“lost” was great last night. we had just the perfect number of people over to our house last night to watch the show and it was allot of fun when everyone cheered at the good points of the show. the only problem is having to wait until next season to see how all this stuff turns out.
they’re vicious
yesterday as i went to my front door to enter my home i was greeted with a package from terminix. the package was information concerning the incomplete termite inspection they had done on my house earlier in the day while i wasn’t home. two things were funny about this:
- i didn’t order a termite inspection – it was my neighbors across the street who did. terminix had the right address they just inspected the wrong house. they’re loss, my gain (because the part they inspected was termite free).
- they wrote down on their inspection form that they were scared of my dogs and therefore did not inspect the back of the house. let me say that again – they were scared of my dogs – the two killer basset hounds. this makes perfect sense because basset hounds have a long history of being vicious, killing machines. i believe in the official list of the world’s scariest dogs basset hounds are second (behind pit bulls but ahead of rottweilers and and chows). most people don’t know this but bassets save their most dangerous attacks for termite killers. it’s a little known fact that bassets and termites living in a symbiotic relationship. bassets protect the termites from those who would spray insecticides on them and the termites kill all the trees around where basset hounds live (bassets have a strange paranoid fear that all the trees in the world are out to get them – this is why in an act to puts trees in their place bassets constantly pee on trees and chew on sticks). thankfully the terminix people know of this symbiotic relationship and were smart enough to stay away from the killer basset hounds in my back yard.
the dogs being scrary would actually make sense if they had been hidden within the house. if you can’t see my dogs they sound terrifying. roux has a deep bass bark that sounds like he is a 100 pound mauler. when i’m out of town it’s nice to know that bark is inside my house with my family. of course, once anyone sees my two clowns all fear dissipates.
stuff
kottke posted an interesting article on the advantage of the “beginner’s mind” that young entrepreneurs have over older ones. the basic idea is that the lack of experience that a noob suffers from when things are normal suddenly becomes an asset when things are no longer normal (there is nothing to unlearn). the older more experienced person understands “the way things are” and that works well until things no longer are that way. it takes the more experienced person longer to realize that things are not the same, while the noob just assumes that the way things are is the way they are supposed to be. it was an interesting article on entrepreneurial behavior. now i am wondering how we can have the best of both worlds within the church. how do you constantly encourage a “beginner’s mind” within our older churches. how do we give a strong voice to the noobs among us? of course, i’m not really going to have to worry about this because come september i’m a noob and i will be a part of a church of noobs. our problem will be trying to find experience.
WOOHOO – the “24” season finale is going on right now!
j.t has an interesting post on some of the marketing for the next batman movie (the dark knight) and a first look at heath ledger as the joker (he looks pretty freaky – reminds me of a thin, deformed, john wayne gacy).
my neighbors made me laugh earlier this month. one of our friends down the street hopped into the shower only to receive a slithery surprise. when she shut the shower door she saw what looked like a piece of loose of foam. she reached over to put it back in place and was shocked when the foam suddenly struck at her. when she shut the door she had accidentally caught a garter snake in the shower door. she responded in the only manner she could think of – she screamed VERY LOUDLY. her husband came running to the rescue and when he saw the problem he immediately left. she thought he had gone to get something to catch the snake with but instead it turned out he had gotten his phone and was calling friends and telling them to listen to her scream. she kept screaming until her daughter came in. when the teenage daughter came in she immediately left again only to return with a video camera. the daughter began to video the whole scene – mom screaming and dad calling friends. unfortunately the video is rated “r” and therefore you will not be seeing it any time soon. after making all his phone calls the husband came in and killed the snake. the whole thing made for a great story to share around a soccer party. i love my neighbors.
here’s a statistical analysis of the world’s religions.
lost finale?
anyone interested in coming over to our house for the season finale of “lost“? we would love to have anyone over who would be interested in watching the show (i.e. actually focusing on the show when it is on and limiting your talking to commercials). the show starts at 8 p.m. and lasts till 10 p.m. the price of admission is an item of food – bring enough for everyone and together we will all be well fed. please realize that some of us (a.k.a. debbie, pam, and i) take “lost” very seriously and therefore will not tolerate disruptions. remember debbie was a marine and therefore i am sure she could kill you with only a couple of fingers.
austins, if y’all can make it we would love for y’all to be here.
SIDE NOTE – i can’t wait for “evan almighty” to hit the theaters. i was thrilled by the ark almighty kit i received a couple of weeks ago. i’m not the biggest fan of movies marketing to churches – actually that’s not correct. really i’m not the biggest fan of churches marketing for movies. i figure that’s not really the church’s job. i’ve received marketing kits from quite a few movies. these kits are usually pretty funny. the one i got the biggest chuckle out of was the one for “rocky balboa.” besides an interview with slyvester stalone saying that if we wanted more movies made like “rocky balboa” then we needed encourage our church members to go see the movie (since i didn’t really like the movie i am hoping that the reverse is also true) i also received one boxing glove (just one).
with the above said i need to say two things about the “evan almighty/ark almighty” kit:
- i recognize the kit for what it is – marketing.
- if you have to market i can’t think of a way that i appreciate more than a campaign to encourage acts of kindness. “evan almighty” has setup the “ark almighty” website as a tool for connecting churches with they neighborhoods. people can register their needs on the site and then churches can act on them. i think it is much more inline with what marketing should be within the church. of course, youth specialties is connected with “ark almighty” so it’s not real surprising that it would be a good thing.
btw, youth specialties – the kit was awesome. i still don’t plan on hanging up the banner in our church but i will be giving everything away to kids within the student ministry and trying to connect with people in our community through the ark almighty website.
my run for the day
distance – 2.0 miles
time – 21:28
pace – 10:44/mile
[tags]lost, ark almighty, evan almighty, movie marketing[/tags]
claiborne article
here’s an interesting set of questions asked of shane claiborne of the simple way by rachel stanton of “compassion and justice“. the questions were posted as an article on the ooze. as usual claiborne says some great stuff.
[tags]the simple way, shane claiborne[/tags]
google analytics
i’m testing out google analytics over the next four or five weeks to see if i like it or not. i use feedburner to keep track of the rss subscribers that read the blog but i can’t get it’s visitor information to work right on the actual hits to the blog. i used to use sitemeter but i like what i see in the google analytics reports better than what i saw on sitemeter’s reports. we’ll see how this goes.
i think i’m also going to goof off with tagcloud a little bit (i saw this on church marketing sicks)
attacks battle bbc below church course discrediting distance done else entertainment entire episode everything expect feelings fiction film force founded funny given happening hilarious intimidate investigative john mile miles obvious opinion pace panorama panorma received report response science scientology seems shut subjects sure sweeney techniques technorati treatment understanding view writer
created at TagCrowd.com
my run for the day
distance – 2.0 miles
time – 19:08
pace – 9:44/mile
[tags]google, google analytics, sitemeter, website stats, tagcloud[/tags]
scientology & me
i think the youtube battle between the bbc investigative show “panorama” and the “church” of scientology is great entertainment. john sweeney did and investigative report on scientology and scientology’s response was to do an “investigative” report on him discrediting. i have mixed feelings here because i think it is hilarious that a reporter received the same treatment that some of them have given out to their subjects before (i don’t know john sweeney so i can’t say if he has done such attacks or not). it’s kind of funny. you can view scientology’s response to panorama’s show here.
with that said, in my opinion the people from scientology are freaky. from watching both sweeney’s film and the film from scientology it seems obvious to me that the people from scientology were trying to intimidate and disrupt everything that was happening. it is my understanding that scientology has always had a rep for trying to force people to shut up and the film just seems to make their techniques even clearer. of course, i’m not real sure what else we could expect from a “church” founded by a science fiction writer.
you can view the entire panorma episode “scientology and me” by clicking the four links below:
my run for the day
distance – 2.0 miles
time – 20:28
pace – 10:14/mile
[tags]scientology, panorama, john sweeney, bbc[/tags]
speaking of faith
first the important news. pam had some minor surgery today. pam has a recurrent tracheal stenosis that interferes with her breathing. today they basically stretched her trachea back out to the size it is supposed to be. she went through it like a champ and she is home and fine now. she is presently sleeping the drugs off and feeling fine.
secondly, “speaking of faith” is a public radio program that deals with faith in america. they decided to do an episode on the new monastic movement, focusing specifically on the simple way. i was thrilled to find out earlier today that they decided to use one of my photos for the webpage art. here’s the page.
cool huh?
[tags]new monasticism, simple way, photography, public radio[/tags]
#7
stevens point, wisconsin is number seven on this year’s list of the one hundred best places to live in the u.s. of a.
how cool is that?
when i was in high school dothan, alabama (my hometown) was declared one of ran mcnally’s fifty worst places to live in the u.s.
i have now gone full circle.
SIDE NOTE – my salsa came in second within the competition. they said it was good but it was too hot. i would have to agree that this batch was a little warmer than normal.
this is what i was created for
you may not know this but i cut the cheese better than anybody else in my immediate family. it’s true. it comes naturally to me because my father was also an excellent cutter of the cheese. i don’t really know my biological grandfather so i can’t really say if he cut the cheese well or not but i do know that my step-grandfather (who was my real grandfather) was one of the best cheese cutters i have ever heard of (this of course lends more credence to nurture versus nature). so i come from a long line of excellent cheese cutters and because of this lineage i was able to make my youngest son proud in his class today.
you see today was noah’s oral report on the state of wisconsin. he has been working on the written version of this report for three weeks or so. pam and i knew that the oral report was coming soon so while we were in wisconsin last week we bought noah a wheel of cheese to pass out during his report. i brought it to class today and it was one of the best moments of my life. first, because i was able to use the talent that my family has passed down to me, and secondly because when noah’s teacher said to me “and mr. terrell what are you here to do?” i was able to answer “well, i am here to cut the cheese!”
it doesn’t get much better than saying that line in a room full of 4th graders. today my cheese wheel and i were the elementary school equivalents of george carlin.
[tags]cutting the cheese, cheese wheel, cheese[/tags]