Straight No Chaser - 12 Days

I know, the holidays are just about over, but the time is always right for some great sounding a Capella, even if it is the "12 Days of Christmas".

Thanks to Cindy Campbell of Q106.5 FM for the link.

Tastes Like Chicken

3:16

Upon leaving work today, by buddy Dave comes up to me and says, "Merry Christmas" and hands me the new book by Max Lucado called 3:16: The Numbers of Hope.

The title and book are on the following scripture, John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

I almost hate to admit this but, I have never read a Max Lucado book. However, I am excited to delve into this one. This scripture alone is enough to fill anyone with hope. Even though too many have had it crammed down their throats but crazy evangelists, fanatics and those people that go to sporting events with the homemade sign that says "John 3:16". There are so many out there that give Christ a bad representation. But that is for another post.

Personally, this is one of my favorite scriptures that I find truly remarkable. But speaking contextually, I really think any "3:16" reference should be followed up by John 3:17:

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

God sent Jesus into the world to save us, not condemn us. Unfortunately, too many non-Christians see and here the condemnation aspect from other Christians rather than the love. It is truly awe inspiring that God loves us so much and yearns for a relationship with us so much that he would send his only son to be the sacrifice for us so that we can reconnect with our creator. Wow.

I'm eager to see what Max Lucado has to say on this topic.

14 Years...

Today, Jess and I celebrate 14 years of dating/marriage. We just passed the 7 1/2 marriage mark, leaving you to do the math for the rest of our relationship.

On December 21, we started going out. Of course, this was after being turned down for a first date (Can you believe it?). I asked her to go to a hockey game. The second date was obviously more successful...

So to celebrate this week, we went to a hockey game on Tuesday night. The Portland Pirates played a game at Alfond Arena. Great time but wow, the Pirates were awful. Good thing I had great company.

Tonight, we went to Starbuck's on a "Hot Chocolate Date".

Now, when we were first going out we were in college and didn't have a lot of money (wait, we still don't have a lot of money), so we went on Hot Chocolate dates to McDonald's. We decided after 14 years we could upgrade a little.

However, it is roughly 7:00 P.M. and Jess is about to doze off. And I don't think I am too far behind her.

We're getting old(er)...

Tastes Like Chicken

I'm guessing Peter's tree is looking a bit like this with his small child's decorating sense.

I, Robot

Much to Esther's chagrin, the Sci-Fi theme continues, at least for a little while.

I just finished reading I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. We have been doing a Sci-Fi unit for English class, so I figured the way to end the unit was to watch a Sci-Fi movie, and because we had read an Asimov short story, I decided to watch the movie of the same name.

If you look at Amazon or your local book store, you'll find the I, Robot cover with the ever-hunky, Big Willie style all up in it, Will Smith cover. But do not be fooled gentle reader, the book has little to do with the movie. Some of the themes and characters are the same, but that is where the similarities end. Detective Dale Spooner, the main character, isn't even in the book.

With that said, the Asimov book is pretty good. It is a collection of short stories all revolving around robots and the Three Laws of robotics. It is dated, but still a good read. A couple of the stories had more appeal for me than the others.

I would only recommend this book for the hardcore Sci-Fi fan.

I am Iron Man!!!

Okay, the comic book theme continues with this new pic of Iron Man! Can't wait for this one! It is gonna be amazing. I hope...

Wanted Trailer

Comic book fans rejoice for another graphic novel comes to the big screen. I don't know anything about the book upon which this is based, but the trailer looks awesome.

Plus, how can you go wrong with a movie featuring Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie...

This is gonna be good...

Empire magazine's January 2008 cover features Heath Ledger as The Joker.

And Ledger's Joker looks like a really bad man!!! If DC and Warner Brothers were going for a darker, grittier Batman (as evidenced by "Batman Begins"), this is gonna cinch the deal.

And I love it!!! Of all the comic book characters that should be embracing the seedy underworld, it should be the Dark Knight.

July 18th doesn't seem all far off...

Photo courtesy of SuperHeroHype.com.

Tastes Like Chicken: When is early too early

A whirling vortex of time wasting destruction

Sorry loyal reader for the lack of posts lately. I have become engrossed in the phenomena known as Facebook.

So, any time that could be spent writing quality posts for this blog, are getting completely wasted on "Pirates", "Warbook", "Sending a friend a drink" and any other time-devouring goody I can find.

I...am...so...sorry...must...make...a...move...in...chess...

Tastes Like Chicken

The Unit: Play 16

This was the highly anticipated follow up to the now infamous "They Killed Hector" episode (actually "Five Brothers").

Jonas seeks revenge for the murder of his fallen colleague as the Unit has to keep moving forward on another mission. The team embarks on a new assignment when Bob Brown has to deal with a rescued journalist at the same time as keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't betray the Unit. Jonas plunges back into the underworld of Beirut, seeming hell-bent on finding the men responsible for Williams’ death.

Now unless there is more espionage to come, there was no hidden agendas by Ryan or anyone else, just a terrorist sniper that took down our beloved Hector. The ol' Snake Doctor took care of business though, first by welding the huge plow on the front of the deuce an a half, then hiding a gun to take out his so called friends when they turned. Even Crocodile Dundee would have said, "Now this is a knife". Don't cross Jonas...

Now when most people decide to leave a show there is news somewhere, like Jorja Fox leaving CSI or that guy who played Speedle on CSI: Miami (He left to pursue a lucrative movie career. So how is that working out for ya...). But, no news on Demore Barnes, so either he didn't want to leave and they killed him off anyway (writer's strike anyone) or he left under bad terms. But considering how "dead" he had to be in the last episode, he did an amazing job.

We'll see if any info surfaces after sweeps.

Veteran's Day

What a way to start the day- Golden Army images

Monday morning brings a day off, and I figured I would start the day with some Hellboy: The Golden Army concept art. I loved the first movie and can't wait to see the deuce. Images courtesy of Wizard's Universe.

That's a really big gun! And I thought "The Samaritan" was huge...

They killed Hector!?!?!?!?!

For those of you who are fans of "The Unit" on CBS, we got a complete shock last night when they killed off Hector Williams instead of Charles Grey.

We hardly knew you Hector... RIP Hammerhead.

No news on this one yet, but when I find something I'll post.

UPDATE: This is the most hush-hush TV story out there. I'm looking through my new issue of TV Guide and I reading spoilers on what gonna happen on Heroes in December, but I can't find one story on why the writers killed Hector. Unless next week's episode answers all those nagging questions and theories that we have...

The one theory I've seen mentioned is that maybe Ryan had Hector done in cause he saw the Colonel and Tiffy together, which you have to admit has merit, but after everything Ryan and the Unit has been through so far this season, and I can't buy into this. Ryan was ready to throw it all away to save his men. If Ryan wanted Hector to stay quiet, there are a lot of less life-ending ways he could have done it.

However this turns out, it has made for some awesome TV!

Tastes Like Chicken

A funny thing happened on the way to the civic center...

Well, I just got back from my very first Alternative Education Association (AEA) conference, and a good time was had by all.

My cohorts and myself traveled down to Distgusta (Oops, I mean Augusta) this morning for the all day event. Most of the sessions were well done and very informative. It is always great when you go to a conference and actually get some information that can actually be used in everyday life. We came away with a couple of jems that we are going to use on, I mean with, the students.

Now, this is the first time that all three of us were going to be gone at the same time, and after we told the kids we were giving them the day off, we found out we were going to have substitutes to fill our shoes. Now, this could have gone a whole lot of ways wrong. But, thank God, it didn't. Most of the kids showed up, which is amazing in itself, and the place was still standing when we got back, which is also amazing. One of the subs knows our kids very well and was way more positive about the kids behavior today than the new sub. When reported that the kids just sat around and did no work, the sub was very disappointed at this. Well, in a regular setting, probably so, but, seeing who are population is and what could have happened, this was a walk in the park.

Plus, my English class went great!!! They worked hard and did a good job. Oh, I've got them trained...

Now, we are off to some friends to play games, eat and party down!!!

TLC

Marvel does it right again

Unlike the fiasco made with movie titles like Spider-Man 1, 2 and 3, Marvel has done it right again with the new Wolverine movie.

The film, do out in May 2009, is called X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

How cool a title is that?!?! I mean, Marvel did a good job by naming the two FF movies Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I really hate it when companies go with the very lame 1 and 2s in a movie title. I mean, c'mon, give us the movie viewer some credit for figuring out the title orders of a series of movies.

But until Wolverine comes out, we have Iron Man.

What a week...

I don't know about you, but it has been a crazy, busy week here. Since my triumphant return from Blueberry Mountain, it has been nose to the grindstone.

School has been ridiculously busy, barely having time to breath during the day. And then the real fun starts...

Monday afternoon/evening (not too late at least), Pop-in-law and I made a run to the "New and Improved" hunting camp with some furniture and cupboards.

Tuesday I skipped Man-Group so to have a night at home with the Mrs. (Sorry guys)

Wednesday brings music practice. While time consuming, it is a lot of fun.

Thursday night I volunteered to help with our Alpha group at church. Then, it was Halo night! Then Red Sox! Oh yeah!!!

So here it is Friday night, and the Missus and I are catching up on some shows that we missed this week. Smallville was fantastic, and Supernatural is great as always, one of my faves.

Saturday brings a little drywall action at my buddy Scott's. Jess is off to Rockland to visit with the rest of the fam.

Hopefully, Sunday will bring a little rest. But I wouldn't trade it all for the world.

Tastes Like Chicken

A Weekend Away-A Man Advance

I just spent the weekend at Blueberry Mountain Bible Camp for what we are calling our first of many "Growing Men of Integrity" men's conferences. Instead of calling it a "retreat", usually a time to kind of get away from everything and collect our thoughts and regroup, we decided to call it an "advance", because that is what a good soldier does in this battle we are fighting with Satan, the world, and our sinful natures.

We left church at around 3:3o on Friday afternoon to head to Weld, where the facility is that we stayed at. We arrived around 6:30 to a great meal. Then we kicked off our festivities for the weekend.

Bruce Johnson, our Outreach pastor was the keynote speaker, and the theme was becoming "revolutionaries" for Christ, which is what we are really called to be, that is not to conform to the cultural norms of our world and sometimes even the norms of the church world that keep us from fulfilling the purpose for which we were created for by God. It was a great kickoff and we had a great time of sharing and bonding as a group of guys.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at 7:30, started our morning at around 8:00 with some music and more "revolutionary" thinking. We went until about 10:30 and then we all were shocked by what came next: free time! Most conferences you go to are booked every second so you have no downtime and you're exhausted, but not ours. From 10:30 to 5:oo was all ours.

While some relaxed by reading, hanging out and checking out the facilities, a group of us I'm calling the "Blueberry Mountain Six" decided to tackle the local mountain (elevation 2950') whose trailhead is located right by the camp.

Now, the trail was rated at a "2" on the difficulty scale, and once you are on it, you realize that whoever decided that this trail deserved a "2" never climbed it or was smoking something a little funny. Leaves, running water and at times almost near verticle climbs made this one of the most challenging trails I have personally done. But we were all in the same boat physically, took our time, and were greatly rewarded by the beautiful colors of the Fall foliage and the 360º views from the top. We'll definitely do this climb again at next year's conference and a planned trip to Katahdin is on the docket for next Spring. Time to start working out for that one...

After our grueling trek, we returned to an amazing meal prepared by the camp staff and then a great night of discussion and learning about our God and King.

Sunday morning after breakfast we met for our last session which started out with an amazing time of praise. Then we had our best time of discussion and bonding yet. The cool thing is that when you spend a weekend together hanging out and sharing your thoughts and feelings with others guys you get a real sense of transparency and honesty you just don't get in church on Sunday morning. What an amazing time!!!

Tastes Like Chicken: Water

Thor, The God of Thunder

Marvel Comics isn't sparing any change when it comes to making movies, and the newest one has piqued my interest. Enter: Thor! And here are the potentials, and most of them would be perfect.

Kevin McKidd as Thor With a hefty dose of Scottish swagger, the gravelly voiced star of NBC’s “Journeyman” exudes the perfect attitude to bring the Thunder God to theaters. Add that to McKidd’s sword-swinging action résumé in HBO’s “Rome” and the recent “The Last Legion,” and you’ve got Mjolnir’s new master.

Jesse Spencer as Donald Blake Thor’s physician alter ego needs to have the same look as his godly counterpart, but with a much frailer physique. “House” co-star Spencer has the perfect mix of charm and nerdiness.

Linda Cardellini as Jane Foster Blake’s assistant needs a specific kind of gal Friday sexy, and “E.R.” actress Cardellini exudes more than enough “girl next door” hotness to coerce fans into scheduling multiple doctor’s appointments.

Cillian Murphy as Loki Previous roles in “Batman Begins” and “Red Eye” were scary enough, but with a touch of CGI, Murphy’s take on the persuasive and perverse trickster god Loki could be the most frightening comic villain in screen history.

Kate Beckinsale as Lady Sif Female furies who kick ass and carry big swords are hard to find. Luckily, Beckinsale can pull off the action heroine part (a la “Underworld”) without snuffing out her smoldering hotness.

Cilian Murphy and Kate Beckinsale are amazing choices, and Kevin McKidd is a great looking choice, but in my opinion to be a real Thor he has got to beef up a bit. This one will be one to watch for.

More on Gore and the Nobel faux pas...

I'm not the only one it thinks it in bad taste that the Nobel committee gave a Peace Prize to Al Gore while overlooking some people who were actually worthy of the prestigious award. My buddy Peter points this out:

This year, though, the committee outdid itself. Here's who it ignored in favor of Gore:

Irena Sendler, born in 1910, was raised by her Catholic parents to respect and love people regardless of their ethnicity or social status. Her father, a physician, died from typhus that he contracted during an epidemic in 1917. He was the only doctor in his town near Warsaw who would treat the poor, mostly Jewish victims of this tragic disease. As he was dying, he told 7-year-old Irena, "If you see someone drowning you must try to rescue them, even if you cannot swim." In 1939 the Nazis swept through Poland and imprisoned the Jews in ghettos where they were first starved to death and then systematically murdered in killing camps. Irena, by than a social worker in Warsaw, saw the Jewish people drowning and resolved to do what she could to rescue as many as possible, especially the children. Working with a network of other social workers and brave Poles, mostly women, she smuggled 2,500 children out of the Warsaw ghetto and hid them safely until the end of the war.

Sendler was tortured and nearly killed for her principles.

Peter also links to a post about how old Al Gore doesn't even live according to his own proclamations. Gore's "Carbon Footprint" is BIG!

They'll give these things to anyone...

Al Gore and U.N. Climate Panel win a Nobel Prize. Somebody had a little too much to drink while selecting this one. This was a bad decision for a couple of reasons.

First, it's Al Gore, they guy who "invented" the internet. The really funny thing is I found a site that defends Gore's statement and tries to explain it. It think it is pretty clear irregardless of the context:

But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Looks like a pretty clear cut statement to me. Anyway, here is a great article by Steven Hayward about Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize. Some highlights:

Parson Al winning the Nobel Peace Prize was as predictable as his Oscar for Best Documentary, and represents the final debasement of a once-prestigious award. It used to be that the award went to people of genuine humanitarian or diplomatic accomplishment, like Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer or Doctors Without Borders. Now it goes to frauds and poseurs like Rigoberta Menchu, Yassir Arafat, the U.N. (three times now, counting Gore’s co-winner, the U.N.’s climate change panel), and Jimmy Carter. About the only way to top this would be to give the next Peace Prize to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. More likely the Nobel committee will, one of these days, simply pat itself on the back and give the award to . . . themselves.

The glitter of the Nobel overshadows the inconvenient news reported last week that a British court of law labeled Gore’s movie as partisan political propaganda, pointing out 11 different errors of fact or scientific judgment, and prohibiting its screening in British public schools without a disclaimer of these defects. The Nobel will be one more quiver in Gore’s arsenal of intransigent moral authority by which he refuses to debate any aspect of the subject and declares the entire matter “settled.” It’s never a good sign when politicians declare a scientific matter settled; we all remember how well that worked out for the Vatican when they told Galileo 400 years ago that astronomy was settled. It is even more problematic to suggest that climate change is not a political issue, but a moral issue, but then to demand massive political interventions in the economy to fix the problem.

Likewise, climate change is a real phenomenon, but the catastrophic scenario of Gore and his fellow climate campaigners is steadily fraying around the edges if you follow the scientific literature closely. Has anyone noticed, for example, that global temperature has been flat for the last decade, after two decades of slow and steady increase from 1980 to 1998? Most of the climate models suggest global temperature should be consistently warming with the rise of greenhouse gases, but it has stopped. This increasingly inconvenient truth will eventually become too obvious for even the media to ignore. Meanwhile, the real world economic consequences of Gore’s policy agenda (which Obama and Edwards—but not Hillary—have signed up for) are so extreme that no self-governing people will ever submit to it, which is why a few environmentalists have gone so far as to say openly, “down with democracy.” Go ahead; make my day; try that out on the American people. The Democratic Congress can’t even pass a modest emissions trading scheme that would barely begin to enact Gore’s agenda, because they are afraid of its cost.

Next, there is the problem with the science of Global Warming. Richard Lindzen, an MIT scientist, is refuting the findings of the U.N. and Gore:

The reports maintain that there's more than a 90 percent chance that human activity—primarily the burning of fossil fuels, resulting in increased levels of atmospheric CO2—is responsible for the earth's recent warming, which amounts to a 1.2-degree-Fahrenheit rise in global mean temperature over the past 100 years. Noting that the current atmospheric concentration of CO2 is higher than it's been in the past 650,000 years, the IPCC predicts that human-induced climate change could spell extinction for 20 to 30 percent of the world's species by the end of this century, cause increasingly destructive weather patterns, and flood coastal cities.

Lindzen doesn't dispute that the planet has warmed up in the past three decades, but he argues that human-generated CO2 accounts for no more than 30 percent of this temperature rise. Much of the warming, he says, stems from fluctuations in temperature that have occurred for millions of years—explained by complicated natural changes in equilibrium between the oceans and the atmosphere—and the latest period of warming will not result in catastrophe.

Okay, that's enough. I'm going to go continue my ground-breaking research into re-creating the internet and put my name in for one of them there fancy and relatively easy to get Peace Prizes...

Hopefully they don't get stuck in the ice as well...

Some of descendants Ernest Shackleton and his crew are attempting to replicate the failed "Nimrod" Antarctic trek of 1908 and reach the South Pole.

Of course, Shackleton is best known for his 1914 Endurance expedition that is known as one of if not the greatest survival stories of all time.

28 crew members trapped on the ice flows of the Weddell Sea for almost 2 years, and they were all rescued. Remarkable.

Pushing Daisies -

We'll start with the fluff today, and that fluff is Pushing Daisies. I would dare say that this is my favorite new show this season. Great fun, especially with Kristin Chenoweth singing "Hopelessly Devoted to You" to Digby the dog while pining away for the Pie Maker.

I hope this one sticks around.

Tastes Like Chicken: Bacon