Confessions of a Hipster

Some of you may not be entirely sure what a hipster is...

That's okay, just watch this video:

Some Great Old School Hockey Moments...

Wayne Gretzky was not known for being a tough guy in the NHL, but in this old clip he goes for it with an LA Kings player, and he probably realized during the course of this altercation that he should steer clear of fights and just score goals...


Here, Mario Lemieux scores FIVE goals in one game, but the crazy part is he scores every possible TYPE of goal as he does it: Even strength; Short-handed; Power-Play; Penalty shot; and Empty net. Wow...


On YouTube, this video is simply titled "World's Best Penalty Shot." I couldn't title it any better...


In this clip, Mark Messier of the New York Rangers catches the Dallas Stars' Mike Modano in the head with his shoulder and Modano goes out like a light. He's out cold for a significant amount of time, but as if that's not bad enough, watch what happens at 1:20!!

Old Spice Commercials...

A medley of some of the new "odor-blocking body wash" commercials...

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Speaking With Conviction

This post is not about sharing one's faith, but it IS about speaking in such a way as to communicate the confidence you have in what you are saying!

Frog Fail

New Year's Resolution: Blog Less...Apparently

I don't even really have anything to say, except that we're heading away for the weekend tomorrow to Las Vegas. Cool huh?

Actually, it will be cool; it's supposed to be in the high 50s the whole weekend with a chance of rain! Ah well, that's what you get when you vacation in February. We're going with Jeff and Karina Culbertson (Jess' coworker) and staying at the Trump Tower (oooooooh!) which is a non-gambling hotel (weird).

I've only been to Vegas a handful of times. The first time was for my Bachelor Party in May 2006. I drove over with Josh Wataru and Conor Smith, and I read them The DaVinci Code most of the way. It was fun. Real fun. We saw Mission Impossible III while we were there.

This post exists solely for the purpose of taking up space, and so that two guys I know that follow my blog on their iPhone can get all excited for the little "1" that's gonna show up. Then they'll read this and be like "what the heck; what a waste." HA.

So I'll leave you with a video of my band Petty Crux playing a tune called "Hello" at the Dakota Music Lounge last month. We have another show there on Saturday, March 6th, which will be my final show with them as I need to protect more time for work and family. If you're around, I'd love for you to come down! More details soon.

Half Life in Engrish?

I've never even played this game, but my friend showed me this video...

Watch Out! Olympic-Size Fail

The High Cost of Getting Directions

I generally will only use the "street view" option in Google Maps if I'm unfamiliar with the area to which I'm headed. I will use it differently now.

CLICK HERE

One Million Frames Per Second

Some of these films were taken at the rate of 1,000,000 pictures per second!It's some beautiful film work showing the destructive magnificence of a bullet impact on various materials. Sometimes the bullet shoots right through, sometimes it wreaks havoc on the material as it pierces it, and sometimes the bullet shatters to pieces.

It's a ten minute video, so if you want to fast forward to the "highlights" then skip to about 4:00 and 6:20

Great Cover! Paramore -->Kings of Leon

I found this video of Paramore covering the Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody" and it's fantastic! It's from the Kings of Leon's album "Only By The Night" which any fan of good rock and roll should own. I'd always been a marginal fan of them, but this album is stellar from start to finish!

I'm more and more impressed by Paramore as well. I have their album "Riot" which is definitely very catchy and energetic. I'm curious to see how they'll evolve as a band in the coming years. Their front-woman, Hayley is really good. Apparently she was only 17 when the band released their first album. Not bad.

Puppy Can't Roll Back Over

He's like a little turtle!!

Two Days

Well, the rest of today, plus tomorrow, and then I can pick it up Monday! My new 137.

I guess a lot can happen in two days. The footage of Michael Jackson's last rehearsal was taken TWO DAYS before his death. According to "Science Daily" all of the earth's seasons are now arriving TWO DAYS earlier. The new Kindle DX sold out in just TWO DAYS. And A-Rod can turn his game completely around with just TWO DAYS of rest.

So to pass the time, I've got lots of activities going on. Did I mention that Jess is in Kentucky visiting her dad and his family?? She left this past Sunday (7/5) and gets back Wednesday (7/22). Yeah, 18 days. I KNOW. I'm over it. But like I said, plenty going on to keep me busy.

Tonight I'm going with a buddy to watch some big UFC fight. Apparently this is a pretty big fight, and a couple people I've told have said "oh yeah, I'm watching it too!" Tomorrow will be normal church in the morning, but then we've got a "Summer Sizzling Spectacular" in the afternoon/evening that should take up a good chunk of time. Then Monday morning I'll roll down to Hollywood and pick up my new treasure. It was a used item, so they had to hold it for 20 days to make sure it wasn't stolen. It was well taken care of, and I got it for about $850 cheaper than a new one. I'm excited!

To close, here's video of an 11 year old Korean boy who learned guitarist Andy McKee's arrangement of Toto's "Africa" in just two days.

Here's McKee's performance of the piece.

I Went To The Michael Jackson Memorial

I decided, just for fun, to try and enter the drawing for tickets to the memorial service at Staples Center this past Tuesday morning. I went to the website, but was disappointed to find that they had closed registrations. Bummer.

Then I get a call on Monday afternoon from my friend Jon. He says "I have probably the strangest question I've ever asked anyone..." And proceded to tell me that he actually HAD registered and actually HAD won tickets! He picked them up from Dodger stadium, and had gotten seats inside the Staples Center, and not next door at the Nokia.

So I left on the 6:08am metrolink train from Santa Clarita (with all the traffic closures and tight security, we were advised to be there really early), and arrived at Union Station at 7:03. I got a text from Jon at about 7:15 saying he was on his way (on the Gold Line), but was running late 'cause he overslept.

He got there eventually, and we jumped on the Red Line to 7th street and walked the rest of the way to the arena, passing all the bootleg memorabillia on the way (shirts, buttons, stickers, lanyards, other random junk).

I loved Michael's music growing up. His "Dangerous" album was one of the first albums I ever owned (on cassette tape!), along with "Totally Krossed Out" by rapper teens Kris Kross, and the soundtrack to the Disney Afternoon. My musical tastes have always been pretty varied. I recently acquired his "Off The Wall" album on original vinyl, and have always kept digital copies of his albums handy, even his "Invincible" album.

I would dress up like him, and attach keychains and various other metal items to black jackets, and practice my moonwalk in socks on the wood floor. I believe I may have even had some of my stuffed animal friends perform his songs in concert in our hallway (totally serious; just ask my brother)

The actual service got off to a little bit of a slow start when Smoky Robinson came up and read letters from Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela, and then nothing else happened for upwards of 10 minutes. The crowd was eerily quiet, as family and friends arrived most likely from the private service that had been held earlier that morning.

Once it got rolling, the transitions were pretty smooth, and the performers were tasteful and respectful of the occasion. My two favorite performances were John Mayer's instrumental version of "Human Nature" (on of my Jackson faves),

and Jennifer Hudson singing "Will You Be There" (the Free Willy song).

There were numerous testimonies and eulogies that were really appropriate for the setting. It was interesting to note that many people had a sort of god-esque faith in this man. I heard on more than one occasion that Michael Jackson "taught us how to love." He was also credited with giving the world hope, and breaking down racial and ethnic barriers. I suppose to some degree he did do those things through his art, and through his humanitarian efforts (Jackson is in the Guiness Book of World Records for Pop Star Who Supports the Most Charities), but did Michael Jackson really teach the world to love? REALLY???

I don't like to hold non-believers accountable to all of the same standards we try to hold to as believers (they aren't Christians, why should I expect them to act that way? That would only contribute to their sense of being "good enough" and earning a way into heaven...), but when there ARE references to a Judeo-Christian background, and belief that Michael is in heaven, then we gotta hold the line. I know Michael was a Jehovah's Witness growing up, but that later on in life, he became more pluralistic in his views of world religions. He was always a "spiritual" guy, but it seems like he became pretty religiously ambiguous. I obviously would have loved to have known that he was saved, but I don't, so I didn't pretend to agree by nodding my head or saying "amen" (as many did) when someone referenced God, or that Michael was looking down on us, or when Stevie Wonder said that as much as we needed him here with us, "God must have needed him far more." Yeah, like God NEEDS anything. I'm sure He was doing just fine...

I'm not going to waste time criticizing, but I will say what I was reminded of because of the service. I was reminded that I have a hope that is so much freakin' better than the hope that Michael Jackson gave to people. I was reminded that the one who taught ME how to love didn't spend useless years of his life mired in child molestation charges (whether he did or didn't do it isn't the point...). I was reminded that the one who "broke down racial and ethnic barriers" didn't try to alter himself through countless plastic surgeries to seemingly transform from a black man into a white woman (skin disease or not, how many noses has he gone through?).

My "Michael Jackson" lived over 2,000 years ago, and lived the perfect life that I could never live so that I could be reconciled to the holy God I'd infinitely offended in my sins. Hopefully, my very life is a memorial to Jesus every day. Then again, most memorials are for dead people, which he isn't, so...

13 Days

So I have thirteen days to go before I can pick up the new ES.

Apparently "13 Days" is a phrase commonly used to refer to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. That year, Cuban and Soviet governments decided to place nuclear missiles on Cuba to protect it from US harassment. When the US discovered this, panic ensued as they tried to remove the missiles. This was one of the moments in during the cold war where we really came close to a nuclear war! CRAZY.

I just finished reading a book called "The Last Oracle" which had a large portion of its plot center around the ruins of the Soviet nuclear age, specifically the disaster at Chernobyl. It's really fascinating stuff; that we can manipulate nature to the point that it becomes highly toxic to our bodies, and that if we are exposed to radioactive materials for long enough, it can kill us!

The areas surrounding that nuclear disaster have suffered long term consequences of that horrible reality. I came across a fascinating, if very sad, photo journalism presentation on the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl which you can find by CLICKING HERE. CLICK HERE for another slide show of the abandoned town of Pripyat which was the little village built to house the workers of the nuclear plant.

In conclusion, here are some 13-day old Labrador puppies:

20 Days To Go...

I'm counting down the days until I can pick up a recent acquisition...

These are some of the videos that come up when I searched for "20 Days" on YouTube:

Talking Animals?

It figures that this would only be in Candada...


This on the other hand is real!


Search YouTube for "talking animals" and you can easily waste a good half hour...

Patience - Pt 1

Usually I am a pretty patient person. I have to be patient for the next 22 days. July 13th is the day.

While I wait, I will remind myself that people who lose their patience and flip out are like the following guy in an elevator.

I suppose if I really wanted to make the time pass faster, I could try and sleep more. Remember when you were in the car for a long trip, and you were like "ugghhh, this stinks..." and then you fell asleep? Yep, when you woke up, you had that drool all over your face to be sure, but you were THERE! I don't know if I can justify all that extra napping though...I may have to get this mixed martial arts chick to do the same thing to me as she does to this interviewer guy at 4:30...

Resolved 2009 is HERE

Jess and I are leaving today for Palm Springs! Looking forward to a spectacular week of relaxing, worshiping, and hearing some killer teaching.

Here's a video of Bob Kauflin's song "Let Your Kingdom Come" from last year's conference!

Total Eclipse of the Heart (Literal Video)