Come to Church & I'll Buy You a Beer

Beer Popsicle

2010-08-30T09:23:00.002-06:00

This blog has gone pretty dormant, and it hasn't done much to earn it's name lately either. So, to remedy both of these concerns, I present the beer popsicle.

How the Wizard of Oz Should Have Ended

2010-01-03T21:46:00.002-07:00

My kids are monster "Wizard of Oz" fans, but I don't think they'd like this version, enhanced with a little logical plot adaptation:

Best. Christmas. Sitcom. Episode. Ever.

2009-12-19T08:31:00.007-07:00

It's rare enough for a sitcom to actually be funny, let alone say anything of substance. To do both during the stock "Christmas Episode" is even rarer. This is part 2 of 3 of one of All in Family's Christmas episodes. You really only need to watch this clip to get the meat of the thing (but you can watch all 3 parts by clicking through to YouTube if you prefer). If you just watch the 8 minute clip below, all you need to know is that David Brewster is a Vietnam War draft dodger who risked a visit to the States over Christmas (and this is being hidden from Archie). I can actually say "I laughed, I cried" about this one:

Gibberish "English" Rock.

2009-12-17T11:15:00.004-07:00

This video features a rock song done by an italian comedy group, that is supposed to sound like it's in english, but it's all gibberish words. I find it fascinating to hear what my language and accent (or at least a southern americanized version of it) sounds like to non-english speakers. It sure sounds like english to me (minus actually communicating any meaning).

See more funny videos and Music Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Best. Wedding. Invitation. Ever.

2009-11-28T16:33:00.002-07:00

(Click to enlarge).

From an original posting here.

Spong Monkeys

2009-08-25T22:18:00.001-06:00

I have to admit that I wasn't with it enough to have caught the initial Spong Monkeys internet phenomenon that broke about five years ago. I did, however, see the Quiznos Subs commercials that followed (Best. Commercials. Ever.) Here's the original "We Like the Moon."

Vader Time

2009-07-22T13:35:00.002-06:00

A "Darth Vader doing weird stuff" theme is starting to develop on my blog. I can't steer away from it. It is my destiny.

Brilliant

2009-07-16T10:04:00.002-06:00

The increasingly corroding carbon conundrum is a breeding ground for great ideas. I really like this one.
"... the hybrid part of the bike (a regenerative braking system) wouldn't be used to help power the bike itself at all, but would instead store the energy in an ultracapacitor that'd then feed the energy back into the grid when its parked at a special bike stand, which would in turn be used to help charge the hybrid electric buses. Not one to overlook an ingenious little detail, Chen has also devised a special card RFID card that would not only be used to unlock the bike, but keep track of the energy that each rider generates -- build up enough credits and you can ride the bus for free."

Put These on My Christmas List

2009-07-13T14:30:00.003-06:00

This company makes tarps that cover your garage door with a photo that makes it look like the door is open with something interesting inside. If only there were a real alligator like this in my garage; He could eat all the junk cluttering it up.

A Real Beer Church

2009-06-25T09:14:00.003-06:00

A Church of England parish actually has children hand out beer to the men in the service! I can die happy now.

** The old newspaper ad pictured here has nothing to do with this blessed congregation (except beer). I just liked the line, "It's the He-man brew - that the gals love too."

Great Gender Targeted Advertising Parody

2009-06-25T09:00:00.000-06:00

Twitter was in use in 1935!

2009-06-23T10:02:00.002-06:00

I don't twitter (at least not yet). Despite my inability to post continuous short notes on my moment-by-moment movements, I found this 1935 version of Twitter pretty neat.

Bumper Balance

2009-06-19T19:36:00.003-06:00

I'm not a big bumper sticker fan (at least on cars ... as a teenager I had some bumper stickers on a pair of shorts, along with a rubber spider web and assorted other nonsense. ... but I digress). These bumper stickers are hilariously understated and balanced. I especially like the one that reads, "In many contexts, "What would Jesus do?" is not a particularly helpful inquiry."
Nuanced Stickers Link

Back Alley Brilliance

2009-06-18T20:35:00.004-06:00

I was in the alley behind The House Cafe, and a young punker I know named Mikey was hanging out there with an older, domestically challenged guy "named" Stix. Mikey expressed his disappointment in me for "dressing like a nerd again." He suggested I wear an old AC/DC shirt of his.I pointed out to Mikey that: A. I am a nerd, B. I'm old &, C. I used to dress just like Mikey. Stix came to my defense and pointed out that he too was old, but he was NOT a nerd AND the shirt he was wearing was the same sort of shirt as mine. I attempted to aline myself with Stix by opening up my shirt like his (exposing exteme whiteness). The picture here is the result of this great meeting of minds.

Globe Article

2009-06-02T20:48:00.001-06:00

"Will the truth finally set Galileo free?

No, the Italian astronomer was never imprisoned for his beliefs. A new book exposes this and 24 other falsehoods about science and religion."

Total Eclipse of the Heart - Literal Version

2009-05-31T13:42:00.001-06:00

Total Eclipse of the Heart with lyrics that literally describe what's going on in the video:

Games & Narrative

2009-05-27T09:22:00.004-06:00

I'm not a gamer; or, more precisely, I'm only a casual gamer. Puzzles are great, but I prefer my adventures delivered in narrative forms: books, short stories, graphic novels, moving pictures and the stage plays my children spontaneously create in the living room.

Despite my non-gamer-ness, I downloaded a free demo of a game called Braid. I downloaded it because it's received some significant praise, it's creators are independants, not feeding into a corporate machine, and it's re-inventive. Essentially, it takes the puzzle-filled, casual-gamer-grabbing powers of Super Mario Brothers and immerses them in a deeper, painted, gentle, narrative universe.

The video doesn't do it justice ... but, as I said the demo's free, so you can try it for yourself

Crazy Train Nine Year Old

2009-05-14T23:26:00.002-06:00

Emily and Kaylee have been singing Crazy Train since they were two years old. I thought that was kind of unique, but apparently this is something of a childhood anthem. On several occasions, guests in our home have asked Kaylee and Emily who their favourite musician is. I'll never get enough of the horrified looks on the questioners faces when my sweet little girls holler "Ozzy!" at the top of their lungs.

A Curveball in Your Brain.

2009-05-14T10:30:00.002-06:00

This is an amazing, interactive optical illusion that illustrates how a curveball fools a batter.

Pirates and Patriots for Jesus?!

2009-05-04T11:39:00.005-06:00

I'm starting to wonder if AmeriChristianity is some narcotic-induced, collective consciousness trip. It can't be real. This is amazingly, insanely disturbing-funny-weird:

Witness Uncle-Sam-For-Jesus pay tribute to his deceased pal Captian-Hook-For-Jesus. Cuz you know, between raping, pilaging and murdering, everyone knows pirates had revival meetings:

When I think of the mystical man who claimed to be God, living amid the poor, confounding the religious elite, the first metaphor that comes to mind is "That's just like pirates! And nationalist, military-recruitment personalities!

If you're strong (or crazy) enough to press through to the middle of this seemingly endless clip, you might hear reference to the "confession canon (please, don't blow my head off - I'll convert!) and "believing bear" (Oh, the sweet, sweet joy of being mauled by a wild animal with Jesus in his heart).

PS: The horrific content above is all ripped from http://baikinange.blogspot.com/2009/03/pirates-for-jesus.html - credit is due for the intrepid bad-music hunting done on this blog.

Emily and Kaylee Visit Hoth

2009-04-25T19:26:00.002-06:00

I dragged out my old (25 years!) Robotix building toys for Emily and Kaylee to play with. With a little help they made some great vehicles and robots and began to spontaneously reenact Star Wars scenes. Here's their Hoth battle scene:

Best. Sermon. Ever.

2009-04-22T09:42:00.001-06:00

This ranting baby is producing more intellectually solid content than several other fundamentalist sermons I've heard delivered in the same style.

Teenager Annoyance Frequency

2009-02-26T10:20:00.003-07:00

This is the only evidence I have that I'm still young. Everything else in the universe is singing the siren-song of geezerdom to me:

Created by Train Horns

Best. Public. Service. Ad. Ever.

2009-02-06T23:18:00.001-07:00

Star Wars Retold

2009-01-15T09:53:00.001-07:00

I think I like this better than the actual Start Wars orginal trilogy. I have to go wiped the laughter tears out of my eyes now:

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Dun-dun-dun-du-du-dun-du-du-dun

2009-01-05T20:54:00.004-07:00

Despite my church-culture-aversion, I'm a sacramentalist at heart. Though it's oft-attempted but rarely realized, but there's still something transcendent about sacramental acts and liturgical forms. At their best, they allow us to connect with God in a way that can't be captured in words alone.

But there's a fine line between the majesty of God and simply reveling in our own pomposity. People (like me) who (occasionally) dress in vestments are in real need of a good dose of humility and humour. With this in mind, I am grateful and thoroughly entertained by the guy in this video who snuck into the annual Icelandic Lutheran Church procession of the clergy:

Best. Mashup. Ever.

2008-12-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Secret Lives of Chickens

2008-11-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

If only the peace-keeping chickens had been called in before the US invaded Iraq.

Vente Does Not Mean Large

2008-11-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

In light of the Starbuck's church video a couple of posts ago, I feel obligated to embed this short clip:

Finding the Key Without Using It.

2008-11-13T10:13:00.004-07:00

This was our "confessional" last night during our home-group's worship time:

Unforgiven - Metallica

Make of it what you will. There are many compelling images here.

What grabs me is:
The lyrical description of a deeply hurt individual trapped in his anger, knowing the key is forgiveness, but refusing (or being unable) to move beyond "I dub thee unforgiven."
&
The images of a person living their entire life in a darkened cell, scrapping the wall to escape when the key and the door have been there all along.

Capturing Church Culture Crap

2008-11-13T09:22:00.004-07:00

This is a great depiction of the surface-level aspects of the nebulous "Church culture" concept we talk about from time to time in the King's Bridge community. Church culture is something we've attempted to deconstruct, and then, for the most part, reject.

Sadly, the church consulting organization that created the video really seems to embody a lot of the deeper-level church culture crap I find frustrating: church growth focus (#s rather than relationship), western-capitalist success models, come-to-us orientation (rather than releasing the church out into the community-at-large), lack-of-social-justice concern and a buy-our-book ad to top it off. They're focussed on re-branding but I personally think the "product" itself needs a top-to-bottom redesign. In fact, it may need to become a completely different "product" (I shudder every time I type the word "product" to describe the church.).

I think the choice of Starbucks as the subject of the analogy really says it all. I rarely enter a Starbucks, and when I do I feel a little dirty. But the analogy works because it assumes that Starbucks is a great embodiment of user-friendliness, cultural approachability and personal belonging. Of course, for many people it is all of these things. But not for homeless people, eco-hippies, someone who doesn't want to fight for a comfy-seat or people who don't know how to pronounce "vente."

I guess when it comes down to it, I think the church should be subverting many aspects of the culture at large. In my charismatic fundamentalist past, this meant being counter-cultural ... which really just meant replacing mainstream entertainment with cheesy, sanitized Christian equivalents. That was a miserable failure. Subversion goes a lot deeper than this: It means embracing popular cultural icons and engaging the deeper areas of western corruption using it's own language. It means embracing the culture-at-large in many ways, and embracing people-at-large in even more ways. It means infecting the culture, spreading through it, growing organically without central-control and allowing transformation to happen from the inside out. It means recognizing that Christianity as a movement has survived and thrived for two thousand years, but no single institutional embodiment of it has (no - not even the Catholic church - but that's another day's argument).

Whew ... all I meant to do was post this little video, not spew a rant.

Thus endeth the rant.

MUST. FISH. NOW.

2008-11-07T09:15:00.002-07:00

Finally, someone has solved the universal problem of the spontaneous need to fish.

Whassup?! Best. Political. Ad. Ever.

2008-10-27T12:31:00.004-06:00

Most people, whether they be alive, dead or fictional, are vaguely aware of Budwieser's "Whassup" commercial and it's various spin offs. But this has got to be the best one ever! (For the very old, young, forgetful and/or Amish among you, I've included the original Whassup and one of many home-brew spin offs below - watch them before you watch the new one posted first below):

New Whassup Political Ad:

Original Whassup:

Superfriends Whassup:

Margins & Memories

2008-10-15T11:06:00.003-06:00

I have a tendency to stick my head behind the curtains in the middle of the show.

As I sit here in the middle of the warm, gentle humidity, green growth and ocean roll of downtown Honolulu I notice the dirty margins. It's very Disney-ish here: The people cleaning, building, working and especially those who are suffering are swept behind the buildings and under the concrete. But I still notice them ... I look for them. In, fact, I am one of them, and so are you. When we're near the tourist destinations of our hometowns, we're often someone else's backdrop to a perfect holiday; Our disheveldness actively interfering with their illusion of perfection and peace.

My eyeballs tend to drift down the alleyways and under the rugs to the place where people are marginalized. I often meet Jesus there (the real deal ... not the dude who managed my pizza experience [see below]). But, today I think I saw him somewhere else. I sat here on my little hotel balcony, and I stuck my neck out and saw a little swath of beach. There were people kicking their shoes off. Flash bulbs were glittering. waves were bobbing bald heads up and down. Hands were being held. And people were stopping, and staring, and letting go, if only for a moment, of their anxieties and arguments.

And as I observed this, it occurred to me that I was witnessing happy memories-in-the-making. I was sitting in the back row of the theatre of some strangers mind's eye. The images I could see at a distance were destined to be the full-screen, high-definition highlights of someone else's life: "Remember that trip to Hawaii back in '08."

I've long known that beauty dwells in the margins: The tear in the corner of the eye of the homeless old man I stop to talk to. The moment of laughter enjoyed with the mentally ill friend whose anxious voices quiet for long enough to let a smile out. The young street-urchin who pulls-his-crap-together a little and stands taller, buoyed by a first taste of self respect.

The quiet prayer of someone whose hardness drops off as their chin is lifted by the finger of Christ.

But this morning, it was my hardness that dropped off. It was my Disney-fueled cynicism that cracked as I saw that real, enduring beauty is not limited to the margins. It dwells on the wide boulevards as well. Some perfect-tourist moments are real too. Sure, many are plastic and part of an endless cycle of consumer longings that are never satisfied. But others are as solid as the concrete alleys I expect to find beauty in. And even the most superficial holiday memories are only plastic on the exterior ... when the shrink wrap is peeled off of them by an older, wiser tourist looking back on their perfect memories, there will be deeper beauty waiting to be discovered underneath.

The enfleshed-God who had "no place to lay his head" also filled the wine jugs to enhance some else's perfect wedding memory.

Beauty can not be limited, it spills out and surprises. All the forces of culture and consumerism can neither dominate nor sully it.

It is everywhere.

Is KFC Managed by Buddha?

2008-10-06T21:35:00.004-06:00

Yes it's a real label, from a real pizza, delivered to my house.
Yes, I know it's probably just some mere mortal with a name pronounced "Hey-Seus."

But if "Jesus is a friend of mine," why wouldn't he manage my pizza experience?

Mmm Jesus Pizza.

80+ Year Old Ladies Sing "God Save the Queen"

2008-09-09T10:49:00.003-06:00

The previous clip created a rift in the fabric of the universe that can only be repaired by re-balancing the forces of cheese. So to that end I'm posting these freakin' awesome Femme-geezers rasping out a Sex Pistol's song that was originally banned from airplay by the BBC (in the 70s).

Jesus is My Friend

2008-09-05T23:45:00.002-06:00

This is the most horrifically wonderful live music performance in the history of the world. I want to stop watching and listening, but I can't look away.

"He is like a Mountie. He always gets his man. And he'll zap you any way he can."

Stink

2008-06-14T10:45:00.001-06:00

The other day, Kaylee woke up, strode over to me and declared in a matter-of-fact tone: "Emily smells like raw meat!"

Then, a couple of days later, Emily discovered Stink Weeds in our back alley. She immediately decided they were the most beautiful flowers ever and began picking them. When she asked what they were called, I told her, "Stink Weeds."

Big mistake. She was incensed. "They're not stink weeds! They're lovely!" she repeated over and over. She now refuses to let anyone else call her flowers Stink Weeds. We have to refer to them as, "Little Lovelies." She has two vases in her room with "Little Lovelies" in them.

And, predictably, her room stinks.

Lovely.

CBC HNIC HEE HEE

2008-06-12T16:56:00.000-06:00

Zoltar Sees a Talking Bridge in Your Future...

2008-05-13T22:11:00.007-06:00

The picture to the left is from an article in Decision magazine entitled "The Future of Evangelism in Canada." If you blow up the left side of the picture ... what's that you see on the laptop screen? It's the Bridge Talk site! Booyah! We're living in the future baby!
No this is not photoshopped ... it's the future! (And if I was going to photoshop Bridge Talk into a publication, it'd be the New York Times, or Wired Magazine or The Dead Sea Scrolls).

I've gotta go now. I've gotta jump in my flying car and get to the grocery store to buy some meal-in-a-pills and some neural implants.

Click here to read the article (By the always inspired and future-friendly Milton Friesen)

Mr. T Muther R'spect.

2008-05-09T21:29:00.001-06:00

Only the best for you mom ... and it doesn't get any better than Mr. T rapping!

E & K's First Soccer Practice

2008-04-30T21:49:00.002-06:00

Fairy-tale in our Front Yard

2008-04-30T21:46:00.002-06:00

It was "dress up as a fairy-tale character" day at preschool today.

The Golden Stars

2008-04-28T20:08:00.010-06:00

Emily and Kaylee started T-ball/Soccer season tonight. They are on the U-6 Gold team. The first order of business for the team was picking a name. One kid suggested "The Golden Snowballs." Urinary allusions lost out and new names continued to be fielded. Emily suggested "The Golden Cinderellas." The coach and the three boys on the team refused to be Cinderellas. Then one kid suggested Golden Stars and all the kids jumped on it ... except Emily. She stood in front, smiled and stated firmly, "No. The Golden Cinderellas." Then she turned toward the coach with a bigger smile and a twinkle in her eye and pleaded, "the Golden Cinderellas?" She lost out. But she recovered quickly.

After some warm-up chase-the-coach and simon-says-stretching-games, T-ball began. T-ball for four to six year olds involves the ball randomly being thrown around the field, blind batting as the too-big helmet droops over kids faces, children running toward whatever base they feel like, fielders throwing toward home (or a tree, or mom, or straight up in the air) and mid-game spontaneous sand castle building in the red-rock of the infield.

It is way more entertaining to watch than real baseball.

*** In the photos, Emily is in purple pants, Kaylee is in blue. Click 'em to see full size pics. ***

How to Fix a Hole in the Chest with a Stoner Story

2008-04-05T08:36:00.009-06:00

I've been busy. And stressed. STRESSED. Rationally, I know everything is Ok & will eventually become even more Ok. But for the past couple of months, due to a confluence of time, money and life-force-consuming difficulties on the personal, financial, business and professional fronts, I have ended up in a perpetual state of stress.

I have two very simple diagnostics that usually tell me I'm near my top-stress level:

*
1. I feel an "absence" in the middle of my chest. An uncomfortable hollowness in the centre of my physical being. It ebbs and flows a bit ... but never fully leaves me. Last week it was omnipresent. This week it's just popped up intermittently.

2. I don't blog when I'm stressed. I blog when I have time. I even blog a little when I'm busy. But when I'm busy and stressed I simply don't blog (as evidenced by the two month gap in entries in this blog). Stress sucks up creative resources, personal reflections and other layers of being that add to life's abundance. These layers are the things that inspire me to blog, and they get sucked dry by stress.

And yet, here I sit, chest-hole free and blogging my fingers raw. What gives? My little bro and his fiance gave: In this case they gave Stacey and I 20 hours of baby-sitting and a night in Canmore. Phewwww, Awwwwww, Yehawww etc.

And so, with four hours left in this day away, I leave you with two insights that have been meaningful stress-relievers to me:

1. When everything is laid bare, I realize that my stress is largely over "stuff." And "stuff" shouldn't be my concern. God provides enough "stuff" to live and care for my family. My personal status as provider is over-inflated and illusionary (See Jesus' take on birds and lilies and numb-skulls like me).

2. I honestly believe the gratitude, peace and hilarity of the following substance-induced story is possible even after the ganja's been swapped for a moment of solitary-confinement with the divine: Thankful Craigslist Pizza Stoner.

I think I'll buy my three girls flowers and order pizza tonight.

* Lego image from my friend Avi's wonder-filled blog Dark Roasted Blend.

Blog Slack

2008-02-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

I may soon be dead due to burrying myself under too many sedimentary layers of slacking:

I logged into my blog here in an attempt to escape for a momenr from some Bridge Talk frustration involving my 8 year old, first generation DVcam. So now that I'm here, I'm officially slacking off from work. And what did I discover? Five posts that I've got saved in drafts but have slacked off from completing and posting! And now I'm writing this which is layer #3 of slackery (and actually could be layer #6 of slackery if viewed as follows):

- Layer 1: Caring for my children.

Slack from this (because they're currently at their grandma's) to:
- Layer 2: "Real" jobs that don't involve doing all the fun, weird stuff I get to do at my job, or the fun weird stuff I get to do as a partial-stay-at-home-dad.

Slack from this to:
- Layer 3: The personal investment/real estate interests I'm involved in that help me to keep my family afloat given the fiscal realities of layer 4 below.

Slack from this to:
- Layer 4: King's Bridge "work."

Slack from this to:
- Layer 5: My personal blog.

Slack from this to:
- Layer 6: This post which is an avoidance of completing the five personal posts that are waiting in the wings.

Someone please send an archeologist or paleontologist to dig me out (or put a ouji-phone call in to Satan to start pushing from below, cuz I'm so deep down that there must only be a few layers of soil left between me and hell).

Ooo ... phone's ringing .... back up to layer 4.

Jesus Email

2008-01-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Someone at Resonate pointed this vid out: It's great!

(Warning: If you already think I'm a heretic you'll hate this as much as you likely hate being forced to actually think about anything else you believe or the way you present your beliefs to those with different perspectives).

It very entertainingly presents an honest struggle many have with the Christian faith. I can think back on a number of conversations I've had in the past along these lines.

Epiphany

2008-01-07T09:26:00.001-07:00

I like Epiphany. It may be because of my Anglican roots or perhaps it comes from a latent desire to extend the Christmas season; But on a deeper level I think it's because Epiphany is a theology-twisting, weird-God holy-day. It's the celebration of the revelation of Christ to the gentiles. Three mystical astrologers from other lands see a sign in the sky and follow it to find Christ ... how cool is that? These magical, non-Judea-Christian holy men hearing from God in their own cultural context, through their own spiritual practices, and ending up on their knees before the toddler Messiah? This seriously messes with formulaic Amero-Evangelical-McChristianity. Put that in your purpose-driven pipe and smoke it!

And so I present here two Epiphany award winners:

My first award goes to Izvoru, Romania, where villagers leave their Epiphany church service, have their horses splashed with holy water and then launch into a break-neck horse race (When Stacey hears of this, she may just try to bring this celebration to Canada).

My second award goes to Coptic Pope Shenouda III, seen here celebrating coptic Christmas (which is celebrated at Epiphany). Someone has got to give this guy the recognition he deserves for his Tommy Chong impression (The "insense" smoke surrounding him is a nice enhancement). Plus check the bling on this old dude! (Bonus points go to Shenouda for finding ways to be at peace with Muslims in his native Egypt, without compromising his faith. Bonus points go to Tommy Chong for going to High School in Calgary without red-necking out).

New Year, Old Rant.

2008-01-04T13:30:00.001-07:00

A few months ago, I was asked if "cultural engagement" and "conversational ministry" are really very significant. The question was gently and sincerely put, yet the response I began to write somehow tapped into a deep well of both passion and frustration within me. After typing out a ranting initial response, I opted to send a shorter more moderate answer to the question. My initial response sat dormant and unsent on my computer until this morning. I stumbled upon it again as I prepared to write a chapter for an emerging church book I've been asked to contribute to. It struck me that this "rant" is an appropriate post to charge into the new year behind, so here it is:

I want to go with Paul in to the Aeropagus and say, “that unknown God you’ve commemorated … I think I know Him.”* I want to sit beside Jesus with the woman at the well, and not give a damn about how inappropriate, or culturally stretching, or uncomfortable it is, because she wants to talk about eternal things … and is going to meet Jesus because of it.** The Bible is filled with Christ in these contexts, yet we’ve managed in our Chritianized society to fabricate a tamed, easy, self-help and entertainment-oriented Christianity that looks nothing like the context of the early church. And at the same time our society is looking more and more like the society that infused, and surrounded and was engaged by the early church. Yet our response is to judge, and complain, and rail against the loss of the good ol’ days. We ought to throw out the Bible and start canonizing church bulletins as our new scriptures.

The church is coming out of a comfortable, dormant time in the western world, where we could sit in our comfortable pews, and hang out with our Christian friends, and buy stuff at Christian book stores, and rail against secularism; A time when it was impossible to be the President of the United States without being a Christian. And that time is fading, dying. Good riddance. Dig the grave deeper. We’re fat and lazy and afraid and judgemental and we reek of pharisaism.

“Engaging the culture” and “catalyzing conversation” and “building relationship” are nothing more than buzz words. A lot of comfort-oriented churches are doing the same thing they’ve always done, except that they’ve added a cappuccino machine at the back and movie clips in the sermon and now they say they’re exemplifying these buzz words. But the culture they're engaging is the Christian sub-culture; The conversations and relationships are with other Christians. The church walls are just as high as ever, they've just been painted a nice new colour. At their heart, if these buzz words are going to mean anything at all, then they have to be about loving people, and getting over ourselves, and not attempting to restrain Jesus; which is an illusion anyway, because the Jesus we can keep in a box under our bed is a fabrication of our own neediness; A fabrication that we use rather that follow. The real Jesus is out in the marketplace, in the sanctuaries of other religions, in the brothels, under the bridges, in the alley behind the glass office tower, in the foul-mouthed writers room, and everywhere in between.

I’m not interested in building a sub-culture, I’m interested in following Christ … the Christ who both enters and transcends culture.

* Acts 17:16-34

** John 4:1-29

Birthday-Christmas Season

2007-12-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

I blew the dust off my facebook account. and tossed a whack of pictures up. Here are a few of 'em for those of you not inclined to book your face.

Remembering Allan.

2007-12-22T22:26:00.001-07:00

Stacey has put together a memorial website for her father. It has the tribute video, Stacey and Shannon's eulogies and many comments from people who knew and loved Allan.

Near

2007-12-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, Stacey and I were camped out in the hospital through the holiday season. Our new babies, Emily and Kaylee had to stay in the Special Care Nursery for ten days after they were born, and we stayed with them. One floor above us, Stacey's Uncle Kinley lay dying. And Christmas was right around the corner.

Now we find ourselves in the tensions of life and death again. Stacey's father has just died. Emily and Kaylee are about to celebrate their fourth birthday. And Christmas is right around the corner.

If Christmas is just about gifts, and a little bit of good will, it has little in it that speaks into times of loss and times of wonder. But if Christmas is about the incarnation, God walking among us, as one of us, God entering the human situation, then it has a lot to say. God is with us in our loss and our celebration. He weeps. He bleeds. He laughs. He is near.

And Christmas is right around the corner.

Remembering Allan.

2007-12-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Stacey's Father, Allan Smith, passed away just before 11pm on Monday night. Stacey and her sister Shannon were by his side. They have been by his side since he entered the hospital over six weeks ago. The three of them have spent countless hours together. And Allan was in very good spirits, right up to his final day.

Stacey has created a website in memory of her father. Over the days to come it will be added to. And you can add your memories and reflections to it as well by leaving a comment.

At the Lonely End of the Rink

2007-12-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

I hear your voice ‘cross a frozen lake
a voice from the end of a leaf
saying, ‘you won’t die of a thousand fakes
or be beaten by the sweetest of dekes’
- The Tragically Hip.

I'm midway through the process of making a skating rink in our backyard. Emily and Kaylee are skating machines. Every day after pre-school we go slide around on the community rink, and I have to drag them off kicking and screaming. The only thing on their Christmas lists this year are "big kid skates." Kaylee's favourite story is about a little boy who loves hockey and builds a rink in his backyard. She is adamant that our rink be the right shape and have red and blue lines.

Beyond my girl's love of ice, there's a legacy-thing at the heart of flooding the back yard. My grandfather and namesake used to make a rink in the backyard for my mother and her siblings. Stacey's dad used to make one for her and her sister. And Stacey and I made one together a few months before we were married.

The first step was communal: Kaylee and I shoveled snow ridges and sprayed them down, while Emily acted as foreman overseeing us through the window, from behind a cup of hot chocolate.

Thanks in part to the warm weather, the latter steps have been solitary: wandering out into the darkness at 9 or 10 pm with a hose over my shoulder.

Something about standing in the darkness, listening to water flow, feeling the chill and reflecting on fathers now gone, fathers facing their last days and the fatherhood I find myself in the midst of feels right. Solid. It feels like a place I'm supposed to be.

Just don't laugh when you see how poorly I skate.

Morgan ... Uh Uh Uh.

2007-12-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

Playing the president of the United States? Playing God? Driving Miss Daisy? No way. This clip is Morgan Freeman's greatest acting achievement.

Bad Vicar

2007-12-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

I have a new career aspiration now (thanks Milton).

Holiday Magic?

2007-11-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

We set up a real Christmas tree last night while the girls were sleeping. It filled the house with a nice pine smell. The girls awoke this morning and wandered into the living room whole Stacey and I eagerly awaited their excited little-kid reactions to the tree:

Emily was visibly pleased. Kaylee was too; Then she looked at the tree, sniffed a couple of times and said, "Why does it smell like an automatic toilet in here?"

Girly Man Man Man Man Man!

2007-11-07T23:06:00.000-07:00

Mike Sutton "translates" music videos like the one above by subtitling in english words that sound like the words coming out of the singers mouth (in this case in Hindi) The results are hilariously weird. I just about fell over laughing at the video above. For more on this see this link to a Wired News article.

Bobbin'

2007-10-28T05:35:00.001-06:00

No, the video below is not an expression of Stacey & my medieval child-discipline strategies.

Happy Halloween.

YouTubeViews

2007-10-24T00:12:00.000-06:00

I've been number-watching as the views of the most-played episode of Bridge Talk approaches 2000. But It's been awhile since I checked in on poor old Orvil.

So you can imagine my suprise when I checked the YouTube account I keep him locked up in and found that his halloween clip from last year is now approaching 10,000 views! Being a shameless cross-fertilizer, I changed the text that goes with the clip to mention the bridgetalk.ca site.

Uh, I suppose I should write something Orvilesque here. ... "Yo ugly Americans. Prepare to gum-gnash yo' pumpkin pie all you want; But come yankie-thanky day, I'll be eating pilgrim-pie. (How do you cook a pilgrim, anyway?)"

Here's the clip:

Huh?

2007-10-18T09:57:00.000-06:00

Kaylee just came up to me and said, "I've got too much beer in my mouth from God." And then she walked away.

Toteenagers.

2007-10-18T09:30:00.000-06:00

So far at preschool Kaylee & Emily have been mostly hanging out with two other little girls: named Kali and Emily! (and Emily has an older sister named Kaylee).
...

Then, at breakfast today, Kaylee began to tell me about her new friend, "Brandon," whom she wants to play soccer with.

Then Emily sat at the table singing dreamily, "Oh, Brandon ... Oh wonderful Brandon."

And so it begins.
...

In other news, I'm considering beginning to process of acquiring a gun permit and building a front porch. Can anyone recommend any 'Angry Hillbilly" courses to me? I've only got 10 years left to perfect my grouchy, protective dad routine, and the girls are already knee deep in teenager practice.

Quotable Kensington

2007-10-14T19:18:00.000-06:00

Alexander, a guy I was talking to down at the Roasterie and then again later at The House tossed out the following in our conversation:

"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've already been there."

Wowhmmmmmm....

Re-Posting is For Blogslackers

2007-10-10T17:51:00.000-06:00

I'm re-posting this video because it seems like the girls have grown so much since I originally posted this clip. Plus it's a quick way to post something since I'm busy, I want to keep a valid blog presence going, but it's been two weeks since I touched this site.

Too Legit To Quit

2007-09-26T22:06:00.000-06:00

Bridge Talk went legit this week. That is to say that this week's video is the first to be completely comprised of material I filmed or created myself and works that are in the public domain. And perhaps not coincidentally, it is the episode I'm most satisfied with to date. Here it is in all its legitimacy:

If You Were Satan ...

I can't promise I'll keep it legit in the future, especially when we're dealing with a new movie or television show as our weekly topic. I can tell you though what principles have governed my use of material that I didn't personally create or isn't obviously in the public domain. Apart from never using these materials to make money, using them in service of "education" and as part of the program of a registered charity, the following interview segment illustrates the principles I follow when using clips:

Leslie Moonves, president of CBS as interviewed in Wired Magazine, June 2007, pg 169:

Wired: " There's a lot of CBS material on YouTube. How does that work?"

Moonves: "You have to look at it in two different ways. One is content that you will get paid for directly, and the other is promotional content. Our attitude is, either pay us for it or give us promotional value that will eventually lead to our getting paid for it."

Wired: "How do you tell the difference?"

Moonves: "If there's a one-minute clip of CSI, or user generated clips like different shots of David Caruso taking off his glasses, that's great promtion. If they were showing a whole episode of CSI and we weren't getting paid, we'd object."

So there's your surprise for the week: There are voices of sanity in the entertainment industry.

Pre-school

2007-09-14T17:05:00.000-06:00

Emily and Kaylee started pre-school this week. French emersion pre-school to be exact. They get quite flustered when I call it "play school" by mistake. This is serious business! (Mostly involving playing).

I was taken aback by how much their afternoon dragged some long-lost, difficult childhood memories out of me. It's been both stretching and healing to see them respond so positively this week.

On their first day they each went over to a young guy who was shyly clutching his mother and introduced themselves and smiled at him. They're a little shy themselves, so it was a little bit of effort for them to go up to him. Of course both Stacey and I were brimming with pride.

...

Then they smacked the kid down, stood on him and yelled out "who's next?!"

Harry Haters Haven't Humility

2007-09-06T09:38:00.000-06:00

This short article on J. K. Rowling's faith is well worth reading (if you don't plan on reading the final Harry Potter book). It was printed in the Calgary Herald, but I'm linking to this other paper's printing of it because the Herald makes you pay to read it.

I'm kinda annoyed in recent days because I encountered a little over-the-top Rowling-bashing recently, which contributed to a growing overall feeling of alienation from the maintream church.

Despite being disowned by many a fundamentalist Christian, Rowling is not only a Christian herself, but the only one in history who has sold well over 12 million books with explicit Christian themes in a single day.

Here's the Bridge Talk Harry Potter link if you want to see what other folks are saying and sound off a little on this:
Harry Potter's Hamstrung Pedantics

Oldness, Sadness & Wonder.

2007-09-05T09:27:00.000-06:00

I had an old, sad & wonder-filled day.

Old: I realized as I listened to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the radio that Nirvana was breaking that song out around 17 years ago; So for the main consumers of music these days, it's "one of those songs written before we were born." It's probably even been musaced by now.

Sad (& old): I attended a pre-school parents meeting in preparation for E & K's first venture into institutional education. Because the pre-school is hosted in an elementary school, my kids will experience fire drills .... and lock-down drills. In a post Columbine world, kid's need to practice sitting quietly with teachers under tables behind locked doors. **sigh**

Wonder (& old but not sad): It just freakin' amazes me that thirty years ago we (humanity) sent out two little low-tech probes that took first-hand pictures of the wonders of our solar system countless millions of miles away. The girls & I sat and looked at pictures and talked about planets & moons & millions of miles & God & science & just wondered together.

Wired, Voyager 30 year anniversary album.

Deciduous Trees of the World Unite!

2007-09-01T08:36:00.000-06:00

I don't want summer to end. I never want summer to end. I consider trees whose leaves start changing colours to be traitors. There's a tree across the street from me that's already 1/3 of the way to fall colours. I'm considering a plan to cut it down while the elderly people who live in the house are sleeping.

For those of you who live in the suburbs, I'll explain what a "tree" is later.

Carrotsicle

2007-08-23T08:12:00.000-06:00

I took Emily and Kaylee out for lunch yesterday. In order to reaffirm my status as an uncool dad, I told Emily she had to eat one more carrot before finishing. Heavy negotiations lauched at this point. Emily's earnest contention was that her carrot had pepper on it (she does'nt like pepper). She was right ... it had precisely one grain of pepper on it. I told her I would wipe it off; she balked; I re-iterated; she protested; and then Kaylee reached over, licked off the carrot and handed it to Emily.

Emily happily ate the now pepper free carrot.

PS: The guinea pigs have nothing to do with this story. Although I'm sure they too would eat a licked carrot over a peppered one. And no, we don't now own these gentle, marijuana-eating rodents. These were loaners from Stacey's cousin's family.

Inaccessable

2007-08-12T15:49:00.001-06:00

I returned to Calgary for one night a few days ago and sent out an email declaring that both Stacey & I would be blogging all sorts of wonderfully weird stuff while on holidays. Then I went back out to Rosen Lake and discovered that we had somehow failed to put in a cable conduit when we had our telephone and electricity put in. So in order to get internet access I would have to dig a 175 foot long, 18 inch deep trench in rocky ground.

I'm not going to do that and you can't make me, no matter how much you want to me to annoy you with useless drivel.

So now I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Cranbrook with Stacey, busily typing this single blog entry. It may be my only one before returning to Calgary (or maybe not ... oooo suspense).

The picture of Emily on the dock was taken a moment before she stuck her foot in the bucket full of minnows she had just caught. She was putting pancakes in between her toes and feeding them to the fish (Stacey taught her this ... she's a talented lady).

The Santa pics are from Nicole's famous annual Christmas in July bbq at our place a few weeks ago.

The link between the pictures can be discovered only through intense meditation, hickups and running around in circles with baloney on your head.

I haven't seen a single cran in Cranbrook (nor a brook for that matter). But I have witnessed a great communal distain for razors-on-the-male-face. I would viciously mock this … if I had shaved in the last week.

Porcelain Pugilism

2007-08-09T10:11:00.000-06:00

Here are the highlights of this year's Canada Day toilet attack. It was a good day: 49 people, 60 burgers and hotdogs, 1000 child-size happy squeals, 10,000 toilet fragments and one big mess.

Ripples

2007-08-09T09:09:00.000-06:00

I sat on the dock early this morning, undisturbed, until the neighbour’s dog sidled up beside me and began to lap at the lake. The calm, glassy water broke in concentric circles. For several minutes, ripples continued to flow out from where he drank. Out and out they went until, on the edge of my vision, I could still see them almost a third of the way across the lake. And he kept on lapping until hundreds and hundreds of waveforms occupied all the water around me.

Perhaps you’ve seen infrared images of the heat signatures humans emit, or the more exotic images of the air turbulence we create simply by breathing and moving. We have a tremendous, yet barely visible influence. Simply by being alive, we impact our immediate environment in a profound, and far reaching way. What would otherwise be dormant is filled with motion and engraved with the signature of life.

I wonder at the spiritual significance of this physical process. I don’t believe we are divided beings. I don’t believe we are imprisoned in an evil material world, with a virtuous spiritual world separately clicking along underneath it. We live as part of an integrated whole. Body, mind, spirit: where one leaves off and the next begins is beyond our discernment. And enshrined in the centre of this integration is the dogged assertion of ancient Christians that their Savior was raised from the dead … physically. A spiritual mystery, that they will not permit us to ghettoize into the unseen realm. And so in a world where physical realities exist among, and mirror spiritual realities, the idea of far reaching ripples consumed my morning.

An insect hit the lake shortly after the dog had left. It made a ripple. The ripple flowed out across the lake. But it was a singular act; One circle radiating out. It lacked the consistent pattern created by the dog’s thirst; a pattern that covered an immense area without break; a pattern that made me think of the consistent efforts of so many people of faith that I’ve encountered over the years. They’ve thirsted. They’ve rippled the waters. And most people paid no attention. But for those few who stopped and looked, a massive area was patterned in perfect, consistent waves by their efforts.

The fifteen minutes of fame that so many of us long for is a bug hitting the water. The sudden rippling of the mirror stands out for a shot time, radiates out, and is gone. Even while it can still be seen it’s almost impossible to trace back to its origin.

Consistent, faithful, thirsty lapping at the water radiates out just as far, but also focuses us on the centre. The act in the middle of the waves can still be seen because it is still being enacted. To be washed over by the large circles compels us to seek out the smaller ones, the ones with higher, less diffused waveforms, until we find the point of impact from where they arose.

And so I sit here contemplating, looking out at the low, wide circles that have washed over me, searching out the centre. And in those places where I can track all the way back, I see thirsting people. I see living water. I see small acts of faith, service … love. And I see consistency.

And as a weary man with little impact, and not even fifteen seconds of fame, I’m comforted. Perhaps my thirst, my tiny, weak, but consistent lapping, radiates out. Perhaps, if someone stops and is quiet and watchful, the waves may even compel them to seek out the centre and quench their thirst as well.

Mind Meld

2007-08-09T09:04:00.000-06:00

Stacey & I were travelling back to Calgary yesterday, listening to music. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan came on and she said, "Bob Dylan is U2 for old people." I thought that was a great line and told her I was going to use it. She then told me that I had coined the line and blurted it out to her a week earlier.

It's strange in a comfortable sort of way how after ten years of marriage, I can no longer tell which thougths in my head are my own and which are Stacey's (But I'm pretty sure the thoughts that have kept me out of prison are Stacey's).

The Secret (When Pantyhose Become Books).

2007-08-04T08:41:00.000-06:00

Here's a hilarious Macleans review of the popular self-help, new age book "The Secret" that someone on the Resonate discussion shared the link to:The Secret Revealed.

(Warning: It's a little junior high locker-roomy).

Trading My Blog for a Log

2007-08-04T08:20:00.001-06:00

I'm heading out to Rosen Lake with the dare-to-dream hope of achieving internet access out there this week. Of course, for a variety of tech vs. middle-of-nowhere issues, it may not happen, and all my leisure-time moronicisms will never be given life as blog entries. So stay tuned, cross your fingers, intercede on our behalf, get jiggy with it, eat a Joe's, don't take any wooden nickles & fight the power (what was I writing about anyways? ... Oh, yeah ... mixing drugs, whiskey, Cheetos & salad for breakfast has no affect on my coherence ... none at alllllllll lalalalalala - lapidary has nothing to do with dairy or laps ... I'm gonna eat a bug, and become bug-man. Hey, you, get into my car! Why do bird's suddenly appear, every time you are near? I have another thought coming, it' sz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz).

Go fo Pho!

2007-07-29T23:06:00.000-06:00

I'm still smarting from a big, violent backyard debate tonight over how to pronounce "Pho" and what exactly it is. I argued for the pronounciation "Pee-hoe", but was proven wrong (see below). The good news is that "pee-hoe" is now free to be used anyway I want to:

"Yo! Yo! Pee-Ho. Pass da Pho 'for I wup yo fro!"

If I had only argued more effectively I would have been able to witness Nicole & Stacey walking into a Vietnamese restaurant and asking for "Pee-hoe."

"Phở (pronounced "fuh" in English) is a traditional Vietnamese noodle dish. It is composed of a thin white rice noodle in a clear beef broth, with thin cuts of beef (steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket), tendon, tripe, meatballs, or other ingredients such as green onions, white onions, cilantro, basil leaves, lemon or lime, bean sprouts, or chiles. ..." (Wikipedia: Now with 50% less moronic drivel).

Good Egg Contest

2007-07-22T13:59:00.000-06:00

Ok. It's finally here. The contest I promised months ago is online at Bridge Talk. So go check it out, enter & wait for your life to be forever altered!

Alex Keating Begone!

2007-07-17T10:12:00.000-06:00

I'm afraid.

Emily just went up to Kaylee and said, "Let's play Stephen Harper!" Kaylee was happy to oblige. Apparently Stephen Harper really likes to take long jumps off the couch onto cushions on the floor.

I think I'd be a little less scared if one of them played "Stephan Dion" while the other played Harper. At least I can find solace in the fact that no one is playing "Jack Layton." I think that sort of behavior might warrant a time out.

I blame Stacey.

Star Wars Trash Daily

2007-07-15T09:14:00.000-06:00

You know the Star Wars trash compactor scene? When, after R2D2 succeeds in stopping the walls from crushing our heroes, C3P0 hears their whooping celebratory sounds coming over the intercom and concludes that their dying?

Just about every day this happens to me!

Emily and Kaylee make these aweful sound like they're dying or fighting or extremely emotionally distressed. I hear it over the baby monitor or through the wall and rush in thinking they are suffering in the extreme, and discover that they are laughing their heads off, or playing "sad baby" or just making weird noises.

Of course one out of ten times they're actually in distress - just frequently enough to keep me from being able write this phenomenon off and relax.

For Father's Day I think I should have asked for a longer lease for myself.

2007-07-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

I added two links worth visiting to the top of the list to the right:

BridgeTalk is KB's new man-on-the-street meets pop culture & spirituality video & conversation site.

Stacey's Twisted Path is Stacey's new blog full of her deep insights, peeves & ponderances.

Toliet Attack On It's Way

2007-07-13T09:05:00.000-06:00

I'm a truant. I promised a contest with a funky prize months ago ... and it's not here yet. I have great toilet-piñata footage begging to be cut into a highlight reel. And I have a handful of embryonic essays awaiting completion.

I'm a bad blogger ... but life's busy and child or workplace neglect doesn't seem like a good remedy. My holidays are on the way, and if I can secure some kind of Internet access out at Rosen Lake, I'll get to these outstanding promises soon.

I know the one & 3/4 readers of this blog are waiting with baited breath (pee-yeew bait smells bad enough without sticking it in your mouth).

In the meantime, here are some random pics from the last couple of weeks.

Bad Day for an Accident

2007-06-30T17:07:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I filled a large jerry can of gas for my mower, two bottles of propane and then filled the rest of the trunk with booze for the Canada Day party tomorrow. And then it dawned on me as I was about to drive home, that this would be one very bad day to get rear-ended (Although, I did happen to buy a fire extinguisher on the same trip).

Teenage Affluenza

2007-06-26T00:48:00.000-06:00

Absolutely, hilariously, tragically, brilliant. Watch this thing through to the end.

Garden Shed Transmogrification

2007-06-22T20:44:00.000-06:00

Our new house came with a garden shed, and we came with two preschoolers. So the only way to settle the growing political tensions arising from this was to turn the garden shed into a playhouse.

Downer of a Sister

2007-06-21T15:55:00.000-06:00

Cheesy, poorly shot video, Christians with a twisted sense of humour ... and System of a Down music. Does it get any better (worse) than this!

"ApologetiX" parodying "Chop Suey" by System of a Down.

Rythmic Freak Out

2007-06-09T23:27:00.000-06:00

Emily is really givin' 'er to earn the title of "The King's Bridge Band's Biggest (smallest) Fan." You should see her dance without her eyes closed! Check out this video from earlier tonight.

What Would Jesus Do With a Fish & Blond Hair?

2007-06-05T15:52:00.000-06:00

Stacey's employer, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, does these things called "Decision Minutes." They're Christiany & run on Christian radio stations, but I think the intention is to reach people outside of the Church culture. So, unless you're a knob, you can see there's a problem.

Stacey & some of her co-workers are not knobs (I know, I know, I really know how to sweet-talk about my wife). So they are trying to re-engineer Decision Minutes & put them on regular radio stations. Stacey asked me to take a stab at writing some new ones. They're embarassingly rough & first drafty. In the unlikely event that any of the ideas get picked up though, they'll be made into something slick, professional and whole lot better than what you're about to hear (by people who are slicker, more professional and whole lot better than yours truly).

So, here they are for your listening pleasure (or annoyance as the case may be):
What Would Jesus Do?.
Jesus Fish.
Blond Jesus.

Fight the power baby!

Personal Yoda

2007-06-01T09:22:00.001-06:00

I went to visit Morgan Syvertsen yesterday. He's always been a bit of a mentor to me, my own personal Yoda. The fact that I met him in Drumheller, surrounded by an almost alien landscape, and statues of strange, huge creatures on every corner didn't hurt the Yoda analogy. Of course he's neither crotchity nor old, so the analogy breaks down pretty quickly even in Drumheller.

It was a good visit. I feel a little closer to being re-centred.

Empty House

2007-05-29T08:50:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday we had a pretty meagre crowd at our event at The House Cafe. But, once again, I took the stage to talk about pop culture, life, big questions and Jesus to people who may or may not give a rip about any of those things. And people left. It's not an infrequent event for people to leave, but it deflated me more than usual.

Yet I feel somehow that it's good for me. It's like brussel sprouts.

And it tastes about as bad too.

Wacky Theology & Other Preschool Pursuits

2007-05-04T09:45:00.000-06:00

Here's a brand new batch of Emily & Kaylee quotes from recent weeks. Their studies have obviously branched off into alternative theology:

K: "I'm Jesus, coming up the stairs. I'm alive ... Hallelujah!"

E: "Ok, The question is: Why did God make people?"

E&K: "These are for your wife named duder."

K: "I'm a baby so I don't have any eyes yet."

Emily stands on the scale and asks "How old am I now?"
Kaylee states, "If I could climb a door, I would need 5 legs;" Then Emily responds, "If I could climb a wall I would need six legs."

K: "Daddy, you should grow some hair some day."

Overheard coming from their bedroom (unsure who said what):
"When God wants to get peels off His food, the unicorn helps Him."
"The minister tells people about Jesus and His little nest."

K: "I put these slippers on to remind me of Jesus when I'm dancing & singing & wiggling."

To Disturbing Not To Blog

2007-04-30T10:26:00.000-06:00

Yes, this is a real mouse made into a computer mouse. If you're not disturbed enough yet, you can emerse yourself in this mod-gone-wrong here.

You Know There's No Option to Plead "No Contest."

2007-04-12T06:59:00.000-06:00

Brace yourself: A new contest is coming ... and the prize doesn't suck! I know, it's hard to believe, but this is a good one:
It was purchased in a far away land (sorta) and I actually had people come up to me as I waited in line at the 'til asking if there were anymore like it (there weren't ... I got the last one).

I won't tell you what the prize is yet. And the details of the contest must remain secret for a while longer ... but I'll prepare your imagination by letting you know that the contest task has a lot to do with this pic and this video.

So bait your breath, hold onto your butts and get ready to contestitate.

Happy Blogiversary!

2007-04-07T07:05:00.000-06:00

My one year blogging anniversary passed (back in late January) without mention. As you can tell by the dearth of entries, the first three months of the year have been rather busy for Stacey, the girls and I.

Right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Victoria (I’m visiting my brother here). It’s raining but it’s warm. It’s early but I feel well rested. And I have time to take it easy, write a blog entry and …

Yesterday I did a “vanity” search (cuz you know “gluttony” alone isn’t going to maintain top-tier degenerate status for me). Buoyed by the high search ranking King’s Bridge is enjoying on Google, I typed in “Rob Scott Calgary.” And lo and behold (we would all do well to spend more time loing and beholding) this blog popped up as the number one site (out of just shy of a million sites).

So due to the confluence of these positive circumstances I’m declaring this the stand-in entry for the one year anniversary of “Come to Church & I’ll Buy You a Beer.” Happy anniversary! Thanks for reading, commenting, smashing, contesting and generally being a stand-up, courageous, sweet-smelling, intelligent, unpredictable, yet rarely dangerous, literate but not overly literal pack of buds. I love you guys. Both of you.

Buckle up and check the pocket in front of your seat for a barf bag. Here comes year number two.

Big-g-g-g

2007-03-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

Stacey and I just got back from an overnight stay at the Kananaskis Lodge to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We splurged and booked a ski package with a day of lift tickets and a hot tub in our room. When we arrived, we discovered that because of a big conference, they bumped us from our room!

They bumped us up about 5 room levels (gratis) to a hostility (err ... hospitality) suite! It was ... and I'm not exaggerating ... the same size as our home in Calgary! We had a fireplace, living room area, separate TV area, a hot tub, a shower, a second bathroom with shower and bath, a bidet (eeeeewww), a separate bedroom with a huge bed, TV, desk with internet hookups and a sitting area, a front entrance room, a board room table and chairs (!???) and a wrap-around view of the mountains.

I was seriously thinking of calling all the core people at King’s Bridge and putting together a church retreat … we could accommodate them all. Of course, I would officially become the world's worst husband ever if I did that on our anniversary weekend away (right now Bill Clinton and three guys in Iran are technically worse husbands than I am).

Skiing was great, the room was great ... and the past ten years with one heck of an incredible woman have been really, really great (and the past three with two slightly unstable, but really wonderful, little women has been great too!)

Now back to regularly scheduled programming (a very, very busy month of March lies ahead for us both personally and professionally).

Ten Years

2007-02-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

Exactly ten years ago I was on my way to St. Luke's church to get hitched.

There have been trials and struggles over the past ten years, but almost none of them have come from Stacey.

There have been great joys and triumphs, and Stacey deserves the credit for a great deal of them.

I am a truly blessed man, and I'm looking forward to the next ten years.

What's On Your Bookshelf?

2007-02-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

This is a common discovery upon entering Emily and Kaylee's room after nap time (often with one or both kid's still asleep). We have provided comfortable, warm, clean beds that are not four feet off the ground for our children. They just seem to prefer a small, cold, hard shelf in a bookcase instead. At least they're no longer spinning cocoons suspended from the ceiling and sleeping in them.

Christmas & New Year Pics

2007-01-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

Life has been far too busy to blog lately. I did manage to toss some of our kidX2Bday3, Christmas and New Year pics up onto a make-shift website though:
Christmas & New Year with the Scotts.

PS: Though taken shortly before Christmas, the pic above isn't exactly Christmasy or New Yearsy. I thought I'd drop it here, however, because Kaylee's ability to defy real-world physics finally convinced me that we do in fact live in the Matrix.

Alternate Puppet Stage Uses

2006-12-20T20:35:00.001-07:00

Emily & Kaylee had a terrific third birthday celebration. Friends & family were very generous to them. In true three year old style, they have found some novel uses for some of their gifts.

Yesterday, they were putting on a puppet show for some stuffed animals. I was in the kitchen, impressed by the happy sounds I heard coming from the living room. A couple of minutes later, I looked in to see that their puppet show had turned into this:

The Continuing Adventures of Emily & Kaylee

2006-12-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

Kaylee and Emily wanted to know how "things that can't move can move in videos." So we did a tiny animation together. They did all the object movement, checking of each picture, and the voice over. Here it is:

Here are some recent quotes from the wonder twins:

"I've got Jesus bears because I'm Jesus. That's what He's got in heaven. Sometimes He sleeps a little bit."

"My robot's name is Johnny Boobonovitz."

"Yesterday Kaylee married me, so now I've got a ring!"

"God is confusing me."

"Somebody pooped in here, which was a bad idea. Oh, it's just a raisin!"

Here's Emily and Kaylee doing "The Wheels on the Bus."