Unique Piano Playing

If you played Super Mario Brothers on the original Nintendo, or if you like different ways of playing the piano, these 51 seconds might be worth your time:

(HT: Zach Nielsen)

Quotes and a Question

Both posted recently by Josh Harris:

"The best thing is neither to seek nor avoid troubles but to follow Christ and take the bitter with the sweet as it may come. Whether we are happy or unhappy at any given time is not important. That we be in the will of God is all that matters. We may safely leave with him the incident of heartache or happiness. He will know how much we need of either or both." - A.W. Tozer, We Travel an Appointed Way, page 80.

---

"Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,

but the companion of fools will suffer harm."
- Proverbs 13:20 ESV

If you counted websites, television shows, and musical artists as companions, would you say you're walking with the wise or the foolish?

Fireproof

Doug Wilson on Fireproof:

If I set myself to think of couples in marriages that I think would be greatly helped by watching this movie, I would run out of fingers inside of a minute. I can also think of Christians who would be offended by the schlock, but many of them would be those who know more about how a movie ought to be made than about how a woman ought to be treated. And they would rather watch a movie about a woman being abused so long as the movie was made right than to have the woman treated right in a movie that offended their refined sensibilities. So which is the altar and which is the sacrifice?

Read the whole thing.

(HT: JT)

Visualizing $1 Trillion

This is pretty cool: Someone used Google Sketchup to create this.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Vote For Noah

From Tim Ellsworth:

My wife entered a photo of Noah in the “America’s Cutest Last-Minute Tax Deduction” contest, and we found out that he’s a finalist. If you would, please take a second to go to the Cutest Tax Deduction site, scroll down to the bottom and cast your vote for little Noah.

Let’s rock the vote! (And no registration is required.)

Thanks very much.

Tim gives some background on Noah in the comments:

Noah was born Dec. 30, and was quickly taken to the NICU with respiratory distress. The next day, they discovered he had a pneumothorax (or hole) in each lung, resulting in an air leak.

So, Noah had to get two chest tubes inserted — one on each side. The chest tubes removed the air that had gathered outside his lungs, thus allowing his lungs to expand and to heal. He spent six nights in NICU before we were able to bring him home on Jan. 5.

The Lord was most gracious to us in healing little Noah. A friend of my wife’s works in an NICU at a different hospital, and she said it’s not uncommon for this kind of situation to require a much lengthier stay.

So, we’re so grateful to the Lord for healing Noah as quickly as he did. God is indeed good.

Thanks for visiting, and thanks for helping us by voting.

And also shows his humor:

Also, I should add: the grand prize for the contest is a $5,000 savings bond — which means, given the state of our economy, that it should be worth about $1.83 when it matures.

Go give the little guy a vote.

Links

This stuff was too good to pass up, but I didn't have the time to spend on each one separately:

Posted at Between Two Worlds:

• Meditating on God's Word
• Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year
• Bible Reading Plans

Posted at the Desiring God Blog:

• The Crazy Idea of Fasting in '09
• A List of Everything they Prayed for in the New Testament
• 9 Ways to Pray for Your Soul
  

It's Been Too Long...

I'm looking forward to this - a nice appetizer before the new season starts in January.

Steven Curtis Chapman on Good Morning America

Accountability

Here are a couple of recent posts about accountability: the one from Philip R. Gons, Matthew C. Hoskinson, and Andrew David Naselli, and one from Stephen Altrogge. The post by Gons, Hoskinson, and Naselli includes lists of benefits and potential pitfalls of accountability:

Benefits of Accountability

1. Motivation
2. Safety
3. Consistency
4. Specificity
5. Thoroughness
6. Community
7. Intensity
8. Reminder

Potential Pitfalls of Accountability

1. Heartless participation
2. Impressing God
3. Impressing ourselves
4. Impressing each other
5. Impressing others
6. Comparing ourselves to each other
7. Lying
8. Appeasing ourselves
9. Rationalizing
10. Lack of transparency
11. Fearing man
12. Avoiding face-to-face conversations

The guys also write about a scriptural basis for accountability, drawing from commentaries of John MacArthur, Thomas Manton, and John Calvin.

Altrogge shares a list of suggestions for "awkward questions" to ask your friends (and have your friends ask you):

Have you been consistently pursuing the Lord through scripture reading and prayer?

Have you diligently pursued your wife/husband this week?

Have you seen any persistent patterns of sin in your life recently?

Last week you confessed struggling with [insert sin]. Have you taken steps to fight it this week?

When you gave into [insert sin], what were you believing about God in that moment? What were you believing about yourself?

What is the truth that you need to believe in this situation?

When you had the conflict with [insert person], what were you craving at that moment?

Paranoia = Peace?

I'd have more to say about Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize if Yasser Arafat didn't win it in 1994. As crazy as Al Gore is, at least he doesn't support terrorism & killing people (that I know of).

I Wish This Was From The Onion...

...but it's not. Yahoo! News has a story about a group in Austria trying to get their Supreme Court to legally declare a chimpanzee as a person:

He’s now got a human name — Matthew Hiasl Pan — but he’s having trouble getting his day in court. Animal rights activists campaigning to get Pan, a 26-year-old chimpanzee, legally declared a person vowed Thursday to take their challenge to Austria’s Supreme Court after a lower court threw out their latest appeal.

A provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case earlier this week, ruling that the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories had no legal standing to argue on the chimp’s behalf…

Group president Martin Balluch insists that Pan is “a being with interests” and accuses the Austrian judicial system of monkeying around.

“It is astounding how all the courts try to evade the question of personhood of a chimp as much as they can,” Balluch said.

(HT: Liberty Pundit)

For My Sister

So my sister "tagged" me the other day. I guess this is the blog equivalent of those email forwards in which you fill out various trivia about yourself and send them on. So while I normally try to avoid making this blog about me (if that's possible, since this is "my" blog), I thought I'd go ahead and do it for my sister. Here are the rules, according to her blog:

TAG RULES:

1. All right, here are the rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose five people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog .

I'm too lazy to come up with eight random facts about myself, so I'll take 8 of the 12 (?) my sister used. And instead of "tagging" anybody at the end, I'll let any reader tag themselves if they so choose - just leave a comment with a link to your blog if you want to participate. (I don't want to make anyone think I'm chasing them and trying to cause conflicts, yet I don't think I need to follow the precedent of the Colorado Springs elementary school that banned tag recently.)

1. How's your weather today?

Currently 70 degrees, with fairly clear, calm skies.

2. What steals your joy?

Pride, anger, and lust. Yeah, I think that about sums it up.

3. What is your favorite Scripture passage?

It's kind of a long one - Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. If I had to choose one, right now it would probably be:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
- Galatians 4:4-5 (ESV)

4. Who in the Bible do you think you are most like?

Probably sometimes like some of the Pharisees that Jesus spoke against. I often identify with Paul in Romans 7.

5. The passage of Scripture you read last was:

Deuteronomy 19 - speaks mostly of cities of refuge. I don't understand why these were instituted. All I can think of is as a picture of sinners running to Christ for refuge from the just condemnation for their sins.

6. If you were making a greeting card for God, what would you say?

I think the angels in Isaiah's vision of the Lord said it well: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." - Isaiah 6:3b (NIV)

7. What is the best miracle God has performed in your life, or what is your favorite answered prayer?

You mean besides God making me alive with Christ when I was dead in my sins? How about the birth and adoption of my son, who was scheduled to be aborted on three separate occasions?

8. What is the most fun thing you've done lately?

Hearing my son say "dada" today. Sure it's just baby gibberish and he doesn't mean anything by it, but it's still fun.

U.S. Americans

Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Teen South Carolina:

My Older Brother Never Did This For Me

From CNN:

KINGSTOWN, North Carolina (AP) -- A 5-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children until his stepfather could kill the animal.

"I wanted to protect my little brother," said Rayshun McDowell, who battled the fox in the front yard of his home Sunday in Kingstown, a town about 50 miles west of Charlotte.

Debt Snowball

Here's a good tool to help you get out of debt, especially if you have several sources of debt. The idea is to give you the best plan to pay off one debt at a time, and once a debt is paid off, you roll that monthly payment onto the next debt, thus creating the debt snowball.

And if all those credit card offers you get in the mail drive you nuts, call 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) so you will not receive pre-approved offers for credit from the three major credit bureaus.

(HT: Chumpy)

Call Me A Geek, But...

Justin Taylor of Between Two Worlds, himself an editor, points to a post by IVP's Andy Le Peau regarding their policy of not using "serial commas." Here's the difference:

With the serial comma:
- "I had bananas, blueberries, and strawberries on my corn flakes this morning."
Without the serial comma:
- "I had bananas, blueberries and strawberries on my corn flakes this morning."

So what's the big deal, you ask? Well, fellow blogger Tim Ellsworth, who also writes for BP Sports, nailed it with this comment on Le Peau's post:

I'd like to dedicate this response to my parents, Mother Theresa and the Pope.

Well done, Tim. Well done.

UPDATE: As Tim points out, that comment was the one after his, posted by "Another Andy." Either way, I'm still amused.

Britain's Got Talent

Check out this audition for the UK show, "Britain's Got Talent." I'm not really a big fan of opera music, but this guy's not too bad, for a mobile phone salesman:

By the way, Mr. Potts won the contest.

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

Poster Boy For Liberal College Professors?

I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Brian Tschanz, Assistant Research Professor at Utah State University. Brian received his PhD from the University of Utah in 1998, and specializes in "social psychology and the self and personality and self." Dr. Tschanz is teaching a Social Psychology class this summer. I enjoyed reading this part of the class syllbus:

A Note to Fans of Right-Wing Pundits: I promise to make fun of right-wing television and radio pundits early and often (Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Ann Coulter will be on the receiving end of this abuse most frequently). To be sure, I derive a great deal of personal satisfaction from this activity. However, these individuals also tend to illustrate classic social psychological principles on an almost daily basis. They almost beg me to reach out and take a poke at them!

If you are a fan of one or more of them and tend to defend them in the manner that they defend themselves - that is, lie about what they have either said or done and then cut to a commercial before anyone has a chance to challenge them -- be assured that I will be back the very next day with proof positive that they are schmucks. Unlike you and your heroes, downloaded videos from YouTube do not lie! Hell, I might have the video ready to go at a moment's notice! This computer has an Internet connection, baby! Don't make me use it!

If it were not for the fact that a member of the Bill O'Reilly Fan Club attended a talk that I gave and attacked me with bald-face lies that I didn't have the time to refute (nor the inclination, I really wanted to use my limited time to take psychology questions), I wouldn't even bother bringing this up. For example, the student at my talk made the laughably false claim that Bill has only said shut up on his show four times (and had apologized for two of them). My only consolation was showing my personality theories class a video of Bill yelling "shut up" many more than four times (the official count on this matter is that he's said shut up too many times to officially count).

And, while we're on the topic, whereas I absolutely forbid you folks to make stuff up, I reserve the right to do so myself. I often tell stories about historical figures, celebrities and renowned psychologists that are only loosely based in fact. The skeptical among you will be able to discern when I'm pulling your legs (And for those of you who may have been in my personality theories class this Spring, this would be as good as time as any to confess that Babe Didrikson Zaharias was not the runner up to Enrico Fermi for the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics. Nor, to my knowledge, did Carl Gustav Jung's friends call him "Gus").

I don't even know what to say about this. The blatant infiltration of personal views into class material/lecture? The professor who taught me the most, outside of my major, was a religion professor who refused to tell us his personal feelings in class. And this was at a "Christian" college. How about the assertion that "right-wing pundits" lie to defend themselves? Is that just because Dr. Tschanz is liberal and therefore anything that comes out of the mouth of a professed conservative is a lie?

I think my two favorite parts are his claim to bring "proof positive that they are schmucks" and his up-front hypocrisy stating that "whereas I absolutely forbid you folks to make stuff up, I reserve the right to do so myself." How do you prove that someone is a schmuck? Just by saying it? And finally, Dr. Tschanz, I'd like to congratulate you for holding yourself to a higher standard. I mean, you criticize these "right-wing pundits" for lying to defend themselves, and forbid your students to make things up, yet you have no problem lying in your attempts to teach (or should I say, re-educate) your students. To paraphrase the words of the legendary Ron Burgundy, "Stay classy, Dr. Tschanz."

I Cannot Imagine

My heart aches for Chris & Lori Coble. The Ladera Ranch, CA, couple lost their three children, Kyle, 5, Emma, 4, and Katie, 2, when their minivan was rear-ended by a semi on Friday. Here's a video of the kids, courtesy of Life to Motion:

Pray for these two, as well as their family, friends, and surrounding community, that God may show His glory and make His presence known.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7, NIV)

Johnny Hart

Last Friday night I was at a friend's house, looking at some comics in World magazine. It was then that I saw the news that the creator of one of my favorite comic strips had died. Johnny Hart, who created B.C. (and co-created the Wizard of Id) died from a stroke while at his storyboard on April 7. My first thought was back to a comic that another friend had sent me last year:


In browsing the last 30 days of B.C. comics (after Peanuts creator Charles Schulz died, Hart insisted that B.C. be carried on after his death), I found a few good ones, including one on Palm Sunday:


And this one on Easter, the day after he went to meet His Savior:


I also enjoyed these:




And finally, here's a strip that ran on Easter in 2001, drawing protests from some Jewish groups that led to some newspapers dropping the strip altogether. "Critics said it implied that Christianity supersedes Judaism."


(Click on the comics to see a larger version.)