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Show Your Power, O Lord, Our God
Please pray for my roomate of last year, Michael, and his parents. MIchael and his friend David are in the ICU after being broadsided by a bus on Tuesday afternoon. We spent all of this evening praying at the hospital, and both need your prayers. If Michael does not respond to us within the next day, it could mean his dying or some irreversable brain damage. Please pray that God would heal them both completely.
Where My Freaks At?
Well, most of you know that I moved into a new house with 13 other guys about a month ago. It's a lot of fun. And to show you just a small snapshot of our life together, I'm gonna throw up a couple photos. Here goes:
We have the women's house over on Wednesday nights for our planning meetings so we decided to take a large group photo. We decided the only place we could do it was on the front stairwell. Some of us guys got lost in the back, but you can see my head almost peeking out of the center of the photo.
After we took the photo we had evening prayer. It must have not been during a cool worship song, because nobody looks that animated. We were probably praying intensely for our work on campus this year, for a permanent house for us to live in, or that our house will fill up with renters. (Wow, my hair's almost getting to the point of being a mullet.)
This Jesus Thing... It's Packaged Right
Why the heck are smoothies so expensive?
I swear, you can buy the most expensive meal deal at Taco Bell or McDonalds and still be cheaper than a medium-sized smoothie. Just because we want something modestly healthy means we have to pay more than any human should be asked to pay for sustenance.
Today I was at the Mall and I could have gotten a 22 oz. pop at the Holiday Station(less) Store for probably under a buck. But I went upstairs to the Tropicana Smoothie place and paid $6.17 for a 22 oz. smoothie. Maybe I'll just go back to pop.
The only smoothie that's worth its weight in gold is the White Rock smoothie. In all my travels, I've not found a smoothie that tastes as good.
It's Good To Know That You Fail Sometimes
Most of my post titles are lyric quotes from a song. Leave a comment and try to guess what song I was thinking of/listening to when I wrote this post.
Amazon.com is not living up to my lofty expectations. Right now I need two things, and I can't find exactly what I'm looking for at the mecca of everything. (At least, not through their own store, their affiliate stores have it all.)
The first item is an alarm clock. Years ago my parents gave me one with a very big LCD display that let me read the time from almost across the room (or, for most anybody else, across the street). Last year it stopped working. I was borrowing one from the family I used to live with, but I've left their place and didn't think it a good idea to steal theirs. And since I don't exactly wake up to the little alarm on my watch, I need something better by my bed. And heck, a big display would be nice.
The second item is a Nalgene water bottle. Our new place is big, and unless I'm carrying around a water bottle I'm not gonna stay well hydrated. Their new OTG bottles look cool, but nobody at Amazon.com has them. Amazon.com partner stores have most of the other styles, but not usually in what I think are cool color or style combinations.
Sure, I could buy each one from a different online retailer and get what I want, but if I do that it costs much more to ship individually and I get less points on my Amazon.com Visa. And the Amazon.com partners each ship (and charge shipping) seapartely too.
Or, alternatively, I could head out to Wal-Mart or Target. Bets are they don't have Nalgene water bottles. And if they have alarm clocks, the chance they'll have one I like is pretty darn slim. I've been trying to look around at the stores in The Mall too since I can walk through there during my lunch break, but so far I've not found anything promising.
So maybe I'll get a crappy product that will do it. Or maybe I'll pay top dollar. I dunno. I'm one of those who tends to believe a quality product at a high price is more worth it, so I probably will end up paying top dollar.
Ohh, and apparently my mom is afraid to post comments on here. ;-)
I Know Ohio, The Back Roads
Ever heard of this man? His name is Sufjan Stevens. If he's not on your musical radar, it seems he soon will be.
Sufjan Stevens first entered my radar when we did Most Spun 2004 at cMusicWeb.com. A couple guest contributors for the feature mentioned Sufjan, and since these people are music industry professionals I respect highly, I knew I needed to check it out.
Then, of course, the folks at Paste Magazine have been hyping Sufjan as one of the best artists out there. So, to check it out, I picked up his Seven Swans album. Stevens is definitely well within the genre of folk, and at first it seemed a bit bland for even folk music. But after a couple listens, it started growing on me.
The biggest thing that Stevens is getting press for is his amazing work on his 50 States projects. A couple years ago he released Michigan, an album entirely about his home state. This year he released Illinois, an ode to the nearby state and Chicago.
I've found that his 50 States albums seem to bring a more diverse musicality and some amazing lyricism to Sufjan Stevens' repetoire. This man obviously does his homework. He incorporates man historical facts and stories of the state of Illinois into his latest project. It's also fun to think about driving through those cities the songs are named for and listening to them. And there's plenty of brief musical interludes where the track titles are longer than the tracks.
50 States are going to take a long time to do. Good thing he's young. Maybe hs can just count Over The Rhine's Ohio in the 50 albums.
Anyways, Sufjan Steven has been blowing up. I haven't seen his discs in Best Buy or Target yet, but he was featured in Relevant Magazine, on tons of websites, and even on MTV, I think. Like I said, if you haven't heard about him yet, you'll probably see him on the next soundtrack album for "The O.C.".
Speaking of TV, it's insane that my siblings and all the other stupid teens watch those trashy prime-time soap operas. I mean, seriously, the only good shows are "Seinfeld", "The Simpsons", "Hogan's Heroes", and "The Red Green Show". Ohh, most of the shows on TechTV in 2001.
He's The Man Of The Hour
Sometimes I wish I had a TV. (Oh wait, there'a TV sitting in this room. - OK, so I don't really want one.) If I had one, the only thing I'd really watch is all those cool commercials. Not that all of them are cool, but some of them are just plain ingenious.
These new ones are for the new Starbucks Doubleshot drinks available in stores. Apparently it energizes you for the workday. So check out the ads of Hank and Glen going to work and getting a jump start to their day. It's hilarious.
Keep Dancin' 'Til the Break of Dawn
So, you want to know what life in the very center of the University of Minnesota campus is like? Check out my roomate TJ's new poem, Funnel Rises. It's a great reflection on the party atmosphere in the area.
My First Live Post
This is the first time I have done "live blogging." I'm at the TCPHP meeting and there's been a couple things that have come up in the last hour of talking about goo programming practices and such.
The big thing I heard about was Allie's mention of Xdebug. The biggest thing it does is replace PHP's basic error handler and include a more informative error system that includes a stack trace. Check out the nice screens. I think I'll have to install this on my development machine.
I Ain't Too Soft To Say It, Even If DJs Don't Play It
So, I was answering the phone at work. I took the person's name and company, and then I forwarded her to someobdy who had all the answers.
Apparently she claimed that I have a "good voice for radio." I think that's cool to know, especially since I'm thinking more and more about podcasting. Of course, the person on the phone only works at an auto glass company, so I dunno how she knows that I have a radio voice.
We Are Peculiar People
Hey look! My posts are all on Google Blog Search!
I wonder if crappy blog technologies like Xanga are on there yet. Probably not. (And no offense to my technologically-inclined friends who are on Xanga.)