June 30, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Tetka falls through the bubbles...
Now, this is what three-dimensional physics was made for (right?): 
(Requires Flash — don’t forget to click and drag.)
(Link via Paulo.)
June 30, 2005 at 12:08 pm
So Close To Greatness: The Broccamole Conundrum
I made some home-made guacamole for our small group last night. I make guacomole. Growing up in Southern California has given me some useful skills, I’ll give it that.
Before group I had to make a quick and easy dinner that Julianna and I could scarf down before everyone got to our home, so I made some mac and cheese and some broccoli. I was running really late, though, so I didn’t get a chance to partake of this fanciful ceast until everyone left.
After making dinner and guacomole, I suddenly had a thought. If I used broccoli in my guacamole instead of avocados, then I could call it “broccamole”! I mean, I don’t know how it would taste (probably not that bad considering all of the ingredients go together in other circumstances pretty well), but I definitely got a kick out of the concept I had just thought up…
But, wait a minute!
It turns out that I am not the first to come up with this veritable twist of a traditional delicacy. No, pleanty of others have also thought of “broccamole” (here’s one recipe that sounds pretty good).
Anyway, I guess that the idea for broccamole came about during the recent fat-free fads that have swept our nation. You see avocados are a high-fat vegetable — in fact, one 6-ounce avocado contains about 325 calories and 31 grams of fat (the same amount of calories you’d get by drinking two Guiness beers!). Broccoli, on the other hand, holds a whopping 22 calories per half-cup serving. (Guess that rules out this delicious recipe, eh?)
Anyway, all of this is just to say that I was so close to greatness with my newfound idea. I had visions of broccamole taking the world by storm — even overtaking salsa as the no. 1 condiment in the U.S.
Foiled again.
June 29, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Kansas City Sunset (Time-Lapse)...
I’m currently shooting a short film for church. I’m not going to explain the whole thing right now, but I thought I’d show you my first screen test.
Click here to watch it (it’s a 6MB MPEG).
This is a little over an hour’s worth of film scrunched down to one minute.
Pretty fun, isn’t it?
The sunset was so great that I was hoping that this would be more than just a test (i.e., the final take), but there are a few things about it that I don’t like. Hopefully the next sunset I shoot will be just as glorious.
June 28, 2005 at 3:55 pm
E85 (Alternative Fuel)...
My buddy Dennis just pointed me towards this interesting article on MSNBC (Ack! God forbid!):
EAGAN, Minn. – Like lots of motorists, Chuck Nye thought he had no choice but to grin and bear it as rising gas prices made filling up his minivan a painful experience.Read the rest here.
But then he heard a radio ad promoting E85 — a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline — that sells for an average of about 45 cents per gallon less than regular unleaded. Inside his fuel door was a sticker saying Nye had a flexible fuel vehicle, which can burn the homegrown alternative.
Nye was sold.
Here’s a list of “bi-fuel” vehicles in the U.S.
Our car‘s not on the list, but we cut way back by only having one car and riding the bus. Do your part too!
(Go to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition website for more info on E85.)
June 28, 2005 at 1:47 pm
I grok Grokker...
There’s a cool new search paradigm in the works: Grokker.com.
Grokker is a new search interface that applies these concepts to the Yahoo! search engine (more information sources are being added as I type).
For a better idea of what I’m talking about, just try it — it’s a lot easier than me trying to explain it (Mac users may need to download and intall a Java plugin to get it to work).
(Link via Doc Searls who got it from Shane Williamson.)
June 27, 2005 at 2:24 pm
In search of community?
Sure, we all know this now, right?
We are natural villagers. For most of mankind’s history we have lived in very small communities in which we knew everybody and everybody knew us. But gradually there grew to be far too many of us, and our communities became too large and disparate for us to be able to feel a part of them, and our technologies were unequal to the task of drawing us together. But that is changing.Read “How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet,” by Douglas Adams (1999).
Interactivity. Many-to-many communications. Pervasive networking. These are cumbersome new terms for elements in our lives so fundamental that, before we lost them, we didn’t even know to have names for them.
June 27, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Utterly disgusted...
A new game called “Fags vs. Kids“ from our favorite loveless, homosexual-hating, egotist, Fred Phelps.
Why, God, why?
Ugh.
(Link via John Walkenbach.)
June 24, 2005 at 11:59 pm
Mexican Commercial Furniture...
We got a call from a Commerce Bank representative tonight. He informed me that there were a couple of charges on our Visa Check Card that he didn’t think were ours. The last charge in the Kansas City area was at Spice of Life (the cafeteria where Julianna works — a place in which, earlier today, an ominous questions popped into her head: What if we didn’t have enough funds in our account to pay for this? What would I do? Weird, no?). Anyway, after the charge at the cafeteria, there were two more charges…in Mexico…for “commercial furniture.”
What is “commercial furniture” anyway?!
Here’s one link I found via Google (looks like regular, everyday furniture to me — and, yeah, I’m aware that “commercial” most likely means that you can by it by volume — I’m trying to be sarcastic here).
But in Mexico?!
Sure, why not.
Now, we’ve got to go through the ordeal of cancelling our cards and getting new PINs, etc. Ugh.
So… Thanks, Commerce Bank, for catching the fraudulent charges.
Update: After talking to the bank today, I found out that there was a third charge to a restaurant, called “Darma,” for $87. At least they ate well.
June 24, 2005 at 08:22 am
The 2nd Annual Jacob's Well Impact Group Picnic Olympics...
Yesterday evening, the 2nd Annual Jacob’s Well Impact Group Picnic Olympics took place at Loose Park. Lots of fun and food was beheld. Alas, “The Titans” came in 4th out of five teams (although it’s better than last place like last year).
In any case, does the below pic look like a “small” group to you?!
If you’d like to see many more pictures of the renowned event, check out both mine and Todd’s.
Update: And Mary’s too!
Update #2: My oh my, this just in: more fun-filled news and pics from Tyler.
June 21, 2005 at 1:27 pm
I agree with Neal...
One of my favorite postcyberpunk / place any genre label here authors, Neal Stephenson (and here), has just written an interesting article for the New York Times entitled “Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out“. It’s about how our current age of media-accessibility is allowing filmmakers to leave out crucial story-building elements from final film productions…
The first “Star Wars” movie 28 years ago was distinguished by healthy interplay between veg and geek scenes. In the climactic sequence, where rebel fighters attacked the Death Star, we repeatedly cut away from the dogfights and strafing runs – the purest kind of vegging-out material – to hushed command bunkers where people stood around pondering computer displays, geeking out on the strategic progress of the battle.Read the entire article here (you may need to sign in — it’s free).
All such content – as well as the long, beautiful, uncluttered shots of desert, sky, jungle and mountain that filled the early episodes – was banished in the first of the prequels (“Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” 1999). In the 16 years that separated it from the initial trilogy, a new universe of ancillary media had come into existence. These had made it possible to take the geek material offline so that the movies could consist of pure, uncut veg-out content, steeped in day-care-center ambience. These newer films don’t even pretend to tell the whole story; they are akin to PowerPoint presentations that summarize the main bullet points from a much more comprehensive body of work developed by and for a geek subculture.
“Concentrate on the moment. Feel, don’t think. Trust your instincts,” says a Jedi to the young Anakin in Episode I, immediately before a pod race in which Anakin is likely to get killed. It is distinctly odd counsel coming from a member of the Jedi order, the geekiest people in the universe: they have beards and ponytails, they dress in army blankets, they are expert fighter pilots, they build their own laser swords from scratch.
(Link via Rebecca Blood.)
June 21, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Stealing links...
I grabbed two links from my pal Daniel Miller‘s del.icio.us page just a second ago:
- The Polaroid-o-nizer™
- YubNub: “a (social) command line for the web”
June 21, 2005 at 12:38 pm
"No, I'm not keeping up with your blog."
Funny, but true…
I’ve been faking it for a while. Months. Maybe a year. If we’ve met and I look confused about something you told me, and if you said, “I blogged it,” as if that should be explanation enough, I’ve made some excuse as if I read every one of your posts except that one.Read the rest of David Weinberger‘s recent post here.
(I’m not totally to that point, but I’m getting close — there are just too many good Blogs out there!)
June 21, 2005 at 10:09 am
The first day of summer...
This is the first Day Lilly to bloom in our front yard. took this photo on Saturday… Since then, we’ve had maybe three or four more and there are a bunch of other buds beginning to form.
Happy summer everyone!
June 16, 2005 at 1:22 pm
MIT Blog Survey...
If you blog — and have a few minutes of free time — head on over to the MIT Blog Survey.
(Link via Wheat — who just left a comment on my Blog as I typed this — cool!)
June 15, 2005 at 07:51 am
5
Happy Blogiversary to me.
June 14, 2005 at 11:33 am
Speaking of whores...
(In case you don’t know, the title of this entry references a post I made yesterday).
We read about the Fall of Jericho in our bible study this morning and it got me thinking. I’m constantly amazed at how close-minded we believers can be towards “outsiders” and the good works that they do for society (e.g., I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “If they’re not sharing the gospel, what good are they doing anyway?”).
Why don’t I think this is a judgement that God wishes us to pass?
In the book of Joshua God uses the harlot, Rahab to help the Israelites take over the city of Jericho. And, not only do the Israelites spare Rahab’s life and the lives of her family members (as promised in an oath made by two Jewish spies), but the Israelites allowed Rahab and her family to live amongst them (Joshua 6:25). And, not only did these non-Jews get to live with the Israelites, but Rahab went on to become one of the many people in the lineage of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:1-17).
Maybe someday we’ll learn that there is really no such thing as an “outsider.”
June 13, 2005 at 12:20 pm
The Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible...
What is the Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible?Pretty cool stuff. (The picture here is of Acts 1:18.)
Our goal is to illustrate the entire bible verse–by–verse — one illustration per verse. We plan to enlist artists and illustrators from all over the world — including you! — to help us bring each of the 36,665 verses in our database to life.
(Link via The Cartoon Blog.)
June 13, 2005 at 11:31 am
Jesus loved a whore and killed her pimp...
Wow.
This piece is supposed to illustrate a point about ideal spouses. I didn’t really get that, though. What I did get is probably one of the best analogies for God’s relationship with His creation that I’ve ever read…
Jesus had a dream girl. Jesus had a girl that He wanted to marry for several thousand years. But she treated him like shit. She slept with everyone, she didn’t stop until there was a checkmark next to every name in the phonebook. And Jesus, above just hearing the rumors, had to watch every one of these sexual encounters in excruciating detail. He saw every thrust of the hips and heard every whispered word.Read the entire piece here.
(Link via Paulo.)
June 13, 2005 at 11:02 am
What's your theological worldview?
Supposedly, this is mine:
 You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com |
(Link via Mike King.)
Update: After looking at a bunch of other survey results from others in my Blogroll, I’ve come to find that I probably have a higher “fundamental” standing than anyone else. Strange. Kind of makes me chuckle.
June 11, 2005 at 1:48 pm
P.S.
Please do not purposely (or accidentally – ahem) put your Slurpee cup in the dishwasher before redeeming your free iTunes song.
Thank you,
The Management
June 10, 2005 at 10:25 am
Birthday sushi...
Julianna and I have a long-running tradition of going out for a sushi dinner on our birthdays (long-running might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it works for me). Last night, we, along with our friend Julie and her baby Ava, went to grub on some fine raw fish.
During the course of the evening, Ava (who’s around 15-months old now) began to get impatient with us adults. During one of her crying fits, one of the nice waitresses brought her a little toy: a wind up, rolling sushi-mobile! As you can see, it was pretty cool (the second picture is of the sushi-mobile in action).
I’ll leave you with some wise words that my father imparted to me last night, while we were talking on the phone:
You know what they say about getting old, don’t you? Never pass by a toilet…and never trust a fart.Words to live by, Dad.
June 09, 2005 at 08:19 am
33
Last night at small group, God spoke to me in two ways that are helping me more this morning than I ever could have imagined (for reasons that I don’t feel free enough to disclose right now). And, last night, I didn’t even recognize that He was speaking to me…
During small group, Willy Abraham (who many of you know from way back) shared his “life story.” But, he didn’t do it in a typical way. No, last night, Willy led us through a journey from who he was before he knew God to where he is now. He did it by reading scripture and giving glimpses of what used to be hate and what now is love. You see, Willy is an African-American who’s family was born from an affair between a German slave-owner and one of his slaves. Not only did this spark hatred and a long-running strain of abuse in Willy’s family, but years later, Willy would find himself growing up in a poverty-stricken inner-city, miles from his family’s birthplace of South Carolina.
While Willy didn’t tell us much about the actual events in his life, he did tell us how much the scripture he was reading impacted him — scripture about God’s love, the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and Jesus’ commands to love our enemies. Willy can look back and see the patterns of his life transition from hatred to love; from denial to acceptance.
Later in the evening, I excused myself to the restroom. While washing my hands, I found one of those daily bible verse calendars. There was a quote on it, but I can’t seem to recall what it was or who it was by. The verse, though, for yesterday, June 8, 2005, was this…
Collossians 3:12-14 (NLT):
Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony.I turn 33-years old today. What an apt thing to be faced with at this particular age.
June 07, 2005 at 8:43 pm
Ain't wastin' any time...
As I said earlier today, I set up my new grill last night. This evening we got right at it… I set the grill to, well, “grill,” and grilled us up some chicken and veggie kabobs, as well as a whole tomato.
Mmm!
June 07, 2005 at 8:38 pm
How did I know this was going to be a bad idea?
June 07, 2005 at 09:45 am
Grilled...
Have any of you ever tried to put one of these together? How about while it’s getting dark and the humidity is at about 99%? I’m thinking that I might have set the record last night at somewhere between two and three hours. Seriously… If I knew that this thing would come in a million different pieces, with a manual that barely explained anything, I might have… No, I still would have wanted it. Still…
What you’re seeing here is a birthday gift from my wife and my inlaws. Even though my birthday isn’t until Thursday, we went and picked it up on Sunday. There isn’t a link to this exact grill, but you can get an idea here. It’s not the best grill out there, of course, but I think it will suit us just fine — and just in time for summer!
June 06, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Original Sin?
To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I think about “Original Sin.”
Once again, Steve Jones is able to capture a number of internal dialog I have had with myself over the years in a couple of simple, succinct paragraphs:
Think about it. God tells Adam not to sin, but he sins anyway. So as a punishment, God — who doesn’t want people to sin — punishes the man by giving him a nature that ensures that he will keep on sinning.Read the rest here.
What if a human judge did that? A man is convicted of stealing. As part of his sentence, the judge orders that a computer chip be placed in the man’s head that will give him an irresistible impulse to keep stealing. Does that make one molecule of sense? Would we hail such a judge for his wisdom?
June 06, 2005 at 12:40 pm
Kill Bill...
So, this might say something about me that you didn’t want to know (depending on who you are, I guess), but…
Kill Bill rocked!
June 06, 2005 at 11:48 am
In the Wikipedia...
Thanks to über-Pivot user (CSS master and overall cool person), Cissi, Pivot (the Weblog tool I use as well as help develop) has been added to the Wikipedia!
You can check out the Wikipedia page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivotlog
This isn’t first time my name has been in the Wikipedia… Back in January, I found that someone had added me as an actual entry (mostly because of my music stuff, I think). The entry was soon deleted, though, because the Wikipedia “team” thought it was a “vanity-post.” Oh, well. Hopefully the Pivot entry will remain.
June 03, 2005 at 10:00 am
"Emergent" Response to Criticism...
(Also available here if you don’t like downloading PDFs.)
June 03, 2005 at 08:20 am
Tag, I'm it! (Another Book Meme)...
Deanne came out of hiding long enough to impart some personal info about herself, as well as “tag” a few of us to continue in the same vein…
1. Total Number of Books I’ve Owned
This is a tough one (as most of those who participate in this little “challenge” say). I really have no idea. I probably have around 200 books currently in my possession. I’ve sent another 300 books (plus or minus) to the used book store over the past 20 years. I’ve given books that I liked away as gifts, sold some to friends for extra cash, acquired many by the box load from book stores who were going out of business… I’d say that I’ve owned somewhere between 600 and 900 books (including textbooks — a couple of which I still own).
2. What was the last book you bought?
The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3) by Neal Stephenson (Used.)
3. Last Book I’ve Read
The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2) by Neal Stephenson (and, The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups by Joseph R. Myers)
4. Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me
Choosing five books is very difficult. Some books are special for a season. Some are helpful throughout life. Some books just need to be on my bookshelf for no other reason than just to know they’re there. To make this easier on myself, the following books are the contemporary workds of fiction that I feel changed me or helped me in some way throughout the years. I realize that this doesn’t make me out to be an over-intellectual reader — which may be fairly true — but, I’d probably be able to list a hundred more books (fiction and nonfiction alike) if given the chance.
- The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper ~ The book that got me into sci-fi.
- The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub ~ I don’t know… Something about this one helped me decide that I wanted to tell stories.
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett ~ Helped me realize that there’s more than just sci-fi out there.
- The Diamond Age – Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson ~ Cyberpunk at it’s finest — this book opened my eyes to more than just great sci-fi storytelling.
- The tales of Shannara ~ Did I mention that I was a sucker for good fantasy too? Yes, I’ve owned (and read) all of these — Terry Brooks will always get my money.
- Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis ~ Yes, I know this makes six, but, man, this book rocked my world.
Read Deanne’s responses here.
June 03, 2005 at 01:03 am
Movie progress...
I just finished the fourth movie in my little “while she’s away“ project. It’s been fun so far. I don’t know if I’ll finish the last two before Julianna gets home, though.
The Chronicles of Riddick ~ Not as good as Pitch Black by any stretch of the imagination, but fairly entertaining nevertheless. It got a little slow for me at times, but it had better dialog and just as good special effects as a famous bummer that I just saw. The one major disappointment I had with Riddick was the ending. Blah.
Primer ~ Not bad for a first-timer. The concept was cool, but the story was a little hard to follow. And a question… Why do cool, techy, sci-fi movies always have to deal with the stock market in some way or another? (Case-in-point: one of my favorites.) Why Primer is rated “R” is beyond me.
Ying xiong (Hero) ~ Amazing. More of a social commentary than The Village even (which I’ll get to in a sec). The story was wonderful. The swordplay was great. The cinematography was incredible. I’ll watch this one again for sure.
The Village ~ Once again, M. Night gives us what we want — a psychological thriller that keeps us guessing. Of course, I’m probably the last person in the world to see this movie, but better late than never, right? To tell you the truth, The Village didn’t completely live up to my expectations — especially considering my past. I’ve heard all of this talk about how great of a social commentary it is (whether it’s about social constraints, organized religion, or whatever). To me, the movie was a little forced and didn’t really bring up any commentary that hasn’t already been beaten into the ground. Even moreso, I felt like the movie spoke well of the intentions of a utopian society more than anything (I mean, the people who created the “village” didn’t start out with bad intentions, nor did they desire to harm or control anyone — beyond their own capacity of intentionality, that is). In my opinion, those involved in more…subduing societies…are much more aware of their positions of control and their status within the society than the “elders” in The Village were — sure, the elders new they were in control, but they weren’t really trying to get anything out of it (e.g., praise, etc.). Oh, well. (Lastly, I’m wondering why the first scene of the movie shows the people of the “village” burying a child under a tombstone that reads 1890-1897… Seems like a dirty trick to disorient the movie-watcher to me.)
Still left on the docket are the two Kill Bill movies. If I can’t fit them in tomorrow night before I drive to the airport to pick up my wife, I guess she’ll just have to watch them with me.
Speaking of my wife… I miss her.
June 02, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Even Better Than The Real Thing...
Are you in a band? Are you a musician? Do you want to be famous?
Ever dream of being as big as U2?
Well, these cats pulled it off.
Amazing (and hilarious).
Check out other “missions” that the Improv Everywhere team have pulled off here.
(Link via Suw Charman.)
June 01, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Want to produce a film?
I’ve never mentioned The 1 Second Film before. It’s hard to explain. About five years ago, while at art school, a friend of mine, Nirvan Mullick, had the idea to create an extravaganza: a party / art production / performance piece / art exhibit / film / whatever else happened type of thing. The concept was to create twelve large, painted frames, all shot at two frames of film each (see, shooting on 2’s), creating one complete second of film (for those of you who don’t know, film is shot at 24-frames per second). The frames were to depict a “perfect moment” (which you can read more about on the 1 Second site).
Well, back in March of 2000, this event became a reality. I, as well as hundreds of students, faculty, and press were all present to witness twelve paintings come to life. It was an amazing event full of art, 100-foot swings, fire-eaters, etc. We had a blast.
Likewise, back in 2000, Nirvan was selling Producer credits to finance his dream: $1-$9.99 would get you an Associate Producer credit, $10-$99 got Producer credits, and $100+ added your name as Executive Producer. It was a humorous thought: if enough people paid for the film, the credits would be longer than the film itself — and they were!
Now, over five years later, Nirvan is still at it. The 1 Second Film has grown to proportions far greater than first conceived (see the listing at IMDB.com!) and there is even a 11,111 second IMAX sequel in the works. And, speaking of Producer credits, the roster now touts such names as Kevin Bacon, Pierce Brosnan, Spike Jonze, Andy Dick, Tom Green, and more. Not only that, but all of the profits, acquired from the sale of Producers’ credits are going to the Global Fund for Women.
Anyway, I’ve gone on about it enough. If you’d like to find out more about The 1 Second Film as well as learn how to get involved by buying a Producers’ credit, head over to the site.
Lastly, Nirvan just got back from Cannes and I suggest you read about his adventures at “The 1 Second Blog“ — it sounds like he had an amazing trip.
June 01, 2005 at 11:57 am
My wife just left me...
I just dropped my wife off at the airport. She’s going to a work-related conference in Louisianna. Guess it serves me right for leaving her twice in the past month or so. But, she’ll only be gone until Friday evening, so I shouldn’t complain too much.
Of the many things I have planned (that’s sarcasm, by the way), I will be renting a few movies that I haven’t yet seen because Julianna won’t watch them with me… I’ll be choosing from:
- The Chronicles of Riddick
- The Final Cut
- The Forgotten
- Kill Bill (Vol. 1 & Vol. 2)
- The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
- Open Water
- Primer
- Shi mian mai fu (House of the Flying Daggers)
- White Noise
- The Village
- Ying xiong (Hero)
Don’t get me wrong… It will be fun to finally see some of these movies, but I’ll miss my wife more.