Digital Wilderness

One of my all-time favorite clips from a sitcom.

When Theo brings home a poor report card, but claims he doesn’t need good grades to get a job. So Cliff gives him an economics lesson with Monopoly money.

Some of my favorite quotes:
“The government comes for the regular people first.”
“Theo…that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in my life! No wonder you get D’s in everything!”
“I am your father. I brought in this world, and I’ll take you out.”

I don’t watch Leno. Didn’t when he was on late night (I preferred Letterman those very rare times when I was watching TV that late) and haven’t since his new show started earlier this week. However, last night his show was on mute in the background while I was on the phone and one of his guests/segments caught my eye. I paused it and went back to watch it later.

And cracked up.

Hamish and Andy, a comedy duo Australia, participate in the World Ghosting Championships. Watch this clip from Leno’s show:

And here are a few more ghosting segments:

And here’s a very funny non-ghosting clip; this one’s Three Step Hiding (start at the 2:20 mark)

Finally!

BBC reports:

A film version of JRR Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit is to go ahead after its producers settled a legal row with the author’s heirs.

…

Its settlement, for an undisclosed sum, paves the way for director Guillermo del Toro’s two films based on the book.

New Line plans to release The Hobbit in 2011, followed by another movie drawing from other Tolkien works.

I’ve been a horrible blogger over the last month. No excuses, it just hasn’t been a priority for me. More important things are occupying my time these days

So what’s been going on since my last post?

Work has been BUSY over the last couple of weeks. Not a bad, frustrating busy, but a busy that’s required me to put in some overtime. I’ll take that over being bored any day of the week, as long as it’s not an every day/week occurence, which it’s not, thankfully. Things have calmed down a little the last couple days, but will pick up again soon. It will be nice to have a three day weekend and time flies by the closer we get to the holidays.

Church is also keeping me busy. I haven’t mentioned this previously, but I’ve been serving in a leadership position for First Church of Christ’s new worship venue, R3volution, serving as Venue House Manager as well as Team Lead. I’m also co-leading a Sunday night LifeGroup Bible study that starts up it’s fall session next week. I’m incredibly thankful for these opportunities and have very much enjoyed serving in all capacities. I’ve discovered what has often been said that if you’re not using the gifts God has given you, there’s an emptiness and lack of fulfillment in life. Serving is my top gift and I definitely wasn’t fulfilled in the years I was looking for a new church home. Being able to once again use my God-given gifts for His kingdom has been a welcome addition to my schedule. I’m also blessed to be a a part of a great Sunday morning ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship) with some truly awesome and Godly people that I love spending time with and getting to know.

And, of course, what’s been taking up a majority of my time over the last month has been my wonderful and very special girlfriend Kristy. We’ve definitely been keeping busy, tearing up the roads with travel and burning the candle at both ends. It’s been a great time; I wouldn’t trade a second of it! Over the last month, we’ve talked on the phone for countless hours, seen a DCI show in Indy, canoed in Indiana, paddle boated, flew kites, Wii bowled in matching monogrammed bowling jerseys, took a tour of my old stomping grounds in NKY, spent time with both sides of my family and so much more. Needless to say, things are going really well for us and I’m excited for the future plans we’ve made and to see what God has in store for us. This weekend, I get the privilege of meeting her family in Western Central KY, watching the Labor Day fireworks in Cincy and maybe having a relaxing day with no plans! Pictures of some of our adventures are up in gallery.

AT&T is absolutely driving me up a wall with all the dropped calls! It’s very frustrating! Can’t believe I’m stuck in this stupid contract for another year and a half. Bah! I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve ticked off someone who works at AT&T; the dropped calls come when I have a full 5 bars and many times when I’m at home, not traveling or moving around much, so there’s no explanation why the call would suddenly dropped. What’s equally odd is that about 30 seconds or so after the call drops, I’ll get a 2 second blank voicemail from the person I was talking to. I did read an article today that confirms what many people already know – AT&T’s network is very much strained because of iPhone use. AT&T is spending $18 billion to upgrade its network, but that does take time, and I don’t know how much patience I have left. One interesting thing that the article pointed out was that other providers will experience similar demands for bandwidth in the future, when AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity runs out and the iPhone is opened up for other networks. So, the issues AT&T have now and are addressing will soon hit other companies, so maybe it’s worth sticking it out with AT&T since they’re upgrading to handle the load. Food for thought…

Another interesting article from the last week – ‘Reading Rainbow’ Reaches Its Final Chapter. The 26 year run of Reading Rainbow, one of my favorite childhood educational shows, came to an end last Friday. What’s really interesting is part of the reason why – there’s been a shift from why to read to how to read. It doesn’t do much good to have a show about good books and getting enjoyment from reading if kids can’t read!

The show’s run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show’s broadcast rights.

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that’s not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

“Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read,” Grant says. “You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read.”

Well, I probably should have split this up into separate posts over several days, but. oh well, there ya go!