FRIDAY!… word up… it’s the weekend… and hey, food fight!… more on that later… i promised to try and get a few somethings written up today and here i am… trying…

Anyway… i’m pretty happy that it’s the weekend and i don’t have much planned… a possible barbeque to attend… a few chores around the house perhaps… but mostly lounging, wrestling with the littles, kicking back, writing?, trying to stay cool in the heat… and of course they will be reading… (my updated reading list is below)… for today, before i start the relaxation, here’s a handful (five fingers, five topics) of items for the old blog… on we go with the program…

01. VIVA LA SOMETHING OR OTHER

to the tune of Lost! - Coldplay

Coldplay released their new album, Viva La Vida and i’ve been listening to it… mostly in the background of my normail work noises (keyboard clicking, chairs scraping, etc), but i’ve managed to get a pretty good feel for the album… and i like it… it’s a clear step forward for the group and i think they’ve broken out of the mold that they cast themselves in on the last few albums… “Lost!” particularly stands out to me as one of the defining tracks for the album… the lyrics are pretty intriguing on that song, too… my only complaing is that it feels like the album blows by even though it actually clocks (get it?) in at about 45 minutes…

02. REAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

to the tune of Hero - Hans Zimmer & John Powell (Kung Fu Panda)

I guess this falls into the catagory of books, but it’s probably considered cheating for a book club… anyway, Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite have written a book and started a campaign for character… They called the book Deadly Viper Character Assassins and you can get a free audiobook version of it on their site, DeadlyViper.org and while you’re there, check out the blog and the videos to see more of what it’s all about…

personally, i opted for the audiobook since it was free and immediate, but i plan to pick up a hardcopy of the book at some point to, because it’s definitely one to keep handy… besides the great content of the book itself, there are some interview tie-ins that add to the conversation and enhance the message… i’ve decided that i’m going to try to get an interview set up with one or both of these guys to further explore this topic a bit… i’ll keep you posted…

03. TOO COOL FOR YOU

to the tune of Play My Music - Jonas Brothers (Camp Rock)

so… the food fight… yeah… i’m watching Camp Rock which is the new Disney movie starring the Jonas Brothers and… hey, shut up… nothing wrong with laying up once in a while… we don’t all have to tin-cup every hole… anyway, the movie runs about an hour and a half after commercials are fast forwarded and i’d guess that the script writing process took about half that time… okay… it’s not the best script… it’s not the best plot… it’s predictable and makes you groan over and over… but it’s the Jonas Brothers and i have nothing but good things to say about them… they’re good people and they always put a smile on my face…

i still think back fondly to the first GMA Week i went down to Nashville for… i was a little nervous and such and wondering why i had agreed to interview the then 13, 16, and 18 year old brothers… turns out that they were the most enjoyable interview of my time down there that year… very down to earth and i’d interview them again in a heart beat… (seriously, imagine the traffic i’d generate with a Jonas Brothers interview… guys, hook me up)… anyway…

04. CODE BEE

to the tune of Viva Los Lakers - Grand Incredible

So, i was totally wrong about the NBA Finals this year… if you remember (and if you don’t it’s a few entries down), i predicted that the Laskers would win in seven… well, they lost in six and they seemed pretty fortunate to have made it that far… in my defense, when i made my prediction, it was predicated on the assumption that Kobe Bryant was the game’s best player… clearly he is not… and clearly, all these references to him being “as good as Jordan in his prime” are absolutely ridiculous…

Does it seem like i’m being too harsh?… sorry, but the best player in the game does not disappear in the NBA Finals… Kobe was a waste throughout the finals and, even though the Celtics defense deserves a lot of credit, MJ would’ve figured out a way to win because he actually was the best in the game when he was playing… perhaps you can say Kobe is the next Clyde Drexler… anyway…

05. HOPE DEALER

to the tune of Bob the Builder - The International TV Orchestra

Okay, so here’s the thing… i forgot to mention that Barack Obama came within three miles of my house a while ago… He had recently locked up the nomination and was stumping at a first come first serve free for all venue that made me nervous about traffic… it crossed my mind that it might be neat to see this man up there on stage repeating the same speeches he’s been repeating for eleven months or so… mostly, i realized that it would be empty words from a cardboard cutout of a man, just like pretty much everything else related to politics…

I know that he’s running as the candidate of change and the candidate for hope and that it’s resonating with lots of people, but i’m not buying it… i think the most interesting thing about his campaign is how well it’s exposing how bad our society has gotten… we’re so discontented with everything that we have, we so don’t appreciate the blessings that have been bestowed upon us, that we’ll (as a nation) jump at the very promise of something better… all you have to do is put it in a pretty package and tell us that it’s better and we’ll start drooling at it like it’s the new iPhone or the latest fashion accessory…

The problem is that the President of the United States is NOT a fashion accessory… nor is he (or she) the messiah… it’s sad to see how many people buy into the same old rhetoric time and time again… it hurts more everytime you are failed… it deadens your ability to truly trust… it makes us more cynical, more skeptical, and more scarred… we are worse off for it… i have more on this, but you’ll have to wait until i have time to finish up the next Left to Write…

THE READING ROOM

to the tune of Word of Mouth - John Reuben

Updated list for Mark Lee’s Summer Reading Club… i keep adding more titles, but hopefully i’ll get to cross some off…

- It All Goes Back in the Box (Ortberg)
- Simplicity (Salomon) [about 110 pages left]
- Character Makes a Difference (Huckabee) [about 175 pages left]
- Searching for God Knows What (Miller)
- New Way to Be Human (Peacock) [about 200 pages left]
- At the Crossroads (Peacock)
- Deliver Us from Evelyn (Wells)
- The Two Towers (Tolkien)
- Quiet Strength (Dungy)
- UnChristian (Kinnaman & Lyons)
- Prince Caspian (Lewis)
- The Word of Mouth Manual (Balter) [about 90 pages left]

FULL LIST HERE…

peace… love… bdg….