Post 1: Encounter at Blogspot

I must admit, I've never had a blog before. The closest thing to one is the cheap blog-like thing that you get with your MySpace page but really, who uses those? I know I don't. Heck, I rarely do much on MySpace nowadays - I, like most people, have switched over to the more mature magic that is Facebook.

What in the world is a blog anyway? According to the New York Times Almanac 2007, a blog is "A diarylike Web site, usually containing the personal thoughts of the site's owner as well as links to other sites of interest." (p.816). The term "blog" is actually the shortened form of "weblog" - literally, an online journal. So this, then, is my online journal. Let me introduce myself.

Hello! My name is Shawn, but many people refer to me by my nickname Dexter. I got that in the seventh grade when a girl named Brittany noticed that I had a striking resemblance to Dexter from "Dexter's Laboratory". I was short, wore glasses and as she later found out, extremely intelligent. I have kept the nickname going for six years so far, having a t-shirt made by someone who was rather obliged to give me some kind of gift. Online, I usually go by the name Youssarian. This comes from the name of the socially troubled meerkat from "Meerkat Manor", which in turn comes from the main character of the book "Catch-22"!

The first thing you need to know is that I am a devout Christian. In late 2007 I was watching a show on History Channel that explained all the prophecies that point to the 2012 Apocolypse. There were too many to be a coincidence. When people hear Apocolypse, they think the Christian Apocolypse as indicated in the book of Revelation. I was one of those people and it converted me. Way to go History Channel! I also had a spontaneous healing of a sore throat courtesy of a Christian friend's prayers, some time before that.

A lot of people call themselves Christian because they simply believe in God. But that is not enough! I'll tell you this right now, Satan and his demons believe in God, but are they Heaven-bound? No they are not! True Christian faith requires an active trust and working based on your faith. And that is what I do. I read my Bible every day, I pray, I attend church Sunday morning and youth group Sunday evening, and on occasion I give offerings. I don't have a job so I can't really tithe. Besides all that, my personality has been radically changed. Things like perversion and lust, which in the past I enjoyed, now are detestable to me. Things I used to say and do, I no longer do. Even the way I look at the world is different. I used to be pro-abortion, for instance, but now I am against it. Indeed, in the past I was quite liberal, but over the past many months I have shifted to a conservative mindset.

Around July/August of 2008, I began attending Victory Assembly of God in Buffalo, New York. I became a regular attendee of the services and of the youth group. I was baptized in water there, on my last day there. After graduating high school as the third-smartest person in the graduating class, I moved to Independence, Kansas and two weeks later began attending First Assembly of God Church.

The Assemblies of God are a subdivision of the Pentecostal denomination. As such, we translate the Bible more literally than others and emphasize the power of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Holy Trinity. Thus we are the ones with the most of baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.

Alright, what else do you need to know? My favorite show is "Star Trek: The Next Generation" as well as all the other series of the Star Trek saga, except probably "Star Trek: Enterprise". Yess I know, nerdy! Ever since I was young, though, the show and the movies have mesmerized me with the positive outlook as to how the world can be, not to mention the incredible technology in it. My favorites out of the eleven are "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home", "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" and "Star Trek: Nemesis". My absolute least favorite is "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". I have not yet seen the 2009 remake, simply titled "Star Trek", but I plan on it!

After that, my favorite show is "Meerkat Manor". This show has survived four seasons, with it being renamed "Meerkat Manor: The Next Generation". For the first three seasons it centered around the lives of a group of desert mammals called suricates or meerkats. The particular group was called the Whiskers, led by their dominant female named Flower. Despite her name she was tough as nails. A good nickname for her would have been the Iron Lady. Her mate and dominant male was Zaphod. These two led the group through foraging for food, dealing with unruly daughters and encountering opposing groups (at first Lazuli, then Commandos and Zappa). Towards the end of season three, Flower died and her oldest daugher Rocket Dog took charge. The group dwindled in size under Rocket Dog's command. There is probably going to be no season five, because just about all of the original meerkats have died!

My current obsession is a show on Discovery Channel, "The Colony". It's an experiment where ten people are living in a post-nuclear war world in southern Los Angeles, and they're given various things to try. It's pretty cool, and now that the people are well into the project (as of writing this, that is), it's become their reality. There are cameramen and off-camera medic teams, which makes it less life-like, but nevertheless cool.

You may notice that almost all of my posts will have a title. It's little more than a novelty, really, just a basic summary of the contents. This one's title is Encounter at Blogspot. This is a variation of the title of the two-part first episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Encounter at Farpoint.

Living up to the part where a blog links to other sites of interest, here are some useful ones:

http://www.google.com - Google

http://www.dreamviews.com - Dream Views, a website dedicated to the act of lucid dreaming

http://www.bibleforums.org/forum - The Bible Forum which I belong to. Very helpful for my walk in faith

http://www.freewebs.com/shawnc1991 - My personal website, which links to various things I have: Dext3r Productions, my currently discontinued graphing calculator programming hobby; Dext3r Ministries, my evangelical project; a link to my written works; and more that I can't think of.

That's my introductory post. My next one will really serve the purpose of a weblog: journaling. Until then, God bless and happy digging.