I have to admit, this is an interesting topic, and one that I had spent a lot of time thinking about in my lifetime.  I've actually been thinking about whether or not to contribute to this thread since last night, and I finally decided to weigh in on the subject from my own perspective.

Before I go further, I'll start by saying that I was raised in a Christian home all my life, and all through my life, my faith has been fragile at times, but my belief in God has always been constant.   While I still believe in God, loosing my daughter several years ago cost me my faith in God.



"I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create calamity; I am God who makes all things.

Latin
doesn't use "good" and "evil". It uses "peace" and "calamity". So God
creates stuff that causes us peace and stuff that causes us strife.
Neither of those are evil."

This is actually a line that I have read many times when reflecting on this very subject.  While the words DO seem straight forward on the surface, I've come to the conclusion that there is a little more to the line.

"I form the Light" is an action, while I see "And create darkness" as more of an effect.  Its like turning on the lights, by turning them on, you create shadows, while technically, you created those shadows by turning on the lights, I see it as more of something that helps to define the light.  The same can be said of "Good" and "Evil."  By creating "Good" in the universe, there must be something to create context and to define what is "Good." 

So, while I believe that God did create "Evil," I also feel that it wasn't because he wanted to bring terrible or painful things into this world, but instead it was a by product of creating "Good."  And a way of defining the standard that we should all try to hold ourselves to.

I wouldn't give it to the government, but I'd sure be happy to sell either one to the government.  So long as I had enough money from the deal to live the rest of my life comfortably, with enough left over to open and run the book store I've always wanted, and still have just a little bit to put into my kids' accounts to put them through college, I'd be happy as can be.

On the other hand, if I got my hands on something like a YT-1300 transport or something similar, . . . Well, in that case, I'd probably take a really long joy ride, . . .

I'd like to think that I would be a cross between Boba Fett and Yoda.  But if I'm being honest with myself, I'd probably stand a closer resemblance to Jar Jar Binks. 

I'd estimate that out of all my games, I probably have about 50 boxed games.  Almost all of them from the NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, or Gameboy Advance. (I'm not counting anything PlayStation, Xbox, or any of the Nintendo systems starting with the GameCube.  Almost all of which are complete with case and instructions.)

SoL@R :
Twins?  That sounds like a story of your own to me!  And a pretty amazing one for that matter! 

You're probably going to want to sleep in shifts for a while!  A lot of nights, my wife would go to bed early while I watched the kids into the late evening, then I would go to bed, and my wife would get up whenever the kids made their fuss next. 

One thing we found helpful when our boys weren't sleeping very well:  One of us would load the kids into their car seats and take a drive for an hour or two while the other one got a little sleep.  The cost in gas put a pretty big strain on our budget for a while, but the uninterrupted sleep was invaluable.

And don't hesitate to give each other a break once in a while if you are able.  A few hours of relative quiet and lack of responsibility can be surprisingly refreshing when one of you feel a little run down from all the feeding, changing, and crying. 

Good luck with your little ones!  The first year can be pretty overwhelming  at times, but once they start communicating a little, and playing with you on the floor, its a really incredible experience! 

Best systems ever:

1. Nintendo Entertainment System
2. Xbox 360
3. Gameboy Advance
4. Super Nintendo
5. Playstation 2

I grew up with the original Nintendo.  I still own one along with a large number of games for it.  It still gets played fairly regular.

The Xbox 360 is the newest system I own, I've only had one for about three years now, and have hundreds of games for it.  Its been a great gaming experience and its likely to remain the centerpiece of our entertainment for at least a couple of years to come.

Gameboy Advance was an incredible system.  It played all the old games I already owned, and that little hand held system has visited the bathroom with me more times than I care to admit over the years.

Super Nintendo.  I liked this system just as much as the original Nintendo when it came out, but in recent years I find myself coming back to it less often than its predecessor.  But its still an incredible system with some really great games.

Finally I fell in love with the PS2, partly because of some of the great RPGs they released for it, and partly because I was able to play all my old PS1 games with it.

Honorable Mentions:  Wii, Atari, and PSP.

I don't know about anyone else, but it seems to me that almost every day, something happens in my life that is either funny, shocking, or just plain interesting.  (Something particularly amusing happened this morning that got me thinking about sharing it)

I decided that it may be fun to see if other people have little stories that they would like to share as well, please feel free to share your fun or interesting experiences with the rest of us!



Lets get the ball rolling:

This morning, I watched a cop pull over someone just outside our house (Routine traffic stop.)  Since the windows in our house were opened, it was pretty loud, and my twin two year olds rushed to the front door, pointing through the screen and yelling "Choo!  Choo!"  (They are obsessed with trains.)  as the cop stepped out of his car and walked to the other car to deal with  whatever he stopped the man for in the first place.  The whole time, my boys are glued to the screen door, letting out an occasional "Choo!  Choo!" at the top of their lungs.  Once the person who had been pulled over had started to leave, the officer, instead of heading for his car, walked up to our front door, looked my boys in the eye and said "Trains go Choo, Choo.  I'm a police officer, I go Woo!  Woo!"  Then, with my boys still going "Choo!  Choo!" with even more enthusiasm than they had only moments before,  the officer smiled and chuckled, returning to his car without another word. 

And this is why I love living in small town America!

I talk to myself, but not nearly as often as I used to.  In my teens, and early 20's, I used to talk to myself almost constantly, often carrying on entire conversations with myself, arguing both sides of the same argument at times even.  In more recent years (In my mid 30's now) I find that I still talk to myself, but its usually not for long or very involved like it used to be.  The only time I get very animated about talking with myself anymore is if I'm working through a particularly difficult problem or am under a lot of pressure on a project.

To this day, the original Legend of Zelda is still my favorite.  I never cared for Zelda II, but I liked the Super Nintendo Zelda, and I've always been a big fan of the Gameboy installments in the series.  To be honest, I haven't been a real big fan of the games in the series on the main consoles since the Super Nintendo.  I know a lot of people liked the N64 games, but I thought they were so-so at best, and while I own all of the games in the series, I don't really feel that any of the games in recent years have lived up to the original installments in the series (For the record, I feel the same way about the Metroid series.  The first one was great, I liked pretty much all of the Gameboy installments, and the SNES game, but I was never able to get into the Prime series.)

kirbmanboggle :

That kind of sucks.  I hate it when people break your things out of sheer meanness.

Have you tried finding a replacement copy online?  I just took a look at Amazon and it looks like it starts about $20 US, and starting around $18 US on eBay.  A lot of pawn shops, second hand stores, and even the occasional garage sale, will have old gameboy stuff as well, and sometimes you can get a really good deal on things that way (That's actually how I usually buy games, and its saved me a small fortune over the years.)  I don't know if that helps or not, but I hope it does.

All good games!  I'm particularly fond of the early Final Fantasies (1-6) and the early Dragon Warrior games (1-4.)  It also wasn't too long ago that I played through the Shining Force games and the first four Phantasy stars as well!

I thought it was a fun little movie, but I didn't think it was anything particularly special.  My twin two year old boys would disagree though as its currently their favorite movie (They will obsess over a movie for 4-8 weeks at a time, then move on to something else.  In the past, its been Finding Nemo, Shrek, Schoolhouse Rock, Wall-E, the original series of Scooby Doo and a host of others.  They've been hung up on Frozen for almost two months now, and in the last few days have started asking for Tangled about half the time instead, so I'm pretty sure that will be the next favorite movie for a while.)

Unfortunately, you find yourself setting next to lilythetigerkity when the puppy causes the bookshelf to fall over, crushing you under the same bookshelf.  You are dead.

I dragged my old Nintendo GameCube out of the basement today and set it up for my children to play with.

In a lake full of parahna.  You think nothing of it as you scratch your giblets sliding off the dock and into the water, but the carnivorous fish notice almost instantly.  Within seconds, you vanish in a froth of churning red water as you are eaten alive.  You are dead.

Having barely escaped the clutches of my evil in laws, I reach the relative safety of my own home.