The earthquake and the deal with the devil

This has been in my mind ever since I found out about what Pat Robertson said. If you haven't yet found out, Pat Robertson said that the earthquake that happened in Haiti can be attributed to its people having made a deal with the devil. Regardless of whether you're a christian or not, this is bound to sound some alarms in your head. I'm only echoing what others have said when I say that what he said is at the very least judgmental and at worst, well, anti-christian. Not even the best of us has an iota of the authority it takes to begin to imagine putting words in God's mouth or saying He did this or that for this or that reason.

Now, while it's true that Haiti is pretty much the Voodoo capital of the world, that doesn't mean everybody and their mom in Haiti practices it, and even if they did, that still doesn't mean they're better or worse people than the rest of us. Fundamentally, none of us are perfect which means if you gotta be perfect to be good, we've all failed the test. So his "justification" of the earthquake would also justify a meteor falling square in the face of the USA because there's people that have made deals with the devil. The point is, every country has both people that do good and people that do evil but beyond that, we're all the same needy people deep inside. Instead of pondering why God allowed such a terrible thing to happen in Haiti, we should think about what we can do to help them. At this point we can't do anything for the ones that died but there's still many more in the country who've lost more in a day than some of us have lost in our whole lives up to this point.

Here's an easy way, straight from red cross:
Donors can text "Haiti" to 90999 on their cell phone to send a $10 donation to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. The mobile giving effort raised more than $3 million by Thursday morning, and all money raised goes to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti."

Venting

While the logical thing to do would be to make the last post of the year one that is hopeful and bright. I am going to be venting while on the verge of a pity party with just a dash of self-loathing. If that doesn't sound like what you want to read right now, and of course it isn't, here's a perfectly wonderful place you may go to instead: KIbK.

For the brave souls, or those who like rants, or those who like hearing about my unhappiness, congratulations on continuing to read. Here goes! If there is one thing I would rather be doing right now than blogging - well, if you've spoken to me in the past month, you'll surely know what it is - it's playing Final Fantasy XIII. "But Emilio, why aren't you?" you ask. Magnificent question, dear reader. The story is as follows: after ordering the game on November 19th, knowing full well, of course, that it would be coming out December 17th, I excitedly began my wait. At the time, I gave little to no thought to the fact that choosing Air Bubble shipping would cause this much pain. Waiting 5-10( or 14?) days really didn't seem so bad on November 19th. Peering at the calendar, if the game was shipped on the 17th, which, by the way, it was, (sorry for the comma storm) then going by the minimum of 5 days, it would only be the 22nd when the game would arrive. Even going by business days instead of actual days, that would've meant it arrive on the 24th. Now, I'm not dumb and I realize it's the holidays so of course it would take a while longer. Going by that, the 10th day would've been the 27th and still nothing. And in business days, today would've been the day. Again, my mailbox had such wonderful tidings as a letter that wasn't for me and the Sunnyvale newsletter, which I should probably care more for but am currently hopelessly unable to do. At this point, despite the fury that follows the initial disdain with which I have closed my mail box day after day, I am trying to keep a cool, level head. So I try to understand why it would be taking this long and one of the first things to pop into my head is that it may've been lost. Another is that perhaps they couldn't fit the package in my mailbox so they put in one of those salmon colored cards (is it beige or maybe off orange?). Well, although I often get 9 centillion (look it up, it's a real number) ads and coupons in my box, I always look through them scanning for the card that may have been. Oh, I forgot to mention that the packing method I chose, so as not to pay 17+ extra dollars, has no tracking. Anyway, no such card has shown up, or if it has shown up and I somehow missed it among the 9 centillion ads, it's not like I have a real way of checking if it truly came.

So here I am on the last day of 2009, writing an angry/sad blog about how frustrating it is that this game I have obsessed over this entire year, in addition to anticipating for 3 before it, has not yet come. From this point in the blog there are several directions in which I could go. I could write about a) how unsettling it is for me that I care so much about a video game; b) how a coworker has had the game since last Monday; c) how the last 3 days would've been the perfect day for the game to arrive; d) how I obviously have other things I could do to pass the time but really just want to play the darn game; e) how it appears everybody else around me already received their Christmas gifts except for me; f) how much I regret not getting 3 day shipping but how there's no way I could've really foreseen it taking this long even though it probably should've been obvious considering the holidays. Alas, I won't talk about any of those topics. Not that it matters what I talk about in any of the posts on my blog. I have 0 readers.

I think it's time for some comfort food.