Game Previews

In my inbox at work today I found a couple new samples from the game that Eric and Suzie are inventing.



Metal Bull



Fire Tiger




They aren't exactly as cool as a rat, but I still think that they are pretty cool.

ISU Football

My grandma is going through the herculean task of downsizing her possessions. She recently gave a bunch of yarn to Teresa. When Teresa was going through the yarn she found our grandpa's Iowa State football season ticket from 1979.

I started attending Iowa State football games with my grandpa in 1983. I've had season tickets ever since. I was very interested in this ticket.





One of the more interesting things to me about this ticket is the price: $36.00. To renew my season tickets this year the price of the ticket is $300.00. For the right to even renew those tickets I have to make a $1,000 donation to the Cyclone Club. I don't think the term inflation begins to cover it.

Computer Mine Woods

The deer that live in the woods behind the computer mine have become braver in the last few days. Today I actually got a few pretty decent shots of one that was looking for food about 75 feet from the back door of the mine.
















The good news about this year's crop of deer is that it does not appear that any of them have any injuries. They all seem to be able to use all 4 of their legs.

Test Camera

A few months ago Nader gave me a camera to test for his trip to London. I put in a roll of film and took some test shots. Then I put the camera away and forgot about it. I finally finished off the roll and got it developed. I thought I would share some of the images, not because of any of them are particularly interesting, but because maybe they are interesting as a whole. A study of intermittent shots taking over time from a forgotten camera.



Computer Mine Basketball Hoop


Flowers


Flowers


Self Portrait


Fat Jake


Jay Snuggly


Fat Jake


Willy: Keeper of Fat Jake


Fat Jake


Experiment


Vest


Frame


Party in Jesse's Office


Cory


Deer


Deer through Windows of "The Quad"


Computer Mine Basketball Hoop

Oscars

I hope to have pictures up from the formal Oscar party at some point in the future, but until then, the thing that made me the happiest about the Oscars was a win for Falling Slowly for Best Original Song. I can't put into words how much I love the movie Once. I love this movie.

Below are clips of their acceptance speech and the performance of the song by The Swell Season.

12-2010

If you can stand the freezing cold, don't forget to look up tonight. You'll get a chance to see something you won't get to see again until December of 2010.

Rejected Valentine's Day Cards

I found this to be entertaining.

Moandays

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

I find myself suddenly surrounded by world travelers. Sara left for Panama on Thursday. Nader is heading to London in a few weeks. Willy is visiting Peru (most likely) in a couple of months. Me? I think Des Moines is the furthest I've traveled this year. Wow, that suddenly seems really pathetic.

I got an e-mail from Mark on Monday. He sent me a couple of pictures from his recent trip to Vietnam.



Ha Long Bay



This is one of my favorite pictures of 2008.


Mark was in Vietnam putting on a workshop on teaching English. He also got to see some POW camps and Ho Chi Minh's grave. I'm trying not to be jealous of Mark, but it isn't working out so well.


Home is not where you live, but where they understand you...

I talked to Nate last night. I had long heard rumors that he was leaving the Tuscon area. His housemate had flaked out and it was time for him to move on. The rumor mill spat out three locations where Nate might be moving. There was Phoenix, there was Minneapolis, and there was Boone. I finally got a hold of Nate last night and it turns out that he chose the most beautiful and exotic of locales and will be returning to Boone as soon as his house in Tuscon gets rented. This might very well be a brief stop as he looks for lucrative employment in his chosen profession, (kicking ass and taking names in the kitchen) but it will be good to have him back in the area for at least a little while.


This is 10% luck, 20% skill; 15% concentrated power of will...

125 145 151
127 140 183
145 139 167
160 143 183

Those numbers represent my bowling scores from the last 4 weeks. I don't discuss my bowling league much. I don't take pride in my bowling. I'm probably in the bottom 10 of the bowlers in the league. However, those numbers are respectable by my standards. Yet, despite putting up decent numbers, I was in a horrible slump. I had not earned a single point against human competition since before Christmas.

Then last night I had a breakthrough. I was lined up against Matt Haub. I've known Matt for several years. We used to work together. So I felt a little bad that my breakthrough came against him, but I still need to celebrate that I swept him and my nearly two month long streak of futility has come to an end.

I defeated him by scores of:

160-136 (231-217 with handicap)
143-114 (214-195)
183-126 (254-207)

Maybe it was more a product of Matt having a bad night, but after 2 months of wandering in the desert, I'll take it.

The Future of Gaming

I don't know anything about the world of gaming, but Eric and Suzie are inventing a new board game. I have no doubt that they will do a bang up job in the creation of this game because it is something that they both hold a passion for and nothing in this world helps you see with more clarity than passion. Not even bifocals. Take that Ben Franklin!

I was privileged to view the initial piece of art from their game. I think it is pretty sweet, check it out:



Wood Rat


Suzie even composed a little poem to celebrate my unshackling from the US Department of Education's oar.

Paying less means spending more.
And sometimes knowledge seekers
can become the debtors' whore.

It seems as if I am suddenly surrounded by poets and that is a good thing because I admire poets. I only wish I could be one.

Incidentally, anybody that knows a reason why I'm not worthy of a poetic tribute should keep said information to themselves. Things will correct themselves in due course. I will be worthy of poetic tributes in the future.

Valentine's Day PostSecret Video

Even people that hate Valentine's Day love this video.

Love from the RNC

It looks like "true conservatives" took time out from their busy schedule of ripping John McCain (Go Gang of 14!) to design some Valentine's Day cards for the upcoming holiday. As a guy with a romantic spirit, I thought I would post their Obama Valentine's cards.











Interestingly enough,it seems like the same people that designed these cards are the same people that write Hillary Clinton's speeches. It seems like many of them will be looking for work pretty soon. Maybe they can sign on with the RNC.

A Clean Preview

I'm part of the way through a commercial photography for an up and coming entrepreneur's website. I can't much of the work yet, but below is a preview of the work that I am currently doing.





More to come in the future.

Using Religion as a Scam

There are few things in this world that anger me more than people who use religion as a scam. Over the last few years I have certainly come to the conclusion that Christianity is ready for a new reformation. Somehow along the way, the message of love and grace that Christ brought to this world has been transformed into a system of weights and measures where people can determine how "good" they are compared to other people in terms of morality.

I don't know how morality became the focal point of the Christian message, but I don't like it. We weren't put here to the judge the people around us. We were put here to love and serve the people around us.

I have had friends tell me that worshiping and practicing religion does not mean you are a good person. I never dispute this fact, but I also don't know what it means to be a good person. They tell me that being a good person will get you into heaven, not whether or not you drug your ass out of bed on Sunday mornings. That is good for me, I have problems dragging my ass out of bed every Sunday morning, so I tell them that I'm glad to know that the fate of my eternal soul isn't dependent on my waking up by 8:30 one day a week.

It is a scary thought process that brings people to this conclusion, but I understand how they got there. What people see when they see Christians isn't love. It is judgmentalism. I don't how we got here, but I know it needs to change. Somehow along the ways people came to the conclusion that being a good person gets you into heaven. I'm not an expert on heaven, but I believe this much, grace gets you to heaven. It has nothing to do with being a good person.

Unmerited grace is a gift from God. You can't deserve it. You can't earn it. You can't even buy it. You get it any way. A very smart friend of mine hates the term "unmerited grace". Grace is unmerited, period. Adding the term unmerited to the front of it is essentially pointless. You are just including part of the definition of the term outside of the term and this gives the implication that the first word is not a part of the definition of the second word.

I don't mind the term "unmerited grace", even though I concede the point, because it seems the idea of grace has become skewed in the eyes of some people and because of this, the cart has been put in front of the horse.

A person does not go to church to worship because they are trying to worm their way into heaven. A person doesn't love and serve their fellow man because they are trying to hoodwink God into letting them into heaven. A person doesn't try to be "good" because they are trying to earn a certain amount of divine "cool points" that you exchange for admittance into heaven. A person does these things because they are thankful for the gift that can't be earned, grace.

All of this being said, I understand the reasons why the Christian message has been so skewed in the mind of many in the general public. It is because the loudest faction of Christians are not the one's that seem to represent the true Christ.

I'm sure that their motivations aren't bad. I just think somewhere along the way they have become lost. I could point to a myriad of televangelists. I could also point to the Westboro Baptist Church (if you don't know who these people are, don't look into it, that is solid advice).

However, what I'm going to point to is a another group of people that are sullying the image of Christianity. These people are the profit whores. People that use religion as a way to line their pockets with cash.

Lowell received this thing below in the mail a couple weeks back:



Can You Make the Eyes of Jesus Open?


This thing makes me sick. The Prayer Rug came with an explicit set of directions. You were supposed to keep it under your bed and send it back to them after 1 day. There was a bunch of other garbage, but I can't remember it any longer. Then you were supposed to send them some cash, (50 bucks was the suggest donation I believe) and fill out the prayer request card. The prayer request card had several categories of things that you wanted God to give you. These things included material possessions and money. In fact, they wanted you to write down to the penny how much money you wanted God to give you.

Included in the packet was a list of testimonials from people that had sent in 50 bucks and all of the things that God had given them. It was nauseating.

I don't want to include the name of this church because I don't want them to get any more exposure than they have already gotten, but I did go to their website to check it out. My favorite part of their website was a line about how they were "a church and not a charity. A church is designed so that you can tithe and give monetary offerings to God." I have to give them credit for being so up front with their existing only to collect money, but for God of course.

Ann Coulter Endorses Clinton

This might have finally moved Russell over to being an Obama supporter. Welcome home Russell, you know this is where you've always wanted to be.

Subscribing to this Blog

Yes, it is possible to subscribe to this blog. Now I will never know that you did, but the purpose of subscriptions isn't to massage my ego, but to allow you to stay current with the goings on in my world.

If you look at the address bar on your web browser, at the far right side is a little orange icon. If you click on that little guy it will take you to a few different options for subscribing to this blog. You can subscribe via "Live Bookmarks", "My Yahoo!" or "Bloglines". I think there are a few more, but those are most likely the most popular methods. So experiment and enjoy.

Happy Super Tuesday

My Journal

Last Sunday, before the Rambo viewing, Jay was very curious about the contents of my journal. He seemed to think that I had nudie drawings in there. The truth of the matter is that there are not nudie drawings, but there are things that are much worse. I came across this poem that I think perfectly describes a person's journal.

What's In My Journal by William Stafford

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Thing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

It is Official

I really wanted a glow in the dark brain for this blog, but that is not to be. So instead I will use an image from the Jay Janson Archive.





So why is there a picture of brains in this blog? Today I wrote out a big fat check to the U.S. Department of Education and told them to get off my back forever. William D. Ford, I am not your boy any longer.



File Photo


Although the check has yet to wind its way through the U.S. Postal System, it is only a matter of days before that B.A. Degree in Political Science (with a Minor in History) from America's premiere Land Grant University is officially bought and sold. I wish I could show you a picture of it, but I have no clue where it is hiding itself.

I might not have the best brain I know, but let me quote the Beach Boys and talk my brain up a little bit:

She's got a competition clutch with the four on the floor
And she purrs like a kitten till the Lake Pipes roar
And if that aint enough to make you flip your lid
There's one more thing, I got the pink slip, Daddy

Selfish Request

On Thursday night an e-mail found its way into my inbox at work. The title of the e-mail was Selfish Request. It was from Jay. The e-mail read a little something like this:

I have a request to make of you.

Much like my commission of "Revelry" or "Monicaville Sunset" I am asking one of my friends to flex their creative muscles and create a work of art.

This piece is not for any event and has no other purpose but to serve as my (and possibly your) delectation.

I would like you to compose a poem.

The form and style is entirely up to you--length, rhyming/non-rhyming, A-B B-A stanzas, couplet, limerick, quatraine--I don't care. However, as with the painting for Symposium, I shall choose the subject matter. I really hope you don't choose Haiku form because I feel it's just too limiting (however, it would be a hilarious ironic choice considering the subject), but I won't hold you to it.

The subject is one that I only know about through you. In fact I think you're the only person I have ever heard speak about it. The impression left on you was obvious and profound. When you spoke of it I remember the tone of nostalgia in your voice. It was equally a ridiculous and magical event. It was the Coal Miner's Glove.

You have complete freedom on this. Any direction you want to take is entirely up to you. My only condition (not really a firm one) is that it be completed by St. Valentine's Day--I have a lady friend I want to impress.

There are actually several weird things about this e-mail. First, I don't think it is a selfish request. It was just thrown in the wrong direction. A terribly wrong direction. The first reason why I'm the wrong person to ask is that I have no passion about anything that is remotely related to wrestling. Nothing great can be accomplished without enthusiasm. I'm not sure how Jay could have misconstrued anything I have ever said into thinking that I had any passion for anything the would be related to wrestling. I guess he just doesn't get me. It is sad to come to this conclusion after all these years of friendship.

The second reason why I'm the wrong person to make such a request is because I don't write poetry. I wish I did. I wish I could. I like poetry. I admire people that can write it. I sometimes fancy myself a writer, but poetry is not in the skill set.

Strangely enough I can think of 2 of Jay's friends off the top of my head that could write him a beautiful and haunting poem. Both Monica and Willy are poets of some note. Both could do a more than capable job. There poetry would be both sublime and exquisite. Mine will be nonexistent.

The final reason that I'm the wrong person to ask is that simply enough, I don't have the time. I'm struggling to find the time to work on the projects that I want to work on. I don't have the time to do a project that I don't want to work on. So there will be no poem from me for Valentine's Day or any other day.

That is my bit of selfishness.