Colbert Report Heaven

From my good friend's blog, the joining of two great joys in my life, serious theology and political satire.

N.T. Wright was on the Colbert Report!

Cathy playing Guitar Hero

My friend Joe has been trying to get me to play a game called Guitar Hero for a long time now. Finally, he just loaned me his Playstation 2 and the game. Last night I hooked it up and gave it a try.

This game is really fun! I don't know most of the songs (I only recognized "Message in a Bottle") but I had a great deal of fun trying to "strum" the cords. It is difficult, though! That makes me think more highly of the musicians who play weekly during our worship services!

Here's Cathy playing bass guitar... if you skip to about 0:50 you can hear her finish it off.

The Gift of Worship

Oliver Licking Zechariah

This video is from June of 2006... somehow, I never posted it! It is quite cute.

Kitty Videos Around the Web

Here are some kitty videos I saw online... Gotta share!

Nice weekend

We had a very nice weekend. OK, it was also a busy weekend, and Cathy felt that I had over-committed myself, but it was a good weekend, nonetheless.

On Saturday, I got up and worked on the computer a bit, and Cathy woke a little later and kept me company. We lounged around the house until I had to leave for the church to do tech work for a Luau and concert.

The Luau and concert was great. We had somewhere between 200~240 people attend, with five responses from first-time guests to our church requesting a follow-up. The music provided during the worship was fantastic, led by Imua Garza (YouTube videos), his wife Tiffa, and his brother-in-law Eric. They were great! As a request from our youth pastor, he did his Super Mario guitar solo (embedded below). That guy is really good! They also played Sunday morning and evening (when we had the youth event).

On Sunday, along with the Hawaii-themed worship, we heard from Dr. Eric Theonnes, a pastor from another EV Free and a professor at Biola. He spoke on the glory of God and how it should impact our lives and missionary work. It was truly fantastic, with a cogent message, good delivery, and a consistent, coherent theology firmly grounded in the Bible. One thing that struck me deeply was his reference to Isaiah seeing the Lord enthroned (in chapter 5), and he was undone. I pray for such an undoing of my self.

That evening, my loving wife convinced me to find someone else to cover the worship service and spend time with her. She was right; I was spending too much time away from family, even for such a good cause.

This night (Monday) we attended a missionary appreciation dinner at the Disneyland Hotel sushi restaurant, Yamabuki. Each table got to sit with one of our missionaries and spent quality, quantity time with them. The couple we sat with have been involved in L.A. inner city missions since 1981 and has a similar target at Cathy's dad's church. I was already asked by a pastor to visit his ministry to help out, and this conversation confirmed so much more. I am looking forward to my first visit.

Well... it is late, and I have a Hebrew test tomorrow, and I am having difficulty staying awake...

Bulls in a China Shop

Ever seen Myth Busters? Here's a rather entertaining one: Bulls in a China Shop.

Video of Sophie & her kittens

Sophie is well again and the kittens are really big for just three weeks. Cathy named them after the Peanuts cast.

Charlie - solid dark kitten
Sally - dark with tabby stripes
Marcy - black & white, dark head, no white line on top
Lucy - black & white, dark head, half a white line on top
Linus - black & white, dark head, full white line on top

And, of course, Sophie is the momma.

Sh'ma Kolenu

I heard this song, "Sh'ma Kolenu" during class and it really struck a cord in me. You can hear a clip of it here from the web site of this Messianic Jewish congregation.

The Hebrew part of the clip goes (this is NOT properly transliterated)

Hear  our voice, our God!
Shema kolenu,    elohenu!
Show mercy and tender-compassion upon us.
Hus        ve- rahem             alenu.

I had that song stuck in my head all weekend long; I found it very beautiful.

Disabling Vista UAC Prompts

Vista's new User Account Control (UAC) is a new security component in Windows. If you've used Vista at all, you know that it feels like Windows Vista nags you about launching every single program. Here's a simple explanation: Microsoft wants to protect your from evil software, so it makes you think twice when you do something Microsoft doesn't recognize; it does so by asking "are you sure?" when you do something like install software or launch a program that is not registered with Microsoft (e.g. Firefox). For a detailed explanation, see this Microsoft Technet article.

Anyway, these prompts can get annoying, almost like nagging. I didn't like them in the beta, I don't like them now. I ran Vista with the UAC prompts for a week, and I disabled them today with the secpol.msc tool (see this URL to disable UAC it yourself).

That's why I found this new Apple "get a Mac" ad so funny... (click to watch)

A Day on Hotline

Here's a time elapsed video of me at work. Fun with webcams...

Interesting Things I Saw While Sick

I didn't do much on January 1 to 3, but the evening of January 3rd I began to feel better and browsed the web a little bit. I saw some interesting things while I was under the weather, so I figured I would share.

1. First, I saw some armor for my cats (see this previous post).
2. Second, I saw this video of a cool minicar/trike/what-is-it called a Carver. I would love to get one, but they'd be about $40,000 imported... :-(
3. Third, I saw this video of a man playing piano with juggling balls.
4. Fourth, I saw this time-elapsed video of Picasso painting. Way cool.
5. Finally, I saw the perfect diamond for Cathy's anniversary ring. Unfortunately, it is a giant diamond 50 light years away from earth.

Jason McElwain: an Inspirational Story

I saw this video about Jascon McElwain. He was born borderline autistic and loves basketball. That's about all I can say without ruining it; you'll have to watch it for yourself.

Christmas Messages from Max Lucado

Max Lucado is offering six messages on the meaning of Christmas from his UpWords site. Download the MP3 files from http://www.maxlucado.com/christmas/. There's plenty of other material on the site as well.

Three Point Two Four (3.24) Billion

This is a first-person contemporary narrative sermon I gave during my second homiletics class. I got an "A" for this one! I would probably preach this as "34 Million" next time instead of "3.24 Billion"... you'll see why.

Boaz Update - Solid Food & a "Hello"

Boaz the Kitten is eating solid food now for his dinners. His first meal was on the 13th (yes, the Friday). He's coming along great; he's eating real food now, he is getting bigger, and he's starting to walk on his toes!

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Boaz's Eyes Opening

Boaz the Kitten's eyes opened today. This morning it was one eye, but now it is both eyes! He is also purring audibly now and has begun to groom himself. The video below shows him licking his paws and Cathy's hand.

Just look at how big he is getting! One week now! Cathy took Boaz to the vet on Friday and got him deworming meds (all kittens need it) and the doc put him on a temporary diet that ends Sunday. Boaz now weighs 4oz. Boaz the Kitten is just beginning to be exposed to the sense of sight, and apparently he finds seeing things as being very distractive. It is actually quite interesting... Cathy tells me that Boaz would be crying, and suddenly he just looks up, looks around, and stares at things around him for 20 minutes or more.

It is very adorable, especially since he isn't sure what to do with being able to see just yet. His ears are opening, too, and he's getting around better.

White & Nerdy

Every heard (of) Weird Al? He is a very funny man, and his MySpace page has this video, as well as a muted attack on the RIAA.


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Boaz Lost His Umbilical Cord

OK, Boaz was apparently born on 09/14/2006, on Thursday. His umbilical cord just fell off on its own, which takes seven days to happen naturally.

Here's some cute pictures of Boaz...




There's also a video of Boaz being fed, here.

Ellen's Video a Mover & Shaker

Remember Ellen's video of her teething posted back in May? The video made its way into the 300's yesterday on Google Video's "Movers & Shakers". So, it looks like Ellen got her 15 hours of fame!

For all the kitten videos on this blog, click here.