family

How lucky am I?

Marimba Ponies

My supervisor Dennis shared this with me. This video starts out all cute, then goes into straight up amazing. This group of Japanese kids aged 4 - 12 are awesome!

3 things

Just when I thought Christian marketing and retail couldn't get any more ludicrous, I saw this today. In case you can't read the text at the bottom of the photo it says 1 in 3 Trinity Energy Drink. The website describes at as "Fused with the Fruit of the Spirit." Yes, now we have a 'christian' energy drink. Seriously? Words can't express how much this bothers me.












Okay, that was something I hate, now here's something I know I would love. I mean 'Love' with a capital 'L'. Its called the 'Fatty Melt.' It is made by sandwiching a hamburger patty between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches!!! I think this rivals the Krispy Kreme bacon cheese burger. Why didn't I think of this before?













Lastly here's a really great site called Every Monday Matters. It has 52 activities for each Monday of the year for people who want to make a difference in their world. I think this is an awesome idea. Check it out!

stay together for the kids

Here is an excerpt from a really awesome article:

Separation Anxiety: It’s a National Epidemic, So Why Do Couples Continue to Divorce?
"Having watched all four seasons of Intervention, I find myself fascinated by the common denominators among addicts. In most cases, the addict has suffered a severe trauma sometime in his life, and three such traumas surface more than the rest. The first two are sexual molestation and close proximity to a killing...But perhaps the most common trauma experienced by the show’s addicts is divorce..."

If you're intrigued, you'll find the rest of this article in Salvo magazine. Salvo is a really great magazine by the way.

(ir)relevant to our culture

Does anybody remember Nitro Praise from the mid to late 1990s? I had a friend/ roommate in college who LOVED Nitro Praise (NP from here on out). He's this geeky kind of guy who would never go to a dance club, but who would blast NP all day long if you would let him. If you haven't heard of NP before, let me fill you in: It was a series of Christian CD's which took contemporary praise music and set it to dance club beats (mostly techno type stuff). Imagine a song like "As the Deer" set to techno. Its not pretty. Its actaully a bit annoying and not very enjoyable. But Christians were way into it because it felt okay to listen to dance music because the songs were all praise songs.

So why am I talking about NP? A few weeks ago Matthew Paul Turner blogged about a new video game called Guitar Praise. That's right, folks, Guitar Praise (GP). GP is a Christian copy of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The official website says this:
"Strap on the guitar and play along with your favorite bands—tobyMac, Relient K, Flyleaf, Newsboys —and more. SHRED the riffs…THUMP the bass…BLAST that solid Christian Rock!"

You get to 'rock out' to shredders like Petra, Chris Tomlin, and the Newsboys. There are a couple of rockin' bands on the song list (like The Crucified - one the best metal bands ever, Christians or not), but most of them are songs that I could never shred, thump, or blast. Apparently the same company that makes GP also makes a game called Dance Praise.

Anyways, I have serious biases against 'christian entertainment'. It just simply is not (in my opinion) the way we should live as believers, continually separating ourselves from our culture. I read an observation recently, maybe in Relevant magazine, about how Christians in general are not counter-cultural, but have become merely another sub-culture. So instead of innovating, many 'christian' products tend to be knock-offs of regular products (Guitar Praise for example). I tend to be biased against things labeled 'christian' because many are cheesy and often of low quality. I didn't say 'all things' but many, even most. So if I can help it, I never set foot into 'christian' retail stores.

I see no need for a plumber who comes to Christ to become a 'christian plumber'. In the same way, I see no need for an artist who follows Jesus to label everything they create 'christian' or for a believing software designer to call his products 'christian software.' Etc, etc, etc. There is something beautiful about simply being a follower of Jesus.

what flavor is that ice cream?

Just when I thought I had heard everything, I read yesterday that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has petitioned Ben and Jerry's ice cream company to substitute the cow's milk in its ice cream with human breast milk!! This is no joke. You can read the official letter on PETA's website.

PETA thinks that by doing this they will reduce the suffering of dairy cows. A blogger named Sadie Stein responded to this by saying, "Apparently no consideration is given to the lactating women who would need to be "milked" to make a single pint of Cherry Garcia..." (link) . Sadie also posted part of Ben and Jerry's reply to PETA: "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

PETA got this idea from a Swiss restaurant which had planned to use 75% breast milk in their cooking. However The Times Argus, a local Vermont newspaper (Ben and Jerry's is based in Vermont), went more into depth and reported that the Swiss restaurant called Storchen "ran afoul of health regulators in Switzerland. The restaurant made headlines in Europe when it began advertising in German newspapers looking for human breast milk, but the plan was scrapped after government inspectors threatened to take legal action." If you want to read about how crazy the Swiss are about animal rights, check out this great article in Salvo magazine. Some people have too much free time.

look carefully...

Do you see the guys standing and sitting next to the policeman? These are not a photoshopped. They are an art form practiced by a Chinese artist named Liu Bolin. He mixes painting (of a person) and photography to produce camoflauge. Here are links to more of his photos:
Design Boom
Galerie Bertin