blogging against the church

the washington post has an interesting article regarding this issue.

i've considered doing this.

but then i think: why should the whole church be punished for the actions of a few?

i guess it's difficult no matter what you do in church leadership, as you're not just leading a flock of people, you're also running a business. where does the "tending the sheep" end and the "business" begin? at what point does the responsibility for an individual's spiritual and mental health end and the responsibility to the business-end (financial?) of the church pick up?

strong you are with the force, hmm?

this is a crude caricature of one of my best friends, travis, otherwise known as t-bone. on this particular day that the caricature was drawn, t-bone was looking a lot like captain kangaroo.

travis and i met five long years ago at Cincinnati Christian University. it's a rather funny story, but let's cut to the chase, shall we?

travis is funny. i have been accused of being funny. together, we're a bundle of inappropriate fun.

over the years, we've terrorized CCU proper and CCU faculty with such antics as going around the campus plastering the "every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten" pictures all over (on office doors, in place of peoples faces on pictures, in windows, under the Dean's door, etc) and doing our Two-Headed Mr. Know-It-All routine (to the amazement and annoyance of all around) to pass the time. we also have swapped out and taught each others' youth groups too many times to count, gotten our women together and been silly, eaten more indian food than is legally allowable in the state of ohio and we've plumbed the depths of urinals at rest stops in rural illinois. travis is my best friend and i love him to death. we have waay too much fun together.

but none of this has anything to do with why i'm blogging about him.

travis is one of the funniest people i know. he is able to do an imitation of Yoda that just makes me crack up (and more often than not, fall out of my chair in laughter and tears). not only does he do a killer Yoda, he is also able to do a very twisted version of Elmo. to make matters worse, he has the uncanny ability to imitate Yoda and Elmo together having a conversation and i must tell you that i'm laughing even now as i think about it.

it's so bad that i was almost run over by a car in downtown st. louis because i was laughing so hard at one of his "conversations" - hahahaa.... oh. ok. stop laughing. breathe.

anyway, this Yoda "Got Milk" ad reminded me of him and as i told him at dinner tonight, i need to get it to him. what better way than by blogging about him?

as always, you can click on the pictures to see a bigger version of it. enjoy!

president logan sucks

this'll be a short one.

i really hate president logan. he makes my skin crawl. i have this overwhelming urge to scream like a possessed man and claw his eyeballs out any time i see him.

i've tolerated his wishy-washy presidential performance during last season's 24, but this is getting ridiculous. how did he suddenly come up with this nefarious scheme?? how do you go from zero to a hundred and twenty so quickly?

now, it's no surprise to folks who know us that we're not huge fans of television. lise and i are married to only a couple shows (well, two, really: 24 and the simpsons). most television makes my blood run lukewarm or even slow down to a trickle. this season of 24 is probably one of our least-favorites, but this man drives me friggin NUTS!

but to make matters worse - his poor wife! oy, i'm verklempt!

now, the thing that keeps me watching?

there's got to be something awful happening to president logan at the end of the season when all the chips are down and he's caught in a corner staring at the business end of Jack Bauer's gun.

and i'll be there. oh, yes. i'll be there!! muaah. muaahhahahahahaaa!

Casino Royale?

well, casino something.

lise and i have been on spring break this week and have been having a blast. sleeping in, chilling out together, long lunches, drives out to the middle of nowhere, gazing longingly into each others eyes, the soft touch, the kiss, the rush to the bedroom, the...

er, nevermind.

but on friday we decided to go to Applewood for lunch in Aurora, Indiana. They have the best ribs that i've ever had (and i'm convinced it's THE SAUCE).

while talking about what we'd do afterwards, the thing that came to my mind was: many folks we know do the casino thing over in indiana. family, friends, acquaintances. some take medium amounts of money, others take loads of money.

and they go to the casino and blow it.

so we thought: hey! i know! let's go see what all the hype is about!!

so we took $20 out of our change jar and off we went to the Grand Victoria in Rising Sun, Indiana.

folks, i gotta put a disclaimer in here: this post isn't to put down folks who enjoy gambling but it's an observation from my own perspective.

this is what we saw:
- smoke. lots of it. smoke smoke smoke. smelled it, too. smelled it for hours afterwards all over my clothes and hair. smoke.
- grey and blue hair. lots of little old ladies and little old men.
- wheelchairs. tons of em.
- handicapped people - being dragged around by little old ladies. this was strange.
- a lot of depressed looking folks sitting in the same spot for hours on end pushing buttons and pulling levers and for what? entertainment? money? something to fill the time before death?
- a lot of "what the hell are you looking at" looks from folks who looked like they were gonna shank me because maybe i wanted to get into "their seat" at "their slot machine"
- cash changing machines, ATM's and money-wiring services EVERYWHERE. they really want you to part with your cash.
- despair. depression. frustration. only one man in the whole time we were there (in three floors we explored) looked as though he was having a good time. hundreds and hundreds of other folks just. looked. miserable.

we took our $20, sat down in succession over 45 minutes at $1, $.25 and $.05 slots, ended up spending $8 of our own money, winning $10 and subsequently losing that $10.

it was possibly the dumbest thing i've ever done in my life. i just don't get it.

i've never understood it, really. i mean, the odds are clearly against you. the average joe doesn't stand a chance to win - if we did, casinos wouldn't be in business!

if the lottery is a tax on stupidity, what do we call gambling at the casino?

so you're in an airplane...

and it crashes. you're the only survivor. you manage to swim to a deserted island where you quickly convert your CD player to solar power using only coconut shells and palm fronds. now if only you had some CD's to play.

the next day, walking up the beach, oh my gosh! what's that?!? a package is floating near the shoreline. you run out into the surf to retrieve it and magically it contains the three CD's you wish you could listen to for the rest of your life!

with an average life expectancy of 77 years, you've got a long way to go. choose your three CD's wisely and please leave a comment with your choices. (note: your third CD can be a box set if you so choose).

my three:
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon
Waterdeep's Sink or Swim
John Coltrane & Miles Davis' The Complete Columbia Recordings

contemplating grad school

so as i ponder the fear and wonder of being registered, locked and loaded at xavier university, i couldn't help but laugh at a recent repeat of the simpsons.

it included this clip.

and in that vein, feel free to send loose change and large bill contributions to me via PayPal - my username is youthdude@gmail.com. on behalf of my wife and i, as well as my academic career, thank you.

what happens to toys at our house

lise and i have recently realized that we have a very smart dog with very powerful mandibles of death.

if you look at some of the first pictures we have
before we got him, then some of the pictures from those first couple weeks and even the offensive poop-eating post, you see this sweet, adorable little puppy.

and then he grows up.

dolby loves his toys. he's got a small basket with maybe 12-15 toys in them. some are balls, some are stuffed toys, some are ropes, some are Kongs.

he's taken to pulling the stuffing out of his stuffed toys. it was cute at first. we thought he was adorable and just being a sweet little puppy.

but then his baby teeth fell out.

and they were replaced with these huge, ferocious, chomping teeth that can seemingly plow through anything. mandibles of death.

we got him this stuffed hamburger toy a month or so ago. it lasted 3 weeks before the stuffing was out. i thought to myself, "hey - that's a pretty good toy that can last this long!" being the smart dude that i am, i went and bought him another.

i forgot. he's smart.

the second hamburger? lasted about five days. he had figured out what he had to do to get the thing open and unstuffed.

the Kong toys are supposed to be indestructable (especially the black ones - they're like steel belted radials) but he's already gone through three of them. we've only had him for 3 months.

but come on - isn't he adorable?

hey! stop chewing on the furniture!!

what an unusual feeling

tonight i graduated from college.

i've got so many emotions that i'm not sure what's what. it's like a dreadful elation.

how do i explain this?

i started college (univ. of cincinnati) when i was 19. i screwed off, didn't know what i wanted to do, took too many student loans, aimlessly took classes and then dropped out before i was kicked out.

when lise and i got married (15 1/2 long years ago) we moved to Washington DC for me to go back to college. one thing led to another and i dropped out after one semester there.

lise ended up going back to school and graduated back in 97.

we moved back to cincinnati for me to (wanna guess?) go back to school.

and now. five years later. age thirty seven. i'm finished.

elation because i'm done! woo-woo! elation because i now have the coveted four year undergraduate degree. elation because 5 years of hard work paid off!

dread because i'm done! dread because i now have a degree in something i no longer desire to do. dread because... do i have to grow up now?

i start at xavier for grad school the week before i walk the stage at graduation from CCU.

i guess if i were honest, fear is a part of these emotions, too. giddy fear.

so much has happened over the last 2 years.

well, graduation is may 13th at 10am at CCU. you're all invited, of course. even my stalkers.

music and language

last night lise and i were at toko baru in clifton after having a wonderful dinner at Apna India - while we were looking around, the music playing caught my ear. and kept catching it. i had to ask who it was and the answer was James Blunt.

now, i'm a big music guy and i'd heard the guys name used by a couple people and have read about him in the paper and magazines, but i'd not heard his music until then. well, lise went out on a shopping trip with Blunt's Back to Bedlam CD on her list.

it's fantastic.

but the purpose for the post focuses on the language.

i noticed while looking on amazon.com last night that there are two releases of the CD - the "Clean" version and the "Explicit Lyrics" version. i didn't think too much of it except to make sure that i didn't get the bleeped version of the album.

language has almost never played a part in my decisions on music or even movies. it's never been a big deal for me - being as hearing impaired as i am, i've always heard the music first and read the lyrics later (if ever - there are some songs that i LOVE but have NO idea what's being said, and this after 20+ years of listening to some of these songs).

but tonight i was talking with a friend about this and she mentioned how she was shocked when she heard the F-bomb dropped on Blunt's hit song, You're Beautiful after she bought the CD. Apparently the radio version isn't bleeped out as i imagined - it's replaced with "flying" instead of "effing".

now, my question for the masses (and seriously - take a second to respond, even just with a yes or no - i mean, you're already here reading this): Does language play a part in your decision whether you'll buy a CD or rent a movie? if so, how? if not, why not? is there a ratio of cursing to not cursing that is acceptable or not? for example, Blunt's CD contains what looks to be 3 or 4 curse words (the F word once, the S word once, "bastard" and maybe a "damn") - it's not like a 50 Cent album. does that matter?

thanks for your help.