Iron Man

I saw Iron Man on Saturday. It was awesome!

The Office is Back

OK, so we are now three weeks into the return of the office, post-WGA strike.

What do we have so far?

Week 1: The Dinner Party
Quite possible the most awkward episode of the Office ever.
We learn that there is trouble in Paradise... Jan and Michael's relationship is dying.
We learn why Jan hates Pam... Michael said they used to date
Hunter was made a man by a mysterious older woman =)
Michael has apparently had 3 vasectomies
Bonus! In a deleted seen, Angela mentions Andy's attendance at Cornell (Remember this great quote: "The capital of Maine is Montpelier, Vermonth, which is near Ithaca, New York, where I went to Cornell")(Anyone have a tally of how many times Andy, and now Angela, has mentioned Cornell?)

Week 2: The Chair Model
Michael and Jan are over
People in offices are excited by very small things, like new chairs
Michael further displays his complete lack of sensitivity towards the gay community ("Oscar Meyer Weiner Lover")
Michael is super-shallow (but we already knew that)
Jim has apparently already bought an engagement ring and is now going to torture Pam (and the viewers) by doing things like kneeling down on one knee... to tie his shoe
Kevin and Andy display a rare moment of assertiveness and empowerment
Michael and Dwight know the words to "American Pie", but not in the right order (and some made up along the way)

Week 3: Night Out
Ryan's plans for the website haven't turned out as he expected (including an infiltration by a sexual predator)
Michael is lonely... and horny... but mostly lonely
Jim tries to do something right and botches it... again!
Toby blatantly shows his feelings for Pam... and announces he is moving to Costa Rica
Dwight is apparently a real ladies man
Ryan is doing coke or some other recreational drug

So, all this to say, what is up with the writers?! Did the strike impair their brains?! Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed watching all of these episodes, and the insights we have gained on the characters have been great. We are learning all kinds of facts and tid-bits about our favorite characters. But, it doesn't feel like The Office. I feel like I'm watching a spin-off of my favorite show. All the familiar faces are there, but something just isn't clicking. Maybe it's some of the strange character development, or maybe the writers are trying to prep us for something big. Whatever it is, they've only got 3 more episodes to restore the show to its former glory.

Final rant: They need to quit making Jim look like such a patsy. It's like their trying to turn him into a Michael Scott protege. Stop it! Oh well, the good news is we have Season 5 to look forward to in September, with a rumored 30 half-hours of Office goodness!

Adventures with Cash

I wanted to share this little bit of my life with you:

Friday night, my parents were coming into town, and Katie was cooking dinner. I was given the task of obtaining a few groceries on the way home. I went to target because I needed some non-grocery items as well. I got everything on my list except one thing.

So I head to Publix on the way home to get an eggplant. Generally speaking I love publix. Their stores are clean and the employees are friendly and helpful.
Today was different.
I go to the produce section, pick out an eggplant and head to the checkout. Now, given that I had only one item, I figured it would be fastest if I went through the express lane. I also thought I could save time by paying with cash. So, Mr. Personality rings up my eggplant and announces that my total $1.35 (which I already knew, because I can read, and had already begun to dig in my pocket.) I pulled out one of these:






















And two of these:





















That's a buck-fifty, just in case you were wondering. Now, I know that a lot of people don't use the Sacagawea Golden Dollar, but I do expect people to at least be familiar with them. After all, they are legal tender, and the US Government did a huge marketing campaign for them just a few years ago. Mr. Personality however just stared at my dollar coin for a good 2 minutes, never saying a word, just making grunting noises. Finally, he deposited it in the register and handed me my $.15 change, and I was out the door.

I was actually kind of shocked. You would think that people who work with money would be familiar with it in all of its iterations. But, I did learn an important lesson: great fun can be had by paying with rarely used pieces of currency. Next time, I think I'll use a $2 bill:

Seeking Suggestions

I have a great job. I just felt I needed to say that. I really like my job and it pays all our bills. Those are pretty much my only requirements for a job.

However, I was thinking that it would be nice to be able to do some extra work on the side. Katie and I would like purchase a home in a couple of years, and socking away some extra cash never hurts. That being said, I have no idea what I should do, so I pose a couple of questions to those of you who know me in any capacity: What are some skills and/or talents I have that I can utilize in doing work on the side? What advice can you give me on getting started in utilizing those skills? I still don't know many people here outside of my office, so how do I get the word out that I have skills for hire?

Your advice is greatly coveted.

Guitar Hero News

Two posts in one day? I must be on crack.

Anyway, for those of you who play Guitar Hero on the Wii, there is good news on the horizon. Sometime this year, there will be downloadable content for this magnificent game. That means possibly new songs and/or characters and guitars. I'm stoked. See: here

Good Day

You know it's going to be a good day when you turn on the radio and you hear both Styx and Kansas!

Mark Driscol

Today I started reading Mark Driscol's "Radical Reformission". In the introductions, he makes an interesting observation about living out our faith that I want to share with you.

Driscol says that the ways in which we live out our faith can be divided into three categories. They are:

1. Loving Jesus (Gospel)
2. Loving Others (Culture)
3. Loving Brothers (Church)

He then goes on to assert that all three are important for healthy faith, and the emphasis of 1 or 2 of these at the cost of deemphasizing the other(s) will result in a serious flaw. He gives the following examples:

1. Emphasizing Gospel and Culture but neglecting Church results in parachurch. Here we have people who have found Jesus through a culturally relevant gospel, for instance at a Young Life meeting, but are never pushed to interact with the rest of the Church.
2. Emphasizing Culture and Church but neglecting Gospel results in classic liberalism. This is common among many mainline denominations. Good things are emphasized and good works are performed as an extension of the Church, but the Gospel of Jesus is missing.
3. Emphasizing Church and Gospel but neglecting Culture results in fundamentalism. Common among conservatives of a more independent mindset, these folks often seem more interested in building each other up and living right with good theology than taking the gospel to their neighbors.

I found this observation to be very interesting. What do you think? Is Driscol right, wrong, partially right?

Fox News

Whoever runs the live closed captioning at Fox News gets paid way too much. That is all.

Voting and Politics

As if you all don't have enough political commentary this election year...

I have a few questions regarding this year's presidential election.
1. Do you plan to vote pragmatically or according to your convictions, or are you one of the lucky ones who can do both?

2. Do you believe that voting for "the lesser of two evils" is ethically justifiable? This is an important question for me, because I feel like I'll be put into this position this year.

3. If you believe it is very important to keep one candidate/party out of the White House, why? What purpose does it serve? Or, if you believe it is very important to get a specific party/political ideology into the White House, why? What purpose does it serve?

4. What is the biggest factor in who you decide to vote for?


Here are my answers to these questions:

1. I plan to vote according to my political convictions, and it will not be pragmatic. The person that I am voting for has a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning the election.

2. Absolutely not. If I believe that neither of two primary choices are good in this election, then to choose either one is to violate my conscience, highly unethical. I did that 4 years ago, and I will not do it again. However, the whole "lesser of two evils" idea is fallacious in regards to presidential elections. It's a false dilemma. You have more choices than just McCain and Obama (which is what it looks like we're going to be facing in November). There are tons of third party and independent candidates, and even if you can't find one of those you like, you can always write someone in. Some people would say, "Isn't that wasting your vote?" I suppose it depends on whether or not you think it's important for your vote to represent your voice.

3. The first half of my question was spurred by people I know who hate McCain but will vote for him anyway to keep Obama or Clinton out of the White House, and does not pertain to me. I refer you back to my answer regarding the "lesser of two evils".
Now, do I think it is important to get my candidate into the White House? Absolutely. It's very important to me that we get some governmental leadership that believes in restricting the government to its constitutional roots. The purpose behind this (for me) is two fold: 1. I think we ought to be true to the intentions of the men who founded our government. If we're not going to do that then at least amend the Constitution so that we're not violating it. 2. If we were to have a government that was actually restricted by the Constitution, then government hand-out programs would end. In my candidate's plan, these programs would gradually be phased out. We can't just cut these people loose because we've taught them to rely on the government to meet their needs. We have to help them unlearn this mentality. Once the government stops providing hand-outs, the Church will no long have that crutch to lean on. You see, the Church in America (as a whole) has done a rather piss poor job caring for those in need, something it seems quite obvious we were tasked to do. My hope is that without a crutch to lean on, She might actually step up and fulfill Her purpose.

4. The biggest factor for me is picking a Constitutionalist, the only real conservatives left in this country.


Ok, so I wrote more than I originally intended, but what I really want to know is what you all think. What are your answers to these questions?

Oops!

This is what happens when you don't play your guitar for a month. I have almost no callouses. New goal: play every single day for an hour or until my fingers hurt too bad to play, whichever comes first.