WEBSITE. thinkwonder

back in college a friend of mine, mic, created this website called 'thinkwonder.com' and it was awesome. it had this whole non sequitur radiohead vibe to it. one of the best parts about it was the discussion board. it was always lively and the posts were always interesting.
recently another friend of mine, reuben, has resurrected the discussion board. it has been cool talking with those guys again and doing the discussion board again. i commend reuben on hosting the site and getting it started again, but heres the big problem: no one seems to have anything to say! discussion boards are only cool if people are actually having discussions! so, i am writting this post to invite you to sign up at the discussion board so that we can have more people involved who might actually post something... the link is here.

TV. attack of the show

dear attack of the show,

i really love your show and i watch it when ever i can. i enjoy the different segments that you have, and i really love the hosts kevin, brendan, sarah, and will. they are very entertaining to watch and fun to listen to.
the best part of your show each week is the tuesday episodes with the 'dvduesday' segment with chris gore. may i humbly make a suggestion? please expand this segment. actually, i think you should pull it out into a complete half hour show hosted by chris gore and shown every tuesday.
hey, it would be better than that 'cinematech' crap you put on now...

thank you.

ps- are you ever going to announce who won the cohost job? i assume it was will, but he wasnt really one of the choices...

BOOKS. max lucado

you know what ticks me off? whores. i dont mean the prostitute kind (although i not a fan of them either...), i mean people who take advantage of their success by producing crap just so they can get more money.
the biggest culprit i can think of is max lucado. many people will be mad at me for saying this about him, but he is truly a book whore. if you dont know who he is then you obviously havent been anywhere near a christian bookstore. ever. let me tell you about him: he writes spirituality books that are at about a 4th grade reading level. the spirituality in them is very very shallow. he rarely tries to dig deep below the surface, he would rather just explain everything with 'warm fuzzies'. his style is all story based, no matter what he is talking about he always seems to have a story about someone who is down on their luck or just lost their child, and that person is miraculously made better and all their problems are solved because they said 'jesus'. seriously, thats about as deep as he gets. i have read a few of his books and i have found very little substance, rather, its filled with manipulative emotional garbage.
im sure the guy is nice and all, but you can tell he is writing for an audience of 60 year old women who collect 'precious moments' figurines.
but the thing that bugs me the most about him is the way he takes advantage of the 'christian scene'. (its actually sick that there has to bee a 'scene' at all. christ tells us to make an impact in this world and make disciples of all nations, but how are we going to do that if we live in our own 'christian' bubble and never participate in the real wold? sorry, a bit of a rant, let me get back on topic...) the crowd he is writing for are people who think buying a christian book and supporting the christian industry will somehow turn others to jesus. lucado takes advantage of this by flooding the market with product so people will think its their christian duty to buy it all.
have you seen the sheer amount of books this guy has published? i would dare say that he has a book, journal, study guide, or reissue released every single month of the year. and that goes double around christmas. every time he writes a book they release the book, a response journal, a study guide, a version for kids, a version for men, a version for women, a version for college kids, etc.
im not sure why i bring this up, i guess i was just walking through a christian book store this week and was really disgusted.

TV. an unexpected heart

tuesday i found myself moved by the most unexpected thing. i was catching up on my tivo watching and i spotted a new episode from monday of the late late show. i always love that show, craig ferguson makes me laugh hard.
i start it up expecting some of his trademark scottish humor, but things are a bit different tonight (i could tell right away- he was wearing a tie!) it turns out that over the weekend craigs father passed away. i guess it was reruns last week because craig said that he got to spend the week with his family and father in the hospital.
he spent the monologue talking about his fathers life and some of the things he remembered about him. it was really moving, actually. the rest of the show was devoted to his father. dr. drew was on to talk about grief and how we can heal and learn from it. then a traditional scottish band, called "wicked tinkers" played a song for his father. it was a bagpipe and a couple drums. the last guest was amy something-or-other... i dont remeber her last name, but she was the wife of john ritter before he died.
it struck me as really moving and cool that someone would want to go through the grieving process in such a public way. im sure many people found it helpful in understanding their own grief.
yet another reason why i love that show...