ThankYouVeryMuch...

How many stores are opening early on Thanksgiving so that people will start their holiday shopping not on the day after Thanksgiving, but the day of Thanksgiving? I guess the retailers will be giving thanks this year.

Quotes

It's the second time I've quoted him in about a week, but...

Quote of the Day
...there is no gift of telling everyone else what to do.
-Greg Newton, Travelers Blog

The Perfect Storm

I recently finished reading StormFront: The Good News of God. It's an exceptional book, describing the idea that the main point of what God has done isn't so that Christians everywhere could go to Heaven, but so that we could be workers in God's kingdom, meeting the needs of people on this earth and sharing Jesus rather than keeping Him to ourselves. (Although, that's a bit of oversimplification.) Considering it's subject matter, I think it could be a bit more accessible - it's more an academic essay than anything - but I think it's message supercedes the writing level, and if you can spend some time with it (it's definitely not an easy read), it's worth it. As most of us have, I've spent the primary part of my life thinking that Christianity is about me. I think I agree that it's about time we've begun to focus outward.

Quote of the Day
The gospel sees our humanity not in terms of needs to be met, but in terms of capacities and gifts to be offered in God's gracious service. We are created not to consume but to know God, not merely to meet our own needs but to participate in God's life and mission.
-from StormFront: The Good News of God

I'm on fire!

Whenever I see a marquee like this one, I can't help but analyzing it by asking two questions:

1. What are they trying to say?

2. Who is the intended audience?

I've been wracking my brains with this one, and the best I can come up with is:

1. You better get to church or you know where you'll be going to next.

2. Guilt-ridden ex-churchgoers.

I really can't imagine someone who's never known Jesus driving by that sign, slamming on the brakes (doing a 180-degree turn in the middle of the road), turning into the parking lot and asking to be saved.

I can almost see (not really, but work with me here) someone having a lot of guilt about not going to church and this pushing them over the edge.

I'm not sure why I always think these signs are trying to say something about going to church (as opposed to searching for God or trying to know Jesus).

Either way, I don't think it's the way I'd try to reach people, but that's just me.

And yes, that is the same sign as I talked about in my previous post. Guess they've ignored my pleas. Or maybe they don't read my blog. (No, that can't be it.)

Quote of the Day
I'm glad someone is creating charts about being incarnational.
-Greg Newton, Travelers Blog

Tip of the Day

I've recently been convicted that I need to change my tipping habits. I've been a server before - I know that servers make around 1/3 of the minimum wage that other people earn. I've always (to my wife's chagrine), had a commitment to high tipping. If service is neither laudable nor horrible, I usually leave 15%. Meaning, if they did the job poorly, but had a really good, helpful attitude; or if they were efficient, but had a bad attitude, I leave what I consider to be "the minimum". If service is excellent, I tip 18-20% or more, depending on the setting, the price of the bill, and a number of other random factors.

However, I've always thought (even with my experience waiting tables) that it is my duty both as an American citizen and a consumer to tip poorly if the service is deplorable. When I worked as a server, I felt that if I couldn't do my job well, I didn't deserve the tip. When I tip low for bad service, I have the ability to send a message that "yes, you sucked at this, and I'm making my opinion known." I understand that messages are not always received as the giver intends, but that's beside the point I'm trying to make.

The issue here is, I am first and foremost the citizen of another kingdom. As such, I need to be living by the rules of that kingdom. I need to remember who I'm representing, and what kind of message I need to be sending with my actions. I think if we look at the life of Jesus and the example He set, it's easy to see what kind of message we need to send.

I've rethought my position on tipping, and I think that I'll still be tipping high if I really like the service; but (again, to my wife's chagrine), I won't be tipping low if I don't.

double-u double-u double-u

I sometimes love the fact that if you are looking for something on the internet, you don't even have to use Google. Just type in just about anything you're looking for, but a "www" in front, and a "com" in the back, and voila! There it is. Not being able to find a word in Miriam-Webster's on-line Thesaurus, I typed in www.thesaurus.com and found the word I needed in seconds.

If you have no idea what a company's or a movie's website is, you often don't have to know it's address; just sandwich it in between those 6 letters and there it is. It doesn't work all the time, though. Looking for the website for the movie Sideways, I tried sideways.com and sidewaysmovie.com, before I finally had to use Google to find it at www.foxsearchlight.com/sideways. And I won't even go into the story about the woman I work with that found out the hard way (at work) that you need to type in the full name to get to the website for Dick's Sporting Goods (www.dickssportinggoods.com). But it tends to work more often than not...

Have I asked this before: Ain't the internet grand?

Shaolin Computers

Last Saturday evening, we were in downtown Florence (Alabama), and we stopped in at Shaolin Computers. We met Chris and Angela Webb, who own the store, and enjoyed talking with them for a while. They let Julianna run around, looking at everything, while we downed a couple of Dark Chocolate Decadence coffees. They've got a beautiful store, and if you live in the area, you need to stop by just to take a look - the store looks like an art gallery with some amazing pieces (such as a water-cooled computer). It sounds like their biggest offerings will be custom computer design and networking, but they'll be providing a number of services; take a look at this excellent piece of writing in the Times Daily for a little more detail. We're looking forward to going back, if nothing else for the coffee and atmosphere.

To see some of the work they had to do to get the store set up, take a look at Chris's blog.

Weird Search of the Night

Hypothetical situation.

You are trying to find the Veggie Tales Silly Song, The Bunny Song (about eating a chocolate bunny).

You do a search on Yahoo! using the four words:

want don't bunny eat

The first thing you find on the list is my blog.

Ain't the internet grand?

(Actually, somebody recently did that search on Yahoo! and linked to my blog from it; I'm just assuming they were looking for that song...)

Fascinated by this revelation, I Googled lightsaber spoon to see if the Museum of Pop Culture came up. Alas, not until page 57. (Well, I get up to page 11 if I put it in quotes.) Well, at least if I do batman cereal, I'm on page 1.

Note: When you start to dream while you're awake, it's time to go to bed. Enough blogging about my blog. I'm boring myself.

Good Night.

Retractions II

• Pictures seem to be working again.

Weapons of Medieval Destruction

caltrop ('kal-tr&p), noun. a device with four metal points so arranged that when any three are on the ground the fourth projects upward as a hazard to the hooves of horses or to pneumatic tires

I don't know what sadist engineered my daughter's butterfly hair clips, but these sharp, metal, half-inch-sized caltrops seem like they were designed with pain in mind rather than hair. I think I caught one of my action figures using one as a weapon.

* * *

There has been a little curiosity about my profile (very little, but I thought I'd share anyway). One of my fondest memories in college is of going down to the game room and playing Street Fighter II - I don't know why I tend to be drawn to the token large, hairy, monster in the games that I play. When the cool action figures came out a few years ago, I had to have my own Blanka.

Retractions.

• I was able to get the batteries back we left at the checkout at Target. (I feel $2 richer!)
  
• After my genius wife got on the phone with Dell, and figured out we had a bad power supply, she bought a new one off eBay, got it in the mail, installed it herself, and now we are up and running again.
  
• We've had some nice 70-degree days, so I guess I can't complain that Alabama has no in-between weather.
  
• But I still think nobody's going to haul anything in that Cadillac pick-up.

No Flash Photography.

My wife let my daughter pick what cereal she wanted when we went to the store today. I guess somebody decided Froot Loops weren't sweet enough. They came home with Marshmallow Froot Loops.

Pictures aren't uploading to blogger right now. I hope it's not my computer. I'll have to finish this tomorrow night...

But it keeps me up at night.

Why is it that any time I go to a fast food restaurant and order a hamburger with ketchup, mustard, and extra pickles, the person making the burger is intent on supplying me with extra ketchup, extra mustard, and extra pickles?

Other mysteries of life pale in comparison to this conundrum.

Falling Back

It's nice to have a good night's sleep, get up early, make a pot of coffee... Of course, we'll still probably be scrambling to make it to church on time in two hours. But that one night doesn't seem to be a good trade off for going off of Daylight Savings Time and losing, it seems, that extra hour we have of light every night just when the days are getting that much shorter. There's nothing like getting to work when it's dark, and leaving when it's dark. I'll just have to be that much better at making sure I take some time out for lunch during the day.

***

Took my daughter to the new Wallace and Grommit movie yesterday. About two-thirds of the way through the film, when Julianna was saying, "This movie is taking a long time," I was starting to think that it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. But it completely redeemed itself with the final 15 minutes which was completely worthy of a Wallace and Grommit film. I'll have my stop-motion fix for awhile, especially if I get to see Corpse Bride this week.

***

Technology: You can't live with it, you can't live without it.

-Earlier this week, the power supply on our home computer went out. I hope that's what it was since we're buying a new one from eBay which should be here in the next few days. We can access the internet through other computers, but all our pictures are on there, our budget spreadsheet, everything important. I hope the hard drive's intact. I was just thinking a couple weeks ago that we needed to back it up but hadn't done anything about it. Maybe this is a good reminder.
-This morning the batteries were dead in the digital camera. I couldn't take a picture of the cool Batman sucker I picked up at Cracker Barrel yesterday. What's cool about it is not the sucker part, but the fact that there's a working Bat Symbol that you can shine out of the base. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait to put it into the Museum until I get a halfway decent set of AAs. The most frustrating thing is that I bought a few "Energizer Gold" batteries yesterday at Target and I think I left them at the checkout (there's $2 down the drain). Also, the set of brand new regular Energizer batteries we just bought didn't have enough juice to take a single picture. I hope our camera's not on the blink, too.
-Then this morning, MusicMatch Jukebox wouldn't play the Zoe CD I put in. Sure, Windows Media Player worked just fine, but I'd rather use MusicMatch than another Microsoft product.

The more we rely on technology, it seems, the more annoyances it causes when we don't have it. It's funny how our problems are all relative and seem so much bigger the more time passes from real disasters and we, once more, get bogged down in our own lives.

A Variety of Moods

I can't stand it when people are incompetent. My wife constantly reminds me, "There's no incompetence in heaven." Sometimes that's a little comforting. I know that sounds judgmental and (a little) arrogant, but you know what I'm talking about - when someone around you does something so completely stupid because they're just not paying attention to what they're doing, or because they don't care, or...they're incompetent. This weekend, we were leaving the hospital the afternoon after my niece was born and we were driving out of the parking garage. It costs $1 to get out - there's a little machine just inside a gate that takes your dollar then lifts up the gate and lets you out. So I tried to put a dollar in, but it wouldn't work. No matter how I turned it or straightened it or crumpled it, the stupid machine wouldn't take my dollar. Then I heard the lady in the car behind me yell, "The gate's already up!" Oh. Oops. They must not leave the gate down during the day on the weekend. I think I hate it most when I'm incompetent.

I used the word serendipitously in an e-mail yesterday. It made me happy. (I looked it up later to make sure the word existed and I used it right.)

I was excited today when a friend at work gave me a small bag of antelope jerky. It saddened me to realize that I have no self-control when I ate the whole thing in about half an hour.

Why doesn't Alabama have any in-between weather? Last week the highs were near 90 degrees. This week the highs are around 60. A few days in the 70s would be nice.

Last week I saw a Cadillac pickup truck. Why do you buy a Cadillac pickup truck? Who's going to haul something in a Cadillac pickup truck? I just don't see the point. Today I saw a Cadillac station wagon. For some reason that just seemed inherently wrong.

Continuing with the theme that God gave us our gifts and talents to use for His glory, I was listening to the local Christian radio station - 88.1, WAY FM - and they were giving away a children's DVD. I normally don't try to be the "8th caller" or whatever, but I still had the phone number in my cell from last week when I tried to win tickets to a concert my wife and brother and sister-in-law talked about going to anyway, so I thought, I'll call for my 3-year-old daughter. When I heard the ringing, I got nervous and almost hung up (I knew I'd say something stupid if I got on the radio) - then I heard "you're the 8th caller!" So I said the obligatory stupid things and they took my name and I stopped by the radio station during lunch and picked up the Veggie Tales movie, Lord of the Beans. It was about using our gifts, not for ourselves, but for others. I think I'm beginning to get the picture.

Quote of the Day
Don't condemn others, and God won't condemn you. God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them.
-Jesus, in the famous Sermon on the Mount