I’m a finger down… playing hurt… fighting through it… yeah… here’s the deal… i was rationing off a chocolate bunny on Saturday… by the way, i didn’t get a chocolate bunny this year - very disappointing - i’m going to have to raid the clearance aisle or something… anyway, i’m rationing off this bunny, which is a nicer way of saying that i’m lopping off the ears to help manage the resultant sugar high… and i also managed to lop off a chunk of my left index finger… since then, i’ve been bandaged and i feel rather gimpy… you wouldn’t think that the left index finger is all that important to a right-hander, but yeah… you do notice…

Anyway… i’m trying some new things starting today… we’ll see how they work… let me know what you think…

EASTER

to the tune of Mighty to Save - Hillsong

So our Easter went pretty well… i mentioned earlier that we went over the Easter story a few times with the littles and they seemed pretty taken by it… so that went well and we did the church thing… the littles and i all wore full-out suits and they totally showed me up as they were supremely handsome… Before church, though we did a treasure hunt which involved eight treasure maps that led one to another until the big payoffs which were the Easter baskets… they LOVED it, but apparently, i could’ve drawn the maps a little better… shows what happens when you scrawl things out at 1 in the morning…

We had hoped to bring our neighbors to church as well, but that didn’t work out for a variety of reasons that i’m not completely aware of and some that i am… so, after church, we had a laid-back lunch, sent the littles to their rooms for some down time and i watched a movie which i’ll talk about later… and then, when they came back down, we did the egg hunt thing and shared a splendid lamb dinner… all in all, a very nice Easter Sunday and i think we covered all the traditional bases…

THE OTHER MARCH MADNESS

to the tune of CrushCrushCrush - Paramore

So there’s also this little business of the NCAA Tournament going on in the background… and i performed my duties as a guy and filled out a bracket and joined a challenge group… and on Thursday, i watched a couple games via the online video players… and caught some games on Friday and Saturday as well… and it didn’t take too long into the process to remember why i never put money on these things… outside of the NFL, i’m so disconnected from the sports world these days… i enjoy occassional games from pretty much every sport, but i don’t follow it nearly like i used to… so, despite a strong early showing on Thursday, my picks all died away rather quickly and i’ll be lucky to finish in the top 7 of the 7-person pick ‘em group i joined…

It is sad for me to see Georgetown, UCONN, Duke and George Mason get booted so early, despite my bracket, but that’s life… from what i’ve seen of the tourney so far, it seems to me that UNC is going to run over everyone the rest of the way through and probably win in the championship game by 15 or 20 points… then again, what do i know…

MOVIE MONDAY

to the tune of Ratatouille (score) - Michael Giacchino

So one of the first things i want to do to change things up is to get on a better schedule… so, depending on the day of the week, there will be some regular “features” to look forward to… the first that i’m unveiling is Movie Monday… since i happily subscribe to Netflix, it seems that i always have a movie to talk about, and this week, i’ll talk about two…

first up is Horton Hears a Who, which we took the littles to see on Friday… yes, it’s in theaters and no, it’s probably not worth seeing before it’s available on DVD through, say, Netflix, perhaps?… anyway… most everyone is familiar with the gist of this story, an elephant discovers a speck of dust that contains an entire civilization and he vows to keep it safe… Horton faces a number of challenges, in this case Carol Burnett’s mean-spirited kangaroo… on the flipside, the mayor of Whoville has to convince a world of people that are so caught up in their own comforts that they need to take action or see their world destroyed…

There’s a number of themes that can take you in a myriad of directions… on Horton’s side you see the importance of imagination, loyalty, and faith as well as facing persecution and defeating “the man”… and in Whoville, you see the question of God’s existence as well as the intentional disregard of the world around you… common themes betweeen the two worlds seem to be faith, character, ridicule, and being brave…

And all these themes can relate to something in everyone’s life, however, the movie doesn’t completely develop any of them which is somewhat annoying, though the humor and entertainment level for children is pretty great… my main problem with the movie is the name-calling… there’s lot’s of “idiots,” “morons,” and “boobs” thrown around - in fact, i think they said “boob” about 10 times in a minute… and it’s not that these are terrible words, but i really don’t want the littles running around calling people boobs and idiots because they heard it in a movie and don’t understand that it’s not nice or appropriate… Overall, i give Horton a B/B-…

The second movie, i want to talk about is called The Final Inquiry which was apparently first released in Spain, but tells of a Roman soldier commissined to investigate the rumors of about the resurrection of a man named Jesus… there’s mystery, intrigue, some fight scenes, romance, Dolph Lundgren, cover-ups and a lot to like about the film…

It’s actually a pretty compelling movie - even with Dolph - and it’s an interesting perspective as you see the current Caesar conducting a secret investigation and you get to follow all the evidence as it comes to light… There are some conflicts of timing and such, but nothing terribly distracting from the main thrust of the film and certainly not fom the conclusion… it was particularly interesting to watch around Easter time and i enjoyed it in lieu of reading The Murder of Jesus by John MacArthur which i appear to have misplaced… Bottom line, i give The Final Inquiry a solid B+

WORD OF THE DAY

Joshua 6: 22-27Joshua 6: 22-27
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV

Promises Fulfilled and then…

God fulfilled His promise and delivered Jericho to the Israelites in an odd fashioin so Joshua, in turn fulfills some of his promises… He spares Rahab and her family and allows them to live with them as a reward for her faithfulness… and then they burned the entire city to the ground, keepinng all the silver, gold, bronze and iron into the treasury of The LORD - which i think, constitutes one of the earliest “Building Funds” in church history…

And then there’s a curse… Joshua pronounces a curse on anyone who tries to rebuild the city of Jericho… he says that whoever does so will lose his firstborn son and his youngest son… they destory the place and hope to wipe it off of the face of the earth forever… now, i think this will lead to some interesting things… in fact, someone named Heil DID rebuild Jericho, during the reign of King Ahab and guess what? his first born son died as did his youngest son… should’ve seen that coming… i’m going to rethink signing that petitiion to save Jericho (the TV show)…

IN OTHER WORDS

to the tune of The Motions - Matthew West

When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box by John Ortberg… Prevent Regret… This is a chapter that closes out the “Setup” section of the book… it deals with the general notion that if you don’t figure out what’s important in life and act on it, then you’re going to experience a lot of regret… the opening story is touching and sad and reminds us that relationships have a lot to do with our priorities… the chapter talks about four common regrets that people face at the end of life and reminds us that life doesn’t slow down until it stops and then it’s too late to change anything… we have this point in time right now to make the most of and that’s it… Next section: HOW TO PLAY…

MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE -dAT CAVE

to the tune of The Batman Theme - Danny Elfman

a few nice pieces up at theTRu… posted my 2oo7 Year in Re:TRu piece last week as well as a long, lost interview with Shawn McDonald… plenty more to come your way… as long as i can stay awake…

MOVING ON

hope you enjoyed this slightly new format and will check back to see the rest of the new “schedule”…

peace… love… bdg…