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I don't usually post links to LiveJournal "blogs" (read "illegitimate blog-children"), but I will make the painful exception for Michael. If you have a LiveJournal (and I know a few of my friends do!), I highly recommend switching to Blogger (props to Haley for making the switch!).

Nah, I'm just playin'. I'll link any of you LiveJournal members who want to be linked. Just let me know =D

Some people are just not fans of the NKJV.

Like Amy said, we've kinda developed a tradition of watching scary movies every Saturday night. If you live nearby, you're welcome to come over and freak out with us. If it's especially scary, I might even spill some coffee on myself =D. Anybody have in mind any good scary movie recommendations? So far, we've seen "The Thing," "Shaun of the Dead," "Session 9," "Ju-on," "Silence of the Lambs," "Invaders from Mars," "Jason X," and "Ghost Ship."

half-baked choochies in the oven / half-baked people on the bus /
there's a little bit of fruitcake left in every one of us

I really like Pavement's song "The Hexx." Reminds me of some of the late twothirtyeight's newer stuff.

Ever learn something about someone that should shock you but it didn't? Happened to me yesterday. Happens a lot, actually. I try not to be cynical, but I think I am a little desensitized.

I've been eating my lunch at Eglin AFB's Enlisted Club lately. There's this guy that's been there every time I've gone that I recognize from my building. He always greets me by name, but I have no idea who he is. I'm sure we've been introduced before, but I don't remember it. I wish I were better at faces and names. Sometimes someone will tell me their name and not five seconds later I will have no clue what they just said. I hate that.

Ok, so the dream didn't happen again last night. I was hoping it would, because I had some questions. Not that I put much thought into dreams, but this one was recurring and just plain odd. My co-worker thinks it's my inner self trying to relay some vital piece of information. I think it's just a representation of some thinking I've been doing lately. Anyhow, I've spent enough time on that.

I'm riding in the passenger seat of a car whose driver I can't see. The car is moving quickly down a narrow bridge surrounded on both sides by a vast ocean. The bridge is almost level to the water. I think the water might actually flow over the short guard rails but I'm not scared of that. I'm scared because ahead I see a gap in the bridge that we're approaching fast. The driver doesn't slow down. The gap is several hundred feet long, but I can see that the bridge continues on after the gap. I'm not sure where the bridge leads, but I can see land in the far distance and I really want to be there. The car reaches the gap and plunges into the water. There used to be a ferry here, I remember. The car doesn't sink, though. It starts to float, and is still moving toward the next section of bridge. We cover the gap and reach the other side. I don't know what happens next, but I'm relieved to be back on the bridge. I wonder who the driver is?

I'm trying to get ahold of Jon Barlow to fix the comment numbering here. Comments still work, it's just the correct number of comments may not show up right now.


UPDATE:

Okay....comments should now work. The bad news is that all of the comments until this moment are no longer available. I will try and get them back soon, though.

Yesterday evening I attended an inaugural Bible study at the home of these fine folks. It went really well, and we settled on apologetics as a topic for future discussion. I'm looking forward to our bi-weekly meetings. I'm also attending a Bible study geared towards young single men at the home of one of our elders on Tuesday nights. God couldn't have started these two studies at a more appropriate time in my life. I need to spend all the time in the Bible that I can, and I'm barely in it at all right now.



Sundog Books - Seaside, Florida

On a completely different note, I drove to Seaside on Sunday and visited Sundog Books. It's a pretty cool little bookstore, with a small coffeeshop and CD store upstairs. I Picked up Elliott Smith's "From a Basement on the Hill," Juliana Theory's "Love," and Postal Service's "Give Up."

Seaside is a very attractive town. It's where Jim Carey's "Truman Show" was filmed, and I can see why they chose it. It has an almost manufactured eerie perfect-ness to it, but it's definitely pretty to look at. Feels like a very very expensive Disney World without the rides. I think it's that non-authentic Southern/Californian feel that draws people from other states. Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong have a home there, Paris Hilton owns a house down the road a ways, Amy Grant and Vince Gill vacation there, Hillary Clinton vacationed there several years ago, Steve Tyler came down seven times within the last year to look at the same house, only to finally decide it was out of his price range. If I had a ton of money, I'd buy in Destin. It feels way more comfortable to me. Seaside's fun to visit, though.



Inside Sundog

Our next Chief Justice?

This is the very first kinda trailer-ish look at "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." The visual effects team is WETA, the same Peter-Jackson-owned company that did all that cool stuff for LOTR. It looks like they're doing almost as thorough a job with Lewis' material as they did with Tolkien's. However, this movie carries the Disney name and is directed by the guy that directed "Shrek," so I'm guessing that it won't be as faithful to the original text as Jackson's movies were to Tolkien's books, but here's hoping.

"I really never thought that I would see the day when a speech focused on liberty and freedom, the fundamental foundation on which this country is built, would be panned, would be ridiculed, would be said to be controversial. But the truth is, the elites everywhere are saying just that. You know what really is at root here? You know why they don't like hearing about God? You know why they don't like hearing about freedom and big visions and so forth? The elitist liberals play god all the time. That's what liberalism is all about, folks. If you are a single parent and you're living in a hellhole, the liberal answer is: 'Vote for me and I'll give you a program. I'm your god. I'm where you turn to. I'm where you have hope. I'm where you have salvation. The Republicans will kick you out of your house and starve you and steal your pork 'n' beans or what have you.' The minute somebody comes along and suggests that this single mother in dire economic straits have faith in God, who panics? The left!"

- Rush Limbaugh (transcript here)

"If you caught a fish every time you put your line in the water, they would call it catching, not fishing."

- Jimmy Buffett's dad

If you don't have free text messaging, I advise against this. At 2 cents per received message, I've incurred maybe $1.20 give or take extra on my cell bill - mostly messages like "yo" or "hey" or "where are you?" or "...." So from now on, you can only text me the old-fashioned way - with a cell phone.

Back to the daily grind. I actually returned from my trip on Monday, but haven't had time to post since then. I was going to post last night, but it seemed like Blogger was down or something.

Anyway, the trip to Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain was very productive. Friday night Joe, Beth and I went to Greyfriar's Coffee & Tea Company in dowtown Chattanooga, then rented "Open Water" and watched it back up at Beth's house on the mountain. STUPID MOVIE.

Had lunch with a potential business prospect on Broad St. in downtown Chattanooga at a place called Big River on Saturday. Gained some much needed insight as well as a firm possibility of a future professional relationship. Had dinner with Joe and Beth at Macaroni Grill where I was informed that Tennessee doesn't allow "honor systems" such as the one Macaroni Grill employs with their house chianti. Joe and I went to some bar back downtown (to see Shawn Mullins) where we were subsequently told after spending about 30 minutes there that we were not welcome to stay. I won't elaborate.

Worshipped at Reformed Presbyterian Church up on Lookout on Sunday. The pastor, Kevin Skogen, and his family know the Benos, so that was kinda cool to find out. After worship, Joe & Beth, and Robby & Courtney Rayburn and I drove to this rather long house (also on the mountain) for lunch. The family that hosted us was very hospitable (complete opposite of my experience up in Moscow, ID, where my compadres and I spent our Sunday dinner at Subway), and served us an incredible meal. The head of the household was a fine and well-traveled Southern gentleman with a taste for the Great American West, and his lovely wife was a yankee transplant with a Belgian accent (she spent several years in Brussels - think Bianca from The Rescuers). All in all it was a very rewarding Lord's Day.

Not too much happened after that. Stopped in Atlanta briefly on the way down to scope out another coffeehouse and then just drove home. I love it up in Tennessee. The air is crisp and cold right now, but the vista from the mountain (and even of the mountain if you're down in Chattanooga) was beautiful and the people there are so kind it almost put LA (AKA Lower Alabama which is AKA Northwest Florida) to shame. But I'm glad I live in Florida, and VERY glad I live in the South.

Boone and Shannon


With a show as complex and with as many characters as Lost, things either become bogged down and uninteresting, or engaging and thought-provoking. Lost is definitely thought-provoking.

Out of all of the dozens of theories out there that people have come up with to try and explain the weirdness that is Lost, there is one that sticks out. When I first read it, I was intrigued, but didn't think too much about it until all references to it were removed from the forum I found it on. It's gone. You can't find it anywhere now (at least I haven't been able to).

The theory sounded good to me to begin with, but the fact that it went up and came back down again so quickly with no explanation causes the conspiracy-suspicious side of me to think that it might be the accurate explanation.

The bottom-line of the theory is that the survivors are breaking into two groups - one dark (evil), and one light (good). If I can remember it all correctly, this theory is based on a fake prophesy made by some European chick hundreds of years ago. The fact that the prophesy existed at all has been proven as not true. But the theory is that the show is based on this fictional prophesy.

Actually, there has already been a show based on this "prophecy." I forget what it was called, but it wasn't long ago, and it was also European. I've also heard that Lost is somewhat based on this show. So, in a round-about way, that's almost concrete proof of the accuracy of the theory (I'd like to know for sure if Lost was really based on that show, though).

Other components of the theory: there is some kind of a neutral player, as well as a "saviour." Could this be Locke and Claire's baby, respectively?

Last night's episode kinda makes you think that Locke could be evil, I guess, but he's already been involved in two "dark/light" symbolic events. First, playing backgammon with Walt - in which he described the game as being dark versus light, and second, in a dream that Claire had - in which one of his eyes was black and the other white.

Claire was told by the psychic that her baby could only be raised by her, because her baby was going to be very influential in some sort of way, and that the influence would be negative should anyone other than Claire herself raise the child. This could indicate a balance between light and dark.

I forget how the theory explains the polar bears/sudden weather/monster. Maybe some of you have read this theory and know, or maybe it'll come to me later. Anyway, food for thought.

If you missed an episode or two, or if you want to find out more about what's already been revealed, the official website has some pretty good episode summaries.


UPDATE

I was wrong about the post being taken down. I don't know why I thought that. Here's a link to it: Lost-TV.com.

BBC-produced trippy iPod video. It's pretty weird.

Scarlett Johansson

There's a new movie out soon I wanna see called "In Good Company." It's got Dennis Quaid, that guy from "That Seventies Show," and Scarlett Johansson. Trailer looks good.

I taught two classes this week - one on Tuesday and one yesterday. Tuesday was just an opportunity for last month's students to take the class without having to worry about registering again. The reason last month's students needed another class was that the class they had originally registered for completely flopped due to 3 distinct technical problems in the classroom.

So I was more than pleased when none of the students had any problem logging on to their PCs or the system I was teaching them with. Not only that, but every student had shown up, all the javascript worked, and they asked lots and lots of excellent questions. Having now been a teacher, I can tell you that good questions really are appreciated and can really help the class along. One-sided discourse can fall flat rather easy.

I just read some of the results from the polls I send out after every class, and the feedback is very encouraging. It's been 3 months since the last successful class, so I'm pretty thankful.

My friend Amy on Covenant College: "You are entering the land of MILK AND HONEYS baby!!!!!"

"Aftertaste" - Ben Lee
"Title and Registration" - Death Cab for Cutie

It will be at my house.... 1830.

Lookout Mountain, Georgia



Chattanooga, Tennessee

Shania has a new video.

Hey, guess what? Degrading humiliation does not equal torture. Get over it.


UPDATE

ALSO. Why is the media so scared to call this abu ghraib stuff what it really is - sick and immoral behaviour? That's where the outrage needs to be. They just can't for the life of them call it immoral, because if that's immoral, why isn't it immoral when people have REAL gay sex on their own free will? The media is using the strong negative reaction the American public has to the immorality of the situation to try and paint a negative picture of Bush's war without addressing why the American public reacted in the first place. What they end up with is a bold-faced lie.

"Lost Party" tomorrow night at 7 (at least that's when the show starts). Show up earlier and bring a friend and some $ to help with Hungry Howie's pizza. Location to be determined. My house is no good, unless I can get this awful smell out (my roommate - the actual owner of the house - owns a prairie dog, 3 ferrets, a schnauzer and now a rabbit, too). Call me tomorrow for location. Girls are (more than) welcome.

vs.

Music is such a driving force in my life that I've got to get it on here somehow. I'd love to be able to stream something myself, but I don't have that capability. So here are a couple of web stations I listen to at work: woxy.com (for indie rock) and Air 1 (for Christian alternative). For a mix of what I listen to at work, at home, and in the car, click here to open my Yahoo! LAUNCHcast station.

It is, of course, really old news, but I found these pics and thought they looked cool. So here are a few pics of some of the damage Destin received from Hurricane Ivan last September (Destin didn't get hit as bad as Pensacola did, but it was still a pain).








[Found here].

Maggie Grace as Lost's "Shannon"


Well, apparently, this week's show is gonna be a good one. It says on the official website that "when Locke learns that Boone wants to tell their 'secret' to Shannon, Shannon's life is placed in sudden peril, and the shocking truth about her past with Boone is revealed." Boone is her brother, right? Maybe not? Anyway, after last week's disappointing Alias premiere, I'm looking forward to at least one good JJ Abrams show.

I'm back....finally. The old blog is a closed chapter of my life. It's still up, though, and there's a link to the left somewhere if you want to read it. It's good for background, but the most current goings-on will appear here. A lot's happened since my last blog, but it can actually be summed up pretty nicely in just a few short sentences:

I moved back home to my parent's house in Baker.
I got a job on Eglin AFB a week later.
I moved to Bluewater Bay a week after that.
I graduated from UWF in August.
I got a nice promotion/cushy raise.
I moved to Valparaiso.


I may fill in some blanks later on, but that about covers it as far as where I've recently been.

Trinity-ers:

Be Jolly For Girls!
.brodie
Down to a Sunless Sea
For the Love of Incense
God will honor those who honor Him
joebrodie
September in '86
What Is and What Should Never Be

Family:

coffeemagic
Notes from Little Spain
Omnis Viperas Mortum Est

People I Know IRL:

A Soldier's Story
Beautiful Feet
CARDCO
CARPE DIEM
frecklejess
keepin up
Peace, Love & Penguins
Ponderings by Brittany
Rod Martin
Scottie's Life

People I Don't Know IRL:

Barlow Farms
The Blog of Josiah Q. Roe
doodlepost
Next-To-Last Song
Razing the Bar

Music:

Asthmatic Kitty
Gorilla vs. Bear
Paste
Pitchfork
Stereogum
WOXY
You Ain't No Picasso

Version: 4.2
(January 12, 2007)