openswitch

I saw this sign somewhere in Indiana on I65. Naturally I swerved aggressively across 2 lanes in order to catch this exit. Upon arrival I soon discovered that much to my dismay they were not, in fact, offering Macs of any sort. Nor would I have the chance to win one. Oh no, this was a “town” and as such offered no prize winning at all. False advertising, that’s what THAT is! The ol’ bait and switch.

Review: Lately I’ve been on a CD purchasing binge and MAE’s newest album, The Everglow, is my most recent acquisition. MAE is an acronym for “multisensory aesthetic experience” because one of the band’s goals is to create an experience for the listener that utilizes more than just their ears but their other senses as well. Or, at least to create music such that the listener can imagine what it would look or taste like.

When I first heard of them from Adam he didn’t tell me they were a Christian band. Not that it would have mattered because I loved them anyway. Later on, after I found out they were Christian, I really started to admire them and their music. It’s rare that a Christian band does anything remotely original or interesting; thankfully, MAE is both.

I came across this person making a joke that many Christian artists seem to be running the same computer program to come up with their lyrics. A piece of that program would look something like this:

The [violent weather metaphor] crashes to the [Psalmy landscape metaphor]
Sometimes I wish I could [Biblical miracle metaphor]
Just like [Biblical patriarch name]
But I can?t because I?m only a [man / woman / sinner]

Chorus:
[Praying / crying / calling out] for [sunshine / silver lining image]
I want to see the [positive weather metaphor]
I want to see beyond the [negative weather metaphor]
[First line of chorus] + [song title]

You may not think that’s funny, especially if you’re in a Christian band! But keep in mind that Casting Crowns (Chris, I’m talking to you) is obviously more gifted than most other Christian artists and assuredly doesn’t use this program. Neither does MAE.

The Everglow is an excellent, excellent album that somewhat borders on over-production but still comes out on top with great music and superbly thought provoking lyrics. MAE is alternative-sounding Christian music that breaks out of the rutt CCM has gotten itself into and deserves to be in anyone’s music collection, Christian or otherwise.

We went and visited my grandma today. Her house is in a town called Elgin; about a thirty minute drive from where my parents live. Her name is Doris and she’s eighty one years old. I have so many memories of her from when I was growing up in Melrose Park. She lived below our family in a two-level house until I was about seven when we moved to where my parents live now. I remember in the summer the rest of the grandchildren and I would put on our bathing suits and wash her car. No money was ever given to us for that job, only popsicles; we were cheap labor.

I remember that she was the person who taught me how to ride a two-wheeler bicycle without training wheels, she always put an orange in the toe of my stocking at Christmas and she was always good for a few bucks on my birthday…and any time the ice cream truck came around. Needless to say we grandchildren fell head over heels in love with grandma Doris.

Thomas met her for the second time today and I can tell he’s falling in love with her too. She took him for a ride on her Rascal Scooter. It’s a maroon color with an orange flag waving atop a white fiberglass pole which is bolted to the back of the black vinyl seat. His eyes grew big as she showed him how to use the horn and squeeze the throttle to achieve a blistering pace of nearly 5mph. She took him for a ride around the cul de sac (did you know the plural for cul de sac is culs de sac?) and when she stopped his head nearly smashed into the dashboard; he giggled with happiness.

We ate lunch at her house. Ham, cheese and Miracle Whip sandwiches for everyone, potato chips and Sunkist soda on the side. She had an old Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer-stuffed animal that she let Thomas play with which sat on a chair in the corner watching us eat. Back in the 80s when it was new it would probably have sung a Christmas tune or done an Irish jig but as it sat, batteries nearly dead and covered in dust, all it did was click and moan.

I sat in the balcony of her house thumbing through hundreds of spare photos from her life that hadn’t quite made it into a photo album but instead had been stacked lengthwise in baskets in one of her book cases. I found a dozen old photos of me as a child (which I’ll scan and post when I get home.) I found several of my parents when they were my age and even found one of grandma Doris in a bikini. Heh. That’s a part of my grandma I’d never seen before.

Life goes by so fast. Too fast. Yesterday I was five, just having come out the hospital, narrowly escaping death. The memories always come flooding back to me when I visit my grandma Doris. The Thanksgivings, the Christmas’ of so long ago. Back before I knew what debt was. Before my wife, before my son. Before anything I have in my life now there was grandma, teaching me how to ride a two-wheeler for the first time.

First thing you should know is that currently I’m in Illinois, my home state, for the week. My wife, son and I are visiting my parents and are thoroughly enjoying the cool weather. Today we took Thomas to a local pond. This pond is where I first played ice hockey, caught many many fish and basically just spent a lot of time growing up; so it was a joy to be able to take my son there.

One thing we wanted to make sure to do while we were there was feed the Geeks. Erm, at least that’s what Thomas called them. GEEKS! GEEKS! He would yell. He hadn’t really ever seen geese up close before so it was quite a thrill as you can imagine. I tried to get him to put the “s” in there where it needed to go but a “k” sound came out every time so we just made it a running joke, “Here Geeks! Come get some bread you Geeks!” Heh. These are the days.

Ben’s rating:

Review: I just got back from seeing M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water and my thoughts are that it is a well thought out film. M. Night did another great job with this movie as far as I’m concerned. Keep in mind, however, that I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of M. Night’s films; including The Village which got horrible reviews. Was Lady in the Water somewhat “M. Night” style? Yeah. But it really didn’t take away from the good plot and great acting.

I personally hate it when someone spoils a plot line for me so I won’t share anything that might make the movie less enjoyable for you. Basically the movie revolves around a bed-time story that turns out to be true. It involves a lady (duh), some monsters and some humans and some water which are sort of thrown into the mix together. It’s all done very well though; particularly because M. Night understands that most of his viewers have seen this type of movie before and often can “call” what’s going to happen next. He seems to go to lengths to compensate for that in this movie. The actors are also excellent.

The film made me laugh, cry, jump and hug my wife in joy. It earned a PG13 rating, I feel, due to its intense nature and not because of language, nudity or violence. Actually, I can’t remember any instances of those.

Still, the movie only gets three and a half stars from me because at certain points it was somewhat predictable. Also, it was sometimes hard for me to temporarily suspend disbelief; some concepts were a little outlandish for me. Overall though, definitely worth seeing. If you get the chace to see it on the big screen you should go for it because the suspense and startling moments will be more intense. But…if you want to wait until it comes out on DVD I don’t think you’ll be missing out.

I just got back from taking my youth group to Six Flags Over Georgia for the day. Whew! What a day! It was a rather balmy 97^o F in the shade and the heat index put it well over 100^o F. After six hours of that we were all sweaty, smelly and grumpy. It was nice that we got to ride Goliath, the newest coaster at this Six Flags location. Totally sweet coaster.

One thing became overtly clear to me on this trip in particular: when visiting a theme park like this we spend very little time actually riding the rides and a huge quantity of time walking around and waiting in lines. At first this put me off. I started to ask myself, “Why do I do this?” But then the answer came to me. I realized that in waiting in lines and walking around I had successfully separated the youth from their TVs, Radios and ipods. I saw them talking with each other, joking around and actually hanging out! The popular kids were mixing with the geeks (such as myself) and for six hours there were no cliques.

In light of this discovery I’m going to make sure that we take at least one Six Flags trip every year. It may cost a little money but thanks to the long lines and tons of walking it’s worth every penny.

I’ve spared this little country church a lot of insult by not publishing their church name and only their sign. I have a soft spot in my heart for little country churches. There’s something “homey” about them; something endearing about the American heritage they so often uphold. But sometimes these little country churches go awry. I saw this church sign on my way into work this morning, it’s not digitally manipulated one bit.

You may be thinking to yourself, “Yeah, that was a simple mistake though, they put an “a” where there should have been an “o.” But you really shouldn’t think that because the other side of the sign was displayed exactly the same way with the exact same spelling.

Sometimes I find stuff that’s just too good to keep to myself and even though I’ve linked to this in my del.icio.us account I’m sure most of you don’t regularly peruse my links as much as my main entries. That said, instead of sending you to this video I’m bringing this video to you. If you watch this and don’t like it then don’t bother going to Ask a Ninja and viewing his other videos. But…if (like me) you soil your trousers while watching this then you’ll definitely want to check out his other stuff.

1. Get up early enough to spend several hours on your personal appearance. At least each of your visible items of clothing should display a designer label. Preferrably, even your underwear should be designer.

2. Use whatever cover-up is necessary to make your complexion look perfect. For girls this means lots of foundation. If possible, spread skin with latex paint, since it usually comes with a one-coat-covers-anything guarantee, and also peels off easily at night. For guys, this means spend hours getting every hair in place by way of lots of gel/mouse/hairspray/gunk.

3. While applying cover-up, look in the mirror and practice several key lines: “I gotta be me.” “This doesn’t meet my needs right now.” “Hey, give me a little space!” “I can’t help it; that’s just the way I am.” You’ll need to use these lines frequently, even if they need to be rephrased.

4. Eat breakfast. Include one-half cup mouthwash as dessert. Make sure you have enough breath mints to last the day.

5. Grab your books/backpack/briefcase and rush out the door. As you walk/drive to school/work, map out the kind of day you’ll enjoy, and avoid whoever or whatever would spoil it. Make a mental list of whom to say hello to and whom to ignore. Don’t think about other people’s needs and feelings – that causes wrinkles in the forehead.

6. If you’re ever at a loss for words to express your superiority over other human beings, simply apply the tip of your index finger to the tip of your nose and push upward gently.

Adapted from “How to be your own selfish pig“ by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.

Barry and I sort of had a little spat in my last post which had to do with speeding, turning, and Doritos. He made several really good points, I made some snarky comments (for which I apologized) and this all got me to thinking about moral absolutes.

In our society (United States) I and many other quasi-conservative Christians believe that moral relativism abounds. But my question here is in regard to whether or not we as Christians actually live out (or are expected to live out) lives which are morally absolute. I’m thinking not of “big” issues like homosexuality, murder, or whatever. We would all agree on issues like that. I’m thinking more about “little” issues like stealing, speeding and lying.

Still don’t know exactly what I’m getting at? It’s OK, my vocabulary is out to lunch I think. I’m thinking of questions like, “Is it ever not a sin to lie/steal/cheat/etc?” I am not sure I know the answer to it. Indeed, I’m not sure if ANYONE does. What I would like to see take place though, is a bit of kind, sensitive, thoughtful discussion in the comments section of this post.

I realize I’m opening myself and other people’s comments up for the possibility for things to get really ugly here so I will be monitoring comments closely and deleting any that are inappropriate, inflammatory or just plain hurtful.

In past, posts like this where the subject matter was potentially volatile everyone who commented was super nice and understanding. Let’s recreate that dialog here, shall we? Now…let’s talk about Christians and moral absolutes.