This is pretty funny stuff...Amazon apparently sold 1000 Xbox 360s in 29 seconds.
Apparently Amazon's servers were crushed by this...
Here is the story over at Yahoo: Xbox sale slows Amazon.com - Yahoo! News
POC Blog
The random technotheolosophical blogging of Reid S. Monaghan
Borat...
Borat is the top movie in a America right now. But some Romanians claim they have been exploited and mocked for the sake of a buck. This is sad.
See this AP story: BREITBART.COM - Now Romanians Say 'Borat' Misled Them
Do you U2?
What do you think of the U2 Eucharist? See the link and respond below: USA Today - U2 Eucharist
More evidence...
More evidence of the sissification of America - Not it! Mass. elementary school bans tag... No more tag, or touch football...good grief.
My childhood days of smear the queer (I know that is not a PC name for a game - but we made no reference to anyone's sexuality - it was just tackle to the dude with the ball) and tackle football are long gone for these kids.
Toughen up your boys - we might need them some day to be able to do much more than "tag"
(HT - Mike Radcliffe)
Have a Salad...but hold the "God"
A friend of mine here in Franklin sent me a few links about the recent controversy with his company. Yes, the friendly world of Bob the Tomato has caused some buzz. Why? Well, Bob likes to tell the good folks at home that "God loves them very much" - Realizing the scandal of such statements in the religiously neutral public square, NBC decided last minute to begin the Gagging of the Tomato in order to keep the Gag on God.
You can read the story on Yahoo News here. Or watch a local Nashville newscast here.
For the True Star Wars Geek
Theo-Doping
When I heard Mark Driscoll talk about the huge commentary that he wrote on the book of Genesis along with the sermons, etc. I had my suspicions about how the brother was getting it all done. Now, it is clear - I assumed he was injected with genetically engineered Charles Hadden Spurgeon DNA, but I was wrong. He has been theo-doping. See the expose at Challies.com
Now feeling the temptation to take to theo-doping myself, I have resolved to remain faithful and rely only on the Holy Ghost, sleepless nights, lots of reading, a hope and a prayer. So far I don't have a 100 page commentary on Genesis, but I did just crank out a 7 page (single spaced mind you) dilly on Philippians. All clean, no roids...Take that to the house!
Also, Driscoll is a good sport, seeing his comment on Challies' post. Thanks guys, too much fun to be had in the theologically driven blog world...
Keep throwing the strikes guys...
America's Coffee and French Fries
This is an interesting pair of maps showing the growing global influence of Starbucks and the behemoth of McDonalds. Following the trail of materials to produce one ridiculously high priced cup of starbucks is an interesting thing indeed.
Elmo, Self Obsessed Kids, and the Red Demon of Sesame Street
One can run into excellent cultural analysis in the most suprising of places. I recently encountered two which deal with how we as Americans are raising our children. The first is a witty comentary by Joel Stein aptly titled Elmo Is an Evildoer - Los Angeles Times
Being an American parent of preschoolers I must readily confess that we have a few items of Elmo junk in the various toy boxes, closets and nooks of our house. But the reality is, when watches Elmo (we have one DVD) what emerges is pretty silly. Stein does a great job in looking at how the most incarnations of the Seasame Street TV franchise are reflecting the values we have in our day. Seasame Street is no longer dominated by Oscar, Big Bird, and Bert teaching kids lessons of friendship and responsibility, but rather a dumping batch of blabbering self obession which makes little kids center their lives on "ME, ME, ME." Believe me, the kiddos need no help in being self-centered creatures, sin secures this situation in their lives quite easily without any help from Elmo. Stein makes some really pithy observations about the fare offered today once someone tells you how to get to Seasme Street. I'll highlight a few:
The lesson they teach — in opposition to Oscar, Big Bird, Grover or Bert — is that bland neediness gets you stuff much more easily than character. We are breeding a nation of Anna Nicole Smiths.
I am not the only one who hates Elmo. Vernon Chatman and John Lee, the creators of MTV2's dark "Sesame Street" parody, "Wonder Showzen," think the evil red one is destroying the show.
"Elmo doesn't grow. People show him something and he laughs. He doesn't learn a lesson," says Lee. "It's the exact opposite of what old 'Sesame Street' used to do. Elmo has been learning the same lesson his whole life, which is that Elmo likes Elmo."
Is it any surprise that a culture whose gods are self-esteem, self-realization, self-actualization, self-help, self-worth, etc. would put before its children a little self-obsessed red puppet that loves to talk about himself in the third person? Recently while staying in a hotel while our son was in the NICU, I caught a show called My Super Sweet 16 which was about a spoiled rich girl and her indulgent sixteen year old birthday party. It seemed all this girl could think about was how I look, how jealous everyone is of ME, how she better get what she wants, and how she is to be the center of all things. Elmo would be proud. He lives in the same universe where the Sun about which all is to orbit is the self. Stein finishes his article about the little red Sesame demon with the following:
I desperately don't want the show to go away, so I know they can't afford to run the "Elmo accidentally drank bleach and died" episode. Instead, they need to simply take Elmo and his buddies and give them their own hourlong show for the idiot spawn. Then put Luis, Gordon and the cool Muppets on their own half-hour "Classic Sesame" for the kids who will one day actually contribute to our society.
Whichever of the two shows you watched would serve as a convenient litmus test for the rest of your life. "Which 'Sesame Street' did you watch?" will be code on college applications, Internet dating and job applications. Blue and red states will be divided not by presidential choices, but by Grover and Elmo.
If we can't save all the kids, let's at least save the ones who can master speaking in first-person. The rest we'll use for reality TV stars.
I think I just saw one of those reality TV kids celebrate her 16th birthday...I'll pray for the kids to be old school Sesame and leave Elmo's self-love world behind. A firm reading of Philippians 2 would do the kiddos well - count others more significant than yourselves, and don't talk about yourself in the third person.
Xbox Killing...
This is about as sad of a look at cultural state of affairs in some parts of our country. This article is from the Times in London commenting on a brutal murder which took place in 2004 after a dispute over an X-box.
We need to pray for the next generation in our country, labor to love those in our lives, and connect with the broken about us.
Here is the link: Xbox thrill killers must be executed, say jurors - World - Times Online
More than meets the eyes...
Yes, there will be a blast from many of our pasts here in the next year. The autobots and the decepticons will be launching into a full big screen production in July of 07. As a kid I jut loved the transformers and this movie looks to be a treat for sci-fi geeks.
We love things that change - a truck that can turn into a robot super hero. An evil dude that turns into a big gun, airplanes which flip and change into upright robots. I think we all want to be transformers - we all want to be something that we are not. Or we want to be in reality more than we appear to others. The best kind of transforming happens when people are changed...
I can still hear the song in my head from when I was a little dude:
Transformers, more than meets the eye,
Transformers, robots in disguise.
I'm not certain I will be around in July 07, but if God still has me here I will be glad to see the transformers on the big screen next summer.
It's a "Self" Help Therapuetic World...
Al Mohler has a great commentary being re-issued on a recent book by Steve Salerno about America's self-help addiction. I heartily agreed with this commentary and fear much of this has infected all of us.
We need to work hard for God-helped, men, who refuse to see their lives through victimization, and then get to work.
Here is the link: America Should Be Ashamed of SHAM
This is just Gay
Do they feel the need to make everyone gay today? This is just sad.
How Will a Gay Icon Fly at the Box Office? - Orlando Sentinel : Movies
(HT - Greg Hardin)
X-men 3 - The Last Stand
Last night my wife, brother-in-law, and I went to see X-Men: The Last Stand at the friendly movie theater. As a childhood fan of the Marvel Unviverse, the X-men films have been quite interesting to me. For one, I memorized all the powers and stories of the mutants when I was a kid, so it all comes back very quickly (by the way, Rogue is completely different in the movies than in the comics). This third installment just opened with the fourth largest box office weekend of all time and after seeing it word of mouth looks to be good. I have found the X-men story to be interesting for several reasons, and I think it is a continual hit for some of these reasons. In a unique story, the X-men take us towards some transcendent realities that we all long for. Some of these mega-themes I find to connect to the gospel of grace quite readily. I know some of you may be saying that the X-men are burdened by a naturalistic worldview and an overemphasis on "evolution" and its magic mutations. But I think much more is going on here. In the saga of the men called X - I find the following themes openly explored
A Longing for Justic and Equality - How is there to be equality on the earth amidst unequals? Societies have struggled with this since the dawn of time. Plato and the eastern philosophies recommend a striated caste system with those suited for ruling, those more highly gifted, are given the keys to a culture. Unfortunately such systems end of unjustly distributing privilege and power to the neglect of the week and the untouchable. Others have sought to endow humans with certain intrinsic value due to what they are. People have different gifts, but the same transcendent value due to their nature. Western culture has grounded this in the image of God - that uniquely, human beings are different from all other things and share the same image - this alone gives humans value rather than their functioning capacities. In X3 there is an interesting question asked "How can there be democracy when one man can move a city with his mind?" - Good question. We know that we must have equality under law, but where is such equality grounded in an naturalistic, evolutionary framework where beings are clearly not equal. Only the view of man in the imago dei, carefully grounds the invalid and the elite with the same enduring value.
A Desire to Transcend our Limitations - Everywhere on the earth man aspires to be more than he is. Either through the finely honed development of his body through physical training or the fine tuning of the human mind, people long to escape the limited condition they find themselves in. We desire to escape death, disease, weakness, and aging. We desire to find hope that somehow, someday, all we be better. Different religions offer man a way to transcend his body into an infinite reality. The Hindu does so by looking inward to a oneness with being in meditation, the Scientologist does so by lying to himself to make himself superior due to the unlocking of the potential of his mind. What hope does the X-men narrative offer us? Perhaps, someday there will be a quantum leap of evolution that will take some of us to the point of being super-humans. We love to think that somehow we will become better - maybe be able to control the elements with our minds, heal our own bodies, or at least pick up and throw really heavy things. Our desire to be "more" points to an important truth, but reminds us of our deepest enemy. Some day, in God's timing, we will be made more, glorified in fact, in some way we will be partakers in the divine nature to rule and reign with a great King named Jesus. Our sicknesses, our weaknesses, and our own deaths will some day come to defeat. Yet here is the reality, we desire to create this world with our own hands, not waiting for the hand of God. And here is what we find. When man attempts to re-create himself to be as a god, he always destroys himself and his neighbor. All the utopian schemes of our history show that whether by science or political force, the one who tries bring his utopian vision on the masses always brings oppression with his hands. We are not worthy to be our own masters, but this lesson we are slow to learn. A self-governing system, where we are suspicious of power residing in one and only one place (checks and balances), where people are governed by truth and morality, yes by God, seems to be the best system we have seen. All others which are led by self proclaimed super-men always break the backs of the conquered while buckling under the pride and deception of its own regime. We some day will be changed, with powers exceeding the X-men, but it will be at the revelation of the Sons of God, not at the hell unleashed by the minds of men.
A Clearly Defined Moral Universe - In the X-men we see good and evil as the categories which separate. These categories transcend mutant and human with good and evil on all sides of the DNA arrangement. This goodness seems to transcend the stage upon which the X-men drama takes place. Ethics are not found in DNA, they are found in the souls of human beings - the one's who watch these movies know that Magneto and his warring, power lustful, ways are not "good" and the self-sacrificing, peace seeking X-men are not "the evil guys." How do we know these things? Such is a great clue to the reality of our world. There is a transcendent fountain of truth and goodness. From his very character flow to us the categories of right and wrong - without ethics grounded in the very nature of God, we could not watch the X-men and know anything of the story. For without this reality - we would not know right from wrong and could not sense the drama unfolding before us. Though there is a scene in X3 where Xavier is teaching young minds "ethics" in a way that leans toward denying the transcendent reality, this quickly passes and the world of the movies is very much the real world. One in which there is a real evil afoot, one which must be thwarted by those who love what is good. We are drawn to the X-men's stories for no other reason - we see ourselves on both sides of the battles. We are the ones who are greedy, power hungry, humans who will oppress the weak and kill our neighbor. Yet we desire to be more like the good we see, yet we know not how to change ourselves or our world. Who will deliver us from such a condition. Superman? Maybe, maybe a Super-man, one whose sandals we are unfit to tie. One who died to forgive us for our sins and our demons and give us new hearts to be more like him. The one in whom all goodness dwelt fully in bodily form.
Enjoy the X-men and take its evolutionary nonsense with an intelligent mind. You know that a gene mutation does not make a man able to pick up a skyscraper. But we also should know that the desires of the X-men are not fulfilled in a naturalistic, evolutionary worldview. Only in the real world that God has made and rules will we be delivered. For it is in the hands of God that we find transcendence, moral reality, and in the end of all things, there will be perfect justice and peace.
Trust Jesus - rather than the professor or Wolverine. But enjoy the movie and worship the living God and desire not your children to be mutants. This is never a good thing.
Top Weekends Openings...
Which films garnered the top two opening weekends at the box office for adult-geared motion pictures?
Yes, they both have Jesus as their subject matter.
- Featuring an account of Jesus which follows a more faithful account - The Passion of the Christ
- Featuring a distorted non-factual Christ story - Da Vinci Code
Is it not amazing that 2000 years after his life - Jesus is still the most interesting person who evered lived? Have you ever wondered why this is so? The answer is more than amazing...
The following link is to an analysis of this weekend's box office results:
Box Office Mojo > News > 'Da Vinci' AlmightyDa Vinci Movie Not so Good?
Well, we know the book is full of distortions, half-truths, and silliness...but now apparently the movie might just be a bit boring.
I am sure it will still draw crowds, but perhaps not as many as some were thinking. I am sure some Da Vinci conspiracy nut jobs will be disappointed if the movie is just plain bad.
Here is a link to some early reviews at Rotten Tomatoes - The Da Vinci Code - Not looking good so far...
Neo Paganism and Witchcraft
Secret Spells Barbie
Many have noticed the witch offerings on the rise in pop culture. From shows like Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sabrina the Teenage witch - the message is that it is hip and cool to be young and casting spells. There are web sites for witches, conferences for witches, and sacred gatherings abounding in America. The Da Vinci Code goes to great lengths to redeem witchcraft and make it something that is wonderful...just misunderstood because of Christian propaganda.
Today, I listened to a report from NPR's radio program All Things Considered. Very interesting to listen to young teenage girls chanting to call forth spirits, worshipping the goddess, and making up religion like a choose your own adventure book. Even Barbie, in a "secret spells" flavor, makes a cameo in the audio piece. Link - NPR : New Religion in America
A few thoughts as to why Paganism/Witchcraft is on the rise here and in Europe.
- Autonomy: For autonomous western people, it offers a way to be spiritual without having god around. Pagan deities are at your beck and call and can be aligned to do your will. Many just don't want a sovereign God who requires something of us.
- Nature: Environmental fears and nature worship. To love the mother earth is a virture today (heck, I even think Christians ought to care a whole lot more for the world of which God has made us stewards) and to be one with the earth and nature is a big deal. Folks who are bent towards environmental activism love the earth - so it is not too far of a move to worshipping it.
- Sexuality: We live in a sex crazed society and any way to mix sex and spirituality is going to find traction. Paganism certainly offers this - a perversion of God's gift of sex. Many make sex an object of worship or a ritual to be one with the divine, rather than seeing sex as a transcendent pointer to the God who made us and gives loving boundaries for our sexual passions.
- Stupid: We are just stupid today. People believe in nebulous, undefined concepts like "energy" (not in an Einstenian sense, but in a transfer to me that groovy positive vibe kind of sense) that can be cast and moved around to folk through spells and incantations. And in this view it is not that God acts upon and changes people by his Spirit - but someone's hex on you can do the work no problem. Many actually believe this sort of thing.
- Deification: It makes people the source of power and control of the world. As people, we just want to be our own god. Did someone not once say "You shall be as Gods" - yes, this is the ancient lie to which we return like dogs to our own vomit.
The problem with human beings becoming their own gods is that we are terrible gods. We are fragile, fallible, and evil and will let ourselves down daily...only searching for the next spell to cast upon our days. The great truth of the gospel is that God is god, and in his mercy he tells us to quit trying to be the master of our own vessel. To allow him to forgive us and lead us towards a life that is free.
Paganism was tried and found wanting - long ago. But as as the book of Ecclesiastes reminds us: There is nothing new under the sun.
It all comes back around again.
American Idols...
I just read a little ditty by Gene Edward Veith on the show American Idol - his thoughts are here.
He also asks some questions about TV watching that are interesting.
While you are thinking American Idol, you should check out the recent knock off we did at Inversion. Here is the link - Inversion Idol - Open Mic Night.
Or just click the image below (it is an .m4v file that plays through iTunes, Quicktime)
BBC NEWS | Nelson releases gay cowboy song
Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be gay cowboys???
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Nelson releases gay cowboy song
This is sad
...
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Driving Miss Baby
Britney Spears: 'I Made a Mistake' - Yahoo! News
You think driving with a little baby right next to the steering wheel is a mistake?
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