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Despicale Me

I say Despicable Me the other day. I thought I would write something about it.
But first some background :D
Despicable me follows the story of Gru, the worlds #2 super villain and his quest to become number 1. But some kids show up and ruin it all for him. And guess what? He no longer.... well never mind, better not to give the story away.
I saw this movie mainly because it was getting good reviews. And I like to see movies that get good reviews, especially ones that look like they could have been really bad.
I was not disappointed. Although I didn't like the very beginning, the rest of the movie lived up to the hype.
But be forewarned, you might possibly cry.

Nothing

Ok here's what I'm thinking about.
Nothing.
I could not think of anything to write today. So I started trying to find something to write about. That is completely against my rules.
I set up this blog so that I could write about nothing in particular. I don't try to think things up. Nor do I try to present pivotal issues in the world today. I just write about whatever I feel like writing about at the.

Right now I don't feel like writing about anything.
Looks like I found something though.
This is something for us all to remember, if you are trying to do something creative. Don't force it. I promise you that the results will be worse then the ones that came naturally.

Unprofessionalism

Yesterday, LeBron James, one of the greatest basketball players ever, announced his intentions to leave his home team and go to Miami. Miami was incredibly happy, Cleavland, where LeBron was before, was incredibly sad.
LeBron had lived in Cleavland all of his life. Why did he decide to go to Miami.
I have a few theories.
1. (most likely) he left because he wanted to win a championship, and Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade are playing for Miami this year. LeBron has not won a championship to date. He has been playing for seven years.
2. Miami offered him more money then all the other teams that wanted him. I don't find this likely.

But that isn't what I'm here to talk about. The Cleavland Cavaliers where, understandably, upset. But their owner, Dan Gilbert was no doubt more upset then the rest of them.
He published a letter on the Cavaliers website. Ripping on LeBron for leaving them.
He called LeBron cowardly. He showed us the epitome of unprofessionalism.

If you want to see the letter go to:
http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/news/gilbert_letter_100708.html

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is, quite frankly, the largest writing contest in the world. This contest encourages some of the worst writing in the world.
Confused? Don't worry all explain.

First off, NaNoWriMo (which, by the way, stands for National Novel Writing Month) is not really a contest. There are no prizes awarded for 1st place, and there are no losers. The object? Write a 50,000 word novel in a month.
The project was started in 1999 by Chris Baty and 20 friends. Their object was to write a novel in 30 days, that year, six people did it.
In 2000, a website was set up. 140 people joined, including many from foreign countries, and 21 people completed the challenge.
The next year, the number jumped to 5000. This was unexpected, and Chris and his friends scrambled to add the members to the website, which had not yet been automated.
In 2009 over 170,000 people signed up and 2,427,190,537 words were written.
That's a lot of words.
Chris Baty said in an interview that the contest is not about quality, it's about quantity. The whole goal is to turn of your internal editor for a month, and just write. It happens in November every year.

Sounds like fun.

If you're interested: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Bicentennial Man

I watched the move "Bicentennial Man" last night. Adapted from a novel by Issac Asimov, the story follows the life of an android who has a personality and would rather be human. I won't give to much away.
I liked the movie because of a couple of things. One is, like many movies, the music, it is very well orchestrated and played. I also like the story a lot. As I said earlier I won't give to much away. But I will say that, in the middle of the movie, he starts to pursue his quest as a human by putting on a human appearance (F.Y.I. it's very Robin Williams like). But even with this we are frequently reminded that he is, in fact, a robot. We are mainly reminded when he misunderstands human figures of speech and expressions. Which can lead to some good laughs.
It was a good family movie. I'm not sure why it got such bad reviews, because I thought that it was good.
The movie is rather touching at times, especially when Andrew (that is the robot's name) realizes that, as a robot, he is immortal, and everyone that he loves and cares about will die around him while he will continue through generations and generations without aging.
I suggest it if you need a good family movie. 

Indipendence Day

So, it was this day 234 years ago that the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of independence. First off, I find it amazing that this country has survived so long without falling into anarchy, tyranny, or some other oppressive form of government. That in and of itself is a feat that very few countries can call their own.
But many people do not realize what we are truly celebrating here.
The founding fathers took a big step when they signed it, to quote one of my favorite movies:
"Had we lost the war, we would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered... [and] had our entrails cut out and burned."
Honestly, that doesn't leave a pleasant picture in your head. And remember, that quote is quite conservative.
And don't forget General Washington. While he did not sign the Deceleration of Independence, he risked his neck in several other ways. Namely leading a starving, cold, badly-equipped, untrained group of (mostly) farmers, against the warm (well relatively), full-bellied, well-equipped, well trained British army. And let's not forget, he was vastly outnumbered. Yet he did it. Kudos to Washington.
So just remember what was at stake when our country did this. And remember, if they had lost, I have no doubt we would still be under British control

Complexity

So I've been thinking about the size of things and there complexity. I do not think many people realize how complex life is or how big the universe is.
Here's a visual.
Imagine the sun is a grapefruit. The earth would be approximately 35 feet away from it and be the size of a grain of salt.
Jupiter (the first outer planet) would be 182 feet away and be the size of a large blueberry.
Pluto, (I still consider it a planet) would be 1400 feet away and be the size of a piece of ground pepper.
Now, I'm going to make this even bigger.
The sun is still the size of a grapefruit. If this were so, the next nearest star would be 2500 miles away. Approximately the distance from Washington DC to the middle of Nevada.
Now I will totally blow your mind.
On this same scale, the approximate width of the universe would be 9.75 X 10^12 or approximately 9.75 Quadrillion miles wide. It was kind of an eye opener for me, what about you?

And don't even get me started on the complexity of a cell...

What is Facebook?

Facebook is many things, but here are some of the more interesting things it is:

1. The only place in the world you can talk to a wall and be called perfectly sane
2. A place you can call someone a friend when you have never met them before
3. A place people can farm, take care of fish, or be a master of crime all at once.
4. The place where the worst grammar in the world is used often.

Now, most of those things would not happen in the "real world." But they happen here, isn't that odd? Chew on that.

Tennis Elbow

I know I've written a lot about music recently but, in all fairness, music is my favorite thing in the world.
Recently, Adam Young of Owl City, released a single from his up and coming album. The song is titled "Tennis Elbow." It is my new all-time favorite song, topping even "Fireflies."
Why?
First some background.
3 years ago, before Owl City propelled him to fame, Adam Young made music in his basement. He used a borrowed condenser microphone, his fathers acoustic guitar, a dell desktop and some mixing software. He created an 11 track record under the name "Sky Sailing." He titled the record "An Airplane Carried Me to Bed."
This record has never been released to the general public. Recently though, Adam Young announced his intentions to release it. Tennis Elbow was a bit of a teaser.
This song reflects Adam Young's love for God. Now the lyrics are in no way "christian." They do not mention God, or Jesus, or any such thing, but listening to them, I can tell that they are God inspired.
This music is a beautiful thing to listen. It reflects the innocence of youth that is still preserved in Adam Young.
Music is the greatest gift God ever gave to man (besides redemption on the cross of course). I am perfectly in awe of God's greatness when I listen to this music.
I highly suggest that you listen to this song, you can download it free at http://www.skysailingmusic.com/

God is great!

The Devil's music? Yeah right

I mentioned in my previous post how some people seem to think that music such as Rock and Metal are satanic. Yeah right.
I would like to point you to a chapter of C.S. Lewis' timeless story "The Magician's Nephew" (Chapter 9: The Founding of Narnia). In this chapter, Aslan appears and creates Narnia out of complete and utter darkness using music. This shows the power of music.
Now, I am not saying that music has the ability to create whatever you want. But I do believe it has tremendous power. In Luke 2, the angel appears to the shepherds and tells them the good news. Suddenly a heavenly host appears. The passage says the following:

 ¹³Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
 ¹⁴"Glory to God in the highest,
      and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." 

 Now it does say "saying." But I believe that the heavenly hosts sang when they praised God.

Psalm 150 is a good example. The psalmist devotes half of the psalm to telling us to praise God with music. So music must be incredibly important to God. If that is so, how in the world can any music be satanic? 

I don't particularly like metal. But I definitely don't believe it is satanic in and of itself. Many bands do make music that is lyrics that are definitely not of God. But I do know of metal bands who play christian music. Rock and Metal are music, and as such are not of the devil unless man makes them that way.

Secular Music: God Inspired?

It's been said that Rock and Metal are the Devil's music. I could give a really good reason why it is not but I'll save that for later.
What I'm thinking is whether or not music of all genres can be God inspired. My answer is an emphatic YES.
One of my favorite songs all time is "Fireflies" by Owl City. Owl City's music is, unarguably secular in most cases, including this one. But Adam Young (Owl City's solitary member) is, in fact, a Christian. He lets God in and we see the returns. While a non christian can enjoy the song, I notice as a Christian the the song, especially the chorus, sounds very God inspired. When I listen to the song, I listen not only to the word, but also to the instrumental work. Fireflies is a gem. Not all of songs like this are God Inspired, some are just what I call "Musical Genius."  A good example of this is R.E.M's "Shiny Happy People"

Anyway, I got my life to live.

The African Queen

Hmm, this didn't post when I wanted it too.
I wrote this yesterday:

So yesterday I watched a movie called "The African Queen." Both Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. It was supposed to be one of the top 5 films of all time. Wow. I watched it, and there was no way it would EVER make MY top 5 list. Or even my top 100. Apparently, America was biased because of the fact that those two iconic stars were the main characters. How funny.
Hollywood nowadays seems about the same all the time. Put popular people in the movie, and it is guaranteed to gross well. Or, if one worked, just make another, it's that simple. Movies used to be good! Rarely anymore.

Following your dreams

You know, education is a funny thing.
I've been hearing about a lot of books that tell you how to break out of the traditional public school system. They seem to say that following your passion is the best way to get a good education.
But imagine the following scenario:
You have a kid, whose going into high school. He reads a book about following passions. He has a passion to fly. Flying costs money, and his family is barely scraping by on the joint income of his mom and dad.
How is he to follow his passion?
In my opinion, it's great to do what these books say. And many people become successful doing this. Bill Gates comes to mind.
Just something to chew on. Maybe we should think about the 90% of the world that can't afford to do the things they want to do. Let's help them out.