An old friend of mine is having a surprise, virtual birthday party tomorrow. Well, it’s today, I guess. A cool idea, and props to his blog-savvy wife, Juli.
WARNING: CONTAINS SOME INSTANCES OF INCRIMINATING PHOTOS OF AUTHOR OF MILDLY POPULAR EAST TENNESSEE BLOG.
So, Happy 40th, Eugene!
Hilarious. Cheney’s Got a Gun. And props to Spike O’Neil — whoever he is — for sounding just like Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.
Just in case I need to explain this to anyone — this is based on Aerosmith’s Janie’s Got a Gun from back in the 90’s.
UPDATE: The permalink on this thing keeps breaking. It’s working right now, but if it breaks again, let me know.
This will be made into a movie.
Hat tip to Burnt Orange Nation.
Business 2.0 Magazine has a fun article on the the future of Google. They asked a bunch of scientists, visionaries, and the like for their opinions and boiled down the results into the following four scenarios:
Google is apparently a play on the term “googol”, which is the name given the number represented by a “1″ followed by 100 zeros.
What’s the name for the number represented by a “1″ followed by 1,000 zeros?
Quick! Somebody grab the domain!
The awesome Take 6 is set to release its new album Feels Good on March 21, 2006.
Have a quick listen to the celebratory first single, Come On, and see if it doesn’t in fact make you feel good. You can hear about 45 seconds of each of the first three songs on the album courtesy of Infinity Music Distribution.
While you’re at it, there’s a fun video of the group answering questions and performing Come On at the Apple iTunes store in Tokyo on November 11, 2005. To see it, click here and then scroll down, ignoring the kana and kanji until you find “Take6″ in English. Immediately below that, there’s a link that says “iTunes Music Store” followed by some Japanese. Click on that and you’ll be magically transported into a room in which six black Christians from Nashville (via Huntsville, Alabama) sing to Japanese shoppers in the Ginza shopping district of Tokyo about their victory in Christ. Heaven, I tell you.
I’ve been a huge fan of these guys since So Much 2 Say
You can pre-order Feels Good
Time.com has posted its list of the 50 Coolest Blogs of 2005. I haven’t checked all of them out yet myself — and probably won’t check out some of them — but some look, well, cool.
Clive Davis has rounded up and commented on several different posts in anticipation of tomorrow’s release of The Chronicles of Narnia. As you’d expect, opinions run the gamut.
My previous posts on the movie:
Freaktoe and I will see it Saturday and report back.
Possibly the coolest Christmas light display of all time, by Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio.
I was as skeptical as you will surely be, but Snopes.com has confirmed that it is real, not a computer-assisted animation.
According to Snopes:
This display was the work of Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio, who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that control the 16,000 Christmas lights in his 2004 holiday lighting spectacular. The musical accompaniment is broadcast over a low-power radio station so that it is only audible to visitors tuned in to the correct frquency and doesn’t disturb the neighbors.
Apparently, the whole thing is done using something called Light-o-Rama. (UPDATE: I just realized I had already said that through the above block-quote. D’uh.) You can re-create Carson’s display yourself using instructions from Carson himself.
Another of Carson’s displays is here.
Podcast of an interview with Carson here.
Hat tip to my niece, mother, and father.
From Charles Colson:
Fifty years ago, Christians charged that Lewis was teaching kids witchcraft. Yet today, most Christians—myself included—consider the Chronicles of Narnia classics and the Narnia books and movies are in most church libraries.
So how are they different, if at all, from Harry Potter? Colson distinguishes the series’ on three grounds:
Colson’s conclusion?
It’s a simple risk/reward calculation. Both authors include fantastic and preternatural material. Both series should be handled with care—especially if your children have an unhealthy interest in the occult. Parents need to be wise and attentive to the bent of their children.
The reward with the Harry Potter books and movie is a moral tale. The reward with the Narnia books, on the other hand, is nothing less than Christian truth embedded in stories that have delighted and stirred the hearts of Christian kids for generations.
My advice? Use all the hoopla today over Harry Potter to introduce your kids to the real thing: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles.
Although Colson says that he has “major reservations” about Potter, note the absence of any harsh criticism of the series that does not also apply to the Narnia series.
C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens in theaters December 9, 2005. Randy Alcorn, in the most recent Eternal Perspectives, asks Will People See Jesus in Aslan (roughly 2 meg pdf):
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan tells the children that though they must return to earth, they can find Aslan here. Aslan says, “There I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
This demonstrates Lewis’s central purpose in the Narnia stories—that readers (and in the case of the movie, hopefully, viewers), may have their eyes opened, so they will look for—and hopefully find— Aslan here on earth.
An eleven-year-old American girl wrote Lewis to find out Aslan’s real name on earth. Lewis responded with a series of questions:
As to Aslan’s other name, well I want you to guess. Has there never been anyone in this world who (1) arrived at the same time
as Father Christmas; (2) said he was the son of the great Emperor; (3) gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people; (4) came to life again; (5) is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb…. Don’t you really know His name in this world? Think it over and let
me know your answer!Please pray that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie will be true to the book, and thereby true to the nature of Jesus, which Lewis so beautifully portrays in Aslan the Lion. Pray that it will start a discussion about who Aslan is. And that in falling in love with Aslan, they will be drawn toward the Jesus who Aslan truly is.
Courtesy of Eternal Perspective Ministries, 2229 E. Burnside #23, Gresham, OR 97030, www.epm.org.
Why, yes. Yes it can.
Unless you stink at math.
First reader to figure out the trick wins . . . hmmm . . . a post dedicated solely to the singing of praises to your superior intellect.
Or I could just publicly poke fun at you, whichever I prefer in my sole discretion and depending on my mood.
Thanks to Matthew Hollingsworth (no relation), who posted instructions on how to remedy the installation problems associated with upgrading to iTunes for Windows 5.0 (it works for iTunes for Windows 6.0 as well).
I feel like some sort of crack addict. My frustration practically rose to the level of violence as I tried to resolve the installation problems and get back to using iTunes. When it finally worked, it was quite exhilarating.
Aah, there you are, my good friend. So glad to see you. (Sigh.)
I’m hooked, and I blame Steve Jobs both for my habit and the four hours I lost wrestling with the worst engineered upgrade install in the history of software.
