Looking to Next Week

Last week I burned my hand with microwaved V-8 juice. It wasn't boiling or steaming but was still vicious. The skin is still not healed and looks kind of reptilian. I've been using aloe for it. I'd post a picture, but my fake friends on Facebook who never read the blog would see it, when I linked the post. No sense disturbing them. I don't need their fake sympathy. Maybe I'll post it next week.

Last week was also bad in other ways. The week before that I bought wood panels at the hardware store for a background for my YouTube channels. Everything lined up perfectly for me to pick them up and even get a discount. They're for indoor use. My plan was to put one of them against the wall instead of a green screen. But they had a chemical odor to them. It wasn't very strong, so I closed the door to that room most of the time. When the weather warmed up, I opened the windows and let it air out. The weather turned cold. Last week the chemical had built up in the house, even with the door closed, and was making me sick. I had to put them outside, which they're too fragile to withstand if they get wet. They still smell. I might not be able to bring them back in at all.

Last Thursday I ordered Revolution. Since it was online, the vet had to authorize the prescription. Instead of doing that, they called me and tried to price match. Online it's around $15 a dose. At the vet they usu ally charge $25. The price match would have been nice, but I couldn't get there that day(Friday) or Monday. I let them authorize it. It was supposed to be here Tuesday, but the post office was fast. It came in Monday. However, Monday is the day the substitute mail carrier works. The normal carrier has that day off. It was delivered to someone else.

I made it to the post office before they closed. It turns out that when they scan a delivery, the GPS location is recorded. Since the delivery was fewer than five minutes from the post office, one of the people who works there ran out to the mailbox and picked it up and brought it to me. Yay! However, when I got out to the parking lot, the battery in the car of the person I was riding with was dead. Nobody had jumper cables. We had to wait until someone picking up mail had them. It's amazing how many people don't carry them. When I had a car, I always carried them. It's basic kit.

Next week will be better. I know it will.

Have a great weekend.

Internet "Prophets"

Sometimes YouTube recommends some weird videos. I've listened to Bible study type videos before. YouTube thinks I need to hear from YouTube "prophets". I've watched a few of these people to see what it was about and see if they had anything to say. Some of them are interesting. They have all kinds of videos. They make blog posts. I see them posted on Facebook a lot, which is extremely annoying. If it's shared the right way, I can block all future posts. If not, I have to manually hide the posts to get rid of the spam. In the Bible there's a ministry gift of prophecy that's a gift of the Spirit. Are these YouTube "prophets" real and operating under that gift?

Hebrews 1:1-2 God, who at many times and in various manners spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, Has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.

Personally, I want to know more about the other worlds. I'm ready to get off the one I'm on. :) These verses form the foundation for a doctrine that says God used to speak through prophets. Today he no longer does that. He speaks through his son. Simply put, Jesus was the last prophet. Before him God spoke words through men. Now men can speak to the Word. There's no need to go to someone to hear from God. Ask him yourself. Jesus was the last prophet.

This doctrine whether correct or not says every prophet after Jesus is false. It's used to refute people like Mohamed, Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White, etc. We know today that those three were not Christians much less prophets, because we can study their lives and writings. The online fakes are harder, since there's no practical way to really know them. You can't move to where they live and follow them around. You just have videos and blog posts some of which line up very nicely with the Bible.

How do we tell what's real and what isn't? For anyone claiming to be a prophet, I go to those verses. Jesus was the last prophet. They're done. Claiming to be a prophet is basically claiming Jesus didn't finish the job. God needs something extra. Bzzt. Wrong answer.

However, there is a gift of prophecy. For people claiming that gift, I listen to what they say and compare it to prophecies in the Bible. Internet prophets speak in terms of maybe, might, think, feel, etc. "I think what God's saying..." "What God might be saying..." "I feel..." "I feel in my spirit..." "God may be saying..." Stick a fork in them. They're done. Prophecies in the Bible are specific and literal. There's no fuzzy vagueness. Every prophecy that has been fulfilled has been fulfilled literally not spiritually or figuratively. They're not all easy to understand, but they're all specific and concrete.

Prophets in the Bible could call down fire on people. Repeat as needed. Internet prophets can't. Prophets in the Bible performed miracles. Internet prophets can't. Biblical prophets had a lot of bad news to give. Internet prophets tend to always tell you what you want to hear. "Blessings" "Victory" "Abundance" "You're on the verge of a breakthrough!" "Your miracle is coming this week!" "Send me $1,000 to unlock the blessings." The words of real prophets were written down and recorded in the Bible. Can you imagine an internet prophet's words being added to the Bible? "What I think God meant by this was..." Me either. Even the fake gospels like Judas are better than that.

Nevertheless, the Bible says there's a gift of prophecy, so we should be open to the possibility. I've never seen it in action, but it's supposed to be out there somewhere.

Over time I've listened to quite a few videos and been recommended to one too many blog posts. I had to get this off my chest.

One more thing. Here's a prophetic word. You're moving from the pit the palace. From the dump to the Trump. From the mold to the gold. Put the pedal to the medal to accelerate your blessings and favor from God.

Sounds great, right? I didn't say it was a prophetic word from God. I just said it was a prophetic word. Very tricky. Very easy not to see that. If they give a prophetic word and don't say it's from God, then it's not.

Have a great weekend.

End of an Era

There was a show on the Discovery Channel called Gold Rush. It was about average people going to Alaska to find gold. I watched it when it first came on. It was interesting. However, at some point Discovery decided to add a fellow named Tony Beets as one of the gold miners. He was a professional miner, which went against the entire purpose of the show. He also swore constantly(bleeped out) and treated people like garbage just because he could. His behavior was disgusting, and having him on the show was bad television. Basically, they tried to cast a villain as a hero. Epic fail. That was when I started taping it and watching it later so I could fast forward through everything with Tony in it as well as the sponsors' commercials. How is watching someone treat people like trash considered entertainment? How degraded is American culture that it's even tolerated?

Gold Rush is no more. The main miner, Todd Hoffman, has left the show. There's no more reason to watch. It sounds like Discovery is going to try to keep it going next season, since it's so profitable. It will be without me. I'm surprised it lasted this long. So much of it was contrived.

There was a massive bit of irony to the show that boggles the mind. Back in the 80s, environmentalists went to war trying to stop strip mining. Strip mining is when a mining corporation goes to a piece of land and bulldozes all the trees and grass and topsoil and animal habitat away. They keep bulldozing until everything is gone. Sometimes they bulldoze all the way down to bedrock.

In Gold Rush they always went down to bedrock and scraped everything they could off of it. Picture the irony. In the 80s that show would have been impossible, because of environmentalists. Today, the most popular show on Discovery is a show about strip miners completely destroying as much ground as they possibly can in the quest for gold. After the mining is done, they're supposed to bulldoze some dirt in and plant some trees. However, it's not the same as it was before. Topsoil can take over 500 years to form one inch. Where are the environmentalists? Adding to the ratings, I'm sure. My, how times change. Not only can environmentalists be defeated, they can be trained to cheer for the thing they hate. No offense if you're an environmentalist. I like clean air, too. I think diesels should be banned from using drive-throughs. I really do.

Have a great weekend.

I Know Who They Are

In January or February I saw a bloodmobile at Walmart on a dark, overcast day. A few weeks later it was back in the same spot collecting blood. Again, it was a dark, rainy day. I thought to myself that they must be vampires and only collect blood on overcast days when the sun won't kill them. A week or so ago, they were back. This time it was sunnier, though partly cloudy. On this trip I was in a car waiting for someone and had a good view of the bloodmobile. The location of the Walmart is near a small mountain to the west. The sun sets behind the mountain. I was there right at sunset. Almost as soon as it went down, an employee came out of the bloodmobile and started taking down the signage for it. She had waited until the sun was down. Vampire. This week I was there again near sunset. The bloodmobile was there, too. They're having some kind of blood drive. Right before sunset an employee exited the bloodmobile to take down signage. She was working in sunlight, but, and this is critical, she was a different employee than the vampire. She had to be a human who is actively helping the vampires and perhaps one day hopes to become one. I'm onto them now.

According to the signage, this is an extended blood drive taking place over a period of weeks. Vampires preparing for summer? That would explain the events I've witnessed with my own eyes. Another possibility is that the government is preparing for something they suspect is coming that would require a lot of transfusions. I wonder what it could be.

So, with the health crisis in January, I got almost nothing done on the French front. February was better but not spectacular. Lately, I've been back in the swing of it. I've been reading more and have added listening to C'est pas sorcier to my schedule. Not the little ones at the top but the full episodes YouTube makes you load page after page to get to. Why don't they have a load all videos feature? Oh, Google bought them and innovation all but stopped on the customer end. Sad. It would be nice to be able to sort my subscriptions by genre as well but no. Sad. I'll have to write them.

I've been doing at least two episodes a night. Since it's educational, they talk more slowly and clearly than normal, especially Jamy, which makes it a lot easier. He's not a vampire by the way nor are the other two, Fred and Sabine. Petite voix and Marcel on the other hand are never shown. Hmm. Anyway, last night I decided to listen to a video in French by this woman I'm subscribed to who used to make French lesson videos but somehow got sidetracked and hasn't made one in forever. Sad. But she makes videos in French sometimes. Usually, I can only pick up a certain number of words, because she talks extremely fast. This video was different. I was able to understand quite a lot of what she was saying. It was very encouraging. Getting to the point that I could do freelance translating online seems closer than before.

I got some progress done on the YouTube front. I now have a reasonable background to use that I could later add wallpaper and wainscoting to to make a Victorian-style wall for a classier look. All I have to do is find the time and energy to make some videos.

Conspiracy theories are everywhere now. There's a verse for that.

Isaiah 8:12 Do not call everything a conspiracy these people say is a conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear, nor be afraid.

I presented two explanations for the bloodmobile, one vampires and one more reasonable for the times in which we live. The government ordering the collecting of blood for a terrorist attack is very plausible. A simpler explanation is that summer is coming. People are out doing things and getting hurt more than in the winter. Thus more blood is needed. On this page fact number 36 says that summer is a time for blood shortages. No conspiracy theory needed.

Have a great weekend.

A Glimmer of Light?

A new doctor bill arrived this week. $1,089. I added it to the stack. It was for less than half an hour of "service" to get a prescription for antibiotics that I may not have even needed. No blood work or x-rays or scans of any kind. The U.S. healthcare system at it finest. May the Lord reward that doctor according to his works.

There might be a glimmer of light on the doctor bill front. I may be able to do transcription work online. It would be listening to audio files and typing out transcripts. At least part of it appears to be medical in nature such as psychiatry sessions. Irony: taking money from "doctors" to pay other doctors. I would have to sign a confidentiality agreement to see specifics.

In order to be able to do it, I'd need to meet multiple qualifications, which means taking tests. It's freelance work and pays per file/job. The pay rate varies with each job. Depending on how long it would take, the pay looks good, but it really comes down to how long it would take me to listen and type. I'd have the flexibility to do as many or as few jobs as I have time for. From what I can see, I'm estimating I could make a few hundred dollars a week working in the evenings and on weekends. The problem is that wouldn't leave much time for anything else.

While looking at that, I ran across some freelance translation work that pays around $30 an hour with the possibility of being hired full time later. My French skills have been improving, but they're probably not up to that level. I'm sure I could do some of it(Google Translate is a friend of mine for problem expressions.), but I don't have the certificate(s) to prove it. Fortunately, less than an hour away is a place to take the exam for that. The one I would want to take is the B2, and I'm not sure that's what the translation companies want. I need to look into it more deeply. They may have their own tests. The level above that is C1, which is full fluency. There's a chart here two or three pages down that explains it. B2 is high intermediate just below full fluency.

I'm somewhere in the B1 area, although I have gaps such as the words for comb and stapler and the like. I would likely need to spend several months or more studying for the B2 test, which would be good to have even if the translation companies want C1. The books I've been reading are C1 or higher such as this one I picked up for free and have been reading this week. On a practical level, I'm already doing C1 translation with books to be able to read them. I could probably do C1 French to English with help from Google. English to C1 French? No way.

 I'll let you know what happens on the transcription front. It looks like a way to pay off medical bills, but I have reservations.

Have a great weekend.