it out

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Jesus or Paul? It’s time to make a choice.

Aug 14

Posted by Ezra in religion | 13 Comments

I wonder what those who choose to follow Paul would call themselves. Since apparently, they aren’t ‘Christians’ by definition. Maybe Paulines. LOL. The following article was lifted from 234next.com. I just couldn’t resist re-posting it here to see what my readers have to say about it. Let’s go!

Every Christian must decide whether s/he is a follower of Jesus or a follower of Paul. Don’t make the mistake of many in assuming the two are the same. For starters, take a look at the following discrepancies.

Inconsistencies

Jesus says children of God are born (Jn 3:3); but Paul says they are adopted (Rm 8:23).

Jesus says God must be the only father of believers (Mt 23:9); but Paul says he (Paul) is the father of some believers (Phile 1:10; 1 Cor 4:15).

Jesus says he is the only pastor and the only teacher (Jn 10:16; Mt 23:8); but Paul says there are many pastors and teachers (Eph 4:11; 1 Tim 2:7).

Jesus says we should pray in private (Mt 6:5-6); but Paul says we should pray everywhere (1 Tim 2:8).

Jesus says we should not eat food sacrificed to idols (Rev 2:14); but Paul says it does not matter if we do (Rm 14:14).

Jesus himself was circumcised (Lk 2:21); but Paul says if we are circumcised we would be estranged from Christ (Gal 5:2-4).

Jesus says we should not receive payment for preaching the gospel (Mt 10:8); but Paul says we should (1 Cor 9:11).

Jesus asks us to baptise as we preach the gospel (Mt 28:19); but Paul dismisses the importance of baptism (1 Cor 1:17).

Jesus says lying is of the devil (Jn 8:44); but Paul says God’s truth increased through the lies he told (Rm 3:7).

Jesus says the word of God is truth (Jn 7:17); but Paul says the gospel can be preached with falsehood (Php 1:18).

Jesus is against the use of deception (Jn 1:47); but Paul boasts of using deception (2 Cor 12:16).

Jesus says we should love one another (Jn 13:34); but Paul wished some people would be castrated (Gal 5:12).

Jesus says we should love our enemy in order to be like God (Mt 5:44-45); but Paul says we should love our enemy in order to pour coals of fire on his head (Rm 12:20).

Jesus says we should not swear or curse (Mt 5:34-37; Lk 6:28); but Paul swears and curses (2 Cor 1:23; Gal 1:9).

Jesus says God’s children don’t bear arms and don’t fight (Mt 26:52; Jn 18:36); but Paul says God’s ministers bear arms and use them (Rm 13:3-4).

Jesus says we should disregard public opinion (Lk 6:26; Jn 15:18-19); but Paul actively courts public opinion (1 Cor 10:33; 1 Cor 9:20-22).

Jesus says he who is acceptable to God will be hated by men (Jn 15:18-19; Lk 16:15); but Paul says he will be approved by men (Rm 14:18).

Jesus says we should seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Mt 6:33); but Paul says we should seek glory, honour and immortality (Rm 2:7).

Jesus says the kingdom of God has been taken away from Israel (Mt 21:43); but Paul says all Israel will be saved (Rm 11:26).

Jesus says only a few of those called will be chosen (Mt 22:14); but Paul says all those called will be chosen (Rm 11:29).

Jesus says salvation is by works (Mt 7:21; Mt 21:28-31); but Paul says it is by grace (Eph 2:8-9).

Jesus says he completed his God-given assignment (Jn 17:4; Jn 19:30); but Paul says he completed what Jesus failed to complete (Col 1:24).

Jesus says our trespasses will be forgiven if we forgive others (Mt 6:14-15); but Paul says they have already been forgiven (Eph 1:7).

Jesus says we will be justified by our own words (Mt 12:37); but Paul says we are justified by faith (Rm 3:28).

Jesus says eternal life is very costly (Mt 19:29; Lk 14:28-33); but Paul says it is a free gift (Rm 6:23).

Jesus says God is not the God of the dead (Lk 20:38); but Paul says he is (Rm 14:9).

Jesus says the commandments give life (Mt 19:17); but Paul says they bring death (Rm 7:10).

Jesus says all the commandments are summed up in two commandments (Mt 22:37-40); but Paul says they are summed up in one commandment (Rm 13:9; Gal 5:14).

Jesus says we should beware of anyone who says the day is at hand (Lk 21:8); but Paul says the day is at hand (Rm 13:12).

Jesus says Abel, Adam’s direct son, was righteous (Mt 23:35); but Paul says all Adam’s descendants are unrighteous (Rm 5:12/19; Rm 3:10).

Jesus says none of the Pharisees kept the law (Jn 7:19); but Paul says he kept all the laws of Moses as a Pharisee (Php 3:5-6).

Jesus says we should be like God (Mt 5:48); but Paul says we should be like him (Gal 4:12; Php 3:17).

Whose report do you believe?

I only believe the report of Jesus Christ.

OK, that ‘I’ up there is not mine. It’s Femi Aribisala’s. The original author of the article. I’m yet to pick a side. :)

Now Playing: Kid Rock – Rock N Roll Jesus

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God Exists!

Aug 10

Posted by Ezra in religion | 2 Comments

Was going through my Facebook notes this evening and came across this interesting piece i wrote back in February. I thought it would be a nice idea to republish it here for those who are not on my Facebook friends list. It was basically a rough rant and the comments that followed helped build a more solid opinion. Just in case, here’s the url to the original note and its 58 essay-like comments. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=67464546139&comments=

No, I am not talking about the God of Abraham, the one who knocked up a nice Jewish girl, then abandoned both mother and child to fend for themselves (as told in the King James version of the NT).

Actually, I think that Christians would be much better off if they would simply eliminated the OT from their bible entirely, then edit most everything except the sermon on the mount from the NT, and start all over again.

After all, who can argue with love and kindness?

But, I digress. Back to the subject at hand, the existence of gods.

God is a construct of the human mind. God exists between the ears of humans, just like every other concept, notion, or thought. The only requirement for God to exist is for the concept to be between the ears of a believer.

The God of Abraham is just as real as other gods, such as Zeus, Apollo, Odin, Shiva, Vishnu, Kali, etc. (sorry if I omitted your favorite God, there are so many, you know).

One of the most interesting things about religion, whether the Judeo / Christian / Islamic / Mormon tradition, or the religions of the Orient such as Hinduism is that all of them seem to assume the existence of supernatural beings (gods) as a starting point, then develop the rationale to support this assumption.

Gods are as real as any other thought generated in the human brain, so to say, as many atheists do, that gods do not exist is, strictly speaking, not true.

For me, the important question is: where did the idea of gods come from in the first place?

No one knows.

I think it fitting that explanation of where gods came from is found in fiction.

Be that as it may, when we look around us at the magnificence of nature, just like prehistoric humans did, we see a natural hierarchy of creatures; insects, arachnids, all sorts of creepy-crawly things. Then there are the higher animals; birds, rodents, predators of several kinds, etc. There seems to be some sort of progression in complexity, particularly in intelligence and other abilities. It would also have seemed obvious to early humans that our place in this hierarchy was at or near the “top”.

Also obvious to early humans would have been the fact that there are phenomena that are completely out of their control, such as the weather, earthquakes, etc. It seems to be an easy leap for the early humans to imagine some “higher” beings having control of these awesome phenomena. And, thus, gods were born in the minds of our distant ancestors.

Another leap would bring early humans to try pleasing these higher beings by offering them food or other precious commodities in an attempt to win their favor, and thus prevent or lesson bad things from happening. Whether or not this is precisely how gods and religions came about, some similar path must have been followed and expanded over the centuries until writing was invented, and the rest is history, even though the early history is incomplete at best, and no doubt has many errors and omissions.

For better or for worse, gods are here to stay, so we might as well learn to live peacefully with (and, in some cases protect ourselves from) the people who believe in them.

Namaste!

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