On Thursday, the assistant principal at my school advised me that it may be a conflict of interest for someone affliated with the school to be in charge of the parents' funds. I agreed. Thus, I am not longer treasurer of the parent association. The end.

~Kelly

The Moon & Antarctica by Modest Mouse

Just a couple pics from around the web:

This might be a better logo

Miyamoto is happy about his Wii

Disney Mania 2006

Check out all 875 photos from my vacation that I uploaded today. There are still some more to come eventually because some of the pictures on the CD's Janelle gave me wouldn't open. I think there are about 1100 photos total. They aren't really in any order right now. Some day I will have them grouped by park and stuff, but for now it's just kind of a giant mass of pics.

The following is a group of people I would like to punch, just for the joy in doing it.

Barry Bonds Barry you are ridiculous. Everybody you have associated yourself with has been busted for taking steriods, or providing steroids. You have a TV show that basically tries to convice everyone that you are a good person, but I don't think you are. So here is what I have to say to you, first admit you took steriods, then pull a Raphael Palmero, and quit baseball. Just tell us why you have to keep lying about "not knowing" and just say, "I did it." Wait no, the damage has been done. I want to punch you in your steroid shrunken testicles.

Eduardo Najera Ok, no one likes this guy. I mean, are you trying to be pretty, or are you just a homo? I mean, you try to be tough and pretty all at the same time. Unfortunately every time I look at you I get angry because you have a look on your face like you have never done anythng wrong in your life, and you get a foul called on you, and you get that puzzled look in your eyes saying "who me". Give me a break. I want to punch you, in your nose, then both of your eyes, beautiful.

Fred Durst You are not as cool as you think you are. Everyone else, just look at the picture and tell me why you would want to punch him. You are not a girl. You are not black. You aren't even talented Mr. Durst. You have piggybacked on talented people, and now somehow you still think that you are popular. There was a time when people thought you were cool, then they realized how much of a chump you were. I still think Scott Stapp would beat you up. I would love to punch you, right in your peepee, if I can find it.

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert Hosts of the "Let's Mock Republicans Hour" err...."The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. Ok there was a time when these guys were incredibly creative and the shows were smart and witty and intelligent. Now, they do the same thing every show. Find a Republican, or Conservative idea, and make fun of it. I guess they are an easy target, they are the majority in the US. They actually believe in something and will stick with it even if it is unpopular. I guess making fun of people with convictions is really easy, especially when you associate yourself with people who think not believing anything is the best thing in the world. Don't get me wrong I love a good satire, but any joke gets old if it is told enough. I would punch you both in the jaw.

/

Bono I am aware that there is poverty. Why don't you put down the microphone and go to the poor and oppressed that you are making people aware of and actually help them. I am sure this is how your conversations went with world leaders:

"Hello"
"Hello world leader this is Bono, from the band U2, do you know why I am calling?"
"Why hello Bono, good to hear from you, I would love to know why you are calling."
"World leader are you aware there is poverty in your nation?"
"Yes. In fact I make my policy in a way so that the US will give me money to do something about it while I pocket the money. I am corrupt and will take it any way I can."
"Oh, well as long as you know. How are your kids, I have millions of dollars to spend on this and I have only been on the phone for 10 minutes, because every world leader seems to be aware there is poverty?"
click
"Hello....Hello?"

Sorry Bono, I want to punch you in your smug little face.

And that (above photo), dear friends, is the single moment in Hustle & Flow that causes audience to feel an actual emotion, unless, of course, the audience is filled with pimps from Memphis.

Seriously. I can't identify with the characters, the main character doesn't show any redemptive characteristics, and the music isn't really that good as far as this type of music goes. So what was in it for me? Well, I can say that I really did admire Terrence Howard's ability to morph himself into a rapping pimp. All of the other actors convincingly portrayed their characters as well. So I guess for the acting, I would say that the movie was worth a watch.

As for the rest of the movie, it started out interesting as D-Jay decides he wants to get into the music business with a guy who's always wanted to record something better than the boring things he does for a living. The odd pimp house lifestyle is even a little bit intriguing for a little while. After the pumped up sensations of the recording session for "It's Hard Out There for a Pimp", the movie takes a dive into boredom, and then twists into an unexpected but not really believable ending that felt completely tacked on. It just didn't flow with the rest of the movie.

Anyway, I wasn't all that impressed by anything but Howard, who really had his break-out period in the past couple of years, being seen in Ray, this movie, Crash, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Four Brothers, and Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Not that I saw all of those movies. Oh yeah. Ludacris. I like his acting too.

Revolution Is Officially Wii - Kotaku

Yep, that's the new name for the Revolution. Maybe I'll get used to it. Everyone is talking about it. Mission accomplished for Nintendo.

Happy Administrative Professionals Day. We're eating food here.

I can't think of anything to post, except that I updated our 2006 photo collection on the Brendoman gallery since I'm getting a new computer at work and wanted to make sure I didn't lose track of anything.

I guess I could say that World of Warcraft isn't taking up much of my time but that would be lying. I don't feel like lying today. I'm already at level 10. I'm still maintaing a solid social life though. I went down to Temecula on Monday night to help my friend Mike move, came back on Tuesday and went to Jr. High group, ate at Chili's with some friends, and then went to Huntington Beach with some work friends and had a bonfire. But when I'm not out with friends or sleeping, I'm either playing WoW or DS. I honestly don't know how Luis manages to juggle all the games he plays. A lot of my DS games are being seriously neglected thanks to Animal Crossing, Castlevania, and now my daily dose of Brain Age.

In other non-geeky news, Janelle gave me the CD's of all of our pictures from vacation last night. There are about 1400 pictures in total. I'll let you guys know when they are up in the gallery. I have to resize all of them because they are about 300k a piece right now.

I'm getting a little frustrated about my lead interview. It keeps getting pushed back. Now that we are in a bit of a lull again at the Park my hours are back down to about 25 per week. I'm doing fine financially, but I just want to move on to a 40 hour a week job so I can get my own place. I guess I just have to keep being patient. I've stayed here for almost 10 months, I can wait a little longer.

(via the sneeze)

No really, it is sad. Today, my grandma died. She had been battling cancer for a long time now, and that battle ended today. I loved my grandma. So I guess I am saying this because if I seem a little sad for a while that will be the reason, because I am not sure how I need to handle this.

Basically what I am trying to say is that I am really going to miss my grandma.

Saturday, here in Denver the high temperature was 81º F.
Sunday was 77º F.
Monday was 36º F and it SNOWED!

Conquering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome : And Other Repetitive Strain Injuries by Sharon Butler

Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter

Brick stars an almost unrecognizable Joseph Gordon Levitt as a teenager named Brendan. Brendan gets a phone call from his ex-girlfriend that sounds like a bunch of lingo he doesn't recognize, and he knows she's in trouble, so he follows the clues that lead him toward exposing the world she got herself involved in. Honestly, that plot didn't sound very interesting to me, but after the many recommendations I've been seeing for it lately, I'm very glad I went to see it.

The dialogue is one of the first things that struck me. It harkens back to good old fashioned film noir private eye movies. If you go to the official website you can even read through the glossary of film noir terminology. The words sort of just slip out of the characters mouths effortlessly, yet everything they say is a mouthful. It's really quite effective, and sometimes even poetic.

I like that this movie wasn't black and white. The dialogue, acting, framing, lighting, and even sound suffice to create the desired tone of the film. It's just plain cool.

I can't reveal pretty much any of the plot since it exposes itself as it goes, but Gordon-Levitt has an amazing touch in leading us along his journey, and I also especially enjoyed the performance from Noa Fleiss, which was spot-on. The movie goes places I never would have imagined from the way it starts, and I loved that. I was actually sitting in the theater towards the end thinking, "Is the word 'riveting' too much of a movie review cliche?" It did take a little while for the film to ease into its skin, or perhaps a it just took a short while for me to adjust to its style, but the movie kept building in style and story until I was very much hooked.

Definitely the most stylistically interesting, creatively written, and overall well-crafted movie I've seen in a while.

P.S. It actually has more violence than I anticipated, so there's your warning.

Tonight I made the best spaghetti sauce I have ever eaten. You all wish that you were at my apartment to eat it. Because then you would truly know that it was extremely delicious.

Basically the only thing that I did different than normal is that I decided to use italian sausage. Muy yummy.

I watched some NBA playoffs yesterday, and here was my biggest observation.

How is Clifford Robinson still in the NBA?

I think that is all for now, but today was a beautiful day here. I mean its some of the best I have seen in Oregon in April.

Plain View #40 4/5/06

Matchstick Men

Garden State

Walk the Line

Dead Hamster

Other Nonsense

subscribe

Not a lot of time to post today, but I guess I could review my weekend.

Friday night I crashed. I think it's about time for me to get another epidural for my disc problem. I have learned to live in such a way that I don't let it get to me too much, but sometimes I just have to take Aleve and go to sleep. So after a nice nap, I came upstairs and Ric had fallen asleep. What a fun pair we make! So while he napped I got Pip to fall asleep as well and watched tv while they slept. I like watching Discoveries This Week on the Discovery Science channel. Interesting stuff. Ric and I went to the Elephant Bar for dinner after that, and just came home to watch some Arrested Development on DVD. I'm so glad I got him hooked on that show.

Saturday I did the usual laundry at my parents' place. Ric and I went shopping at Best Buy and I finally picked up the new Morrissey album. I'm surprised any time I can actually find anything I want to buy at Best Buy anymore. They don't even carry the Charlatans anymore, and when I shopped in the classical section for Grace's birthday last year, they didn't even have any Philip Glass CDs. Lame! Then we bought Ric a bunch of clothes at Mervyn's so he's not bumming around in the same old stuff. Of course, we came home and watched some more Arrested Development. :)

Sunday we went to church and then I went to see Brick. I still want to research more info on the movie before I post about it, but I really enjoyed it. Josoph Gordon-Levitt is really starting to shine. It's funny to think that little George from Roseanne turned out to be a great young actor. After the movie I headed over to Ric's parents house to clean the car while he did laundry. The Mini is now completely spotless on the floors. I am seriously obsessive about cleaning that little car. I still need to go over the interior detailing, but that can wait for another weekend.

All in all, I got stuff done and got to sleep a lot too. Good weekend.

DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Igby Goes Down

So pretty much all I did this weekend was work. I finished off my two weeks of working overtime on Saturday so that is good and now my bank account is very happy. I got to go to a fun party at a co-worker's new place and hang out with a bunch of people from work in a social setting. That was also very fun. It took awhile, but I'm finally making some really good friends at work. I've also been playing World of Warcraft at night and I'm up to level 8.

Work has been pretty cool this week because for two days I got to "shadow" as a lead. Basically I followed the leads around and even got to perform some lead tasks. Everyone said I did a good job. Interviews got delayed because we got swamped this weekend thanks to the wonderful 2fer ticket promotion that expires this week. For the first time since I've worked there, California Adventure sold out and we were turning people away while Disneyland remained open. It was insanity. I was told I would have my interview tomorrow so hopefully I will have my interview and find out something for sure sooon.

I saw Jon and Grace for the first time all week this morning. It's strange living in the same house with people and never seeing them because of my schedule. Things will go back to normal this week because I will have two days off and I won't be working as much. So Justin, if you're reading this, hopefully I'll see you sometime before summer starts. Heh.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

My current web design project is a redesign of the Adrian, Missouri Chamber of Commerce site. They contacted me to have me keep the site updated for them, but I told them that I thought it needed to be totally redesigned. It was done in FrontPage and I think it looks pretty terrible. There are some real problems with image size, too. I've got the new design underway at a secure, undisclosed location. I'm looking forward to unveiling it.

I started working with a template and adding in php code to include headers and footers for the various pages, to make changes a little easier down the road. As I worked it felt like I was going to need to make a templating system from scratch. That's when I decided that I would use b2evolution instead. It already has skinning built in, so I can have multiple pages that all use one template. And I have the backoffice writing interface, which helps format the text. RSS feeds are already built in, so I don't have to do those manually. I've had to make some changes to make it seem more like a static site and less like a blog. I'm working on a guide for how to use b2evolution as a CMS for a static site.

Recently, I attended a volunteer appreciation reception at the school where I work. I update the web page for our school, and so I ended up being the only non-parent volunteer to be at the reception. Immediately following the reception, the parent association was meeting. Not wanting to seem rude, I hung around for it. This particular meeting happened to be the election of new officers for last year. The president was trying (and failing) to obtain nominees for the positions. She was going to remain president, and there was a nominee for secretary. For VP, we had to do a secret ballot. Absolutely no one volunteered for treasurer. And so, as I sat there, I watched the president turn her head towards me and say, "Kelly, would you be willing to help us out and be our treasurer?" My response: "I am not a parent. Doesn't that go against the rules or something? This is the parent association." Well, apparently, it doesn't go against the rules. I was unanimously voted in as treasurer. Of the parent association. This may be one of the strangest things to happen to me. But...my plan to take over the school has now begun...whahahaha! Yeah right. More like...my time spent in meetings outside of school has more than doubled...whahahaha!

~Kelly

I went out to the parking lot behind the Fox Fullerton last night for another of the Movies on the Fox events - a free screening of Some Like it Hot! They've been doing this every couple of months lately: having a sort of drive-in minus the cars, and hundreds of people come to watch the show and also gain awareness and donate to the rebuilding of the Fox.

The night started with some video, which included some computer generated images of what the Fox will look like when restoration is complete. It looks awesome. I wish they had links to it online, but unfortunately their website is kind of lacking.

Anyway, I had actually never seen Some Like it Hot yet, so it was all the more fun to see it in a setting like this, with people of all ages enjoying it together under the stars. If you haven't seen it, the story is about two musicians played by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, who are accidental witnesses to a mob killing, and they avoid being hunted down by dressing as women and joining an all-girl band that travels to Florida. While they are in hiding, one of the men falls for a girl in the band, played by Marilyn Monroe, and he alternates between posing as a millionaire and a member of the band throuought the film.

I can see why this one is a classic. This is cross-dressing that's actually funny. It doesn't seem weird; the writing is just right. The dialogue is quick, the plot is fast, and everything is incredibly clever. Monroe, Lemmon, and Curtis, are pitch-perfect, delivering a beautiful balance of ignorance, playfulness, and appearing completely genuine. What a fun time!

By the way, I love my car. I got a parking spot right on the same street as the theatre because my car was the only kind small enough (and has park distance control) to parallel park in such a tiny spot. Meanwhile, all of Fullerton roamed the parking structures in circles. Mwahhahahha!

Wow, I actually remembered this week!

1. What is and What Should Never Be, Led Zeppelin
2. Erased, Annie Lennox
3. Fighting in a Sack, The Shins
4. Date Stamp, ABC
5. Section 4 (Call Your Father), The Polyphonic Spree
6. Well, Well, Nelly Furtado
7. Indo Silver Club, Daft Punk
8. One More Chance, Pet Shop Boys
9. Packing Blankets, Eels
10. It's So Sad, The 77's

Happy Friday everyone!

freesuri.com: it was only a matter of time... in this case, about 2 days.

For any of you who lived through junior high, you know that 420 is a number associated with marijuana. Well, today happens to be April 20 (4/20), and I go to the University of Colorado, a very liberal place of higher learning. I had heard bits and pieces about some sort of 4/20 celebration on campus, and today I saw it.

I left the engineering building about 4:15 to catch the 4:30 bus home. I noticed that there were a lot of students headed toward Farrand Field, and when I rounded a building so that Farrand Field was in view, I saw a large crowd...and a literal cloud of smoke rising. It was 4:20, 4/20. My first thought was that surely they are only smoking cigarettes. The field is on campus and even more there were CU Event Staff near the field. When I got downwind of the field, I smelled the unmistakable scent of weed, which was detectable more than a block away!

There were signs posted saying that Farrand Field was closed today and that video surveillance was in effect. Yet, there were several hundred people on the field toking away. It was a bit comical because there were all the celebrants gathered in a large crowd, and behind the fence and in the street there were others who wanted to observe, but have no part in it. Sort of like a zoo I suppose.

Anyway, the event is apparently fairly well known and is even mentioned on this Wikipedia article on 420.

World of Warcraft

Nintendo DS Brain Age

Buy yours here.

I haven't posted about it before, but I freaking love this show.

So I Tivoed this one thinking it was "Land" of the Dead, not "Dawn" of the Dead. I didn't realize that until I was about 3/4 through the movie and Dennis Hopper never showed up. Oops.

Well I was content enough to watch a movie starring the grown-up star from Avonlea. Sarah Polley takes the lead as she wakes up to find the majority of her neighbors running around as flesh-eating zombies. She runs into a few other people who haven't been infected yet and all of them take up residence at the local mall. They fend off attacks and make plans for escape to a remote island, and in the process a whole bunch of zombies get killed in a whole bunch of ways. My favorite was the chainsaw slot in the monster-truck van.

I'm not really one to judge zombie movies--nothing really gets me scared or creeps me out too much---so the movie pretty much went where I thought it would and did a pretty decent job of it. Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber provide balanced performances that make us root for them, and the rest of the cast do a great job of being paranoid, stupid, or naive enough to die entertainingly.

I was entertained well enough.

"Always Love" by Nada Surf, from The Weight is a Gift

to make a mountain of
your life is just a choice
but i never learned enough
to listen to the voice that told me
always love
hate will get you every time
always love
don't wait ‘til the finish line

slow demands come around
squeeze the air and keep the rest out
it helps to write it down
even when you then cross it out

but always love
hate will get you every time
always love
even when you want to fight

self-directed lives
i want to know what it'd be like to
aim so high above
every card that you get dealt you

always love
hate will get you every time
always love
hate will get you
and i've been held back by something
you said to me quietly on the stairs
you said
hey you good ones

In other news, a friend got me World of Warcraft as a gift and I'm installing it right now :0

This last weekend Kelly's family came to Denver for the Easter weekend. We took a tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory in Boulder, visited Red Rocks amphitheater, and spent Saturday afternoon in downtown Denver. A good time was had by all.

Sunday night, Kelly, myself, and Jeff (Kelly's brother) went to go see The Devil and Daniel Johnston, at Jeff's suggestion. It is a documentary about musician Daniel Johnston. His biography on the film's website is a good reference to find out more about him. Before seeing the film, I knew only one song by him - a remake of "Unpack Your Adjectives" from the School House Rock! Rocks album.

The short of the story is that Daniel Johnston wanted to be a famous musician and recorded himself on tapes in his parent's basement. After joining the carnival, he ended up in Austin in the early 80s, became a local hero, and began to show signs of severe manic depression. Since then, his career has had several dramatic ups and downs.

The movie covers his life story up to present day, and benefits from the extensive footage that he shot, or had someone else shoot, of himself, as well as an audio diary he recorded onto cassettes. Much of his life seems improbable, and improbably sad, but seems to have at least become more stable. I would absolutely recommend seeing the movie should it be playing near you, or renting in when it comes out on DVD.

Since Sunday, I have listened to some of his music, and right now "Silly Love" is a favorite. It is one of three songs with the potential to make me cry.

So since I read the Da Vinci Code I started hearing about all these Christian groups that want to boycott the release of the upcoming film. The boycotts range from avoiding anything that has to do with the movie to going to see a different movie to sort of "cast an opposing vote" on the opening weekend. My problem with either of these is that a) if Christians don't see it, how can they know how to discuss it with non-Christians? and b) they were actually telling you WHICH movie to see instead of the Da Vinci Code, which sounded all too much like a perfect marketing scheme.

Then I heard about how Campus Crusade is doing this Da Vinci Quest thing. McDowell has released a book called The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers, in which three college students see the movie and then decide to read the novel and research the ideas Dan Brown presented in his book. The Campus Crusade project aims to get as many copies of this book out there as possible so people can easily read for themselves what is actual fact or fiction in the Da Vinci Code, including the descriptions of places and artwork that Brown claims are completely factual but actually aren't.

To me, it's just a better idea to put out something like this than to try and boycott it or go see another movie. The Da Vinci Code simply gets people started thinking, and I don't think the average Joe would actually do any research, so having a book like this where a ton of research is summed up in a mere 100 pages is just right. Christians and non-Christians alike have an easy-to-read (okay, so easy it's absolutely lacking in literary finesse) book that tells us what is fact and where Dan Brown uses dramatic license to make his ideas flow together by giving us a little bit of a history lesson. It's good for either discussing or reading on one's own.

Like I said, McDowell ain't no Shakespeare. Some of the characters' dialogue can be painful or ridiculous, but the book gets the ideas across clearly. I think the book coming out at the same time as the discovery of the gospel of Judas is perfect timing, because this book explains about Gnostic gospels in its discussion of the gospel of Mary. Actualy, I think the book could have been even longer to discuss a few more ideas, but I understand that they needed to make it a quick read, and the most important ideas were covered sufficiently.

Anyway, a good little resource, which only costs four bucks, so it was worth the read for me.

We haven't talked about this for a while, but today I heard a very informative and balanced report on China's internet censorship on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer podcast (feed). The report talks about a company called UltraReach that provides technology to Chinese citizens to get around the Great Firewall. I'm sure they use technology that's similar to what Brendan and I used to give him full access to the web. The report includes a round table discussion on the issue. They deal with the impact of companies like Google and their choice to cooperate with the Chinese government. You can subscribe to the feed or download the mp3 file directly.

I saw this at The Beat

Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon have created a comic book adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report, including an objective and factual account of the terrorist attacks.

That is a very intriguing idea. They apparently take advantage of the graphic medium to represent events happening simultaneously, making the Commission's findings easier to understand. This is a reminder of the great untapped potential comics have for conveying information. The Army has found through research that technical manuals are more easily understood when written in a comic book format. Will Eisner spent many years during the middle of his career creating such manuals for the United States government. But I've never heard of someone actually adapting a public-domain historical document into comics to be read by the general population. I'm definitely interested in reading it.

This is NWS by any stretch of the imagination.

http://www.mostweirdporn.com/bizarre-weird-funny-porn/chinese-sex-education/

And it's actually Japanese, not Chinese.

Still, it looks more like a game show than anything else.

My Boring Ass Life » 2006 » March

In respnonse to recent tabloid articles about Jay's exploits, Kevin Smith has written an extensive 9 part article about Jason's journey through drug use and his eventual sobriety. I had heard a good chunk of this tale at a Q&A a few years ago but to read the whole story is both heartbreaking and inspiring. I had met Jason once when he was on drugs. It was pretty darn sad. To be able to attend his Welcome Home party many years later and see him totally sober and stay that way has really been encouraging to me. No, I'm not a drug addict but we all face adversity an it's safe to say that Mewes has faced an extremely enourmous amount. To see him not give up on his quest for sobriety and finally achieve his goal, while still admitting he still has challenges to face really puts things into perspective.

*Standard Kevin Smith language warning applies. Nooch.

Snap.

I needed to put in a creative title. So really things feel good right now. Tomorrow I am going out for coffee. Hopefully other people I know will too.

I am so lazy sometimes, I don't go shopping even though I really need to. The only things I am going to buy this time is eggs, bread, and cheese. Ahh...the essentials.

In general people who think they are smart, are really stupid.

Here are my thoughts on immigration. If we treated every criminal like we treat illegal immigrants, think of the chaos this country would be in.

Anyways tomorrow I am going to try and get completely wasted on caffine. Yum.

Plain View #39 4/5/06

Kaleidoscope

Will and Maly's new blog

fortnight

Off the Map

Bed wetting alarms

The Kurths

N.T. Wright

Burning Car (not the same story, but almost as good)

Ramblin' Educat inspired rant

subscribe

One of the things that I looked foward to when I decided to go to grad school at the University of Colorado was the opportunity to see speakers and the like that don't typically frequent places like Truman. And, honestly, we haven't taken advantage of it. But, two Wednesdays ago, we sacrificed watching LOST to go see Paul Rusesabagina speak. If you don't know, this is the man on which the movie Hotel Rwanda is based.

To hear the man describe what was happening in Rwanda, what he lived through, is quite different than watching a movie - something about watching a Hollywood production keeps you removed from reality. He talked about people being buried by Caterpillars (the heavy machinery). He spoke of walking streets lined with bodies decapitated and/or disemboweled. And he repeated several times that the situation had become so desperate that people came to accept impending death as inevitable. Rwandans spoke of a "better death", one that came with a bullet in the head as opposed to being killed by machete.

He talked about how the international community, as he put it, "threw their hands up" and left. After more than a decade you could still hear his frustration and desperation. Who would help them?

He addressed what others call his heroism and matter-of-factly said that he was just put in a situation. April didn't roll around with him saying, "I think I'll save about 1,000 people from certain death this month." He was in a crisis and just acted because he didn't want to see his neighbors, friends, and family brutally murdered.

Mr. Rusesabagina didn't speak for long - the talk and Q&A took about 90 minutes - but it was engaging. It made you take stock of your lot in life and makes you thankful.

Dollared this one in a theater full of families last Friday afternoon. Once I just reconciled myself to the idea that they weren't going to be quiet, I had a great little time watching this movie.

The story revolves a motherless family. The father can't afford to keep the family together on his own, so he is relying on an evil old aunt to give him a montly allowance. The aunt threatens to take away the allowance if the father doesn't remarry in a month because the kids are so rowdy. The kids keep scaring away nannies and potential mothers without knowing about the trouble their father is in, until Nanny McPhee comes to the rescue and changes them all.

Nanny McPhee is by no means the ultimate children's movie. Everyone has a British accent, which makes things harder for riled up American kids to follow, and it just has a different sense of humor overall. It's got sometimes heinously bright colors and overexaggerated costumes and sets as well. But somehow it still managed to win me over.

The movie isn't so much about Nanny McPhee as it is about the family she nannies for. Her role is actually a small one, and she only needs to use her magical staff seven times to teach the family her lessons - to listen, to go to bed when told, to get up and get dressed when told, and to say thank you.

It was a very offbeat fairy tale, butI thought Colin Firth's sincere performance as the troubled father and Thomas Sangster's role as the eldest boy really pulled it all together. By the way, I like this little boy, Sangster. He was Liam Neeson's motherless son in Love Actually as well, and I really really liked him in both movies. Kelly Macdonald, as well, gives a pleasant performance as Evangeline the servant girl.

I had a good time. I'm not sure all kids or all adults will enjoy it, but it struck the right chord with me.

This is the amount of time I've spent on BUBBS, Biola's intranet bulletin board system thingy. Most of it was during my two years of going to school there, but there was also many long nights at Central when I was bored out of my mind. Now I look back and wonder if it wasn't all just a giant waste of time. I wonder how different my life would be if this little thing had never entered my life. The sad truth is that it would be drastically different. I probably wouldn't even have met some of the people that are my friends now, including the ones who are providing a roof over my head. But in addition to much joy, our little virtual world created much pain, which is why I have pretty much forsaken it. I've actually been quite impressed with myself that I actually stuck to my guns since I've said I was going to cut back numerous times. Oh well. The road goes ever on I suppose. Now we have our blog world which seems at times to only be a larger scale, albeit uncensored, version of BUBBS.

Trampoline Tricks

Thanks to the guys at Sleepless Nights for this one. I just spent about 15 minutes nailing some flips and tricks.

Hope you all had a great Easter! It was great to have a three-day weekend, to get some rest, and to actually have some time to focus on the reason for all of our festivities.

Ric and his mom and brother went up north to visit family and see his father's grave, so I was on my own Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, Erika and I went out to shop at the Irvine Spectrum, ate dinner at Roman Cucina (everyone should, and I recommend the Aglio Olio pasta), and went to the Sunset Lounge to watch people sing karaoke. It's been great spending time with her lately. I appreciate it more and more and dread her wedding day only because it will take her away to Portland. But I'm happy she's got a good guy.

Sunday I went to church in the morning. It was a pretty nice service. I've been having trouble focusing on the meaning of our worship lately because the music leader has a hard time coordinating our musicians into one coherent whole, but it was more than easy to get into focus this Sunday, regardless of the mishmash. The sermon was a good one, though hard to hear with lots of screaming children around. Robert did a great job connecting all of the dots in Bible history from Adam and Eve to Abraham to the temple to the the crucifixion. Paired with our Palm Sunday service, it's been a really great couple of weeks at church.

After church I went to my parents' house, helped cook up some green beans, and enjoyed my sister's cooking. My oldest sister and her youngest came to visit this weekend, so it was great to see them. My nephew grows so quickly! We had an Easter egg hunt for him, talked a lot, and all went our separate ways after all three of us sisters started getting sick of the rest of our family. Haha. Sorry, but true! I went home and spent the evening napping with Pip until Ric came home from his trip.

Jenny's cake this time around:

A good weekend, in all, seeing lots of loved ones, catching up with sleep, and really having a good time of reflection on Easter for the first time in a few years.

Yesterday I took a day to go to church, hang out with friends, work, and purge myself of the internets. It was a good day. I had a really good time at work. I've really made some good friends in my department. A few might even become my roommates sometime in the future as I get ready to venture out on my own once I start making some more money. Be thinking of me this week as they are doing interviews for lead positions. It could happen anytime this week, hopefully sooner than later. I've become a little phobic of interviews as of late considering my complete and utter failure to land a job in the past year or so. I'm hoping I can muster up some of my Brendo Mojo (patent pending) and wow my managers so they will give me this job, but I am nervous. Hope you all had a good Easter weekend!

A name, finally. His name is Pip.

You can either think of this as a reference to a young and frustrated boy in a Dickens novel, or you can think of it as a reference to a sissy British boy in South Park (which is probably just another reference to Dickens, considering how they once made an entire episode based on Great Expectations). Either way, I won't have the urge to name my future children Pip, which would have been really sad: Pip Price.

At any rate, he's a smart cat and getting smarter each day, and growing a lot too. At the speed and playfulness he was showing this morning, I'm wondering if I should have named him the Artful Dodger instead. :)

I think the worst thing about the Christian entertainment industry is that it’s created a false division between "Christian" and "Secular" art, as if music that is not sold in a Christian bookstore has nothing to offer us. In the last several years I’ve become more sensitive to what spiritual lessons I can learn from unlikely sources. I’ve discovered that there are a lot more Christian musicians in the "secular" world than most people realize. I find that the music these people make is often more honest, personal, and uplifting than a lot of the music I hear from artists marketed as Christian. A few months ago I began putting together a playlist of music I dub "Jesus Songs," from musicians the Christian entertainment industry has traditionally overlooked. Here are my five favorites:

5. Violent Femmes – Jesus Walking On the Water
I wasn’t sure what to think if this song the first time I heard it. Nobody who has heard the Violent Femmes’ other music would mistake them for a "Christian" band. Then there’s this song they recorded that sounds like a very straightforward and sincere spiritual. Given the source, I at first wondered if the song is ironic or sarcastic, but there’s nothing in it that would suggest as much. Later, as I took more of an interest in folk music, I realized how closely American folk is linked to Christian spiritual music. I figured this was what the Violent Femmes had in mind when they recorded the song. More importantly, though, I realized that when it comes to Christian art, the source doesn’t matter nearly as much as the message. To say that the Violent Femmes have no right to sing a song about our Savior is a narrow-minded and self-righteous view; we’re all sinners, after all, and none of us is better than anyone else. "Jesus Walking On the Water" is just a fun and inspirational song about Jesus, and that’s all that matters.

4. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – There Is a Kingdom
Nick Cave’s music expresses the tenuous spirituality of a man who struggles with the same human failings as the rest of us. In "Into My Arms," he confesses, "I don’t believe in an interventionist God, but I know, darling, that you do. But if I did, I would kneel down and ask Him not to intervene when it came to you." This openness about his doubts and skepticism makes his music feel sincere, so that when the does confess his faith, it’s all the more powerful, like on "There Is a Kingdom."

3. Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. Two
I only discovered this song last week. I’m not sure what the lead singer’s personal life and beliefs are like, but again, I don’t think it matters. Most of the lyrics on the album In the Aeoroplane Over the Sea are very surreal and dreamlike, but the opening lines of "The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. Two" are surprisingly unambiguous. Over a gentle acoustic guitar Jeff Mangum belts out, "I LOOOVE YOU, JESUUS CHARIIIIIIIST, JESUS CHRIST, I LOOVE YOOOUUU, YES I DOOOOOOOOOO..." Then an energetic, heavily distorted guitar and drums comes in, upon which Mangum repeats the lines. He sings the way children sing: loud, sometimes off-key, but with the kind of enthusiasm that doesn’t care what other people think. It’s the most worshipful kind of singing I can imagine. Hearing him sing like this over the frenzied background music fills me with a joy and energy that makes me want to let go of all inhibitions and belt out the words with him.

2. U2 – Wake Up Dead Man
This is the kind of song that I think would offend a lot of Christians who don’t understand it. For one thing, it’s the only song in my list that contains a swear word; it also speaks to God in an accusing tone that suggests He is absent from the singer’s life. However, the song only says these things because Bono is being so honest about his own frustration and sorrow. I like to think that Christ would be no more offended by these words than he was by the psalmist who wrote, "Why O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" Most people who suffer tragedies go through phases in which they angrily or sorrowfully question God. It’s more honest (and more edifying) to acknowledge these painful sentiments than to gloss over them. But even amid the expressions of doubt and frustration in this song, there is a message of faith. Bono is crying out for help, for reassurance of his salvation.

1. Johnny Cash – Redemption
Somehow Christ’s sacrifice seems for vivid and meaningful when described by a man like Johnny Cash. He recorded this late in his life, and you can hear some fragility beginning to creep into his voice. This is the voice of a man who’s known hardship, who’s known sin, and knows redemption. I think this is the spirit of folk spiritual music: it’s music that’s utterly human and flawed, but looks toward the divine. I don’t think I can explain it more than that, but I see it in all of the songs I’ve just described. But none do it as well as Johnny Cash.

Apparently if you don't agree with someone 100% you have betrayed them and you are a horrible backstabbing person. I must have missed that somewhere. I don't have any hard feelings about anyone, except George Lucas. You guys are all my friends. Sorry if I don't live up to your standards all the time. I suck too, just like we all do at times. But I'm really damn tired of being stuck in the middle of all this drama between various people, being forced to choose sides, blah blah blah. As a person who hates pretty much all conflict, it's been driving me insane. So yeah, I haven't been responding to all your comments and jabs at me or things like that because I'm tired of it. And this doesn't go for just one specific person. I guess I've decided that if I don't say anything to anyone who I think might get pissed off at me for some random reason, then fine. And I'll stick with the folks who aren't always getting pissed off at me for random reasons. And I still love you guys, but I'm going to end up shooting myself in the head because you make me feel like crap. And that isn't good.

If none of this made sense, then it probably wasn't directed at you.

I've started a string of posts over at my Hint of Disaster blog (used only because my employer does not