feeling inspired

i started "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" this morning, thinking i could fold laundry while watching it

...ha ha ha...

it was so pretty, i couldn't do other things during it, really. it's set in the 40's, and the costumes and makeup are wonderful, and the dialogue feels like an old movie.

so now i'm still sitting here, same basket of laundry, with two washcloths folded. hmm.

actually, you know what? i have come to a decision. from now on, whenever i want to watch something while doing laundry, i'll force myself to only watch humphrey bogart movies, because i usually don't understand those anyway. i still don't know quite what was going on in "The Big Sleep", do you?

goodbye, old friend

tonight we say goodbye to monk, after 9 years of goodness.

yes, maybe the series finale made me cry.

and yes, definitely i solved the case before anyone else (the handwipes thing... totally guessed it before natalie did).

and yes, this may have been the best show ever.

goodbye monk, we will miss you.

i wish there were 10 of you.

Let the Nerdiness Begin!

Tonight brother-in-law Dan and I are starting our long-expected Lord of the Rings Extended Edition watching party! Tonight we start off with Fellowship of the Ring. I'm expecting it to be just as amazing as ever, possibly even better as I haven't watched these in years.

Love,

An Excited Nerd

Franklin Trip - Friday

Friday morning we headed off towards Nashville.

The view from my window on the way to Nashville.

A building in Nashville that I liked.

After lunch (at a brewery! it was so fun, I know how beer is made now.) we went to the park in Nashville

Everything was so pretty with the autumn leaves!

There was a big stage, and I couldn't resist the urge to dance on it. And we all know about my dancing skills. ;)

Yeah, so maybe I just told you we were in Nashville. We were really in Rome.

(post-edit: it has been pointed out that the parthenon is in greece. i knew this, in the back of my mind... which doesn't make me feel any less stupid.)

Just kidding, this is the Nashville Parthenon. It was huge, and it was awesome.

There was a huge art exhibit inside, including statues from the real Parthenon.

Oh yeah, and the Elgin Marbles (two horses heads) who I met at Lord Elgin's castle... he told me their names, one was Humphrey and the other I don't remember. It was funny seeing something I'd met and touched before ... in a museum.

Yes, she was that big. HUGE. I kept imagining what would happen if she came to life.

Me and my bro Leo, the winged beast of scariness. Just chillin.

Nice ancient artifact storage system, guys. Seriously.

FAIL.

Getting his hand bitten, a la Roman Holiday.

You can't tell, but we were doing the Wizard of Oz dance.

That evening we went to Franklin and had dinner at this really cool restaurant in a house next to the church. Everyone sits at a table together, and you get to meet people! There was this one very proper southern lady with huge hair who told us about how she worked one day a week at Stein Mart, and "that was socially acceptable."

After, at the film conference, I got to meet Dr. George! who is even more awe inspiring in person. That night's movie was "Dead Poets' Society" ... which I thought I'd seen all of, but apparently I had missed the ending and a lot of important parts in the middle. The theme of the conference was "Epistemology, or how we know what we know", and that was really interesting, seeing the different viewpoints in the movies. Dead Poets' Society was really interesting, because it shows 2 near opposite philosophies - romanticism and rationalism/traditionalism - and cautions that both are extremes.

frabjous day!

it's been announced, the sequel to Dark Crystal is in production! yea!

oodlesnifflewoozleschnitzel.

so, i was sitting here at my desk, reading my email, writing in my not-really-a-journal-but-lets-call-it-that-anyway, and wondering who invented legal pads and may i jump backwards in history and say 'oh thank you!' ? and i got a great hankering to go a'posting. so here we go a'posting amang the leaves sae greene. lovely day for a picnic! anyway so i really wanted to, but couldn't think of any particular thing i wanted to say, and so counted on making it up as i went on.

why am i up? well i took a nap this afternoon- NOT a good idea for me. as always, it was supposed to be about 30 minutes to 1 hour - ish, but that turned into 4:30 to 10 pm. aah! thats more sleep than einstein got! and why, you may ask, was i taking a nap? because i went to the rich mountain association in arkansas this weekend and we drove back home after saturday night services, getting home around 3 am. it was a really good meeting...er... association. yeah, i didn't really know what to expect, having never been to an association before, and rather expected something along the lines of the U.N. , with a big table up front and preachers walking around with legal pads, discussing things. needless to say it was nothing like the U.N. of course having never been to the U.N. either, my image of that may be messed up, because all i know of it comes from a few things in the news about it and The Interpreter (which is a good movie, btw).

oh another good movie, mamadah and i went and saw Julie and Julia last weekend and its quite good. i was really happy to see a movie that showed really good marriages. so many movies recently have tried to be all edgy or whatever by showing "the other side of the american dream" or some such NONSENSE and i don't know why more people aren't sick of it. here's the thing- yes, we believe that man is sinful and prone to evil. this does of course affect every aspect of our lives... there is sin in our relationships, in our marriages. but because we know this sin is there, and are fighting against it, there can be nothing good about focusing on the sin and the fallenness, or in wallowing in our sorrow about it. i think sometimes people use their knowledge of depravity as an excuse for depression and half-heartedness. seeing only the sadness and starting to believe that there is no hope for our relationships because of sin - that is what the devil wants. he would love for christians to become downtrodden and depressed. the fact is that we have been saved. it already happened... we're living in a post-resurrection world, can we accept it and live our lives accordingly? God has already seen our sin, Jesus has already saved us. living our lives as though we haven't already been saved will not bring thanks to him for this incredible gift. heres an analogy. lets say you really really needed a washing machine, because you were doing all your laundry by hand. if someone saw that need and gave you a washing machine because they loved you, would you then go on washing your clothes by hand? no! that would be silly, and it wouldn't bring joy to the person who gave you the washer. the best thanks you could give that person would be to use that washer. thats what the giver wanted.

oh be joyful, oh be jubilant
put your sorrows far away
come rejoice and sing together
this holy day!

itsss.... BIBLEMAN!!

go to imdb, look up Bibleman- its a Christian Kid's show... not currently on air, but very very hilarious. also not great doctrine... but HILARIOUS!

a favorite quote...


Cypher: ...The Prince of Pride hit you with an ego-stimulating, heat-radonic seismo-ray...!

Bibleman: ...Creating an egoplasmic distortionary electro-field, which caused me to focus on myself instead of God! *Insidious!*

a movie for you to see

Miss Potter.

this movie is beautiful ... definately the most well done movie i have seen in a very long time.

i suggest you see it.