Online Sermons

A call to the public:

I have been doing a lot of redundant work here at the J-O-B lately and it has made for some good catching up time on John Piper sermons at http://www.desringgod.org/. I think I am ready to change it up a bit now, and would like to listen to someone else. The problem being, I have no clue where else to go.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Web Gem and some other junk…

Not much going on these days, still just unpacking boxes. The downstairs pretty much looks like a real live house now, but the upstairs is a different story. The upstairs looks like you are walking through your local Public Storage with each room being a separate storage shed. That’s ok though, we can see the potential. Also, as I was walking through the house last night, I began to look at all the walls and, man, that is going to be a lot of painting! I dread the day we start, I look forward to the end results, but truly dread Day 1 of that project. I HATE painting with a passion. Anyone who wants to help, is more than welcome to come over (even stalkers this time).

I bought the HD antennae this week and semi-hooked it up. I didn’t take the time to figure out the best position and all that, hopefully that will be this weekend, but we did add NBC to our channel repertoire. Now, we have the CW, Fox, and ABC in beautiful high definition and a grainy version of NBC. I am going to work on it this weekend and if I can’t make it any better than it is right now, I think Ms. Beezy is going to nix this little plan to save $1000’s. I am crossing my fingers that Heidi (that is what I’m affectionately calling this little HD antennae that has now taken over the living room) will pull through for me this weekend.

On to better things now, I wanted to inform everyone of this little web gem that I have recently rediscovered. http://www.pandora.com/ - it has been around since 2000, so if you have already heard of it, don’t bother finishing reading, but if you are in dark, please continue. I can’t remember how I found it, but I used to frequent it all the time at my old job and just thought of it the other day out of the blue . It’s an awesome site if you like music and are a desk jockey all day at work like me. What they have done, a group of music loving fools have gotten together and studied/listened to thousands upon thousands artists and their songs and broken each song down by hundreds of musical attributes. The way it works, you log on, create a (free) personal account and then type in your favorite artist, then, sit back and let the site do the work for you. When you type in the artist of your choice, you have created a custom “radio station” (I believe you can have up to 100 custom stations). Pandora begins to sort through its huge database and proceeds to play continuous commercial-free music from artists with similar sounds and qualities to music that you know that you like. You can also look around and check out other people’s stations and if you like them, claim them as your own. One of my favorite features, as the songs are playing you can give them a thumbs up or a thumbs down…very gladiator-esque. A thumbs up and more of the same will play for you; a thumbs down and it will skip to the next song and never torture you with that song again. If you give someone the thumbs up and are interested in them, you can click on them and it will give a paragraph detailing who they are, how they got started, and who their inspiration was.

All in all, it’s really a great site. If you don’t feel like discovering or learning about new artists, you can just pull it up, get is started, then minimize it and let it play all day, at least you won’t have to listen to those annoying car dealership commercials. So, go play around with it, have some fun, I know you will love it. Look me up and we can share radio stations together.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I forgot one other cool feature, if you find something you like, they have link where you can buy the album off of amazon.com or the song from itunes...how cool is that?

The Moment of Truth

Has everyone seen the previews for this show? I have nothing against reality shows, I watch my fair share…Biggest Loser, Amazing Race…but this new show airing on Fox tonight is getting pretty bad. I mean they strap people to a lie detector and ask personal questions. Can this really be a television show? Seriously, America? I don’t guess I should be surprised, since it is coming from Fox. They have put out such reality classics as Temptation Island, Joe Millionaire, and Playing it Straight. (You have to check this one out.)

I just don’t see how it is going to be entertaining? It’s a show seemingly fuelled by America’s willingness to admit to their iniquities and sinfulness for cash. Am I wrong to have the opinion of, I don’t care enough about other people’s sins to watch them admit to it on national television to make some money? I have enough sins of my own to worry about, rather than being entertained by other peoples. It is people you have no clue who they are and will only be on the screen for about 15 minutes or so, then you will never see/hear from them again. Are you really that interested? Granted, if Fox rounded up everyone I personally knew and put them on the show, then I might watch, but they didn’t, so I’m not. I will be very interested to see what kind of ratings it pulls tonight. Don’t forget, they will be slightly skewed to the higher side because you have to factor in all the people who are going to fall asleep watching American Idol and not be awake to change the channel.

From what I have seen, the questions that they ask the contestants don’t really seem to be that controversial: Do you see yourself being with your spouse beyond 5yrs from now? If you could get away with it and no one would ever find out, would you cheat on your spouse? If you have trouble answering those, why even go on the show? You have much bigger issues. You should probably be in a councilor’s office seeking guidance on how to save your marriage, not seeking a payday for it. Plus, if you do feel that way, you know you are going to get busted when you go on the show. I hope you have already set the price limit that your relationship with your spouse is worth to you before you go on air. We all know how clouded our decision making gets in the throws of the action and would hate to settle for anything less than the most we could get.

To me, the whole thing is another sign of how America is in a fallen world. And, yes, I know there are much worse things going on right now than this little television show, so why this show triggered such a reaction in me…I don’t know, it just doesn’t sit well with me. But, am I alone? Are any of you interested in watching the show? Or did it spark the same feelings in you as it did me? I would like to know what everyone else thinks.

My Journey Through the 5 Stages of Grief

Denial - When LB first said she was starting her own blog, I didn't believe her. I had tried to get her to start an Ada blog for months and she continually shot me down. Finally, I broke down and started it on my own. She was reluctant to at first, but then started jumping in on occasion, mostly to clear her name from my nonsense posts, but still she was getting into it. Blogging life was good there for a while, the two of us blogging in unison. Then, on the first day of the year, she broke the news to me right in the middle of the Capitol One Bowl, she wanted her own blog and wanted to cut ties with me and mine. I didn't believe her, she wouldn't do that to me, no way.

Anger - Later that day, I noticed her playing on the internet. She was picking out her new blog template. I didn't say anything, but that ignited a fire deep down inside. She was actually going to do it. She was leaving me. I lashed out by calling her names (under my breath), secretly lowering the thermostat so she would wake up cold at night, and trying to man up the current blog (this was when I added diamond plated metal, guns, Rambo and Bruce Lee).

Depression - This was the stage where I couldn't blog about anything, nothing seemed worth it. I would rather not elaborate.

Bargaining - I think I am somewhere in this stage right now. I have vowed to LB that if she will come back, we can change the template to whatever she wants and put up any Sara Grove's quote that she can think of. (Note: If she doesn't come back, the template will not be changed any time soon, I am starting to feel like that girl who is always changing her hair color.) I also took down the family quotes section on the side that she complained about making her look foolish. And, in one last attempt, I also put a poll up on the right side of the blog, so we can see what you, the people, want. If there is an overwhelming majority of you who would like her to come back as well, this may do the trick. If the people demand it, how can she deny it? So, please go 'Rock the Vote' because your vote does count.

Acceptance - I am already starting to feel at peace no matter what happens, so I think I will be ok no matter what now. To me....that is acceptance.

Thanks for walking with me on my grievance journey, I hope you have a pleasant weekend.

Safety Pin Aluminum Foil Antennae To Save Me $1000's

Now, going back to the safety pin aluminum foil antennaed TV mentioned yesterday. Tuesday night, LB was a little depressed that she wasn’t going to get to see the season premiere of American Idol. Me, being the loving husband that I am, started to work on the this make shift antennae. With a little time, patience and correctly positioned rolled up aluminum foil, it ended up working brilliantly. Fox was coming in at 1080i HD, an even better picture that we had at the old apartment.

This got me to thinking about my fellow blogging friend, Bull, from Beauty and the Bull’s post about sticking it to Comcast. That little safety pin and 18 square feet of aluminum foil has totally caused me to jump onto his Cross Out Comcast Crusade.

I think I may have even talked LB into it. Sure, she will miss her TLC and Home and Garden TV, and I'll miss my Mythbusters and ESPN, but there are going to have to be sacrifices.

In a short email conversation with Bull himself yesterday, he help steer me to a lot of conclusions. When I asked myself, does that really justify an extra $100/mo? I just couldn't do it anymore. We will still get all the major networks, which constitutes most of the shows we watch anyway...House, Biggest Loser, The Office. Not only will we get them, but they will have a better picture than when we were getting hosed each month. When your picture is coming from the cable company, it has to be broken down several times so they can run it to all the suckers households that subscribe and then it is blown up again to fit your screen. (I'm no expert, but I think it works something like that.) When you are picking the signal up through the air, it is like a cool mountain spring running the Alps, pure and untainted, resulting in majestic high definition like you have never seen. If you are worried about when something is not on the major networks, with the money you save you can go buy your favorite series on DVD and not have to sit through any commercial. Or, now days there is always TV on the Internet. This is how I watched shows that I missed before I pulled the trigger on DVR. It works very well. Also if you are worried about not having DVR anymore, with two months worth of saving you can go down to your favorite electronics store and pick up your very own DVR recorder.

On paper, the plan seems foolproof. I am running over to Target to make the purchase this weekend. I encourage everyone else out there to give it a shot as well. It may sound complicated, but isn't no more than a couple hours out of your weekend worth $1200 a year? If it doesn't work out for you, just take the HD antennae back, no harm no foul, but at least you tried.

PS: If this is someone from Comcast, I am just kidding about everything, please don't sue me. Thank you and have a nice day.

Moving Update

We are moved in, everything went about as smoothly as you could expect. Except for the fact that I forgot to schedule the gas to be hooked up on Friday. This meant LB, Ada and I had to spend the weekend in the house without a stove, hot water, or heat.......my bad. We kept peering out the blinds to make sure DHR wasn’t pulling up to take Ada away. We did make a trip Wal-Mart to buy a space heater to get us through the nights without getting frostbite. The days weren’t that bad, but at nighttime, it felt as if we were getting ready to go ice fishing. It was a little better once the space heater had time to kick in. That little thing kept it a toasty 65 degrees in whatever room it was in, compared to the 50 degrees throughout the rest of the house. It did take some strategic planning on our part to make it work though. During the day, we would keep the heater in the living room with us as we watched our safety pin aluminum foil antennaed TV. (I was very proud of my ingenuity here, but I think LB is a little embarrassed). We would have to plan about 30 minutes before we were going to bed so we could set the heater upstairs and let it be warming up, up there. I think it worked out very nicely.

The other big problem was no hot water. This made showers pretty much impossible. I have done cold showers before, and was thinking about manning up and taking one Monday morning before work. When I woke up and it was 60 degrees in the bathroom, I decided before my feet hit the floor that a shower wasn’t going to happen (On Sunday, we had gone back to the old apartment to clean it up and had taken a shower there, so I wasn’t completely crusty or anything.) So, I came to work on Monday showerless, in jeans and a hat. I was nice enough to make an announcement to the office when I got in, stating that I was sorry for my lack of professionalism in dress and hygiene and warning that I wouldn’t be able to take a shower until I went home for lunch, if anyone had anything to tell me they were more than welcomed to just send an email instead of waling over. I don’t think anyone cared or they all just went back to their cubes and talked about me behind my back.....probably the latter.

We are finally in the house and everything is actually inside. We are still are living out of boxes for the time being. I am ok with that. I would rather be living out of boxes for a little while and paying a mortgage than having everything nice and neat in closets and drawers and paying rent.

We still don't have cable or internet right now, so LB won't be posting anytime soon (here or on her traitor blog) we are working on coming up with something (more on this tomorrow), but for now, she is in total disconnect at the house. If anybody has a message for her I will be happy to share, but keep in mind, after 4pm Satan's time (EST)/3pm God's Time (Central) I am disconnected as well, so she won't get it until tomorrow afternoon.

I am sure if we ever find the camera, we'll put pictures up for all friends, family and stalkers alike to see. Also remember, all friends and family (sorry stalkers) are welcome to come visit any time.

New Year, No Thoughts

I have had a very long blog drought recently. It seems as if the new year rolled around and I reached a blog block. There are many things I can blame it on, being very busy at work (the beginning of the year is a busy time in the salad industry due to all the resolutions) or all the packing getting ready for the move to the new house, or simply just my laziness, but mainly I just haven't had any decent thoughts worth writing about.

I almost posted a bowl game prediction recap, but then thought if anyone wants to know how I did they could just pull it up in the archives, so I nixed that one. (18-14 overall, I said I would be happy with going .500, I lied. I am very disappointed. 77% correct on New Year's Day bowl games and later. My proudest prediction being the West Virginia upset and calling the national champion game almost flawlessly. I was one Ohio St. time running out garbage TD away from only being off 4pts overall and the game carried out pretty much exactly as I predicted.)

Now, I know there may be a lot of disappointed people out there, not because I haven't been blogging, but because they didn't have anything to make fun of. Believe me, I am disappointed too. I wish I could give you material. It seems that with the new year, I am having no thoughts. Sure, I have doctored up the blog with a few new decorations, but that was just a cover up. Covering up the fact that I didn't have anything to share.

Maybe it was LB blog divorcing me, maybe it sucked me of my motivation, my sense of creativity(?). I don't know. All I do know is, I have nothing. My first writers block, which I guess is somewhat monumental. I don't know how long it will last. I'm writing this post to try and break through. Yes, I realize to the naked eye this post may seem pointless, but I am hoping if I just word vomit enough, something, anything will eventually come to me.

In other news, tomorrow is moving day. So, if anyone out there loves picking up heavy objects and taking them up and down sets of stairs, we should hang out tomorrow.

I hope all is well with everyone. Hopefully more later.

*Side note - Dan "the Man" (see 2 posts ago) and his mom have come in first place for 2 weeks in a row now.

Ir-written-cilable Differences

I hope every one had a great weekend. This will not be a long post, but as you all know, LB and I recently went through a 'blog divorce'. It wasn't messy and things aren't awkward between us at all. We are doing OK. The main reason for the split was my lack of postings on Ada and the increasing number of complete nonsense posts (kind of like this one.) I did, get visitation rights, so there will be the occasional Ada update here, but since LB has full custody, she will have the majority of the updates.

To soothe myself in this time of separation, I decided to get rid of all the things that would remind me of what I once had. It was time I made the blog look like a man lived here. So, I manned up the blog for a little while, just to get me through these initial stages of blog separation anxiety.

I appreciate all of your support and welcome any encouraging words.

Dan: Chris Griffin Reincarnated

One of LB's favorite shows is the Biggest Loser on NBC. It just so happens they started a new series, The Biggest Loser: Couples (Tuesdays 8/7pm EST/CST) last night. We were watching Georgia destroy Hawaii last night and didn't get to catch it. Good thing for DVR or I would have missed this gem. There is a contestant on the show, Dan (coupled with Mom, Jackie), who is the real life representation of the cartoon character Chris Griffin of The Family Guy. The resemblance is uncanny.

I did a little research just to make sure Dan wasn't indeed the inspiration for his animated twin. Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy) is originally from Kent, CT and Dan resides in Frankfurt, IL, so unless there was a unlikely random meeting between the two, the 800+ miles that separates them suggests that the likenesses are purely by chance.

Under any other circumstance, this would be enough to make Dan my favorite contestant on the show. However, there are two ex-offensive lineman from the University of Alabama that make up a team (and a combined 800lbs) that will have my undying support. I do wish all the best for Dan and hope is the next to last biggest loser.

Always Leave You Wanting "Moore"...No More

Happy New Year everyone!

It is a great day. Peaceful day on the couch with never ending college football. I think this is what Heaven will be like. The SEC is currently 4-0, though it is looking like Arkansas may blemish that record.

LB and I may make a run over to the new house here in bit to take the inaugural load over, nothing too big, just an excuse to go over the new house again. 11 days until moving day. We are very excited about that.

This year, the only family member with a New Year's Resolution is Ada. Her resolution is to grow her hair back. LB and I have been noticing it for a while, but was hoping it wasn't true. Unfortunately, it is. The past few weeks, Ada has steadily been loosing her red locks. It is almost completely gone on the left side of her head. It kind of looks like a baby receding hair line and if it keeps up Ada will have a baby comb over. We know that it will eventually grow back, we're just hoping when it grows back it will still be red.

Now, for a very crucial moment in the short lived existence of the blog. LB and I have decided to part ways, when it comes to blogging. Apparently, my rambling on incoherently about too many unimportant subjects is a bit too much for her remain my blogging team member. I must admit, I am a little sad. I do hate to see her go, but I understand. Out of the 30 some odd posts that have been made so far, only about 5 have been fully dedicated to Ada. I guess that is a little false advertisement on my part. So, if you want to stay up to date with Ada's milestones, you can check out Beezy’s new blog here. Of course I will have the occasional Ada updates here, but I will leave the big important stuff for LB to fill you in on. You can expect more of the usual here…meaningless babble about meaningless topics.

Now that I am thinking about it, my blogging must really be irritating to LB. She doesn’t even want to stay here and blog hand in hand with me. I offered to let her change the title, template, anything she wanted and she still left me anyway. Don’t worry though, it’s a clean break up and there are no hard feelings, anymore. I just hope I am not annoying you the people as much as I am her.

You can expect a few cosmetic changes now that LB has officially left me. The lime green is slightly girly, I just used it because it’s the color of Ada’s room, but now it is probably going to have to go. I will also have to change the big Ada picture stating her being the star, because now she is the star of LB’s blog. I will try to persevere and leave you wanting more all on my own now.

I hope everyone is having a great New Years Day. Enjoy watching the bowl games and Go SEC!