Daniel Martinoli’s Website

Don’t you just hate it when you lose a lot of data? I do. My webhost decided to kick the bucket and shut down. I was able to get my money back, but none of my data. So yeah, I was in a bit of trouble. That is, until I remembered that I had every single one of my blog posts backed up thanks to Windows Live Writer (which I use to write these blog entries).

Live Writer automatically saves everything you publish so restoring my blog posts was simply a matter of re-installing WordPress (the program that runs this blog on the web server) and then republishing all my blog entries! Simple!

Now I’m back up and running and you wouldn’t even be able to tell that the site has been down.

So, people, back up your files. When something bad happens to them, you know you’ll always have an extra copy.

Well, the other day, I was listening to Only the Good Die Young by Billy Joel and these lines got my attention:

You say your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
She never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me?

Now, all the lyrics in this song criticise the church about it stance on abstinence and it’s fairly obvious that Billy Joel had no idea what he was writing about. However, these lines got me thinking that he has a point.

The church seems to be all-too-ready to judge people based on the things they do and it’s all-too-easy to turn down your nose at people who don’t attend church/aren’t Christian. But how often do we find ourselves praying for these people? Jesus told us that we should love our enemies and pray for them. What could be better than these people coming to know Jesus? I know I struggle with this, so I’m quite sure other people must, too. Instead of judging people who don’t know God, try praying for them.

Yeah, I was inspired to write this blog entry after learning that someone I know (who shall remain nameless), broke up with his girlfriend recently. These two had been going out for a couple of months, I guess and I’d seen them proclaim their ‘love’ for eachother over MSN/MySpace.

Anyway, after I heard that things had come to an end so suddenly, I began to think about how so many relationships are like this. Two people say they ‘love’ eachother and then in a few months it’s over.

Have we really lost the idea of what love is? Do people say they’re in love because they’re obligated to?

Sure sounds like it.

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If you’ve been watching the news lately, you’ve probably heard about QANTAS cutting back on flights and jobs to avoid ‘losing money’. What QANTAS fail to mention is that they rake in billions each year and that the purpose of the cutbacks are to preserve those profit margins.

In short, QANTAS won’t ‘lose’ any money but not cutting jobs/flights. They’ll just fall a bit short of their profit estimates.

This is the way business is run in our world in which shareholders take precedence over customers/employees. Who cares about the people that actually work for and use the services of a company as long as the shareholders get their money’s worth?

I’m not saying that shareholders should also be ignored – that’d be stupid. They do support the company they buy shares from. But why can’t there be a healthy balance?

Overnight, Obama all but won the position as Democratic nominee for the position of President of the United States. I couldn’t be more happy for him. He will most likely win and should do great things for America.

However, I can’t help but feel that America isn’t ready for him. Racism is still a huge issue in the US (and many other countries), and this will effect Obama’s election campaign. Even if he does win, I fear for his life.

It takes many people to vote someone into power. It takes one crazed redneck with a rifle to undo all that. I sure hope nothing happens to Obama, but America has a history of racism which they haven’t quite overcome yet.

Why do I care what happens in the USA? Well, like it or not, they influence the rest of the world. If America is in turmoil, chances are things will go pear-shaped for a lot of other people.

Anyway, ‘that’s all I have to say about that’.

The Beautiful Letdown, Switchfoot’s fourth studio album does anything but live up to it’s name (the ‘letdown’ part, at least). I find it difficult to place Switchfoot in one genre – some say they’re a Christian band (they say they’re not), some say their rock, some say pop, some say alternate rock and a few misguided people even say they’re ‘emo’.

However, that’s not important. What matters is that this album contains a wide variety of sounds and (perhaps more importantly) some of the best lyrics I’ve ever heard. For me, lyrics make a song and Switchfoot’s lyrics are excellent. Their songwriter/lead-singer, Jon Foreman, has an incredible talent which allows him to write songs about big issues in life without sounding ‘preachy’.

The album starts off with an awesome rock song called ‘Meant To Live’ which is about how far the human race has fallen ("We were meant to live for so much more! Have we lost ourselves?"), progresses to what is perhaps Switchfoot’s most famous song – a slow rock balled ‘Dare You To Move’, challenges our materialistic lifestyle in ‘Gone’ and finishes on a somber note with ‘On Fire’ and ‘Twenty-Four’.

I have no idea how many times I’ve listened to this album, but I never get tired of it. Switchfoot may not be your cup of tea, but If you haven’t heard anything by them, check out The Beautiful Letdown.