Best Web Junk (November 27)

Ned a little post-Thanksgiving entertainment?  This game is teh funness

What could you possibly do with a piece of tomato that small?  I don’t know, but the knife can do it.

This makes perfect sense

Thanksgiving Fun

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am on the road today.  So no time for a full post.  How about some reader contributed content.  Write your best Thanksgiving haiku in the comments.  We’ll vote on our favorites and the winner gets a lame prize from me.  (The prize will probably be a book I picked up somewhere along the way.)

Remember, a haiku is 3 lines.  5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second, then 5 again.

Here are a few I wrote:

Yesterday, all day
Seven hundred miles I drove
There best be some ham

My Granny Cooks the
Turkey so deliciously
Pass the gravy Please

Three dollar Blu-ray?
I’m not shopping tomorrow
Pick one up for me

Best Web Junk (November 20)

Earlier this year I spent a  couple of days as a mission project trimming hedges that looked like this. (on the left)  I wish I had thought of this system

I really want to go to this.  Seriously, I very much want to go.  But it’s not coming anywhere close to me.  I only heard about it this week and apparently I missed it in Charlotte.  If I could figure out how to be gone for Christmas that early, I’d try to see it in Nashville on the 13th.

Anybody want a very expensive hamburger?

I would like this shirt from shirt.woot.  How ling to do you think I can wait to order it?

I have seen this like 20 times this week, but maybe you haven’t.  Read the reviews for this product

Here is a helpful poster

When Life Falls Apart

About once every 6-8 months my life falls apart. Nothing actually falls apart, but periodically it seems like circumstances in life conspire to make me feel like an unspeakable loser. For some of you that may happen more often and some of you may think I’m a freak because I deal with it that often. It always passes, and when the hard times are over, I wonder why I was so freaked out. I am very recently coming out of one of these times.

One of the things I learned a very long time ago was not to worry. I don’t mean it in a clichéd way; “don’t worry, be happy.” I mean that I very rarely worry about anything.  I learned as a child to obey Jesus in  Matt 6.  I understand that my worry is sinful and destructive.  Mostly this has served me well in life. It makes me healthier. Though there are times it has not been such a great thing. I am sometimes so stress free that I fail to even be concerned about things that I really should be concerned about. For example, in college I often was not nearly as concerned with my grades as I should have been.  That’s why it took me 13 semesters to graduate.

Part of the reason my recent “life falling apart” incident was so terrible this time was because the circumstances not only combined to make me feel like a complete loser, but they also were attached to a sense of dread that hung like a shadow over me for a few days.

Yesterday it is no exaggeration to say that I was physically ill because of worry.   I never worry.  And now I remember why I never worry.  It’s miserable. It absolutely does nothing to help the issue I’m worried about, and it makes me a wreck.

I’m feeling better now. I just thought I’d get that off my chest.

Does your life ever fall apart like mine?

7 Days with Windows 7

I’ve been using Windows 7 for one week now. Before that I was a long-time user of Vista. I actually thought that Vista had gotten sort of a bad rap. It worked fine for me for a few years with only little niggling problems. However, now that I have been using Windows 7, I realize that there were a lot of those minor problems. More than anything else, Win 7 has made me hate Vista.

Here is a brief review.

First and foremost, everything is easily customizable. It is not hard to figure out how to edit any part of the interface. If you want to customize something on the start menu, right click on it. To pin an item to the task bar, right click on it. One thing that has annoyed me since win 95 is the bottom right corner of the screen.

This part of Win 7 rules

Those icons get out of control quickly. It seems like every program you want to install feels need to take up residence in that corner, all of them flashing and trying to communicate. In Win 7 the customize button lets you chose which ones show and when they show

I love the indexing of files that began in Vista and has continued in Win 7. For someone like me, who has written hundreds of outlines, papers, and articles over the years, (there are about 1000 items in my documents) this indexing is invaluable. I can look up a word like “baptize” and find the lesson I am looking for even though I can’t remember the title of that document. It also searches tags on photos and mp3s. It is simply wonderful and not too hard on system resources.

I like and use a few of the sidebar gadgets. Actually I use 4, system monitor, calculator, Weather, and Pandora. In Win 7 gadgets look and work better. Plus that shaded area sidebar is gone. Good riddance.

It seems to me that even though I’m using the same monitor at the same resolution I get much better use of screen real estate. The icons are smaller and I think the fonts are too, but they seem clearer than Vista. Everything is easier to read, text just appears clearer.

It boots quicker. I can open a program in a minute and a half from pressing power. That includes login time. Once the desktop loads, the programs are just seconds behind. It really is quite a lot faster

There are a few things I don’t like.

I do not like the change made to windows media player.

These controls are not very good

The controls will not minimize to the taskbar, and although a mouseover brings up play/pause and skip, I don’t like the delay. There is also not volume in that control. Also, even when maximized, the “now playing” view doesn’t show the timecodes. I really do not like these changes and I am on the verge of finding a new media player or trying to discover some hack to bring back that old functionality.

The built-in windows photo screen saver is not as good, it has way less options.

This last criticism is not really a Win7 issue, but it is worth mentioning.   Zone Alarm isn’t compatible. I know what you are thinking, you have the built in windows firewall, and your router serves as a firewall so you don’t need Zone Alarm. But Zone alarm has a feature I love. It gives a notification whenever a program wants to access the internet. This is better than any anti-spyware program could ever be. Every single process that wants to access the web has to ask, and I’m not likely to allow “I hakz ur sy5t3m” to go online.

 

There’s my review. I think Windows 7 is a necessary upgrade if you are using Vista.

 

Best Web Junk (November 13)

Apparently you get an all video edition of best web junk this week.  Here it is…enjoy

I am opposed to dressing dogs up at all times.  This is the only exception I have ever seen because this AT-AT costume is beyond awesome

Same theme, less awesome

This is so good, it could be a Pixar short

A lesson from the NC State Baptist Convention

A convention with no controversy is boring.

This year I attended Tuesday only.  I had obligations on Monday that kept me away from the pastor’s conference, which I’m sure I would have enjoyed.  There was really only one major piece of business this year; amending and restructuring of the constitution.  Most of the changes were for streamlining purposes and it was not controversial.  For example, we renamed the annual session the annual “meeting.” (Exciting huh?) The election of officers was completely uneventful.  Only one ballot was even necessary (CJ Bordeaux was elected as second VP), as President and first VP were unopposed.  (In slightly related news, my great-uncle, Don Mathis, was elected as president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.)  Even the budget, which involved substantial cuts, only had a few comments from the floor.

Compare this to last year, when we were doing away with giving plans, or to ’07 when we were defunding the colleges as they began electing their own trustees.  Those years had a different feel to them.  In a year like this when everything is routine, we are simply going about our business controversy free.

I almost titled this post Baptists like to Argue.  At a business meeting where everything is cut and dried you begin to hear people say things like “this thing was railroaded,” or “they are just going to elect who they want.”  It’s weird; it’s almost as if we are creating controversy where there is none.  In this case I know that is it.  We in NC are too recently past the major controversies to be organized.  It ought to be a reason for celebration.  Hooray, we are controversy-free! But instead it’s boring.

I must confess, I am as guilty of this as anyone else.  I think the controversy is interesting.  I bet that next year’s SBC is the best-attended in a while.  Not just because it’s in Orlando and we can sneak out to Sea World (not Disney though ), but because of the controversy that seems to be swirling around the GCR Task Force.

That’s my two cents.  I’m glad we are not fighting, but it’s not nearly as interesting as the controversy.  Maybe next year I’ll make a motion for some controversy.  I already have one in mind.

Best Web Junk (November 6)

This is probably the neatest Halloween costume I’ve sen this year

Here is the first runner up

yep…WIN

Whoever thinks that Twitter is a waste of time should look at this list of people to follow.  This tweet from @common_squirrel alone is worth joining

Here is some useful knowledge for you

This could possibly be the best commercial I’ve ever seen

I enjoyed this very much

The beginning

Here is part one of this year’s story.  Have fun adding to it, it’s in a tab at the top -

It was November and William was out for his daily walk through the neighborhood.  It was cold this morning but walking through the neighborhood was better than a treadmill and looking at the same wall for an hour.  As he arrived back at his house he checked the mail and found a package.

There was no return address on the package and he didn’t remember ordering anything so he opened it as he was going into the house.

The package contained a t-shirt that said, “I’m with stupid,” a note that read “wear this on your trip,” and a plane ticket to Brazil.

“At least it’s not a train ticket,” he thought, recalling a frightening dream he had about a year ago.  He began to debate in his mind whether he wanted to be a part of another mysterious adventure.  The ticket was for a flight tomorrow at 7 a.m. so he had a while to make up his mind.

NaNoWriMo Project take 2

Remember this?

That story did not go at all the way I expected it to.  I certainly didn’t see Michael Strahan showing up.  It was kinda fun

Well it’s November again, NaNoWriMo, so let’s take another crack at writing a collaborative story.  Again this year I’ll make a tab at the top with a link to the story.  You add your contribution in the comments and I’ll move it up to the body of the story.

The one thing we need to make it better is your contribution.

Here are the rules.  same rules as last year:

1. No one can write two consecutive portions
2. Portions may not be longer than 400 words
3. Be aware of continuity.  Please read the story and relate your section to the rest.  We don’t want this to turn out like Snoopy’s novel.   Not too many meanwhiles etc.
4. No quick endings.  Please don’t have aliens destroy the world, or some sort of catastrophy to end the story short
5. Please don’t negate the contributions of others, (e.g. Then he woke up…it was all a dream)
6. Careful of content/language.  Try to write your portions without swears or non PG-13 content.
7. I reserve the right to edit your portion for spelling grammar and format.
8. Have fun

Finally – Try this. even if you don’t think this is your thing or if you aren’t creative, write one sentence.  Give it a shot.  I think this might be fun.