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I’m currently on the road traveling back to Arizona but we were able to stop in Missouri with my Brother-In-Law for a day.  He wanted to go catch a movie and I’m always up for a movie.  I wanted to see Grand Torino, but he doesn’t watch rated R movies so we went to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  I am not going to post any spoilers however the general plot (revealed in the commercials) will be discussed – so if you are thinking about seeing the movie – you can safely read on…

Paul Blart is a security guard officer working at the mall when a plot to rob the mall goes underway, leaving Blart as the unlikely John McClane style hero attempting to save his new girlfriend.  Most of the comedy in this movie is slap stick in nature and extremely predictable.  Its difficult to even force a laugh at the jokes – many of the scenes meant to be playfully awkward were actually awkward and un-entertaining at best.  At one point my brother-in-law leaned over and said “this movie stinks”… I must say, I agree.

Often times a movie in this genre that doesn’t do well in the box office is a recommended ‘rental’ – Paul Blart: Mall Cop doesn’t rise to this level of greatness – if it comes on TV and there are no golf tournaments on instead, then read a book…

At least their new logo seems to

think so…

Google	Microsoft

When you go into a fast food restaurant, you expect the person behind the counter to say something like “Welcome to Good Burger, Home of the Good Burger, Can I take your order?”… but that isn’t what I got.  She took my friend’s order as expected but when I stepped up in line, the cashier said these words – “You shouldn’t eat here – you’re getting fat!“ I’m not making this up, people. – Read the Rest of the Story at I Quit… Again!

I just read a post at Godfidence.org (http://www.blog.godfidence.org/2008/05/rob-bells-trampoline) that was critical of Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis book (great book – if you haven’t read it, go buy it).  The author of this post was critical of Bell’s analogy that doctrine is more like springs on a trampoline than bricks in a wall.  Bricks in a wall are rigid and cannot be removed or replaced without damaging the wall, but springs can be stretched, review, replace if needed, without damaging the trampoline.  The goes on to say – its more fun on a trampoline too.

Jason at Godfidence said that if you remove *all* the springs then you just have a tarp and that doctrine cannot be removed or changed.  I disagree with him (and commented as much on his post).  If you remove *all* of the bricks from a wall all you have left is mortar – Bell wasn’t suggesting you remove any doctrine, only that you are open to examine them, put them under the microscope, and test them.  If they are true, they will hold up – if they are not, then they weren’t Doctrine to begin with, but instead a misunderstanding of scripture that can be corrected.

Bell goes on to say ‘all truth is God’s truth’.  If I thought the Earth was 6000 years old based on my interpretation of the Bible, and you proved through science that it was 4trillion years old – My understanding of the Bible changes – not my faith. And I believe that is the point of Bell’s approach.

Have you read the book?  When you get a chance, go read Jason’s post… I’d love to hear your thoughts?

Ok – its very cheesy but I enjoyed this – thought you might too:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYI_aOyCn9Y

Amazon` had their BEST YEAR EVER!  Wait a minute… this economy is in the tank, right?  People are losing their jobs, right?  Black Friday posted bigger numbers than last year, but the media told us it wasn’t good news because people were finishing their shopping, not starting it.  A few weeks ago, AMC Theaters told us their business was booming, and the media said it was because we welcome the distraction from the bad economy with a movie.  Yesterday, Amazon tells us they had their best year ever and the media is letting us know that it proves the economy is bad because people are favoring discount stores like Amazon over full retail stores.

This gives a whole new understanding of No News is Good News!  A recession is a self-fulling prophesy, the more we talk about how bad the economy is, the worse it will get.  I’m not saying to put our heads in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong – but lets not bury the few peices of good news we get with negativity.

I heard a story recently that bears repeating:

A man owned a hot dog stand downtown and every day during lunch hour he would carry a huge sign and yell as loud as he could – ‘Hot Dogs! Get Hot Dogs Here!’, and business was good – very good.

One day his son came home from college and said, ‘Dad, I don’t know why you bother carrying that large sign everyday and spend all that time straining your voice – the economy is bad, people just aren’t going to buy hot dogs right now.’

So the man left his sign at home and didn’t bother yelling during the lunch hour.  When he came home he told his son that he was right, no body bought hot dogs that day – the economy must be bad.

The hot dog stand shut down and the man went on unemployment – later on welfare.  Now the man votes for the Democrats because the Republicans are talking about welfare reform and he isn’t sure he can make ends meet if those government checks stop coming.

I guess I should start thinking about which welfare program will meet my needs during this bad economy!

If you are giving someone a poster for Christmas – would it be wrong to roll it up into a brand new roll of wrapping paper and make them ‘unwrap’ the whole thing?

I’ve never deep fried a turkey – and it looked like I was going to have to keep that fact true for a while longer when the flames erupted! We planned to deep fry the Christmas Turkey but having never used a deep fryer before, my sister’s neighbor got the oil too hot – flash fire hot! We threw the

lid on the fryer and grabbed the fire extinguisher. Tyrone grabbed his camera but only after the real ‘magic’ was over.

What fun! Which by the way, I can only say because we didn’t burn down the place! And right now the turkey is in the fryer and we are in business!

httpv://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl480RJO4vo

The funny thing is Christmas is one of the busiest days on the internet… I would have thought people were spending it with their families, but it turns out, we all have the day off and don’t/can’t/won’t/don’t want to spend the entire day with family – so we surf the web…

Well, Merry Christmas to ya, even if you are avoiding the 8 hour marathon of force family interaction! :o)

Ok – most of my readers don’t care about WordPress (the application I run my website on) but I certainly do and they are working on the next release (2.8).  Version 2.7 was a major overhaul on the admin side of the site (the side I am in everyday when I write these posts).  They are asking for our input regarding the new features using an online poll here.

So for the few wordpress friends that actually read my blog – go fill out the survey!