Take a lesson from the man from Glad (he wears a white suit!)

I had an interesting conversation with my brother Chris today. For those of you who don't know, he is my older brother, but not my oldest brother. Currently he (almost) resides in Tofu...I mean, Tofield, Alberta as a pastor, and when he is not busy burning down churches, he is working on sermons that are really quite impacting. At least to me.
Our talk today mostly centred around grace. I have been really struggling lately, trying to get back to a place where I can get myself right with God, where I can live my life in a way to be used by Him. And then Chris comes along and tells me that I probably should be concentrating more on God than on fixing myself (I am going to throw out an apology/disclaimer. He has thought about this much more than I have and is infinitely more capable at the moment of explaining this. However, I will soldier on and try to get my heart across. Any major mistakes, I'm sure he'll correct me on later). But it wasn't just concentrating on God that he told me to do. His phrasing was "cling to God".
This past month, I feel like I've just become totally numb, unable to be affected by crap any more. Everytime I screw up, I seem to just shrug and ignore the problem. I think that this is an end result of guilt that has been hammering away at me for much longer than I care to think. As I despair, I give up ever working my way back into the graces of God. But I don't have to, which is good, because I would never make it anyway.
God accepts us by grace, and grace alone. No one is good enough. No one. Ever. Mother Theresa wasn't good enough, and she was way better than I am.
Two things really struck me in what Chris talked about. First, the fact that God can and will use me even if I'm struggling and falling particularly hard. I don't have to be perfect before He will do something wonderful in and with my life. Too often I get stuck in trying to re-order my head and my heart before I go to Him, when all He really wants is for me to crawl to Him on my hands and knees, no matter how broken.
Secondly, it is God who does the work, really. He works to change my heart even as he works to change the world. Whatever we do is not going to work, we can't make ourselves right before Him. And that is where the grace really kicks in. He embraces me, flaws and all.
The grace of God is the only thing that saves us. I have to learn to cling to that grace at all times, no matter how good or how bad things are. It's not really the easiest thing to do, and frankly it takes longer than I want to wait.
The funny thing is, I always want to take away the sin before I get to God. But if I cling to Him and let Him change me, then he will take away the desire to sin. Chris gave me a verse in Philippians that talks about God working on the desires that we have, or something like that. I forget the verse, but what it was saying was that God is be the only one who can change our hearts. No matter how hard we try, we can do nothing.
At this point in my life, I thought that I had heard everything there was to hear about this sort of thing. Shows I was wrong. I may have heard the words before, and I have even heard and understood (at least mostly) the idea of grace, but I have never quite looked at it like this before. Not even the idea of needing God's grace alone, but the idea of clinging to that grace in such a ferocious manner. Cling to it like your life depends on it. Cling to it and let Him work on the rest. The grace of God is the only life preserver that can actually preserve life.
As an addendum, let me say that we should not just live our lives as though nothing matters, that we are going to be forgiven no matter what. The book of James clearly speaks to the falsehood of that, telling us in no uncertain terms that if we are living in God's grace, then we are not only not going to want to do bad things, but we are going to want to do good works. Also, in another book (my recall is a bit fuzzy, sorry)(probably Romans somewhere), Paul talks about not doing whatever we want to do just because we are/will be forgiven. But if you truly live in the grace of God, and really love Him, then the desires to do bad will melt away. It may take some time, but I suppose it's worth the wait. I aim to find out.

Life in the land of slumber

I must be frustrated with life right now, at least based on recent dreams. Last night, I dreamt that I was at a unique buffet. Every time you wanted another helping, you would go throgh a drive-through. The problem is the drive-through was poorly designed. It wound its way back an forth, much like a line at an amusement park, or at the bank. At every corner, there were a few different options and lane choices, but only one way was the right way. If you picked the wrong turn, then you would end up going into oncoming traffic, or in one case you'd be on a road leaving the area completely. And, of course, there were no signs directing you to the proper lanes. I got the wrong lane every time except for once (and I was soo proud of myself that time). It was in infuriating. At least the food was good.
Last week, I dreamt one night that I had somehow contracted AIDS and cancer at the same time. The part that got to me was having to tell my mom. It was depressing. And then I woke up and went back to sleep. My next dream featured a baseball game where the players were making spectacular plays, but then they would land and snap a limb clear off. Some guys slid into a base and lost a limb. A few guys landed awkwardly on their heads and popped them off. One player snapped clear in half when an umpire chased him down and tackled him. It was quite disturbing. The funny thing is that if I were to watch a movie like that, I wouldn't be bothered at all, and it sounds like the kind of movie that would be gloriously horrible, so I'd probably enjoy it. But in the dream it was so real that I just felt sick, but unable to look away. Like a passenger train wreck.
A few weeks back I had a dream that I didn't want to remember, so I didn't. But I can still feel the sense of sorrow that I had when I woke up. It was very sad.
Some days I don't like dreaming....

Sigh 2

This will be quick. I just watched Transporter 2, and while it was better than the original, it was still pretty bad. The action sequences were just too contrived and fake. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the need for suspension of disbelief for an action movie, and in the good ones it's a fairly easy thing to do. Unfortunately, this was not a good movie. There is a fight in a plane, and of course the pilot ends up getting shot. So the plane crashes. The hero of our movie saves himself by jumping towards the back of the plane on to the ground. Now, last time I checked, in order for a plane to fly, it has to be moving really fast. And even though the plane may have been going not quite fast enough to be flying, it would still be moving quite fast. I just don't think that jumping on to the floor would really do much. But, he's fine. Earlier, he jumped out of a building that was at least two stories high without knowing what was around, and lands on a taxi going driving speed (50k an hour most likely), and he lands hard enough to completely cave in the roof, but he is completely fine. Things like that just stretch believability just a bit too far. Really, the premise of the series sounds like it would be so good, and there are parts that seem so promising. But it's just not working.
Ah well, maybe a good movie will come along again someday. Spider-man is only 16 months away. YAY!!!!!

Ketchup? Catsup? BBQ Sauce!

As you may have noticed, most of my recent posts have been about movies. Well, this BLOG is going to be a bit different today.
Earlier this week Jeff and I went to see Glory Road, a movie (it gets different later, I swear. Keep reading!) about a college basketball coach in Texas who recruits some black players and ends up starting most of them for the entire season, taking them to the national finals and starting five black players in the game, which was a first at the time.
The movie, I will say, was good. For fans of the TV show Smallville, Pete Ross (Sam Jones III) has a role as one of the basketball players, and he is pretty good. In the final game he has a sweet play. The movie, of course, is about racism and working to overcome. All of the actors did a fine job, especially the guy who played Coach Haskins, an actor by the name of Josh Lucas. He is really good, especially when he has to look intense and angry (which is quite often). It is also based on a true story, and seems to be quite accurate. At least, I haven't seen anything that said otherwise.
I'll be honest with you, though. Given the subject matter, there was a good chance that I was going to like the movie pretty much no matter what because those sorts of movies really get to me. You see, I hate racism. I'm not going to sit up here and say that I am perfect, because I am not. It is possible that I have acted in a manner that could be construed as racist. However, in every way I try to avoid such actions, and, super-especially, such attitudes. I absolutely hate racism and racists. It just drives me around the bend when I hear people talk about other people in disparaging ways. In my mind, a person's colour has nothing to do with anything. It's like saying a red car is faster than a blue car. Well, that's only true if the red car is a Corvette and the blue car is a Chevette. But if the cars are the same, then the colour makes no different. And people are the same types of cars (more often than not they are the Chevettes, but perhaps that's a rant for another time).
Really, I'm not sure that I should go to those types of movies anymore because they get me angry. At everyone. I'm mad at the white folks especially (cuz these movies are always about white folks being racist towards people)(which is, historically, pretty justified) because I don't like baseless smug superiority. Just because I'm white doesn't make me better, and just because you're black doesn't make you worse. In this particular movie, the notion that black folks are dumber and less suited to handle pressure was raised a few times, and every time it made me angry. Angrier when I realised that these weren't necessarily made up lines, but were basically quotes. And I was even angrier still when I realised that people still think that, especially in certain regions (I want to say notably in the Southern USA, but I have no proof of that. It was just a historically bad area for that problem, and stereotypically a bad area still). That sort of thing just boils my blood. I want to grab people by the ears, lift them up and shake them until they smarten up. I don't care how long it takes. I've got time!
I'm not just mad at the white folks, though. It bothers me to hear, even in movies, the black folks talking about how bad all white people are and that they never get a chance. For instance, in the movie, one of the black players gets beat up, so in the next game, the black players refuse to pass it to the white players. After the game, the black guys are talking about how all white people are racist and against them. They're mad at their teammates because they are white, not because they have done anything wrong. They are mad at the white coach, even though he gave them the only opportunity to play that they ever could have had. As far as I'm concerned, that's racism too. They are judging all people of a certain skin colour as being the same based on the actions of a few. The white guys on the team never showed any sort of problem with the black players (after the initial getting to know you stage where this was a weird idea to everyone), and Coach Haskins treated them the exact same way he treated everyone, and that was very respectfully. But because some white people treated them bad, immediately all white people were bad.
This is an attitude that comes across in the movies quite often, and in real life, perhaps even more often, and it bothers me just as much as the reverse attitude. I will agree that non-white people have been treated like crap by many white people in the past, and that there are still areas where it is hard for them because of their colour. That is sad but true. However, that does not give non-Caucasians the right to hate and discriminate against all whites. It means they have to work harder than I do for some things, and they have to be more careful about who they can trust than I do, and for that I am sorry, but it does not mean that they have the right to treat me like crap because I am white. Just like I can't treat them right because they are latino, black, or whatever.
I think the problem is getting smaller as time moves on, but it is still out there. I will say this clearly, and to anyone who asks. EVERYONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED WITH RESPECT! You don't have to agree, you don't have to like, but you do have to respect. Sometimes I wish I was blind, because it would be so much easier. Then it wouldn't matter at all, because I couldn't see differences.
I am angry right now.
Gar!
*Deep breath*
Okay, I'm feeling a bit better. Just disappointed that people are so stupid sometimes. Oft-times.
Respect.

"Pray You Die First"

Aliens: Resurrection
And now we come to the grand finale of the Aliens tetralogy. In this movie, Ripley is resurrected using DNA from hair and teeth and stuff. I’m not exactly sure where they got the materials from, because she died at the end of the last movie by falling into molten lead, but I don’t think it is that important to the story, really. They did this to clone the alien inside of her so that they could use it as a military weapon, as well as to learn scientific sorts of things from her (antibodies, etc).
There are many who see this as a bad movie, the worst of the four, and I’m not sure I would completely disagree with that. I think the first three were better, but that does not necessarily make this a bad movie. There are some things that mark this movie as being very different from the others. There is more of the standard action movie formula in this movie; people walking in a line and the last person getting picked off by the alien (they were actually swimming, but same idea), and a character who seems to be mostly devoted to snappy one liners and big guns. There is also a great deal more blatant blood and gore in this movie, and just general grotesqueness. In a scene where Ripley finds the failed clones of herself (she was the eighth try), said clones are really quite gruesome, especially the one that is alive and aware of herself. That one is half alien, and very much a monstrosity that is aware of it’s freakishness. It asks Ripley to kill her, so she does. I’m not sure why she uses fire to kill it, plus the others which were in large tubes, also possibly alive. My best guess is that fire is the best way to kill the aliens, according to the previous movies, so she is just making sure they are dead.
The effects in this movie are better than the others, which is good considering it was made in 1997. There was only one scene where I thought the alien looked distractingly fake. Once again, the explosions were much better. If you think that I’m obsessed with explosions, I’m not. I just really quite enjoy them in movies.
Despite the weakness of the story in the sense that it was too much like a standard action flick, it was still good in many ways. Sigourney Weaver plays the cloned Ripley very well. She is a bit odd in that she is not quite the same character anymore. Because she was cloned from herself who had had an alien inside of her, she was basically part alien. This is most evident in her blood, because it is acidic like the aliens blood. Throughout the movie, and especially in the first half, she is very unsettling, just acting not quite human. Being half-alien seems to have made her slightly less antagonistic towards the aliens. She wants them to not be alive anymore, but she isn’t quite so bent on destroying them all herself. She definitely has become more brutal, almost like an unfeeling killing machine when she wants to be. Little compassion for the others is shown, but there isn’t a great deal of malice. It’s like she doesn’t care for them one way or another. It was interesting to watch.
As with the others, there were things about this movie that I enjoyed, and/or found interesting. In this movie, Earth seems to be more like the Earth we know and less like a futuristic Earth, in some ways. There are references to Wal-Mart, and a few other little things that are slipping my mind at the moment.
The script was written by Joss Whedon, the man who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the man responsible for the TV series. For anyone who saw the movie, don’t think of that particular incarnation, because it really wasn’t what he had envisioned for the character at all. He also is the man who created Firefly (and its spin off movie Serenity, which was a good movie as well. Check it out).
At one point a character throws some boxing gloves and hit the camera, which was just amusing.
The general of the Military ship is hairy as a bear. His hair was thicker than his shirt.
One of the characters, the gruff comic relief, calmly shoots an alien that was attacking his friends, and then is spooked by a spider in its web, so he shoots it too. From about two inches away.
Warrick from CSI (the original) plays one of the pirates; he’s their weapons guy, and he does a really good job.
I think the funniest thing was the soldier that they end up taking with them when he gets left behind on the ship. He is totally serious and intense, and the scene is angry and intense, and then one of the characters mentions something about the special guns he has, and this macho soldier turns into a complete geek. He’s grinning like a fool and asking questions. Basically he turns into a trekkie like fan boy. Later, when a character turns out to be a robot, he does the same thing. If he was around these days, he would be someone who spends all of his time in front of a computer learning how to speak Klingon or something. It was rather quite amusing, actually.
So as you can see, there was still entertainment value in the movie. It may not have been cinematic gold, but it was amusing all the same. I’d say that you should watch it, especially if you have seen the others (and especially if you enjoy bloody Sci-fi movies. Which I do).
There you have it, the Aliens tetralogy. Four movies spanning almost twenty years. In total, the number of characters that survive being around Ripley equals three people and a robot. And most of those were in the last movie.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Chicks, man. Chicks.

"The Bitch is Back"

Alien3
I fully admit that I went in to Aliens 3 with low expectations. I just expected it to be a bad movie, or at the very best simply an okay movie. As it turns out, my expectations were exceeded. The story of Ripley is carried on rather nicely here.
Something that is nice about the Aliens movies is that they each pick up where the last one left off. There is no time gap, kinda. The second movie is 60 odd years after the first movie, but she was frozen for the entire time, so it was like it was only seconds later. The third movie takes place shortly after she left the planet from the second movie. Of course, the ship they were in crashed (she was with a marine and a little girl) onto a prison planet and she was the only survivor. Well, her and an alien that somehow managed to cause the crash.
This movie’s strength was the characters. I found myself drawn into the story and sympathising with the characters. I don’t mean I felt sorry for them, I just mean I felt for them, whether I hated them or liked them, they made me care. The characters were the few remaining prisoners who had decided to stay after the prison was shut down, plus a warden, his lackey, and a medic. I especially liked the medic and thought he did a good job. He was very believable. I was genuinely sad to see him die.
And it’s not even that I sympathised with the characters, but I thought they were characters that were believable and played out in a realistic manner. There were a few more ‘amusing’ moments in this one, almost the standard witty action movie dialogue, but it never quite got that far.
Not everything was all good, though. The special effects were especially distracting. It’s not that they were bad, because they really were quite good. However, this movie was made in the early 1990s, when CGI was new. The alien was often animated that way, but it was still at the stage where CGI characters didn’t really look real. They looked, well, animated.; slightly shiny and like they weren’t quite part of the scene; too smooth and not textured enough. It was well animated, and in a movie that was all animated like that it probably would have fit right in, but it was out of place. On the other hand, if movies like this hadn’t been made, then special effects wouldn’t have been pushed forward as fast as they have been, and we wouldn’t have the awesome special effects and CGI characters that we have now. Then movies like Star Wars may have had to rely on characters and story. Well, okay, so maybe the special effects aren’t all good, but they aren’t all bad.
For some reason, the setting for the movie also bugged me a little. Not the physical setting, but the fact that her ship had crashed into a sparsely populated planet that was completely cut off from the outside universe. It just seemed a little too contrived for my taste, kind of like the same sort of thing seen in a thousand other movies a thousand other times. It was perhaps the biggest and most blatant cliché to appear in the Alien tetralogy so far (I found the word for a four part series. Yay!). Although I haven’t quite watched the fourth one yet, so who knows what it will be like. I have seen it before and I remember kind of liking it, but I don’t really remember much about it.
One part that did amuse me was when the doctor was trying to get information from Ripley, before they knew there was an alien on the planet. After performing and autopsy on he girl that had crashed (and died) on the ship with Ripley, he asked her “Now that I’ve gone out on a limb for you, damaged my already less than perfect reputation with the men and briefed you on the humdrum history of Fury161, can you not tell me what you were looking for in the girl?” Without a second’s pause she replied “Are you attracted to me?” Now THAT’S question avoidance.
And later, she was talking about knowing where the alien would be, she gave the reason that, “it’s like a lion. It sticks close to the zebras.” The man with her looked confused for a second and said, “Zebras? Oh right.” It was played pretty well, and made me chuckle.
Really, many people seem to be disappointed with this movie, but I thought it was not bad. If you liked the first two, you should enjoy this one, though it probably won’t be your favourite. If you didn’t like the first two, then there isn’t a whole lot in this movie for you, but I recommend that you give it a shot. You might be entertained.

"This Time It's War"

Aliens (AKA Aliens 2)
Having just watched the first Alien movie, I decided to watch the second one as well. This one was quite different from the first one in many ways. The first movie was a suspense/horror/sci-fi thriller. This movie was an action/sci-fi/drama. There was definitely more action in this movie, which works well because there were more aliens in this movie. Ridley is woken up 57 years after the end of the last movie, and now people have started to colonize the formerly abandoned planet that had housed the alien in the last movie. They find the aliens, get killed, and the marines are sent in to figure out the situation. No one had believed Ridley that there was an alien, but now they think she may be right, so they take her along. Almost everyone dies, except for her, one marine (that she likes, if you know what I mean) and a little girl they find on the planet.
Really, I enjoyed this movie. It actually managed to carry the character of Ridley forward in her journey, something many sequels don’t manage to do. In the first movie, she starts out as a play by the book second- (or third-) officer on a spaceship. At the end of the second movie, she is a kick butt action hero, basically a marine herself. And after watching the two movies, I totally believe that it was a natural conclusion to make.
Again, there were some things I noticed. The explosion at the end of the movie was much better than the last film. Much better. I was amused when the marines woke up from their cryogenic sleep, and the leader (Sergeant? Captain? Really don’t know his rank) immediately puts a cigar in his mouth. The means he was frozen with it in his hand. Now that’s dedication to a vice. Also, there comes a time when Ridley rescues the little girl from the aliens, and then as she is trying to escape, she comes into a room and suddenly just stops. The camera slowly pans out and you see that she has stumbled into a room full of the alien’s eggs (which will hatch into “face-huggers”, which are the creatures that implant the baby aliens into peoples stomachs, which burst out a little later, killing the person and creating a new alien). The combination of terror, disgust, and hopelessness on her face is echoed in how the scene is played out. It is very understated, very slow, very methodical.
Making this movie into a more action driven film was a good idea, I think. If it had been a suspenseful film like the first one, no one would have cared. This changed things, which is good because people change, and situations change. Ridley was a different person, and as such she reacts differently to the situation. Likewise, the other people have more information about the aliens, so they have that experience and knowledge to learn from. What the alien looks like is not a secret, so there would be little suspense there. And the character actually shows growth, which, as I said, is rare in sequels.
I was also very interested to see Paul Reiser (of Mad About You fame) playing the main bad guy, a weasly business pencil pusher who’s only concern is the bottom line, making a buck. He gets his just desserts in the end, you’ll be happy to know. It was good to see that he was playing the character completely seriously, except for his hair, which was definitely going for funny (oh, snap!). Not so much funny ‘ha-ha’, as funny ‘oh dear Lord, no’. Actually, I was a little disturbed to see how close to his Mad About You character this man was. It really would make you look at the TV show a little differently. Or maybe not.
Either way, I’d say this was still a good film. It was a sci-fi movie not driven by special effects. There was action, but it made sense, it wasn’t just random explosions. I really despised one of the marines cuz he whined way too much, and his acting was annoying. But all in all, I’d say it was worth a viewing. Now we’ll see how part three stacks up.
And go.

"In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream"

Alien:
I like to watch movies. Some people are music people, they keep up with all of the latest tunes, always listening to the radio, downloading music, owning two iPods, that sort of thing. Other people, like myself, would rather immerse themselves in movies and television. As my friend Peter says, we are media junkies. Personally, I’m more of a movie guy than a TV guy, in the sense that I won’t spend much time sitting down every week to catch a show. The TV shows that I watch are usually on DVD, such as Smallville, or Lost (soon) and 24 (very, very soon).
Yet, despite my love of media in general, and movies in specific, I somehow manage to not see the major sorts of films that ‘everyone’ has seen. For example, I only watched the Godfather in the past year. Even before I watched it, I was familiar enough with it to catch most pop culture references to it, and to enjoy outright spoofs, such as the movie Mafia (really funny). But I had not seen it (incidentally, I really enjoyed it, even the much maligned third movie).
Another such movie is Alien. This is, along with the original Star Wars, is the quintessential Sci-Fi movie to see. It was hyped enough that I went into it fully expecting to be disappointed. Fortunately, I wasn’t. Right off the bat, I will tell you that I really liked it.
There are a few things that appealed to me. First of all, the alien is hardly ever seen. And it’s not like it’s there, but just off screen all the time. Often it’s not even around. Rather than going for cheap thrills, they instead chose to just let the tension naturally build. They were constantly looking for this creature, and so rarely finding it. There weren’t a great deal of false scares, where the music gets really nervous, and they look around the corner the music plays the scare beat and…there’s nothing there. That is such a cheap scare that it doesn’t even work anymore. The worst is when they do that, and then when they are taking a sigh of relief, the monster is behind them. This movie had none of that. If they were expecting to see it, then it was there. If they were looking for it, then there was tension, and it kept getting higher and higher until something happened.
Second, when the alien is seen, it’s done artfully. It’s only shown briefly, ably hiding the fact that it was 1979 and there was only so much people could do with special effects and rubber suits. If the movie was made now, the alien would be seen running and crouching and all of that kind of stuff. But they couldn’t do that back then, so they just kept it mostly hidden. Many of the shots of it, the alien is simply not moving, just standing there being all intense. They especially liked the close-ups of it’s double mouth, the big one with the small one inside of it. That was done really well. I especially like that there was always slime (sweat? water? something) running down its face.
Third, the acting is well done.
Heck, even the special effects are pretty good for the time. An explosion at the end is pretty cool looking. It would be much better these days, much cooler looking, but back then, it was all they could do. It was still pretty nifty.
The movie wasn’t perfect, of course. There are things that obviously date it to the late 70s. For example, the black guy (only one of course) has a very stereotypical 70s black guy beard. Nowadays it would be a well groomed goatee. Some of the shots just looked like they were from the seventies. I can’t really explain it exactly, but they were the kind of shots that looked, well, seventy-ish. It’s like how every movie made in the eighties somehow looks the same, and it’s not just fashion. It’s just a look. As soon as you see a movie from the eighties, you can tell that’s when it was made, even if you’ve never seen it before, and there is nothing that would really indicate that. You can just tell. The effects are pretty good. There isn’t much besides the space-ships themselves, and they look very much like the spaceship shots from the original Star Wars, which still hold up very well I think. Also, like I said, the explosion definitely would be better now, but it was still very well done. And the computers were old. They still had keyboards, and there was basically no pictures, just words and numbers.
Frankly, I think more Sci-Fi movies need to be done like this. Because this is harder to simply categorize than current space movies. There are no stereotypical one liners, no lasers and, well, basically no conventions of the genre. It seems that all Sci-Fi movies now are either in the Star Wars mould, or just entirely too cheesy. Which is too bad.
There were some things that crossed my mind as I watched it. For instance, the last three survivors are a black guy and two women. That’s unusual for now, let alone back then. Also, the alien was alone with a cat, and didn’t eat it. My only guess is that it doesn’t like Chinese food (oh, snap!). And, I decided that the worst thing about everything being completely computer generated in science fiction is that the people who make steam come out of, well, everything in Sci-Fi movies are out of work, because it can be done digitally now. Why is there so much steam? Is the internal combustion engine a thing of the past in the future? Have they returned to steam power? I just don’t know.
Plus, there were a couple of issues with setting/plot that I had. First, the crew of seven goes down to an alien planet on a shuttle, but later they say that they can’t escape on the shuttle because it doesn’t seat four (a few people were already dead). My only guess is that the escape shuttle was a different one, but that doesn’t really explain why they couldn’t use the first one. I imagine it doesn’t have the cryogenic freezing chambers that allows them to survive the months on the ship between systems. But they never really explain that. Second, the second guy who gets killed is eaten in a room that I just can’t find a reason for existing. It was a giant room (thirty foot ceilings) with a large console type thing coming down from the ceiling in the middle of the room. It looked like the gang shower in Main Men’s One (a dorm at the college I went to in Regina. Those that went there know what I mean). It reminded me of that because there was water falling from the ceiling. I have no idea what the purpose behind that room was. It just seemed to exist.
Stay tuned, because I am going to be reviewing the remaining three parts of this four part series. Incidentally, if anyone knows a word like trilogy that refers to a four-part series, let me know. I’m sure there is one, I just can’t think of it.

Gar

IF there is one type of movie that I enjoy, it is the horror film. Actually, there are lots of types of movies I enjoy, but I want to focus on the horror film for right now. I've never really had a problem with the gore, or the violence, or the swearing, or the ocasional nude shot. Heck, of all of those, the swearing seems to bother me the most, but I can usually just raise an eyebrow at it and then move on. I like the good ones that actually frighten you, or more likely, the ones that draw you in, make you really care about the characters, make you wonder what exactly is going to happen to them, and make you realise what is going to happen is not only the worst possible thing, but also completely inevitable, no matter how hard you yell at the screen. Saw and Saw II were a couple of examples of such movies. I also really love the cheesy horror films, the slasher ones that seem to have no discernable plot featuring characters dumber than a bowl of hair. The worse it is, the better. I love being able to make fun of the movies (as people who have read previous posts about some of the movies I've watched, i.e. Stealth, can tell you) and to tell people why they are so gloriously bad. Some are fun (Anacondas amused me), some are funny (the Evil Dead trilogy), and some are just unbelievable (Boa vs. Python). I'm actually pretty easy to please in one form or another at the movies.
Why am I talking about this, you may ask? Well, it's because Peter and I went to see Hostel tonight. This is a movie about a group of backpackers (two Americans (kind of amusing story about that later) and an Iclandic fellow) who are going around the country trying to score with ladies, mostly because one guy broke up with his girlfriend. Apparently they've decided that the best solution for his woes is for him to have sex with another woman. Any other woman.
A good horror movie will introduce the main victims and make you interested in them. You don't even have to like them, but you will care about them. The writer of this movie watched a great number of good horror movies, and then said 'screw it,' and wrote this movie instead. When Peter and I walked in, the woman taking our tickets asked us for ID, though she was only joking (because some of us actually look older than 18, Jeff). Peter was confused because he didn't really know about the movie, and I just kind of laughed, because I thought the movie was all about the gore and violence.
Turns out she only mentioned ID because she was letting us in to a softcore porn movie. After thirty minutes of the movie, no one had died, and I they had shown more naked women than some countries have people. And if they weren't naked, then they were mostly naked and acting like they wanted to be naked. Actually, they were either naked or drinking and doing drugs. Worst of all, I didn't give a rip about any of the characters. They were just annoying, and boring. There was nothing to them at all. The one guy, as I mentioned, wants to have sex to forget his old girlfriend, but he just can't go through with it. His buddies, on the other hand, are all for encouraging him through example. The only character I had any interest in was the gay businessman they met on the train. He seemed to be slightly sympathetic. Slightly.
I seriously would believe someone if they told me this movie had been written by a thirteen year old. Actually, a fourteen year old might be more believable, but only because the guys didn't actually use the word 'boobies'. It was seriously pathetic. It's not even the nudity that bothers me. I can usually ignore that, and it's usually just a brief moment. Plus, most movies make it more believable in that the woman is in a shower, or with her boyfriend, or something like this. In this movie, they set it in Amsterdam so that everyone would be stoned and naked. There was no other place that they could really set the movie because Amsterdam is a bit different than most places in that pot and prostitution are legal, so drugs and nudity are allowed and expected. But I really believe that it was just a thin excuse to show as many breasts as possible. Like I said, a horny teenager wrote this.
I finally got to the point where I decided that if they showed another pointless sex scene then I was out of their. Two minutes later, after getting relationship advice from a gay man and almost being mugged by a group of kids, the main guy is in his hostel room with some woman he found (his roommate is in the next bed over with another woman), and she takes off her shirt and almost shakes them for the camera. It was at that point that I shook my head and walked out.
It's not even the storyline that bothered me. I could write the exact same story with the exact same result, and make it much better without showing all the nekkid chicks. Plus, people would actually care about the characters one way or another instead of thinking that they were horny teenagers or whiny teenagers. I'm just in shock at how utterly pointless this movie was. Right now, I would like to apoligise to Peter for taking him to such a movie. I should have examined this a little more closely before deciding it was a good movie to see. My bad.
I'm not even angry or enraged. I'm just disappointed that the movie was so bad and so pointless. I can't even really say much more about it because it's just too sad.
Oh, right, the slightly amusing part. At one point they were somewhere and their friend mentioned he was from Iceland. When asked if he was also from Iceland, the main guy said that he was from America. His friend then said "I'm Paxton." But I thought he said "I'm Pakki", which I took to mean he was trying to make people think he wasn't from the States. The mistake was partly because he did look like he could have been middle-eastern, so it seemed like a logical lie to make. It took until the third time hearing his name that I realised he wasn't saying that he was from Pakistan. Kind of amusing, but not really.
So don't go see the movie. It's too terrible to even be amusing.
But stay tuned. I've got reviews of some good movies coming up. I swear.

Well what did you expect?

Those of you who know me know that I am, for the most part, pretty laid back. However, that doesn't mean that nothing ever gets to me. It just means that what gets to me is usually pretty minor, cuz the major stuff doesn't really bother me. Which just seems weird, even as I write it.
What I am thinking about specifically, this time, is the expectations people have of me because I am single. I feel like there are certain things that people just assume I do simply because I am not married, or even dating. For instance, I with two other guys from work, and they noticed some women. They both commented on them, even though one of them is married and the other is in a long-term dating relationship. Actually, by now, they're probably common-law. Also, by notice, I mean they simply commented on the fact that the women were attractive, there was no innapropriate talk, and for all I know, they never even gave it a second thought. Anyway, what got me was that they just assumed I had noticed, and commented that I must be constantly noticing all of the beautiful women around. Truth is, I hadn't, and I usually don't. If you know me, then you can probably believe that. I simply don't notice things (which leads me to almost jumping over railings high above the ground, but that's a story for another time). So I often don't notice when there are attractive women around, it just doesn't really register. I'm definitely not always looking for and at women, which seems like something that people would expect me to be doing simply because I'm a man.
Another instance that got to me happened when some people were over at my house. They noticed that the kitchen garbage happened to be full and started razzing me about being a bachelor and remembering those days when they didn't worry about cleaning up and that kind of stuff (they were married) and how different life was as a single person. I just laughed it off at the time, but truth is I was a little annoyed. I have never met a person who's garbage didn't get full from time to time. And it's not like it was overflowing onto the ground. It was just comfortably full, to the point of needing a change in a day or two. It didn't smell or anything. But they were laughing like it was such a 'bachelor' thing to do. It irritated me. I'm not a slob who lives in filth. I'm not a neat freak, but I try to keep things relatively neat. Heck, right now my bed is even made. Actually, that is pretty rare, and I'm not sure why I did that, but it is made.
And there are other things, but basically I'm not the stereotypical single male. There are some ways in which I share traits, but only in some ways. For the most part, I'm the opposite. I'm neat, polite, not wild and crazy party animal. I like to have fun, but it's not the only driving force in my life. I guess I just don't like being regarded as a slightly dumb slob, which is how most single guys are viewed, at least as far as I've been able to tell. Frankly, I find those expectations a little insulting. On the other hand, they are also rather easy to exceed, so I guess they're not all bad.
P.S. Um...just don't look in my bathroom. Sadly, I'm a little too stereotypical there at times. Sigh.

My Greatest Fear

How do you worship?

Last night at College and Career, someone mentioned that over the Christmas break he had spent some time with some friends around a piano singing hymns, and that it was his favourite moment of the break. My first reaction was one of near revulsion. The thought of just standing around with a few people at a piano and singing really does not appeal to me. When it happens, I just feel really uncomfortable. Going to a Bible College, I would often end up in a group of people, and one person would have a guitar that he/she was mindlessly strumming. Regularly that person would start strumming a hymn or chorus that everyone knew, and the group would start singing. Except for me. I would just sit and listen, or if I was feeling like it, I would quietly go elsewhere for a bit. It's not that I had anything against singing. It's just that I did not feel like participating.
When I was younger, I would really get into the 'worship' times, the singspirations, as we called them, when we would all gather and spend time singing to God and just worshipping that way. Sometime during my freshman year at college, that changed. I had trouble seperating the image of a person in those moments from the rest of their lives. Frankly, there were issues in my freshmen year of college, both with me and with other people, that have had lasting impressions on me. But sometime during that first year of college, my perspective changed, and it became hard for me to be comfortable with the singing form of worship. I felt like too many people used it as a purely emotional time. They would get in and 'feel' the music and be moved to tears and everything was so clear. The next day they would cheat on an exam, or slander a person, or just do something totally opposite of what they had shown during the music. I just couldn't stand it.
Before you get all hairy-kairy on me, let me say that I was no better than anyone, which I guess is part of the reason for the big attitude change in this area. Heck, there's part of me that would think that I was worse than most people because I could see the things that I did in secret when no one else was watching. I realise better now that most people do worse things when no one is watching than when people are watching, so that probably isn't an accurate test of how bad I am compared to other people. But, regardless, the whole concept of a night devoted to singing and nothing else really doesn't hold great appeal to me. Except, in some ways, it really does.
I think there are a couple dangers associated with worship nights. First, for many people, it is just a concert that they participate in. It is no different than any other concert they might go to. This can be equally true of the audience as it is for the musicians on stage. Second, music has the ability to affect people's emotions. There is something about music that just does that, whether it is classical, jazz, rock, or whatever. Often it isn't even the words that do it, but the rhythms and melodies and harmonies and the sounds of the words, but not the words themselves. That is something that I've noticed in my own life. Some music that I listen to really just digs itself into my being and gives a little shake. 'Clocks' by Coldplay is a song that really inspires me every time I hear it, and it has very little to do with the words. The same thing happens when people are worshipping, but because the songs are about God and praise and forgiveness, people just assume that they are really connecting with God and they let their emotions get the better of them. It would be a moment where they cry and say how terrible they are and that they are changing, and then the moment would pass, and nothing would change. Sadly, this was as true about me as it ever was about anyone. And what really got me was that there were some people who would go through this every time, and in the end, it never really mattered one iota. They simply never really changed.
All of that being said, I don't think that music is a bad thing, or that worship nights are terrible, or that we should do away with 'worship bands' in favour of one guy with an unplugged accoustic guitar. I like music, I think God has given people a definite talent for music, and I think that playing fantastic music in worship of the Almighty Creator is probably a good thing. But that's the thing: it has to be genuine worship. And that is why I have trouble singing at these big worship times, or even in church. I am acutely aware that I have trouble focussing on God when I'm surrounded by people and singing. I will either focus on the music and trying to enjoy that, or I will be trying to have the right 'worship look' (should I raise my hands? If I close my eyes I look like I'm really worshipping, etc). I'm not usually someone who likes to do things for show, so just pretending that I'm worshipping by singing isn't something I'm interested in. In fact, that desire is so strong in me that I worry when I sit down when everyone is singing, especially if I close my eyes. I think that people will think that I am being deeply moved and I'm pouring my heart out to God, when I'm actually just tired and need to get off my feet. Conversely, I also wonder if people assume that I'm a 'bad Christian' or something because I'm sitting and not singing. Sometimes I am praying, and even if I'm not, it's not that I'm not worshipping. I'm just not singing.
All of that being said, I really do enjoy worship nights; but I enjoy them on my own terms. I usually won't sing. Instead, I will sit wherever I am, often in the back away from people, just so that my seeming lack of attention to what's going on around me doesn't become an issue for anyone else, and I will spend the time writing. Sometimes it's stories, sometimes it's poetry, sometimes it's just letters to God, begging for forgiveness and praising Him for being, well, Him. I guess I worship through writing. I like to do this during worship times because I really do enjoy the music. I like to let it wash over me and to give it the chance to affect my emotions, and then I use that in my writing, in my worship. Also, when I'm alone in my car, I love to sing along with my music, and just to be moved by it. Even if it is 'non-Christian' music. Matchbox 20 is a band that can really get to me sometimes, as is Our Lady Peace. These bands often make me think, and inspire me in ways that bland, insipid 'Christian' music never could. Ah, but that's a rant for another day.
You know, there's a part of me that hopes I have offended someone with this, or if not offended them, then at least made them angry because they completely disagree with me. If that's true, let me know. I'd love to hear from anyone either way.
Peace out.

Flim Flestival

Galaxy Quest is a sweeet film. That's sweet with three a's. This film stars Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman. But they aren't my favourite part of the show. What I like best about the movie is Tony Shalhoub. I will tell you why in a minute. The movie, if you don't know already, is basically a spoof of the Star Trek phenomenon. Allen's character was the star of a fictional TV show called Galaxy Quest; which makes him for all intents and purposes William Shatner. The show has gone off the air and they are now doing the convention circuit. The rest of the characters are tired of it, but he still loves it. Then one day he is picked up by some real aliens who think that Galaxy Quest was a series of documentaries, and that the actors really were members of a spaceship, and he is recruited to help save their entire civilisation. The rest of the cast thinks that he has lost his mind, that he's drunk, and then that he's talking about a job that they want in on. When they find out that they are actually in space, they Lose Their Minds. All except for Tony Shalhoub. He seems to have taken the view that what's going to happen is going to happen regardless, so he may as well have some fun with it. For instance, the transporters in the movie are little discs that you stand on, and then you are covered with a clear gel and shot through space and through wormholes at a million miles an hour. Everyone else basically loses their lunch and their sanity, screaming and shivering. Tony smiles and says "That was a hell of a thing," continues eating his chicken, and calmly goes on a tour of the spaceship. And the group hug scene with the alien engineers is just awesome. I laugh out loud many times every time I watch this movie. Interestingly, there is a character (crewman number six - he dies before the first commercial) played by Sam Rockwell. Why interesting? Because he plays Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Speaking of, THHGTHG is a much better movie than many people gave it credit for. I watched it on video a couple days ago, and was quite amused. Actually, I'd say I was tickled pink. I have to be honest and say that I was a little disappointed with it when I first saw it, but that was mostly because I had just read the books recently and the movie differed quite significantly. However, two things happened that helped change my mind in that regard. First was the fact that Douglas Adams wrote most of the screenplay, so it was still his work entirely. And second, I realised that every incarnation of this particular story had been quite different from the last. The radio series was different than the books which was different than the play, which was different than the television series, which was different than the record album, which was different than the computer show, which was different than the comic book, which was different than the towel. Each presentation was tailored for the medium it was in, and so I was satisfied that it hadn't been butchered. All that being said, I realised as I watched it that it was a very funny movie. Very tongue-in-cheek, and full of Douglas Adams' brand of British Humour. Mos Def was the perfect person to play Arthur's friend Ford Prefect. There are so many things that I could talk about in regards to this movie, but I will just tell you to watch it and to appreciate it.
"If you can dodge a wrench, then you can dodge a ball". And then the kid gets hit in the head with a wrench. Frankly, he got hit in the head with a lot of things. Must have been tough to film that movie. But I'm glad he did. Dodgeball was a funny movie. Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller are both good at what they do. And Vince Vaughn is TALL. He just towers over people sometimes. I say sometimes because often it is not noticeable because of how they film things and frame them and that sort of thing. I bet some of his co-stars stood on things to make him not look quite so tall. But he's 6'5" tall. And there is a character who thinks he's a pirate. I LOVE the pirate. He makes me happy. Arr.
Finally, we have Perfect Score. Six kids conspire to steal the SAT scores. This is less of a concern for most Canadian kids, but I still find it to be a good movie. The funny parts are funny, the serious parts are serious, and the tender/sweet/sad parts aren't too cliched and pathetic. They are more small glimpses rather than slap you in the face moments. And the stoner guy, well he is just hilarious. I giggled every time he did something funny. Another character asks him what he'd like to do if money were no object. He goes into a spiel about remember as a kid how he would play Street Fighter 2 for hours, and there was on character, Blanka, who would bite you or zap you with electricity. When he lapses into remeniscent silence, she makes the assumption that he would like to design video games. He looks at her like she's the idiot and says "no. I want to be Blanka". Also, the basketball player's mom. She is funny. And when stoner meets mom, well, that's just a sight to see. Interestingly enough, I was watching a TV show today that had an Asian man who was British, so he spoke with a British accent. I noted that it was slightly odd, simply because it was not often seen, for an Asian man to have a British accent, and as such, it was very interesting. And then I watch the a documentary on the making of The Perfect Score, and it turns out that the stoner guy, who is also Asian, happened to have been raised in Australia, so he had a bit of an Australian accent. That was just as weird, and maybe a bit weirder, cuz he doesn't have that accent in the movie. At no time today do I hear an Asian with an Asian accent, i.e. someone from China for whom English is a second language. I thought that was interesting, but you don't have to. It's okay.
So, apparently I've had a good week at the movies. I hope you do to.
Byee

Where the heart is

I'm driving home today listening to an interview on the sports radio, and the person being interviewed (a college student who is going pro next year) say that he was told to follow his heart because "if you follow your heart, it won't lead you wrong". I smiled to myself and nodded. And then I blinked and wondered how true that was. Because there are times where following my heart would have really caused trouble.
So the question is, how far can you trust your heart. Obviously, the answer is going to vary from person to person, but frankly, I'm inclined to believe that no one should ever completely follow their heart with total abandonment. There are times when it is possible to overthink a situation; where it is possible that the best course of action is the least logical. I'm all for that. But if you go around following your heart willy-nilly, then you're going to get into major trouble, or cause irreparable harm to yourself and others.
I guess my advice, then, would be this: always listen to heart, but remember that it is not capable of rational thought. Always listen to your head, but remember that it is not capable of feeling. Find a way to get the two to work together, and when they just can't agree, then pick one and don't look back.

Good Grief

Something that I never do anymore is make New Year's Resolutions. Being a person who tries to avoid cliches, I usually just let the new year begin quietly. However, I never am quite able to avoid examining my life. That would probably bug me more, but I tend to evaluate myself quite regularily, so it really is just more of the same.
But so what? Where is this all going? Those are the kind of questions that I tend to see before me, the kind that I'm never really sure how to answer.
Being a Christian is a constant struggle for me, which I guess is pretty normal.
See, there's a problem I have. Anytime something happens, I just assume other people have it worse, or that I'm not the only one with this problem. There are ways in which this is good, because it means that I'm pretty good at keeping perspective. If my car breaks down, I fix it, and I'm thankful that I can afford a car. My movies get stolen, and I shrug and figure that it was nothing valuable taken from my warm house, with a fridge full of food. Or at least condiments that I can put on bread. Mmm...ketchup sandwich. So in that way, it is a good problem to have.
But on the other hand, it also makes it hard for me to actually deal with problems and issues that arise. Anytime I feel down, I don't really try to go to people with the problem because I always figure that it is such a minor problem compared to what others are going through. How can I go to someone and say that I am struggling living with God when their sister just went through a demon possession? How can I be mad about things going wrong when I know that someone can't talk to their parents because there is so much hate in their history? I can never stay mad for more than a few minutes because the second I get angry, I feel guilty about being angry because I am soooooooooo blessed in what I have that there is no reason to get angry.
But how often does anger promote growth? My answer would be quite often, if the anger is dealt with properly. Using anger to learn, to struggle, to grow is a good thing. Having doubts shows us that we have faith, because the opposite of faith is certainty. I just can't allow myself anger or doubt. I feel like I have no reasons to doubt, no cause to be anger. I am incredibly hard on myself.
The blessings of my life so outweigh the struggles, so how can I have problems? I should be a well adjusted, happy, satisfied person. So what is it that keeps gnawing away at me? It's funny, I've never really had a personal anger at God for what happens in the world. I've never seriously asked God why He is letting such terrible things happen to me, for the reasons stated above, namely many other people have it so much worse. I also don't question why he allows so much pain and sorrow in the world, because I think the only way to stop all of the pain is to turn people into little robots for Jesus, or to have Jesus come a second time. Armageddon is obviously at least a few seconds away, and perhaps many lifetimes away, and giving people the choice to follow Him seems to have been half of the reason (if not the entire reason) for the whole creation thing in the first place, so Jesus zombies is not really an option. Hence, pain and suffering in the world. Not always fair, but at least understandable in an abstract sort of way. That being said, I take death hard sometimes. Not the death itself, but the pain it causes other people, the seeming randomness of it, and the responses of well-meaning people. Please, never let me hear you say to a grieving parent that "God wanted your child with Him in heaven", because I might have to punch you. Even if you are a girl. I feel I am digressing.
The existence of God has never really been a doubt in my mind. Partly because I was raised that way, and partly because I have seen to many things, whether miracles, or people with strong steady faith, or just children in general (something about kids makes me see God). What really makes me struggle is deciding if it matters. I think it does, but I just have trouble seeing how sometimes. I want to follow God, I really do, but it just feels like there are too many what ifs involved. What if I mess up? (He'll forgive me) What if I offend someone? (I can't control other people, but I can love them) What if He wants to change who I am?
Now that's a big one. What if God wants to change who I am. What if he wants me to stop liking anything I currently like, to give up everything that makes me me? What if He wants me to move to interior Africa and teach a camp to underpriviliged youth. Honestly, there is nothing about that which appeals to me. But I've heard it said, and I believe, that God gives you wants, needs, and desires, and He works within them. He knows your personality, who you are, and works with that. So I guess I don't have to change who I am to follow Him.
So who am I?
You see what happens? Every question simply raises more questions. I try my best, I really do, but I constantly struggle to figure out what's going on. It's a case of being too smart (keep reading for a major caveat later) for my own good. Rather than just accepting things, I start to question, to look at options. Pretty soon, the options overwhelm me, and as a result I do nothing.
I am not saying that I am really smart, or smarter than anyone. In fact, smart may have been the wrong word. But it catches the problem that I have. I really do look at too many options, and never quite seem to settle on anything.
Holy crap, I'm Charlie Brown.
Seriously, think about it. He is always trying to make people like him, always trying to do the best thing, always wishing he could be a better person, and he always seems to have a slightly unsettled stomach because he is always slightly unsettled. That's how I feel. I also have depressing conversations with myself at night in bed like he does. And we're both bald (though I work harder at maintaining my bald than he does).
I think I'm going to cut myself off there. If you're wondering why I'm writing about this in the first place, it's because I've had a bad week or two since Christmas. Mostly related to poor choices of mine. I feel like I'm doing better right now, but the demons of my past always seem to be just around the corner, ready to trip me up again. Frankly, it's getting old.

Me Neither

Hiss. Roar. Roar?

Came across a candidate for the worst movie ever made. Boa vs. Python has it all: bad acting, plot holes, giant snakes, poor special effects, no logic, and nekkid women. Combine those elements together and you get a movie that almost physically hurts. I'm one who likes bad movies, but this one was just a bit too bad for my taste. It was one of those movies where no one acts like they would in real life, not even remotely. For instance, in one scene the female hero is having a contest with an ex-navy seal to see who can hold their breath underwater for the longest. The woman starts to remove her bikini while they are underwater, and the guy reacts like he had never seen a naked woman before. He loses his mind and nearly chokes to death because she undid one string. She didn't even take the thing off. Heck, most teenaged guys I know would remain more calm in that situation. It was completely ridiculous. The snakes are very obviously computer generated. And they also makes more noises than snakes usually make. Kind of a growling/screaming combination. It's terrible. Plus, one giant snake (the python) is loose in the sewers of Philadelphia, so they get another snake (the boa) to chase it. That is their plan. So they release the snake, and immediately the python tries to mate with the boa, so the boa runs away and the python chases it. I could go one, but I won't. Just don't watch this movie unless you are a bad movie junkie, and even then, go into it forewarned. Oi.

Sittin' on the crapper waitin' for something to happen...

...(but) nothing's gonna happen at all!
I have been spending the past three weeks in glorious vacation. I finished work at noon on Friday, December 9th, 2005, and have sat back and chillaxed ever since. It is nice having a job that actually gives you vacations, and that pays well enough that you can afford vacations.
But the question is, what have I done in the past 26 days to keep myself from going crazy. Um...crazier. Smoke!
Well, for about a week, I did pretty much nothing. I hung out with a few people, and watched a bunch of movies because it seemed that most everyone I knew was writing exams at school, and they were busy studying-slash-sobbing. Incidently, if you weren't/aren't going to school and were/are free, drop me a line. When I'm in town, I have absolutely nothing else going on, so I'm completely free to chill or whatever. Heck, if I'm bored enough, I'll even help you move.
Incidentally, that is exactly what I was doing for the past few days. My brother, the one who burnt down the first church he had been a pastor at (don't worry, he had been working there at least a month by that point) has changed churches. He is now a part time pastor at Tofield Alliance and at Viking Alliance. I'm going to be honest with you folks here and tell you that I don't completely remember the details, so you might want to check the comments section to see if he or anyone else has indignantly corrected the above information. Also, he's going bald. Heh. The move from Mannville to Tofield went fairly smoothly, and they are in a heck of a house. I felt sorry for Darrian, their (almost) one year old son. He's been a bit sick, and so much travel over the past month, and he's probably teething a bit. It made for one grumpy little boy at times. Hopefully he'll adjust pretty quickly.
I drove from Calgary to Regina, out to Strasbourg Bible Camp (an hour northish of Regina), from there back to Regina, and back to Calgary, followed by a drive to Mannville (90-120 odd minutes (and two even ones) from Edmonton), then to Tofield (around 90 minutes west, then south, of Mannville), then back to Mannville, then to Tofield, and then back to Calgary. And no where in any of that driving did my butt get sore. I LOVE my car!
Christmas was pretty sweet. The presents were cool (a Riders long sleeve T-shirt that's bright green!), but I really just liked being around family, hanging with my brothers, seeing my sisters-in-law, holding my nephews, teasing my younger cousins, and talking with my parents, as well as my grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Plus, the food was to die for.
Interesting story, I enjoyed Christmas except for Christmas day? Why, you ask with a single raised eyebrow beneath a slightly furrowed brow? And why did 'food to die for' make you think of that, you continue? Well, let me tell you. We ate a huge Christmas dinner at about 2pm on Sunday, and it was oh so tasty. Sadly, almost immediately afterwards my stomach felt a little unsettled. I figured it was because I gorged myself. Turns out it was more like a stomach flu, given how I threw up the entire meal about four or five hours later, after which I felt better, though it took a few days to feel completely over it. That was the first time I had thrown up since I gave myself food poisoning three years ago.
I guess that's been my life the past few weeks. I still don't know when I start up at work again. I tried calling my boss, but he was out, so I'll have to try again tomorrow.
So drop me a line, my email is aliens8elvis@hotmail.com. Let me know how your Christmas went. I'd love to hear from you. Also, I'm always completely willing to accept donations of baking. Just in case you were wondering.
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