Blue Like Jazz

I am currently reading "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. I am only about a 3rd of the way through. Today I was reading a couple of chapters and I found myself laughing out loud. This is unlike any other book I have read. Donald Miller writes in a very random manner. I really like it. He is very vulnerable, random, funny and before you know it he has you and BAM, he lands the point. Like "Velvit Elvis" by Rob Bell, this book has caused me to look deep inside and question why I act the way I do, why I think the way I do, why I say the things I say, why, why , why... It is a great journey so far. So here is a quote that really gripped my heart today...

This is in reference to His thoughts towards God before He becomes a Christ-follower. He is trying to work out his faith struggles with Christianity:
"If you don't love somebody, it gets annoying when they tell you what to do or what to feel. When you love them you get pleasure from their pleasure and it makes it easy to serve."

Have you looked at your relationship with God that way? Or do you do like I do often...see a bunch of rules and a God who is telling me that I did not do it good enough or a God who wants me to create better habits and forget about just turning my affections and heart towards a very very loving and accepting God?

So the next time you feel "beat down" by your faith and/or you only see rules and/or you feel like God is looking down on you as if you did not do good enough...I pray that you remember that quote and turn your heart towards our loving Father.

Check out Blue Like Jazz. You can get it here.

Spizerinctum

So last night...my Sooners had a little bit of a dry spell...my mom called and said..."Brian, those boys need a shot of spizerinctum." You ask, "what is this spizerinctum?" I asked myself. My mom said she heard it from my Grandpa Bill (Real great man of God).

So mom...I did a little research and WALA!!! I found some definitions of spizerinctum on the web & I found where you can actually buy SPIZ - A Balanced Liquid Food SourceFor Athletes, Dieting and Optimum Nutrition. I found it here...

Here are some main exerts...

Spizerinctum - n. energy, vigor, or vitality. Also spizerinktum, spizzerinktum, spizzerinctum, spizarinctum, pizzeringtum, spizzer inktum, etc.

A Few Citations of the word spizerinctum...

• Sen. Alexander Wiley (R) Wis.] said spizerinctum was a word coined by an old banker in his town of Chippewa Falls, Wis., to describe someone full of pep and vitality.
• Pioneer Press (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.) (Oct. 17) “In the realm of the coined”: Spizerinctum is invisible—an essence or energy of sorts. When beer has lost its foam, soda has lost its fizz or a balloon deflates, it has lost its spizerinctum. I suppose you would say that throughout the wedding preparations and busy weekend, I was overflowing with spizerinctum, but as things are winding down now, I think it has flown the coop for a while.

So Happy New Year and may you get a shot of spizerinctum!

Million Dollar Homepage

I saw this article on relevantmagazine.com


A 21-year-old student in England has earned over a million dollars in just four months from a website that sells pixels. Alex Tew came up with an idea to sell individual pixels on his website (adeptly called milliondollarhomepage.com) to advertisers. Tew has created what has turned out to be a digital Times Square with companies paying $100 for a letter of type. Now why didn’t we think of that …

Googles Top searches of 2005

Google has posted lists of their search engine's most popular entries of 2005. Topping the list are Myspace, wikipedia and iTunes. The top Google News searches include tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Harry Potter and at number one, Janet Jackson. Make sure you check the link out above...very interested info. Wow, what a year...

From Google....
A look back at 2005 wouldn't be complete without some lists. Here are three from us to you, representing some of the most popular searches this year on Google.

Google.com - Top Gainers of 2005
1. Myspace
2. Ares
3. Baidu
4. wikipedia
5. orkut
6. iTunes
7. Sky News
8. World of Warcraft
9. Green Day
10. Leonardo da Vinci

Google News - Top Searches in 2005
1. Janet Jackson
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. tsunami
4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter

Froogle - Top Searches in 2005
1. ipod
2. digital camera
3. mp3 player
4. ipod mini
5. psp
6. laptop
7. xbox
8. ipod shuffle
9. computer desk
10. ipod nano

OU's Holiday

Well, my boys pulled out a big win last night. This win should catipulte the sooners into the Pre-Season rankings. They handled a 10-1 Oregon last night. Their only loss was to USC. OU started a very very young freshman core. Rhett Bomar did outstanding as quarterback and the wide receivers were money. The best part though...all the Seniors playing their last game got a big win. Cough Cough...Dusty you did amazing. Big props to Clint Ingram who saved the game with an interception at :33 second left in the game. Way to go boys...can't wait till next year!

Tips & Tricks

I just found another cool thing you can do with Google. I have a tracking number from UPS for something I bought on Ebay. So I thought...why not try pastingit in my "google toolbar" and see what happens. I felt very adventurous. Well, I get this page...

Pretty cool hey? IT works with Fedex too!

What if?

Has anyone seen this promotional idea from Ikea? It is very fun! Check it out!
http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/PS/index_content.html
or http://www.ikea.com/ps/

Snowzilla?

With the help of his kids and neighbors, it took an Anchorage man more than a month to build what became more than just a snowman—they’ve dubbed his 16-plus-foot-tall creation “Snowzilla.” After using up all the snow in the family’s yard, they turned to neighbors’ yards and carried buckets on sleds. Click here to see the amazing picture. Peter Jackson has expressed interest in film rights to the snowman’s epic story...relevantmagazine.com

My dad with the Beatles?

A couple of days ago I posted some picks of me and my dad. Some of his co-workers got ahold of them. Here's what they did!

My First visit to IKEA

Today I went to IKEA for the first time. The reason...well, it was for Keystone. We are having 2 Christmas Eve services this year. We are also meeting at Hillwood Middle School. The service is going to be a candlelight service...SO...I can;t have flourescent light in the room for the first part of the service. So I went on a search for lamps to light the room...and WALLAAH!!! IKEA had 6ft floor lamps for $7.99 each. So I made the long trek to Frisco from Keller. When I arrived I was blown away by the size of the store. It was not huge...it was MASSIVE. I was greeted immediately and given a map and directed to where I was to go. I must have looked like a deer in headlights. I finally found the lamps, thanks to the cool arrows on the floor guiding my steps. Along the way, I came across the coolest chair. I have been looking for a good reading chair. and there it was...it was like a light shining down from heaven...BUM BUM BUM...I give you the Luna Chair. And it wasn't too expensize. I finally got to the lamps and the help was great. A manager went and got a cart to carry the 15 lamps I needed.

IKEA had incredible signage. They explained why they did what they did very clearly. Everything was so affordable...the downside...I wanted to buy many many things.

Old Pictures

I love old pictures. I came across these photos the other day. Yeah that's me...

Quote of the Week

So I was talking to my dad earlier this week. I asked him how he was doing. He mentioned to me that he hadn't slept well. I asked him "Why?" He told me there was a squirrel in the attic.
Then he said...

"Every night at about 2:00am the little guy puts on his cowboy boots and line dances across the attic. "

Thanks dad for another great quote of the week.

Color Photos taken 96 years ago!

I saw this article on digg.com. VERY VERY Fascinating and Inspiring.

Color film was non-existent in 1909 Russia, yet in that year a photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii embarked on a photographic survey of his homeland and captured hundreds of photos in full, vivid color. His photographic plates were black and white, but he had developed an ingenious photographic technique which allowed him to use them to produce accurate color images.

He accomplished this with a clever camera of his own design, which took three black and white photos of a scene in rapid sequence, each though a differently colored filter. His photographic plates were long and slender, capturing all three images onto the same plate, resulting in three monochrome images which each had certain color information filtered out.

Sergei was then able to use a special image projector to project the three images onto a screen, each directly overlapping the others, and each through the appropriately colored filter. The recombined projection was a full-color representation of the original scene. Each three-image series captured by the camera stored all of the color information onto the black and white plates; all they lacked was actual tint, which the color filters on the projector restored.

Tsar Nicholas II fully supported Sergei's ambitious plan to document the Russian Empire, and provided a specially equipped railroad car which enclosed a darkroom for Sergei to develop his glass plates. He took hundreds of these color photos all over Russia from 1909 through 1915.
There was no means to develop color prints at that time, but modern technology has allowed these images to be recombined in their full original colors. The U.S. Library of Congress purchased all of Sergei's original glass negatives from his heirs in 1948, and in 2001 a beautiful exhibition was produced to showcase Sergei's photos, called The Empire that was Russia.

Around that same time, in 1907, the first practical color photographic plates were introduced to the world by the Lumière brothers in France. The plates were called "Autochrome Lumière," and they were made up of microscopic potato starch grains which were dyed orange, green, and blue; sandwiched between black-and-white film and a piece of glass; then coated in shellac. The tiny starch grains acted as color filters, making the film essentially a mosaic made up of many tiny pieces.

Once the black-and-white film base was developed, the dyed starch layer which had acted as many tiny color filters when the photo was taken now did the same task in reverse, giving the color back to the underlying image. The technology was a bit crude and grainy, but it was able to capture full color images which turned out looking rather impressionistic.

Autochrome film was expensive, slow and rare, so it didn't see a lot of use by the general public. But when World War One broke out in 1914, the French army began photographing soldiers and scenery, and some of their photos were taken with this new color film. As a result, a large proportion of color photos from that time are images of French soldiers in the field.

Because of the efforts of the French army photographers, there are beautiful color images of soldiers in the trenches, military equipment, ruined buildings, and villages, among other things. Autochrome plates age remarkably well due to their construction, so many of the originals are still in pristine condition today.

Autochrome remained as the primary color photograph medium until Kodachrome was introduced in 1935, and Agfacolor in the following year. Aside from Kodachrome, most modern color films are still based on the Agfacolor technology.

For more info...see the website for The Empire That Was Russia Exhibit

Making Color Images from Prokudin-Gorskii's Negatives - VERY COOL!

Free Christmas Wallpapers

You can download free Christmas wallpapers for your computer at keystonechurch.com. There are 7 wallpapers to choose from. Check it out!

HOW-TO: Cheaply watch iPod videos on your TV

I saw this article on digg.com.

Why would you fork out $19 bucks for the Apple iPod AV Cable when you don’t have to? We were looking around for cheaper solutions for getting video over to you TV and came across an article on O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter.com. By following simple steps, you can get any AV cable (with yellow/red/white outputs) to work with your iPod. Read on to find out how.

All you’re going to need for this is an iPod video (obviously), an iPod compatible video on your iPod, and any A/V cable with eigth-inch-to-RCA (yellow/red/white) camcorder cable (get it from ebay if you don’t have one).

1. Set up your iPod video options
   Go to Videos -> Video Settings from the main menu on your iPod. This screen offers three settings: TV Out, TV Signal and Widescreen. Adjust the selections to give the video playback options you need. We suggest you set the TV Out option to “Ask” so you always know it will play. If you live in the US, your TV Signal is NTSC. Make sure this is selected. If you’re outside the US, you might want to check which option to use.
   
   
2. Plugging the AV cable into the TV
   You’re probably thinking that you don’t need help doing this one. Well let me tell you, you do. Since Apple wants you to buy their proprietary cable, they decided to be sneaky. They send the video over the Red RCA cable (usually yellow). Therefore, they send the audio over the white and yellow cables. Oh you’re so tricky Apple, whatever will we do? In easier words, do the following:
   
   Red RCA plug -> TV’s yellow RCA jackYellow
   RCA plug -> TV’s white RCA jackWhite
   RCA plug -> TV’s red RCA jack

If you can believe it, that’s all you have to do. Pretty much the only tricky thing was switching the Red and Yellow RCA cables. If you have any problems, let us know and we’ll get our directions fixed. Enjoy.

from gadgetell.com

Mosaic Podcast

Recently I have been listening to a great podcast, the Mosaic Podcast. Mosaic is a church in L.A. Erwin McManus is the pastor and a great communicator. This church is on the edge of innovation and sharing the gospel. If you are looking for a challenging podcast that will stretch your faith...check out the Mosaic podcast.

Texas' Brown votes Trojans No. 1, Longhorns No. 2

Interesting Article from the Associated Press

Texas coach Mack Brown has been calling Southern California the No. 1 team all season and it wasn't just talk.

Brown voted USC first in the final USA Today coaches' poll, and so did his brother.

The ballots were made public Monday, a first for the coaches' poll, which is used by the Bowl Championship Series in its standings formula.

The BCS had urged the coaches to remove the secrecy in their poll after the 2004 season, when Texas made a late surge in the polls to earn a Rose Bowl bid over California.

The coaches decided to release only their final ballots, which were printed in Monday's editions of USA Today.

"I think it proves what we thought it would all along, which is that the coaches who vote in the USA Today coaches' poll are thoughtful and committed to the balloting process," Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, said Monday through spokesman Todd Bell.

The Harris Interactive poll, which was introduced this season to replace The Associated Press Top 25 in the BCS formula, also released its final ballots. The Harris panel is comprised of former college football players, coaches and administrators, plus some media members.

The AP media poll has always had transparency in its voting.

Brown had his Texas team No. 2, behind USC. The Trojans and Longhorns will play for the national title in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 4.

UAB coach Watson Brown also had the Trojans first and his younger brother's team second.

USC coach Pete Carroll is not on the 62-member voting panel. Twenty coaches voted for their own teams, with none straying too far from the consensus.

Among the notables, Rutgers coach Greg Schiano gave the Scarlet Knights (7-4) their only vote, putting them 25th on his ballot.

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis had his team fourth, two spots ahead of Oregon (10-1). The Fighting Irish (9-2) were ranked No. 6.

Oregon coach Mike Bellotti put the Ducks fourth and Notre Dame ninth. Oregon finished No. 5 in the final regular season poll, but Notre Dame earned a bid to the BCS and Oregon did not.

Texas received seven first-place votes to USC's 55.

Three of the seven coaches who voted for the Big 12 champions were from conference rivals: Colorado's Gary Barnett, whose team has lost twice to the Longhorns this season by a combined scored of 112-20, Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy and Iowa State's Dan McCarney.

The others who had Texas on top were San Jose State's Dick Tomey, who was defensive coordinator at Texas last season, TCU's Gary Patterson and Florida State coach Bobby Bowden.

Penn State was No. 3 on all but two ballots. Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione had Notre Dame third and the Nittany Lions fourth. Arkansas coach Houston Nutt had Auburn third, just ahead of Penn State.

Auburn was No. 7 in the poll. Tigers coach Tommy Tuberville had his team fourth.

Other votes that went against the norm were:

• SMU coach Phil Bennett had Oregon 15th.

• Ohio coach Frank Solich placed LSU fifth, 10 spots ahead of Georgia, which beat the Tigers 34-14 in the Southeastern Conference championship Saturday.

• South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier had Notre Dame 14th, his own team 21st, and in-state rival Clemson 24th. The Tigers beat Spurrier's Gamecocks 13-9 to close out the regular season.

NBC now on iTunes

Not only are they Must See, they are Must Download! Own episodes from your favorite NBC shows such as The Office, Surface, Law and Order and highlights from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno or the Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Feeling nostalgic? NBC vintage hits like Dragnet, Adam-12, Kinight Rider, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents are ready for action. Get started with NBC and iTunes now!

Oh yeah...for all those who like Battlestar Gallactica...

Check out the iTunes TV section!

'Podcast' named Word Of The Year 2005

The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected “podcast” as the Word of the Year, beating bird flu and rootkit. It will be in the dictionary in 2006. More...

Weekend Review for December 4, 2005

Music (with iTunes links)
Blessed Be Your Name
Beautiful One
Joy to the World (Keystone arrangement)
Till I See You
Here With Us
Take All of Me

Message - Christmas Uwrapped - The Story of the Shepherds - How to be ready for life’s great moments
We unwrapped the messageof the shepherds. We learned that God revealed the birth of His son to ordinary people. It was a great moment and the shepherds did not let it pass them by. We learned principles from their response to this Great Moment. This is a great message and quite funny too. - Podcast

Notes:
I really loved "Here Iwth Us." Susan really did an outstanding job on this song. I have to also commend the band because the really out did themselves. They sounded amazing! I also really loved the Trans-Siberian Orchestra feel to Joy to the World. The atmosphere was really great too. Great job Mahons!!! To all the VOLS on Sunday, great job!!!

Going Bowling!!!

For the first time in their illustrious history, the Oklahoma Sooners are going to play in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl in San Diego. OU will collide with the Oregon Ducks, a team it met last year in Norman and will see again in Eugene, Ore., next season. The 2005 Pacific Life Holiday Bowl will be played Dec. 29 in San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium. ESPN will televise the game, which will start...more.
soonersports.com

USA Today's Holiday Gift Guide

This is a fun gift guide. Especially the Batman Handbook Guide.

The Forbes Fictional 15

I came across thison digg.com.

Collectively, we are fascinated by the super-rich. We devour their biographies. We hang on their advice. Maybe we even hope for their downfall. But in our attempts to explain the ultra-rich--and their super-inflated bank accounts--we are often guilty of reducing real people to mere caricatures. There is the monopolist. The oracle. The genius. The thief. With the Forbes Fictional 15, we have taken the opposite approach--fiction’s caricatures are elevated to the status of real people.
Read More

The List

1. Santa Claus
2. Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks
3. Richie Rich
4. Lex Luthor
5. C. Montgomery Burns
6. Scrooge McDuck
7. Jed Clampett
8. Bruce Wayne
9. Thurston Howell III
10. Willy Wonka
11. Arthur Bach
12. Ebenezer Scrooge
13. Lara Croft
14. Cruella De Vil
15. Lucius Malfoy

Fox exec says company open to iTunes deal

Fox Filmed Entertainment is open to a deal with Apple Computer's iTunes music and video service, its co-chairman said Thursday. "Of course, we'd be open to that. We believe it would be a great opportunity," James Gianopulos said at the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit.

Apple recently began selling some ABC TV network shows and music videos on its iTunes service, for play on its new iPod digital music and video player. Fox is a division of global media conglomerate News Corp., run by Rupert Murdoch. ABC is owned by Walt Disney.
from cnet news.com

New TIVO online services

TV addicts, rejoice! TiVo announced it will now offer Internet content through its boxes, including a movie-ticket service and podcasts. Subscribers can use their TiVo remote control to buy movie tickets through Fandango, which also provides show times and theater listings. TiVo customers also can listen to radio programs, view shared photos through Yahoo's online service and check local traffic and weather... courtesy of relevantmagazine.com

Cool Sites I Visited This Week

www.registryfix.com - I downloaded this and bought this software and it completely helped my computer!!!
www.daybreak.tv - very creative
www.jaredhall.com - great illusionist. I really liked his NEW promo
www.vintage21.com - intriguing
www.268blog.blogspot.com - great intro video BRAD!
www.joininthejourney.com - Great site of a new church plant in Seattle, WA. You guys are doing a great job!

When I Am Afraid...

Ps 56:3-43
When I am afraid, I will trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust;
I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?

FIRST REVIEW: KING KONG 'JAW-DROPPINGLY BRILLIANT'

I saw this article on the Drudge Report.

Just over a year ago, Oscar-winning film-maker Peter Jackson stood on the mammoth Skull Island set he had built on a peninsula in New Zealand and told me why he loved King Kong.

Speaking about Merian Cooper's classic 1933 movie, Jackson said: "The original Kong is a wonderful blend - probably the most perfect blend - of escapism and adventure, mystery and romance. It does everything an escapist movie should do: it takes you places you are never going to see and gives you experiences you are never going to have."

Jackson's words came back to me as I sat in the back row at the Loews Cinema complex on New York's West 68th Street this week, watching the first screening of his new version of Kong.

He may not have known it at the time, but Jackson could just as well have been talking about his own extraordinary remake of the movie that inspired him to become a director when he saw it one Friday night on TV when he was just nine years old.

The very next morning, Jackson started creating stop-motion films using Plasticine.

This time round, the director had some much bigger toys - 21st-century humdingers - to play with.

And he has made a picture I can only describe as jaw-droppingly brilliant: the most entertaining blockbuster movie this year.

Read More

President Bush the Juror?

President Bush received a summons to report for jury duty for next Monday in McLennan Country, Texas, where his Crawford ranch is located. Although he won’t be serving this time because of other more pertinent matters—like running a country during wartime—he does plan on rescheduling the appointment. It'll be the coolest court case since Pauly Shore graced the jury booth...courtesy of relevantmagazine.com