Category: rants

look into my eyes. you are getting sleepy, very sleepy. now you are under my control. now you must do what i say.

so swap from internet explorer to firefox. i shouldn’t have to hypnotize you to do this but 45% of the people who visit this blog still use micro$oft internet explorer (51% use firefox plus 3% use safari – me – and one percent use netscape – both of which are mozilla derivatives and therefore firefox/mozilla is winning). it would be best for all of us if micro$oft learned a lesson and got it’s butt kick by firefox. help out by swapping now.

then you can move over to a mac or linux and we’ll really get things going right.

SIDE NOTE – sign up for the disciplenow if you haven’t done so already.

product placement has been going on in the movies for years and hasn’t been completely absent within the television world but if you look around you’ll now see it all over the television programs you watch. that greatest of all shows, 24 made a deal with ford after its first season. the deal was that ford would pay them money and they would use ford vehicles for all the good guys (only evil people drive non-fords). thus far in an attempt to stay true to their creative vision the writers of “24” have pushed away suggestions from ford concerning how ford trucks and cars could be used within the script. there are plenty of other shows that have no problem molding scripts around products. just think about the apprentice. donald trump has no problem making an entire show focus on one product. survivor doesn’t have a problem bringing products into its story line either. in fact, the second season of survivor is consider a watershed moment for “adutainment.” in the second season survivor offered doritos and mountain dew to people who had barely eaten anything for three weeks. they responded in true excitement. it was great advertising and “adutainment” was born from it.

the reason for companies paying for product placement within a television shows is that we have gotten really good and avoiding advertisements – both mentally and electronically. mentally we simply ignore ads. think about it. you mentally dismiss most ads seconds after watching them. the second way that we have gotten really good at avoiding ads is via electronic recording equipment. people have fast forwarding past commercials with vcrs for years but now you have tivo. tivo automatically skips up to 92% of commercials. so what’s a company going to do when you don’t watch their ads? how is it going to get you to buy it’s product if you never actually see what they sell? it’s going to pay to become a part of the story that you are watching and that’s exactly what companies are doing.

pam and i have taught our kids that advertising is simply meant to get you to buy the product that it is selling. that is why every now and then when we see an ad that is really out there we will scream at the screen “that’s a lie.” it has been our way of constantly reminding our kids that they should not trust advertisements. maybe we will have to start teaching them to randomly scream “that’s a lie” at the television shows they watch.

i’m still not sure that it’s a lie that all the good guys drive ford trucks (i actually kind of think that is true) but i definitely know that it is a lie that mountain dew is what i want when i’m stranded on a desert isle. mountain dew stinks and they should pay you to drink it.

SPEAKING OF ADVERTISEMENTS – this rant has been brought to you by the student ministry 2005 discipleNOW. you might expect to $30,000 for a discipleNOW like we have but that’s not what our will cost you. in fact, sign up now and i’ll send you this free set of utility knives just for signing up. 🙂

i’m watching cops right now. it’s in nashville and it involves a strange set of couples. right now a woman has called the cops to have them remove her ex-husband and ex-boyfriend from her front yard. sounded simple enough except for the fact that the ex-husband was living at the house till that morning when she apparently decided to kick him out while he was at work. of course, the ex-wife never actually told her ex-husband that she was kicking him out of the house. thus the ex-husband was standing in the front yard waiting for the ex-wife to arrive back to what he thought was their home because he had assumed that the only reason he couldn’t get into the house was because something was wrong with his key. nothing was wrong with his key, the ex-wife had changed the locks in order to keep him out of the house that he still thought he was living in.

during the conversation with the cops they found out that the ex-husband was actually husband number 3, 5, and 7 (he had been married to her three times and divorced three times and had been living with her until the change of door locks). in trying to figure out what in the world was going on the cops discovered that the male in the car with the woman was her brand new fiance, who just so happened to be another ex-husband (he had been husband number 4). the ex-boyfriend who had been watching the whole thing never really said where he fit in but i got the impression that he was the boyfriend sometime after husbands number 3, 5, or 7 (all of whom ironically were the same guy who had just so happened to be living with her until earlier that morning). the whole thing was very confusing to me.

where is doctor phil when you need him?

i’m sitting at cc’s coffee house drinking some blackberry tea and working on the material for our 2005 discipleNOW and i need to rant for a second. i need to rant about people leaving there trash every where. i walked into cc’s, purchased my tea, and then went to one of the “computer” tables to get to work. these tables hold three people side by side facing the window (the table allows you to sit right beside someone, within inches of each other, and pretend like there is not another person beside you). when i got to the only table that was open i noticed that two other people had been sitting there recently. i knew this because they decided to just leave their trash on the table when they left. ARGH! that infuriates me. there was a trash can at the end of the table – literally three feet away from the farthest person.

i’m sure these two people were probably very important people, much to important to actually throw their own trash away. they probably had to rush out to save someone’s life or stop a war. maybe they are allergic to garbage can bags and could die if they accidently rub against the plastic trash can liner. perhaps they had some really bad trash can experiences as children, like being forcibly placed in a trash can by a bully and rolled down a hill, and now they have an irrational fear of trash cans. surely they weren’t just lazy scum who decided they were better than everyone else and therefore didn’t have to pick up their own garbage.

anyways i didn’t want to sit by their garbage for an hour or two so i picked it up and threw it into the trash can at the end of the table. after all it’s up to the little people like me to pick up the garbage of the really important people like the ones who left this trash.

who knew that a “nerdiness” survey would get the most comments i’ve ever reached (16 thus far). i think i know why too – many people are afraid to admit their “inner nerd.” we all have one. some where lurking in your body is the “nerd you could be.” that nerd is just sitting there waiting to be let out. admit it, you’ve got some secret little love that every one else who laugh at if they knew about it. maybe it’s the fact that you love the discovery channel or maybe c-span. maybe you love math or have a secret fondness for calculators. could it be that you love science fiction books or you have an inordinately extreme love for star wars? maybe you know that you are socially awkward and you just hide it well. even fonzie (the epitome of cool) had an “inner nerd” that came out in episode #53 of “happy days“. if fonzie has an “inner nerd” then everyone has one.

your inner nerd is why you find yourself pulling for the nerd to win. go ahead admit it. when you watch a movie that has a nerd in it you find yourself hoping that every thing will work out for the nerd. you want the nerd to win because you empathize with him/her. you connect with the nerd because of the fact that there is an “inner nerd” hiding right behind that well developed mask that you try to wear for every one else to see.

we all have an inner nerd. it’s just that some of us are afraid to admit it and that fear causes the fearful to act out in violence against those that point out the nerdiness of the world. that’s why everyone jumped on the “nerdiness survey.” you’re afraid that the survey could point out how nerdy you actually are and then the rest of the world would know what you already know – you’re a nerd.

now it’s time for us to begin to experience nerdy freedom. let’s be open with our nerdiness. if we all admit our nerdiness then we will no longer have to fear being known as a nerd. so i’ll start

i love some science fiction books and i definitely love science fiction movies. i have actually read a little bit of the klingon language version of the bible. i am the proud owner of 1,000 star wars cards. i love the “history channel.” okay that’s a start. i will no longer fear nerddom.

SIDE NOTE – if you want to view the “joke” videos from tonight’s view then click the links below:

• is satan a homo video – the question “is satan a homo” is meant for a laugh and is in no ways a slam on anyone
• what’s robert’s favorite color video

a couple of days ago i posted an entry that had within it a history channel article on CHRISTmas trees. i had not read the other part of the website on the beginnings of modern CHRISTmas traditions until i saw it mentioned in ben’s blog. i was amazed and challenged by what i read within the article.

it mentioned a change in the tone of celebration of CHRISTmas that happened during the 19th century. before the 19th century CHRISTmas was celebrated with actions of “social justice”. those who had the most did acts of kindness and charity toward those who were in need. it was expected that the needy would receive justice during CHRISTmas. in fact, if someone did not take care of the needy during CHRISTmas there was a decent chance that they would be “terrorized” by those around them. during the 19th century CHRISTmas changed from a holiday of social justice to a family holiday. before the 19th century people celebrated the birth of our LORD by sharing “goodwill toward men”. now we tend to celebrate the birth of our LORD by focusing on our families.

i love the family aspect of CHRISTmas. pam and i had my parents and in-laws over for CHRISTmas this saturday. it was a world of fun. i really enjoy spending all the free time at home and being with my family. yet, i wish we as a society still had more of the “social justice” aspect of CHRISTmas. it would be nice to have at least one holiday that is focused on doing right by all those around us. according to scripture our EMMANUEL came to earth to free us from what holds us in bondage – sin, guilt, fear, etc. i can’t think of a better way to remember that GOD is WITH US than to focus on bring justice to those who are held by economic, social, or political salvery.

the international justice mission is an organization that fights for social justice. you might be interested in visiting their website.

i love CHRISTmas but i hate shopping.

for my birthday some friends gave me a giftcard to academy sports & outdoors. i’m very thankful for this because it said that my friends knew who i am – they wanted me to be able to buy some fishing gear. last night pam and i ate with these friends and they introduced us to the concept of deep frying chickens, much like you would deep fry a turkey. this was amazing. in fact, it was so good that pam agreed that i should probably buy a turkey frying kit so that we could do this same thing for CHRISTmas dinner with our families. i decided to use the acadmey giftcard for this & to buy some stuff for fly-fishing for bream.

there were lots of people on the road and lots of people in the store all in a mad rush to buy things. this is stupid. why the mad rush to spend money? i understand a mad rush to go spend time with people you love or to participate in a community building event but a mad rush to spend money is just plain stupid.

every time i turned a corner there was groups of people and products blocking the way. the lanes were filled huge piles of boxed up products that the store manager is hoping will be sold by the end of the month. where the isles weren’t blocked by items for sale they were full of people who were salivating over items that they “desperately needed.” it all made me won’t to scream.

i actually started the leave the store and just go back home more than once. yet, each time i realized that i needed to buy the turkey frying kit before next sunday when i plan on using it for a cheap way to feed allot of people – our 11th & 12th graders are going to have a potluck at pam and my house. so i went through the stress of picking up the items and then waiting in line. i hated it all.

by the end of it all i had a full set of equipment for frying turkey or chickens, boiling shrimp or crawfish and a bad attitude.

i’ve read several places that the only common factor that rhodes scholars have is that they typically have been raised eating with their families at a common table – some have said four times a week. i can’t find research on this so i can’t prove it is true and i’m not sure that being a rhodes scholar is the “end all” of life but i do think this common factor points out how important eating together is. you’ve probably noticed similar statements in other media that you have encountered. if you have watched “super size me” or read the book “fast food nation” then you have read and watched similar comments. the family table is beginning to be recognized as an important part of a healthy lifestyle. here are some of the reasons why:

• the common table encourages us to eat home made food rather than processed food – home made non-processed food is better for you.
• the common table encourages social interaction – we live in a society that encourages “get and go” eating that has very little social interaction because it is done so fast.
• the common table strengthens the family – it’s hard (but not impossible) to separate yourself from your family when you are sitting 18 to 24″ away from them.
• the common table forces us to look at each other – rather than focusing on a t.v and merely being in the same room with each other.
• the common table slows down life – an incredibly difficult thing to do in our face paced world.
• the common table encourages eating less fattening and sugary food.

now i know that basically this blog is read by my parents and the only person they have at home is shirley the demonic cat, but i want to encourage anybody else who might read this thing to commit to eating at a family table – if you’re a teen – ask your parent(s) to do this or decided that you will do this for your kids when you have them, if you’re a college student – maybe you should form a “family group” around you and eat together as much as possible, if you’re a young married person – start regularly eating at a common table now so that it will be a habit for the rest of your life, and finally if you’re my parents – then invite that stupid cat to the diner table and maybe she’ll become somewhat less satanic (this would be a true miracle). in this day and time eating at a common table as a family is not an easy thing. of course, i believe the benefits are worth the effort.