Random Rules

My buddy Peter over at Slublog set the ol' iPod to shuffle, hit play, and hoped for the best. Well, seeing that the weather is extremely nasty here in our beloved Bangor right now (Snow, sleet, rain), I've done the same. I'm slightly shocked at what came up on my pod. A complete dichotomy:

"Meaning In Tradgedy"- As I Lay Dying- Buzzsaw guitars, rapid fire drums and plenty of screaming. From what I have read, these guys are Christians. How you would know from listening to them I don't know, but if they get people to come to Christ, go for it.

"Falling Upon Deaf Ears"- As I Lay Dying- More buzzsaw and growl.

"The Everlasting"- Third Day- C'mon, 1o years of rockin' for Christ. An essential. So many great songs.

"My Hope is in You"- Third Day


"Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck"- Demon Hunter- Awesome band. Great combo of buzzsaw/scream, but the newest album (The Triptych) is a very diverse album with a lot of awesome guitar, some scream, but some great harmonies and vocals. This song is a cover of a song by the Industial/Groove/Thrash metal band Prong.

"Mighty is the Power of the Cross"- Chris Tomlin- One of the greatest lyricists and worship leaders the church has going right now.

"Self-Inflicted"- Crowbar- The real heathens of this pack. Nothing but pure Doom/Grunge/Wall 'o' Sound metal here. Not for the faint of heart.

"Your Grace is Enough"- Chris Tomlin

"Made to Worship"- Chris Tomlin

"The Way I Was Made"- Chris Tomlin

Wow, I do have a really weird mix. The best of both worlds, so to speak. For fun, we got Jessica's iPod out as well. Here are her first ten:

"Smile"- Madeleine Peyroux

"All My Tears"- Jars of Clay

"Quando, Quando, Quando"- Michael Buble and Nelly Furtado- From the "Natalie Wants Friends!" album.

"Grey"- Barlow Girl

"I Can't Take it In"- Imogen Heap- From the "Chronicles of Narnia" soundtrack.

"Angel"- George Winston

"I've Got to See You Again"- Norah Jones

"Wunderkind"- Alanis Morissette- Another one from the "Chronicles" soundtrack. And also the only reason something from Alanis Morissette would end up on either of our pods.

"Touch Me, Feel Me"- Darude- Got to have some Eltronica/Techno.

"Anywhere"- Evanescence- The Mrs. can rock out...

There we have it. Random living at its best!

300

I am in awe of the spectacle that I watched this weekend. 300 was an amazing film. Visually stunning and definitely ground breaking. I was exhausted after the film because I felt I was one of the Spartans taking on the Persians. Yes, it was bloody, and there was a little skin, but that doesn't change how amazing this film was.

When I walked out of the theater I could only utter three words: amazing, awesome, stunning.

Worth the full price of admission multiple times. I can't wait to go see it again. I'll buy the super-duper, deluxe, super deluxe DVD when it comes out.

Weekend Worship Set

Here is the Sunday morning set list for this week:

Adonai
Be Unto Your Name
Empty Me
Kindness
Give Us Clean Hands
Offering- Good to Me
Draw Me Close
Blessed Be Your Name

We do "Kindness" and "Give Us Clean Hands" as a medley, which works extremely well. I think I heard Chris Tomlin or someone like that do the two songs that way.

I tried a little experiment this morning with a little dramatic "buzzsaw" guitar on "Draw Me Close". I put a little distortion on the Les Paul for the second chorus. Nobody dropped dead and lightning didn't strike, and it wasn't like I was playing like Dimebag Darrell, so it went okay. The idea was to add some dynamics to the song, not draw attention to myself, because we do this for God and not ourselves. It seemed to work.

We are going to be missing some people next week, so it will be a nice little acoustic set Sunday morning, not a Les Paul driven wall of sound.

It was just a matter of time...

I knew it would come. It was just a matter of time. It actually has been happening for centuries, but it now just comes to light.

Cat goes berserk and send woman to the hospital:

HAILEY, Idaho - A house cat attacked its owner, sending her to the hospital by ambulance with more than 20 bite wounds.

The cat, a black and white domestic male, went on the rampage Wednesday when a neighbor showed up at the door with a different cat, mistakenly thinking it belonged to the woman.

“She went to the door, and her cat went berserk,” Jeff Nevins, assistant fire chief for Wood River Fire and Rescue, told the Idaho Mountain Express.

The woman in her 60s was taken to St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center with what Nevins described as “pretty serious puncture wounds.” Neither the hospital nor the fire department would provide any details to The Associated Press on Saturday, or say whether she has been released.

“I think the owner said she was going to take it to the shelter because that’s not the first time she’s been attacked,” Nevins said.

Cats are evil.

Are you kidding me?

While Captain America is by no means a favorite comic character of mine, I can't believe that Marvel has killed him off. And struck down by a lowly sniper. What is wrong with them?

Rest in peace, Cap, you were a tremendous hero, and the goofballs at Marvel will realize their mistake eventually, killing off an American icon...

A little photo resto

Here is my latest work of art (so to speak). My aunt was gracious enough to let me borrow a picture of my grandfather who fought in World War I with the 303rd Field Artillery. The picture was taken in either 1917 or 1918.

Here is the before:




And here is after:



Not a real challenging restoration, but meaningful because it is my grandfather, whom I never got to meet because he died when I was an infant. The picture had been cut by someone (that always irritates me) and was yellowing. I have a few more touch ups to due, but as you can see, a vast improvement.

Peculiar Posts

Here are the oddities of the day, which you have admit, are kinda funny.

The first, Tranquilized Moose Downs Helicopter:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A helicopter is not necessarily a match for an angry moose.

Instead of lying down after being shot with a tranquilizer dart, a moose charged a hovering helicopter used by a wildlife biologist, damaging the aircraft's tail rotor and forcing it to the ground.

They may be docile and dumb looking, but don't mess with 'em.

The today's second peculiarity was nearly a international incident: Switzerland Inadvertently Invades Liechtenstein.

ZURICH, Switzerland - What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers from the neutral country wandered 2 kilometers (more than a mile) across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

Oops. Good thing the Liechtensteiners are so easy going. Oh, and of course, they have no army so it's not like they could make a fuss...

Musical Sunday

Very musical and very long day on Sunday. We did our regular Sunday morning music set and on top of that did a special night of music because there was a break in our Sunday night small group schedule. So here is the morning list:

Come, Now is the Time to Worship
Open the Eyes of our Heart Lord
Amazing Love (You are my King)
Holy is the Lord
Enough
Lord, You have my Heart
How Great is our God/Then Sings my Soul
Blest be the Tie that Binds (A cappella after Communion)

This was the Sunday night set:

Adonai
Be Unto Your Name
Jesus Lead On
Awesome is the Lord Most High
Better is One Day
Draw Me Close
From the Inside Out
Give Us Clean Hands
Kindness
Unashamed Love
You Alone
Forever
You're Worthy of My Praise
I Can Only Imagine

Yes, that was a lot of songs. The set clocked in at around one hour and fifteen minutes. The night went very well considering the practice the day before was nearly a train wreck. I wish that there had been a few more people, but if only one in the crowd got something out of it, then it was worth it. Remember, God is in control.

How far could they be?

This week's much anticipated installment of Tastes Like Chicken!

The crappy weekly paper, aptly called "The Weekly" (I usually change the spelling to "Weakly") chinsed out and printed this week's toon in black and white.

Well, here it is in color!

Josh, I look forward to TLC every week! Keep it up!

The joys of living in Maine

40º on Thursday.

Blizzard on Friday with 6" to 20" inches of snow forecast with everything canceled except my wife's workplace.

40º on Saturday.

As the old Maine saying goes: If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute and it will change...

Ayuh, deah.

Worship Set

So, a couple of weeks ago I was all motivated to post our Sunday morning worship set, and I've already missed a Sunday.

If any of you are involved in church ministry of any kind, and particularly music, don't be surprised when not only something goes wrong, but all kinds of stuff (some of you know exactly what I'm talking about).

Last week was like that. We had a great presentation by our Pioneer Club kids, which changed up the order of service, which is not a big deal, but we had all kinds of technical problems with our sound system to really start the morning out right. I usually show up about an hour before the service starts (my wife hates that because I drag her with me) and get warmed up and ready. I spent 40 minutes running around with my head cut off trying to figure out why the guitars weren't coming through the system. Consequently not the smoothest morning ever.

I guess the reason that I am writing this is just to prepare you to be ready to roll with the punches. It can be hard sometimes to get by the small stuff (I speak from experience here), but God is still good and in control of the show. Let's all try to lean on Him.

Here is the list from last week:

Indescribable
God of Wonders
My All in All
I Love You Lord
Christ in Me (offering)
You Alone
My Savior's Love (I Stand Amazed)- Chris Tomlin's version

Hmm... An Odd Couple

"If I keep still, maybe the nice tiger won't eat me..."

"An Incoveniet Truth" about Al Gore's Energy Use

While former VP Al Gore was out rubbing shoulders with Hollywood's elite and celebrating his documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth", apparently he was doing his part to contribute to the demise of our planet:

[F]ormer Vice President Al Gore was called a hypocrite by a Tennessee group that said his Belle Meade home is consuming too much energy.

The home’s average monthly electric bill last year was just under $1,200, according to bills that The Tennessean acquired from Nashville Electric Service.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk (the) walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, identified as a free-market think tank.

Gore’s power bill shows, however, that the former vice president may be doing just that.

Gore purchased 108 blocks of “green power” for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.

That’s a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources.

The green power Gore purchased in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans or 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on NES’ Web site.

NES joined the TVA program in 2000 to give power customers a way to support environmentally sound sources of electricity. The Tennessean could not determine when Gore signed up for green power.

NES gets its electricity from TVA. Most is produced from coal, which emits carbon, a greenhouse gas. A lesser amount comes from nuclear power and a small amount from hydroelectric.

Okay, they threw in something about "Green Power" and all that, but c'mon, $1200 is quite a hefty bill to pay to the power company.

I mean, I pay that for a year of power, not just a month, and I live in the highest taxed state in the Union.

Maybe I'll put up a windmill in my backyard. I bet the neighbors will love that...