Watch This.

Here is the speech that we have all heard about, but probably most of us have not actually seen or heard for ourselves.

Listen to it.

Regardless of your feelings on Obama, you need to watch this if you are going to have an informed opinion on him.



[Facebook, click on the "original post" link to see the video]

Tell me what you think.

Good Friday.

It snowed 7 inches last night. We have had about a foot of snow on the ground since November, but it had virtually all melted over this past week, so that we could finally see the ground again. Then last night, nearly half of it came back. It's still coming down. It's supposed to be the first day of spring. But it is Good Friday.

Rarely do I take the time to recognize Good Friday in the way that I should. I can't help but look forward to Easter, but I don't let myself sit in the despair of life without Christ, to think of what that means.

Good Friday is an interesting time, because we live after the resurrection - we are Easter people, saved by the death and resurrection of Christ. And yet, we still need to recognize the cost of that.

Maybe the best way I can think of to look at life without the salvation of Easter is found in Ecclesiastes, from the Old Testament.

Here's The Message version of part of Ecclesiastes, chapter 2:

Ecclesiastes 2
1-3 I said to myself, "Let's go for it—experiment with pleasure, have a good time!" But there was nothing to it, nothing but smoke.

What do I think of the fun-filled life? Insane! Inane!
My verdict on the pursuit of happiness? Who needs it?
With the help of a bottle of wine
and all the wisdom I could muster,
I tried my level best
to penetrate the absurdity of life.
I wanted to get a handle on anything useful we mortals might do
during the years we spend on this earth.
I Never Said No to Myself
4-8 Oh, I did great things: built houses,
planted vineyards,
designed gardens and parks
and planted a variety of fruit trees in them,
made pools of water
to irrigate the groves of trees.
I bought slaves, male and female,
who had children, giving me even more slaves;
then I acquired large herds and flocks,
larger than any before me in Jerusalem.
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
voluptuous maidens for my bed.

9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What's more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day's work!
I Hate Life
11 Then I took a good look at everything I'd done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. Smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it. Nothing.

12-14 And then I took a hard look at what's smart and what's stupid. What's left to do after you've been king? That's a hard act to follow. You just do what you can, and that's it. But I did see that it's better to be smart than stupid, just as light is better than darkness. Even so, though the smart ones see where they're going and the stupid ones grope in the dark, they're all the same in the end. One fate for all—and that's it.

15-16 When I realized that my fate's the same as the fool's, I had to ask myself, "So why bother being wise?" It's all smoke, nothing but smoke. The smart and the stupid both disappear out of sight. In a day or two they're both forgotten. Yes, both the smart and the stupid die, and that's it.

17 I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It's smoke—and spitting into the wind.

18-19 And I hated everything I'd accomplished and accumulated on this earth. I can't take it with me—no, I have to leave it to whoever comes after me. Whether they're worthy or worthless—and who's to tell?—they'll take over the earthly results of my intense thinking and hard work. Smoke.

20-23 That's when I called it quits, gave up on anything that could be hoped for on this earth. What's the point of working your fingers to the bone if you hand over what you worked for to someone who never lifted a finger for it? Smoke, that's what it is. A bad business from start to finish. So what do you get from a life of hard labor? Pain and grief from dawn to dusk. Never a decent night's rest. Nothing but smoke.

24-26 The best you can do with your life is have a good time and get by the best you can. The way I see it, that's it—divine fate. Whether we feast or fast, it's up to God. God may give wisdom and knowledge and joy to his favorites, but sinners are assigned a life of hard labor, and end up turning their wages over to God's favorites. Nothing but smoke—and spitting into the wind."

Maybe that is some of the sense of Good Friday. Without Christ, what is the point? We're all going to die anyway...

Thank God, then, that it doesn't end on the cross... that it doesn't end on Good Friday... there's more to it than that.


Jesus isn't just some great guy who died.


If that was it, then what is the point?

Girls Basketball is better than Episodic Television Anyway...

Our local ABC affiliate is in love with HS girls basketball. So much so that they have preempted Lost the last two weeks by about 15 minutes. My DVR does not know this, and therefore, the last two weeks of Lost for me have ended with... meh.


And thanks to no re-runs, I have no idea what is going on.

But I do know that High Valley Christian's Titanettes edged out the Lynnwood Lady Raiders in a 42-38 squeaker.


In honor of my lack of Lost knowledge, here is something I found:
If Lost had a real theme song, a la the Eighties.

Enjoy.


[Note to those reading via Facebook: Thar be a video above. If ye wants to see it, ye must direct yarself to the original post that be on BlogSpot].

I write like a Pirate when I'm in brackets.

Hulu - baloo

A long while back, NBC started pulling most all of their content off of YouTube, as evidenced by a post I made of a video a few weeks back that is now defunct.

The reason that they started doing this was that they were supposedly creating some sort of free YouTube-like thing called Hulu, where they could show full TV shows and movies, but with ads so that they could make some dollars out of it.

It is now here, and after messing around for about 10 minutes on it, I declare it awesome.

Here is a gem that was one of the first digital shorts that SNL did, long since lost...


Check out more here hulu.com

Completely free, completely legal (complete Arrested Development.)

Insight Into the Tragedy of Comedy

I am nearly unapologetic in my appreciation for Garfield. It is something that I have grown up with, particularly the television specials and the show "Garfield and Friends." Yet I realize that the Garfield comic strip is not what it once was. It's rather like watching and aged boxer, a pale shadow of the greatness that he once was.

In my aimless online wanderings, I came across
this.

It gets to perhaps the true genius behind what Garfield has become. The humor lies underneath. It is dark and sad. Poor Jon...





P.S. Apologies to Patrick Swayze for the unfortunate timing of my last post...

This Be Hilarious.

Some fun from Best Week Ever.

Plus, Ben Roethlisberger is going to be a Steeler for at least 8 more years.

And I just might know what city will by on my name tag this year at the New Wilmington Mission Conference.

Musings from 10,000 feet.

Over the past few weeks, I have done an inordinate amount traveling by plane, which made me reflect on a few things:

- There are several people who have never flown, or have only flown once or twice. While I don't consider myself one of those people who are eligible to be called "frequent fliers," I realized that I cannot calculate with any certainty the amount of flights I have taken in my life. I tried and guessed maybe 50, then the more I thought about it realized it could be more like 100, or even 150. I have no idea.

- This got me thinking of how incredible a thing it is to fly in a plane, but how disinterested most people in the plane are at the takeoff. I try to stop to look out the window and make note of this feat of modern ingenuity - that this massive piece of metal is lifting off of the ground. And yet, I too have gotten to the point that I sometimes busy myself with a magazine or something else, missing this moment.

- When you really think about this, the ridiculous notion that a plane can actually fly is lost on most of us. I would wager that few people could even begin to explain how it is that this large, multi-ton machine can get in the air, yet we are putting complete faith in it. We are putting our lives completely in the hands of something that we know little about, that we could not even begin to explain if we tried. When I think about things like this, it make me all the more frustrated when people are more closed minded about faith, taking the "prove it" attitude, refusing to believe anything until it is conclusively explained in an airtight fashion. When looked at it objectively, there is so much in our lives that we take on complete faith that it is surprising how "scientific" we get when we talk about God.

- Out of courtesy, I try to always pay attention to the flight attendants when they are going through the safety spiel, though I am starting to feel that even the attendants themselves are not really paying attention anymore. Mostly I just enjoy watching how each attendant has their own way of pointing out the exits, some more theatrical than others.

- In these flights, I think that I heard the term "lap baby" for the first time in my life. It sounds like an accessory, like the way tabloid starlets are going through their trendy "baby phase" right now. "This little shaky chihuahua is cute, but I need a baby if I'm going to be hot."