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Mar 29, 2004
Weekend:
1. Got a cell phone. This is huge, because I HATE cell phones. I really think they are the downfall of our culture. Well, they aren't that bad, but some people need to learn some ettiqute. If I'm out having dinner, well, let's just say I'm not answering the phone. The one cool thing about cell phones: you can assign different ringtones to people. I've been saying for years that everyone should have a theme song, and now, I can assign theme songs to people. But wouldn't it be cool to walk into a room and your theme song starts playing. There has got to be a way to put a computer chip on people that automatically triggers a sensor at the door when someone walks through. I mean, we put a person on the MOON. 2. Went to Cincinnati, visited University Christian Church. Good time. Brandon, Juliet, and Les did an awesome job with worship, Troy's sermon was great, and I got to eat at Chipotle. Best part was seeing everyone. It's nice to be missed. posted
by Unknown @ 5:01:00 PM Mar 26, 2004 Other's reactions to the Passion Well, a least one person was postitively affected by the film. On the other hand, one couple had marraige problems after seeing it. I guess the reviews are still mixed. posted
by Unknown @ 5:47:00 PM Mar 25, 2004 March Madness I should be watching basketball tonight. But, I don't know if I'll be able to. After Kentucky lost on Sunday, I wasn't able to watch ESPN, listen to sports radio, or check some of my usual websites. I wouldn't call it painful, but it was definately a downer. It's interesting to try and figure out why we react the way we do to sports. Some of it makes sense. Sports are fun, and have elements of beauty and excitement. But somehow team loyalties are kind of odd. How is it that the sucess and failures of guys we never met can affect us so much. But Sunday's loss stung a little more than usual. Why? When Kentucky got the ball back down one with 12 seconds left, I knew they were going to win it. KNEW they would win. There were games like this all season long. And in this situation, they won every time. Literally, every single time. When Fitch shot the ball, I knew it was going in. When it didn't, and Hayes tipped it, I knew that was going to go in. There had to be a foul or something. This years team always wins those situations. Which is why, when it didn't go in, it was such a downer. Plus, I really enjoyed this particular team. I just wasn't ready for it to end. It kind of reminded me of a scene for Pleasantville, when the local high school team lost thier first game ever. So, here are my top 5 worst moments as a sports fan: 5. Kentucky vs UAB, 2004 NCAA Tournament second round. 4. SF 49ers vs NY Giants, 1991 NFC Title Game: Growing up, I was a 9ers fan, really up until it became Terrell Owens team. I can't stand him (which made the whole free agency fiasco more enjoyable). The 49ers were on their way to a 3-peat. The worst part is that the Giants didn't score a TD the entire game. They won on 5 freakin field goals (including one as time expired to win it). 3. SF Giants vs Anaheim Angels, Game7, 2002 World Series: The Giants haven't won a World Series in my lifetime. This would have been the first time I would have gotten to celebrate a WS win. Game 6 would have been more disappointing, but I was on a retreat and didn't see it. 2. Mark Messier becomes a Vancouver Canuck: Granted, this isn't a lost game, but during the early 90's I became a huge hockey fan, and the 94 Stanley Cup really cemented me. Until the Ranger got rid of my favorite player, Messier. I haven't really watched hockey since. 1. Kentucky vs Duke, 1992 East Regional Final: This was an amazing game. and with 2.8 seconds left, Kentucky had the game in the bag. You all know what happens. Mostly because CBS insists on showing that clip over and over and over and over and over (In fact as recently as 2 years ago, in CBS's intro to tournament games, they would show 3 clips. 2 of them were Kentucky losses. Freaking annoying.) Honorable Mention: Kentucky vs Clemson, 1993 Peach Bowl: This one hurt because Kentucky is pretty horrible at football. By some amazing feat, they made it to a Bowl game in the 93 season. And they had a 13-7 lead in the final minutes, buy Clemson was driving down the feild. They got the the 20 yard line, when Marty Moore intercepted a pass on about the 3 yard line. Kentucky won, right . . . except he began to run and was hit around the 10-15 yeard line and fumbled the ball. Clemson recovered and scored a few plays later, hit the extra point, and Kentucky went on to have a 1-10 season the following year, then eventually went on to lose 2 more bowl games and end up on probation. posted
by Unknown @ 5:02:00 PM Mar 24, 2004 The Passion of the ChristI have been reluctant to write a review of The Passion Of The Christ. So many people have loved this film, and it has had a great impact on them. I don't want to say anything that may take away from that impact. But, I think it's probably arrogant of me to really think that my opinion is going to strongly sway anyone, so, here it goes. My reveiw is based on question posed by John Wentz in his review. Be sure and check it out. So what did you think? I really wanted to like this movie. I tried really hard. After all, it was my duty as an evangelical to do so. And it wasn't that I disliked it. But, I thought it was ok. Not great, not bad. Just okay. Emotionally, it never drew me in. I'm not sure why. I think there were 2 factors involved. First was the hype. Hype just kills movies for me. Take the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as an example. I didn't expect to like them. I didn't see the first one until 6 months after it came out, in a $2.00 theater. I loved it. I saw it again a week later. So by the time the third one came out, I was excited. After I saw it, I was disappointed. Why? I think it was the hype. Same with The Passion. The second thing that hurt it was my education. I have done a lot of gospel studies and have really looked into the crucifixion. This affected me in two ways. One was that I was nitpicking the details of the entire film. Secondly, the things that were supposed to shock me never did. Did anything surprise you? No, and I think that was the problem. Were you repulsed? No. John's point on this was pretty good, but I think that we have come to a point where movie violence and real violence are easily differentiated. Also, one problem for me is that I never really connected with the character of Jesus. The film presumes that we know the backstory, so we start with Jesus in the garden. The problem is that despite knowing the story, I never connected emotionally with the character of Jesus. More importantly, through my study of crucifixtion, I really didn't think the violence of the film was even close to what the real thing was like. The beating was probably fairly accurate. Often people did not survive the Roman beatings. But the torture of the crucifixion itself was not well depicted. These people had to fight for every breath while hanging on the cross. What moved you the most? There were 3 scenes that really drew me in. The first was when Mary came saw Jesus carrying the cross and had the flashback to when Jesus was a child and fell down. Good stuff. The second was Simon's speech defending Jesus. The third was when Jesus said "Father forgive them," which in my opinion is one of the most powerful lines in the entire Bible. How do you think people who don?t believe in Christ will react? The problem with this question is that it presumes that all non-christians will react the same way. If Christians don't all react the same way, then non-Christains likely will not either. However, as I stated earlier, this film presumes a knowledge of the back story, and I think to get emotionally drawn in, you really have to understand the main character and the injustice that was taking place. Did you think it was anti-semitic? The one thing that got lost in this debate is the fact that there are really two separate questions here. The first, is the movie anti-semitic, I would answer no. First of all, blame is not really presented as an issue in the film at all. It's never the point, and the Romans and the Jews both really get a lot of the blame (and I felt the Romans came off a lot worse than the Jews). Secondly, there were Jews that were sympathetic to Jesus (and even a Roman or 2). There was never an effort to charactarize one group or another. There is a second question that I think goes more to the point of the debate; Will the movie cause anti-semitism? While the movie itself is not anti-semitic, historically anti-semitic violence has been linked to artistic depictions of the passion. So, I think there is at least some possibility of this happening. There has been at least one incident, with the church in Colorado that posted on it's marquee "The Jews killed Jesus." But, for the most part, I don't think that it will be the case. First of all, the passion plays played upon existing anti-semitism. In other words, I don't think any of these depictions recruited any new anti-semites. I could be wrong. Secondly, and I have never seen them, but my guess is that these passion playes went out of there way to really portray Jews in an excessivly negative light. This was not the case with the movie. I doubt it really sparked any anger toward the Jews. In fact, anger was not the emotion that Gibson tried elict. The fact is, the anti-semitism debate was never about anti-semitism. It was an attempt to discredit Gibson and his film. If you look at some of the other criticisms the film has gotten (violence which is normally applauded in these circles, and the amount of money Gibson is making, which normally nobody complains about) you get the sense that people don't like this film for some other reason. People were calling it anti-semitic without ever seeing it. The attempt to remove the blame from the Jews has been around for a while (Read Jesus, A Revolotionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan for more info.) I think people used this to try and discredit a film they fear for other reasons. Final Words There were a lot of innacuracies (ie the way Jesus was nailed to the cross) and weird stuff (the bird poking out the thief's eyes) that helped mess this film up for me. These probablly didn't affect others as much as it did me. So, as I said, I though it was good, not great. But like I said, I know for others, it was a great film that had a great impact, and for that, I'm glad it was made. posted
by Unknown @ 11:23:00 AM Mar 23, 2004 I have a new shift at work. I now work from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. I was working from 7:30 am until 4:30 pm. I used to be opposed to working after 4:30 pm. But I gotta say, that coming in at 9:00 more than makes up for leaving at 6:00. Sleeping in, and nothing happens after 4:30 anyway. It's a gold mine, seriously. So, for all you you people going to work before 9:00, all I can say is, "HA HA!!" posted
by Unknown @ 5:31:00 PM A litte test for y'all Count the "F's" in the following text: FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE- SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF- C STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS... How many did you count. Click the comments to find out the answer. (Thanks to Eran Bosley for sending this to me!) posted
by Unknown @ 5:25:00 PM Mar 22, 2004 Today I tried something different. From now on, I'm going to start putting my pants on 2 legs at the same time, instead of one at a time like the old cliche goes. That way, next time someone says, "Well, he puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us," I can say, "Actually, that is not true." I love busting up cliches! posted
by Unknown @ 10:20:00 AM |
