Best Web Junk (November 28)

Dave Barry’s annual gift guide is awesome as always – This year it includes a back razor

I said I would support future president Obama at least as long as we could agree on the issue.  Well here is the first issue where he gets my support.

It’s posible that I have used this link before, but these are very entertaining and there a LOT of them

This is fake (just marketing) but very neat

If that is not satisfactory, enjoy the video I saw everywhere last week.  Cat on a Roomba

Happy Thanksgiving

I decided to use my November church newsletter article as a Thanksgiving day post. It’s a little preachy, so you don’t have to read it, but if you want to, here it is:

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving.  A holiday that is created for the sole purpose of giving thanks to God for all the blessings that we have.
Most of us do very well to say “thank you” to God during this time of year.  However, thanksgiving goes further than merely saying “thank you” to God for what we have.  If we say the words yet behave in an ungrateful manner, we are, in fact, ungrateful.

So what does this mean practically?  If we thank God for giving us the money we have, but refuse to give Him control of it, we are not actually thankful for it.  We have demonstrated that we believe that we somehow deserve what we have and therefore can do with it as we please.  If we thank Him for health or a good mind but squander those things living for ourselves, we are not thankful.  Or, if we say we are thankful for our salvation but never tell others about it we are not thankful.  Witnessing is a key component of obedience with our testimony.

We live our beliefs.  In other words, the things we do are because of what we believe.   James 1:17 says that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. If this is true, it should affect the way we live.  We show thanks to God by our obedience.  Would you want your child to say “thank you” regularly but disrespect what he or she has been given?  If he always thought he deserved more, or she always took for granted your gifts, you would be disappointed and you would rightly feel disrespected.  When we treat God this way, we do the same.  Please allow this day to be a reminder that our Heavenly Father deserves both our gratitude and our obedience.

A Thanksgiving Acro

Here’s how it works.

I will give you a few letters, and you create acrostics from them.  The acrostics don’t have to make sense, but it’s better if they do.  We may or may not develop a system of declaring a winner, but it should be fun anyway.

T
H
A
N
K
S

T
U
R
K
E
Y

Have fun, and have a Happy Thanksgiving

Book Review: Chasing Daylight

Chasing Daylight: Seize the Power of Every Moment was written by Erwin McManus the pastor of Mosaic church in Los Angeles.  Before reading this book, my only familiarity with McManus was that I saw him speak at the SBC pastor’s conference in 2006.  And now that I think of it, I believe I saw the profile of his church done by NAMB on TV on a snowed out Sunday morning.

The reason for choosing to read this book is that it is on a few of my friends’ Facebook lists as favorite book.  Also it was the theme of the Annie Armstrong offering for 2008, and it is similar to the book Wild Goose Chase which I recently wrote a review of.  It has been sitting in my queue of books to read since March (during the AAEO).

The main idea of Chasing Daylight is that Christians have been called to actually do something.  Most of us sit around doing nothing waiting to hear God tell us what to do, but God would have us doing something.

I found this book to be very engaging.  I wrote in the margins (my way of interacting with the book) numerous times in agreement and occasionally in befuddlement.  I would not put it in the class with my very favorite books, but there is no question that I heard the voice of God as I read it.  And it was a great reminder that we are to be doing something for God.  One thing is for certain, we only have a limited amount of time and how we use that time determines our effectiveness.

McManus reminds us that we are the products of our choices.  He then points out some of the problems of the western variety of Christianity.  The main problem is that we hide behind piety and make that an excuse for doing nothing for God.  He says “I am convinced that the great tragedy is not the sins we commit but the life we fail to live.” (p. 36)  In other words, we use our comfort at our own level of righteousness as if it were a great accomplishment for God.  He also has a word of warning about materialism.  I will just say that he is exactly right about our stuff owning us.  Also that we must lay aside everything that comes between us and God, even if we think those things are “blessings” from God.

I was particularly struck by a an application he makes from Luke 14:15-24.  I have always viewed this passage as being about salvation only.  But he relates it to opportunity.  He would say that if we do not do the ministry that God has given us while we can, God will use someone else.

One of the weaknesses of this book is common in a lot of recent Christian books.  It is the use of the word “community” to replace the word “church”.  I think I’ll write a post about that later on.  Maybe it’s just a personal issue, but it bothers me.

Also in the weakness category is the “Perils of Ayden” sections used between chapters.  These short vignettes of some fictional story did nothing to make the book clearer or better.  They were confusing and written in a nearly unreadable font.  (Seriously, that font is a major fail.  I was hoping I could link to the Amazon.com preview of these sections, but they are not there.)  Maybe I’m just too left-brained to get it, but I was somewhat befuddled.  Fortunately these sections didn’t harm the book or its message.

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is searching for how to know God’s will for his or her life.  I would put it ahead of Wild Goose Chase by an order of magnitude and say it is worth the short time it takes to read.

A scary video and what’s coming this week

This starts off looking fun, then just becomes frightening

In blogging news.  There will be a post here tomorrow.  A book review that I started about 2 months ago, but never finished.  Then there will be a Thanksgiving acro game and best web junk on Friday.  I will not be around much to moderate the comments.  But feel free to add to the collaborative story.  We’ve kinda left William in the lurch.

Best Web Junk (November 21)

Japanese baseball drafts a 16 year old girl

This is hilariously snarky – man tries to pay bill with spider drawing – found via everywhere on the internet

Here’s a giant fish.  Just because you expect me to post this kind of stuff

This story really makes me proud to be from Kentucky.  Seriously, it’s worth your time.  How many stories you gonna read about a 35 year old gramma having her house toppled over by the sheriff because it was blocking the road too long

this made me chuckle

And this made me spit my drink – via myextralife

My blog’s busiest day ever*

Weird.  Yesterday was the busiest day ever on this blog, except for the “what’s the baby using” flurry.  i can’t really see why.

Open letter to NASCAR, Big news at BSCNC, and NaNoWriMo project all got good numbers.

My best theory why this was such a high number is that the NaNoWriMo post really generated 2 hits each time, because people went to the rules, then read the story.  And I figure some of you checked in on the [lack of] progress multiple times.

Now a word of encouragement – please write something.  The story won’t progress if nobody writes anything.  I’ll not share exact numbers, but there are a lot of views for the story, and only one section added.  Doesn’t anybody wonder if the old man wrote the letter?  If so you can answer the question yourself.  Or you can have the train derail, or anything else you can think of….that’s how it works and why it is can be fun.

Thanks for making yesterday my most visited day ever.

*non-what’s the baby using

NaNoWriMo Project

Sometimes on youth trips we play three-headed storyteller.  It’s a game I adapted it from “Whose Line Is It Anyway.”  It works like this; you get three people and each of them contributes one word to a story.  keep going in a rotation.  They always turn out to be funny.

Thinking about that game got me to thinking.  November is National Novel Writing Month, and I have this great forum, I have a bunch of regular readers who are also creative.  Although many of you are too shy to ever post anything I still think we can make this work.  So I want to attempt a project.  Between now and the new year you will notice a new tab at the top of this blog called collaborative story.  (I was going to sticky it, but was afraid it would get too long and overwhelm page 1)  In this tab we will write a collaborative story.  Any and all of you feel free to contribute.  Even if you are a first-timer, or a reader who never contributes, you are welcome to join in.  I will leave the first section very open ended, but sooner or later, some of you will need to fill in some details.

Here are the necessary rules:

1. No one can write two consecutive portions
2. Portions may not be longer than 400 words (for reference, the prior 2 paragraphs were 178 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. You put your portion in the comments, I will add it to the body of the post and delete the comment.
8. I reserve the right to edit your portion for spelling grammar and format.
9. 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.

An Open Letter to NASCAR

The NASCAR season ended Sunday, and I wasn’t watching. Partly because the race started at 3 and I have church at 5, but also because I wasn’t really all that interested. I’ve been a NASCAR fan since probably the second grade. It is the first sport I remember caring about and the first major sporting event I ever attended was a Bush race at Bristol. Lately I have lost interest to some degree. I am only a fan, I’m not an insider and I don’t work in sports, but I do love NASCAR and I would like to see it improve. So here are some suggestions in the form of an open letter.

I’ll start this letter by addressing the major problem with NASCAR. The season is too long. It begins in mid-February and it ended 11 days from Thanksgiving. That means that December and January are the only months without racing. This problem is not limited to NASCAR, it is a the problem with most professional sports, long seasons make for boring seasons. I’m especially talking to you MLB and NBA. Have any of you ever heard that absence makes the heart grow fonder, or to leave ‘em wanting more?

I have put some thought into what can be done about this problem of the 10 month season. Here is my suggestion. I only want to improve things.

NASCAR needs divisions. This actually solves 2 problems. First, it shortens the season. Second, it makes use of some of the tracks that could use a second race (or a first, such as Nashville, Northern Kentucky, or Rockingham) Here’s how I propose it to work. Divide the drivers by the previous year’s standings with a snaking order. (1st place in div A, 2^nd & 3^rd in div B, 4^th & 5^th in div A, etc.) Then both divisions (Petty & Earnhardt?) have quality drivers and regardless which event you attend, you can see stars, just not all of them. Make that a 20 race schedule in the divisions, then put the top 6 from each division into the chase and the top 20 into the races for the chase. This gives NASCAR more television revenue, more tracks get to sell tickets, more fans have opportunity to see races, and the season ends nearly 2 months earlier.

The only real problem I can think of with this plan is how to deal with the Brickyard or Daytona 500, but someone can figure it out.  Maybe even in the comments.

The second suggestion is to put a variety of track types into the chase. Maybe nobody has pointed this out. But a team that makes the chase and is particularly good at the mile-and-a-half quad-oval has a decided advantage. How about a Pocono or Bristol in the chase? If you are going to race stupid road courses, make one of them be in the chase. If weather concerns create the current schedule, take my first suggestion. If the season ended in late September you could race in Watkins Glen, or Pike’s Peak for that matter. But in mid November you are pretty much stuck with Phoenix and Homestead.

If some other teams had a chance it would help as well. Of the 35 races this season, 30 were won by a Roush, Gibbs, or Hendrick team. If you went to divisions, and kept 35-40 teams per race, it would definitely give some other teams a chance to win some races.

Mix in some minorities. NASCAR is no longer a sport of good ol’ boys from the south, but it is lily white. With the exception of Montoya, there is nothing resembling a minority anywhere around the track. I don’t know how to fix that problem, but seriously the future is in jeopardy as long as it remains the way it is. America is more diverse and will become more so. If golf can have a non-white superstar, surely something that’s actually fun like driving fast can as well.

Don’t bow to the environmentalists…yet. The sound of a stock car is unmistakable, and if they switched to ethanol and sound whiny like Indy cars, it would lose some of the magic. (Maybe I’m showing my ignorance here, somebody can straighten me out in the comments. Feel free, as long as you can be respectful.) The day is coming when everyone will get around on some new fuel, but until then, let’s not have silent, hydrogen cars going around the track.

I really like NASCAR and want to see it continue to be great. These suggestions are just my 2 cents to improve it. The outlook is not all bad I took this quiz and got 100% so the sponsors are definitely getting their exposure.

Feel free to comment on this.  I’d like to know my readers’ thoughts on this one.  Do you think I’m way off base, or have better suggestions?

Best Web Junk (November 14)

I almost forgot to post this, I usually have my Best Web Junk set to autopost and just wasn’t thinking about it.

In my never ending quest to improve your vocabulary, I present this link of the 100 most oft misspelled words.

This is a serious education fail

Here is something every college basketball fan needs. Well, it will only work if you are a fan of Kentucky, Northwestern, Arizona, or Villanova.  And you will probably need to change the uniform <update> that link is gone, here is a pic of this awesome piece of taxidermy </update>

Finally, here’s a video of a banana scaring people

<update> here’s a funny vid I just saw.  Thanks to @DougFields for this one  </ update>