If you want to be transported to a level of euphoria unlike any joy or pleasure that has ever before been experienced by man save pure glorification of God, GO HERE & DOWNLOAD & WATCH. OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

UPDATE: New Line Cinema told TheOneRing.net to take the trailer down [apparently it wasn't supposed to be released for another couple of months], but I have a copy. So if you want to see it, e-mail me and I'll send it to you.

DEFEND YOUR CASTLE

just do it and see what happens

'Privacy, Economics, and Price Discrimination on the Internet' [pdf]

a beginner's guide to the Theory of Relativity

Glock17. Everyone loves you. G-Dawgs and Cops alike
fancy you. Aren't you just special?


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CBS, ABC, and MSNBC all mention on their respective websites the fact that NYC councilman James Davis was black, but fail to note that his murderer was also black — a fact I wouldn't have known had FoxNews not reported it. CNN even went to the trouble of citing two conflicting descriptions of the assailant while leaving out the most obvious recognizable feature that those at the scene all seem to agree on — his color: "Police Commissioner Ray Kelly described the shooter as a man wearing either a blue suit or a blue blazer. A witness described the shooter as a man in his 40s wearing a cream-colored suit." Given the media's propensity to immediately jump on and report as fact any wild speculation that comes their way, I find it hard to believe that this is coincidental.

Years ago my parents told me I would eventually need braces. I was maybe 6 or 7 years old at the time, and the idea of having a stranger attach metal to my teeth scared me. I'd heard it was painful. My parents tried to reassure me, telling me there may be pain, but that when the time came it wouldn't be that bad. In fact, when it was over and my braces were removed, I'd be better off than before. I wanted to believe them, but I was still anxious, and decided to put it out of my mind and just have fun being a kid. I wanted to avoid the inevitable, but knew I couldn't, so I decided to just not think about it.

Years later I had my braces installed, worked on, and removed. It took a while, and yeah, it hurt, but it wasn't that much more painful than your average trip to the dentist. By that time, though, I knew the cost was nothing compared to the improvements my body would gain. To know this and still be afraid would have been senseless and foolish.

Death is kinda like that — the wiser you become the less you fear it. But unlike getting braces, you can't trust time alone to build your wisdom. You can't just not think about it and hope it'll all turn out okay. Death is something to be feared, but only for the non-elect. If our trust is in Christ, we will be delivered out of death and into eternal communion with our Savior. This should be enough to make death something to look forward to, but it's not easy. Our faith needs to be strengthened, and we can do this by reading and believing God's Word. 'For God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death.' [Psa. 48:14]

"You know me -- if anybody wanted me to be in a movie with dope in it, I'm there," Chong joked. "But Cheech really protected the image. Those characters have been untouched, and now it's so fun to be back under that classic umbrella." [...]

Tartan Ties — this first article on the relationship between Scotland and the South was written by my dad and is a phenomenally better read than this article, A Sense of Place [credit to Jon Amos for finding this], but both are definitely worth checking out.

the plymouth overturned
the ground around it burned
it's true a ton of car
consumed in pretty reds and blues

black smoke
blocked out the sun today
but cars are overrated
I've got legs anyway

I think it's sad to see kids want so badly to get away from their home-towns. I see it all the time at school. Most of the students here can't wait to graduate so they can move out West or up North or anywhere, really, as long as it's nowhere as boring as this place. They want California or New York, but will settle for Atlanta or Jacksonville or Dallas. It's not just a matter of appreciating the South, though, it's a matter of taking pride in where you grew up and who your family is.

It happens all over America, too. We're one huge transient culture — nobody's comfortable for long in one place. There are those up North, believe it or not, who romanticize the South and dream of living here. It's not that I don't welcome such interest in our area, but I'm concerned for anyone who would forsake his own heritage for another, even one from such an undeniably great place as the South. There's something about how all these kids tattoo themselves with tribal patterns and eastern lettering that's kind of disturbing. Why is marking yourself with someone else's cultural symbols considered cool? Why do people want so badly to be something they're not?

Maybe some are ashamed of where they come from, and maybe they have reason to be, but there's nothing as worthless as switching from one Godless culture to another. The more wicked someone's culture is, the more reason there is to stick with it and rejoin it with Christ and His family. I guess this responsibility is too much for some people.

"Balram could not stop in time and banged into the trolley. The iron rods pierced through his neck. His head fell on one side, attached precariously to the spinal cord.

"He was fully conscious and all his organs were in command. Promptly, Balram straightened his head and tied a 'safi' (a thin cloth towel) around it and rushed towards Agra. Whoever saw the scene couldn't believe his eyes. The crowd that assembled around did nothing.

"When Balram tried to speak, blood oozed from his mouth. [...]

Until the OCTODOG, these were the only two things you really didn't want to see get made.

As if being stuck inside the 20th of July yesterday wasn't enough, it was only 2 minutes ago that I realized it was the 22nd. I've been telling people it was the 20th all day....very unsettling. I mean, Sunday was really great, but Mondays and Tuesdays are good, too.

Most of you have probably been there before, but for those who haven't [and for those who've forgotten about it], here's Homestar Runner. Aside from the remarkably good flash-work, the rest of the site's pretty not-so-crappy also, if you ask me. Strongbad's E-mails are the awesomest part....here are the links to a few of my personal favorites: english paper, japanese cartoon, lures & jigs, invisibility.

I've added a link for Gizmodo, a blog with posts about all the really cool tech-gadgets that are constantly being produced. Definitely worth checkin' out.

Also, if you get a chance, I strongly suggest you download Switchfoot's This Is Your Life [on the right sidebar] — good stuff.

Jen is back [!], but Jenn seems to have gone away :(

While I'm on the subject of politics instead of religion, has anyone else noticed that the only time the courts invoke the fundamentally libertarian nature of our Constitution is when they're ruling on sex? The state tells us what kind of vehicles to drive (which your vehicle is the most IMPORTANT part of your life ;-) ), whether we can or can't start businesses, how to discipline our kids, where we can and can't live, what we can and can't do to our houses and property, what schools our kids go to, what they learn there, whether or not we can let other people smoke in the buildings we build, what kind of guns we can buy and when and for what reasons, who we can hire and fire, and how to "save" for retirement (put it in a 0% interest government IOU).

Apparently, those things don't have much to do with the kind of liberty the Constitution was designed to protect. But sex, on the other hand, sex is what this country is built on, dammit! [link]

Ain't It Cool News has it up.

check out this utterly bizarre British TV spot.
[works better if you right-click it and hit 'Save Target As']

Strongly Cautioned. Some material in your journal may be inappropriate to younger or close-minded people. This signifies that your journal is probobly inappropriate for pre-teens. people should be especially careful about adding you because they could possibly be offended. Rough or persistent violent talk is absent; sexually-oriented nudity is generally absent; some talk of drug use may be present from time to time in your journal; You may find a fair amount of sex talk here.

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Alas! CWSC is now and I am not there. Were that I had been conscious of the great discontent my absence would contrive against me. I miss the salad.

The accent. The (mostly) warm weather. A church on every other block. Chick-fil-a. McGuire's. The way complete strangers treat you like family. Grits. The way you can't ever need help down here and not get it. Florida. Alabama. Georgia. Collard and turnip greens. Southern girls. The Family Advance. Hearing the occasional Christian song on a secular station. ATL airport. Southern girls (God bless 'em). Sausage is for breakfast, not dinner. The Church in Valparaiso. Cornbread. Wal-Mart. 238. The pure white sand and clear Gulf water of Northwest Florida. My family. The Sound. How every Southern state (not including New Mexico) voted Republican in 2000. The Christian Worldview Student Conference in VA. Southern Comfort. Hardee's is Hardee's, not Carl's Jr. Okaloosa-Walton Community College in Niceville. Cracker Barrel. Good ol' boys. William Faulkner. The way many northerners hate us (we must be doing something right). Sweet iced tea.

this looks like fun....

During my broke-down-car-induced sabbatical from work, I’ve had a lot of extra time on my hands to do some things I’ve needed to do, and that’s kept me pretty busy. But that stuff hasn’t taken up all my time, so I’ve been reading a lotta Tolkien and downloading a few Simpsons and Enterprise episodes. Enterprise started out of a desire for some kind of TV show but no clear idea of what TV shows were worth downloading. I’d never seen it, but I used to love The Next Generation and even watched Voyager for a while. I sort of dropped out of the habit, but after downloading my first Enterprise last week, I’ve started to get back into it. Even the cheesy intro song (penned by Diane “How Do I Live” Warren) has grown on me. If you haven’t seen it, you should give it a shot. You know you want to.

because I didn't have anything to post. Did you want to read about all the rain we got thanks to Bill? I don't really have much to post now, either, except to mention that I had nothing to post yesterday (in fact, Blogger erased the post I just made, so you're getting less than you would have). I feel like I should say something else, now, because you're here and that's what you want (maybe?).

I moved my monitor from the coffeetable to the floor in the far corner of my living room. This is where I post, and where I check my e-mail and do my work: in one of those one-piece floor chairs that rock (and they do) with my feet stretched out in front, a keyboard in my lap and an optical mouse sitting on top of the phonebook and a copy of Thompson and Strickland's Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases that I bought for my policy class this summer but never used. Shame, really, because it was the first brand-new textbook I'd gotten for less than $60 (and $60 is an awesome deal, but I don't have to tell you that if you go to school) and I was really looking forward to using it. I'm sure it will come in handy for when I open Bucer's, Destin.

Ok, I'm done. Now go read Rick's question on Southern hospitality, and the discourse that goes with it.