With its less than believable characters, poor attempt at creating a plot with a moral to it, and its even more pathetic attempts at being cute, Dreamworks has kept on pace by making yet another terrible movie.

I really tried to watch it with an open mind, and I have to say, I was bored out of my mind after only 30 minutes and had only laughed maybe once...mostly out of the need to laugh after being bored for so long. The animation was certainly nothing special to look at either. It was really about at the quality Toy Story had 10 years ago. I am sorry Larry, but this movie was lame by any standards. I even imagined myself as a kid watching the movie and I really still saw nothing. Pixar has mastered the art of computer animated movies and has always nailed it with a good script, but Dreamworks has just left us all with still nothing more than Shrek to thank them for.

Cross-Cultural Missions

I visited Phil's class today, Cross-Cultural Missions, and I have to say I enjoyed it. Although I do not ever condone going to a class that you don't have to go to, I think I did actually learn something. We (I liked it because it was a discussion type class) talked a lot about going to another culture and being careful about not pressing our social norms on them. For instance, having church on Sunday morning is the only time you can have church. I actually debated with a guy about this...he believed that you can't be a good Christian unless you attend a Sunday morning service (those Godless Apexers with their new Saturday night services!).

Something that professor Cook brought up in that class was this website, WholesomeWear.com. It looks fine at first but just take a little peek inside........yeah...that's what we were all laughing at in class. I was doing some people watching though (I know, I know...stalker) and I noticed one of the girls look really interested and was not laughing. I'm pretty sure she wrote the site down too. But anyway, his point was that Christians always make a big deal about everything (in this case modesty) and take it way too far. Then we try to push these ideas on other cultures. Anyway...it was fun.

A Thought Crushed My Mind

Shouldn't an elevator going down be called a de-elevator? Think about it...

Ohio weather is probably harder to understand and explain than the mind of a woman.

The irreducibly complexity in the universe is unfathomable not only down to the human body, not only of every organ in our bodies, not only of every bit of tissue in it, not only of the cells that make up that tissue, not only to the little organelles that make that cell work, not only to each one of the many proteins necessary to make any one of those organelles, but all the way down to the atom which makes up all things. You cannot explain that kind of perfect design with random mutations over any number of billions of years!

If I were to do an assignment ahead of time rather than the night of (as with my two assignments last night) I would actually have no idea of what to do with all the time of which I don't have an assignment coming up that is due which I would spend thinking about how and when I will do that assignment.

It's a bad idea to have your ashes sent into space because the aliens will get it and clone you from it. With millions of clones they will make an army of you's to come and destroy the entire world.

Primer

This is definately one of the coolest movies I have seen in a while! You should watch it, but without really knowing anything about the movie. I read the back and it almost ruined it for me! But really, I'm not going to tell you much more, only that it is awesome and you absolutely have to watch this. The way the dialouge is written and performed is so natural and the movie just feels like probably no other movie I've seen. It will blow your mind...I had to watch it twice in a row. So get it now...

And Then......He Died

Well tonight is the night of the year that I am forcibly denied sleep. That's right, Cedarmania! I am going to give you more or less bi-hourly updates of how I am doing like last year. Not that I think anyone is reading in real time, I just want to capture the night as it happens. I will also be drinking the annual 12+ Mountain Dews in one night to keep me alive/kill me immediately along with some fun facts about the Dew...so here we go...

6.00pm - Already Dead
Already 1 Dew down and I'm already beat. I was up late last night working and I didn't get to take a nap this afternoon as I planned (doing laundry). I am the video slave tonight so I am currently working with the poorly formatted lyrics (church media guys know what I'm talking about) getting them ready to show for worship. A pretty boring task yet necessary. As soon I have this done I have to start learning the video switcher and getting ready for 4 hours of shows. I will be up till 7 or 8 am...so media team will be fun! Click the can to see our first, and slightly racy, bit of info about the Dew.

8.00pm - Pizza and More Dew
Yes, already on #3 and feeling good. The band is running through their songs (all 500 of them) and we're about ready to rock. The kids will be coming in soon and I will be fighting the effects of sleep deprivation. Rob and the junior high kids should be here and I'm expecting to see them at some point. No real exciting stuff happening yet though...just doing my taxes for FAFSA with my mom over instant messenger. So that was fun. I should probably get back to work now!

10.00pm - On Pace
Slowed down a little on the dew but still going strong. Still haven't had to break into my own supply yet. The first session out of 2 in the chapel is over so we're on a little break now. The lyrics went well...almost perfect...pretty good considering there was no real rehearsal. Anyway, I found some more cool Dew facts here which may look like MD is only third on the list of the caffeine buffs but with some research, I found otherwise. First of all, Surge no longer exists so that's out. Secondly, Afri-Cola has since changed it's formula so it now only contains 53mgs per 12oz can (see Wiki article above). So Dew tops the scales on the soft drink end and is still the best drink in the world!

12.00am - Old Rivalries Renewed
Session 2 worship just ended...therefore my job is done here...till like 1am... But I was talking to Anthony (the aussie I met in Guatemala) online and had a little debate just like old times (Bobby can tell you about those). So yeah, that was a really refreshing good ol' OT/NT debate. My lyrics admittedly got a little sloppy though, which I could blame on others but I have to admit Every Day really got me. My belly is sluggish with MD so I should probably take it easy here for a while lest I lose it. I did see the WFFC group already and Larry came up to "Video Land" to visit me, so that was nice...until later...

2.00am - Number Nine With My Head on the Bar
I'm actually at ten as you see but number nine, I would say, was a pivotal one. I used it to chase down a shot of pizza sauce. I usually don't get all crazy and wired up until about 3am but it seems to be happening earlier this year. I am back at my old spot in the gym (like last year) and I pretty much rule the world from atop my throne of lies. They forgot to give me a CD of music as always...should have known...and I get to use the fridge up here to keep my Dew cold for the rest of the night. Which brings me to my latest Dew fact...did you know Canadians haven't had "real" Mountain Dew until just recently when health related Dew was released? Those Nazis!

3:00am - Dual Display Baby
Well it looks like I have already reached my goal of 12 MD's with 3-4 hours still left. I might lighten the pace a little so maybe I can catch a wink or two before media team. I'm feeling pretty good except my back is killing me right now but the pain is subdued by the little glimmer of joy I have found. Up in my little tower I found an extra LCD monitor for me to use the rest of the night so I can rock it out on dual display! Pretty much the best Cedarmania of all time as I rock it out up here with my music, 2 monitors, a nearly unlimited Dew supply and hundreds of little kids screaming endlessly. I wish every day of my life could be this sweet...

5:00am - And the Rest Will Follow
I have noticed that my insanity is growing while my ability to spell is inversely proportionate. Things are beginning to wind down around here. Only an hour left of events and then clean-up begins. While my will to stay awake is waning, I have decided that the rest of today is going to suck bad. My eyes burn with want of sleep and my brain is just tired of thinking. I do have a confession though. Last year while I was up here, I was hungry something awful, so I borrowed some Wheat Thins from the adjacent room. This year, I found another box of Wheat Thins...I ate some...I think it was the same box...

6:00am - And Now....I Will Soon Be Dead
Well, the good news is that it will take 235.77 cans of Mountain Dew to kill me...so only 219.77 to go. I have consumed about 192oz of MD and 880mg of caffeine (the equivalent of 4.4 average caffeine pills) all in exactly 12 hours. My heart rate is 112bpm as I sit hereAs for the rest of my 40 hour day, I will not be consuming any more Mountain Dew...I'll just have to stay awake the old fashion way. All I know is that this next paycheck is going to be pretty nice and that I am going to bed as soon as I can...

Audio Major

If you remember way back in October I told you my class was doing a live production of the original 1938 H.G. Welles War of the Worlds to broadcast on the student radio station. Well unless you were in Cedarville during that, you could not have heard it...but you can now! The original can still be downloaded here if you want to compare it, but here's the 64 kbps (mono) version that we did last semester. It's the original script and meant to sound like the original broadcast so it's in mono and EQ'ed to sound like old-timey radio.

Also, I have done many other projects during my time here at Cedarville. None of them are particularly good becasue they were almost all done in one night (yes, I am a slacker) but I thought you might enjoy them if you have not heard them before.

Fall 2005-
A commercial giving the basic gospel message. A little corny but it got me an A! There's two of them because we had to two different ones.

God Commercial 2
God Commercial 1

Spring 2005-
This one is a commercial that we were given a script for and given the assignment of making it. I used a 4th grade class at Cedarcliff, and two friends from Cedarville (Julie as the narrator and Amber as one of the kids).

Sugar Shockers Commercial

Another comercial with a given script...this one for a product called "Actual Reality"

Actual Reality Commercial

And my first audio project of my college career, a one minuet story about anything I wanted. I obviously took some frustration out with this one and it actually came out pretty good!

Audio Story

*Note - If anything won't play through your browser, just right click on the link and choose "Save Link As..." and play it from your computer.

As You did warn me Carpenter, this world has weakened my heart

I am tired. I love my life, my friends, my church, my God. But what is it about this life that drains me? I'm not trying to be emo, but every once in a while I find myself wanting so much more. So much more out of myself.

I am not the man I want to be, and certainly not the man God wants me to be . I want my heart to be excited about everything I do, and to chase after every opportunity passionately. However, usually I end up just wanting a day to be over rather than looking forward to accomplishing more. Again, not that I think life sucks or anything, just that the drive I want isn't there.

I love everything I am involved with and I do it all with the best of my current ability (...let's not include school here). But the more I look at it and see all the things I busy myself with for God, I do almost none of it for God. I have busied myself so much with serving, that I have lost sight of my master. I need to make God my focus rather than these arduous tasks. I've always been so independant, trying to do everything I can when I need to be letting God show me how insignificant I am. He doesn't need me...I need Him!

"By me You were abandoned, by me You were betrayed,
Yet in Your arms and in Your heart forever I have stayed."

Showbread - Matthias Replaces Judas

Double Take

I posted about Windows OneCare Live not too long ago and gave it a pretty good review. Well, after a few more weeks with this porgram I have changed my mind. The hard drive backup is pretty much the only feature that works right (which is pretty good) but almost everything else has a problem.

The virus scan won't update...no mater where I'm at. The help forums are terrible, they just tell you to reinstall the software which is a huge hassle! The firewall will block some things een though you tell it not to. And, my favorite part, the virus scan slows down my Thunderbird to a crawl because it tries to quarantine parts of the mail file. On the forums, the developers just say that they hope someone familiar with Thunderbird can help fix the problem!

Other than my great disappointment with this software, I have also now tried out the new Windows Live Mail (the replacement for Hotmail...the worst email client ever). It's pretty slick, works really smoothly, and is really fast. Drag and drop things on the screen, select emails quickly, and view emails without loading a whole new page, and best of all, 2GB of storage. Some features are still missing though which I pretty disappointed about: no POP mail at this point, and it works in Firefox...but not entirely. It's probably no different from the new Yahoo mail and AOL mail but we'll have to see if they address these features...untill then my loyalty is still with Gmail.