:: Friday, February 27, 2004 ::
That's Mr. Font of Useless Knowledge to you, bub!
It's time to dust off a certain old Queen record and cue it to "We Are the Champions." Last night, a team I assembled for an annual trivia night fund-raiser for the women's soccer team at our university opened up a can of you-know-what on the competition -- a dozen or so other teams composed of students, staff, faculty and community folks. Yes, we are the 2004 Champions of UMR Women's Soccer Trivia Night!
Particularly gratifying was overcoming the odds to defeat a table full of trash-talking Ph.D.'s. They put up a good fight in the early rounds, trouncing us rather handily in the "scientists and engineers" category, but after we got perfect scores in the "pop culture" and "artists and poets" categories, we lunged ahead of them. When it came to two sports-related categories, we brought out our star player -- the campus' sports information director -- and pulled away for good. The trash-talking faculty team finished a not-so-close second to Careaga's Commandos
John K., our sports information director, gets the MVP award for racking up so many points in the sports bonus question, in which he (with a little help from me) listed 11 NCAA Division I collegiate programs with team names that don't end in an "s." There are only 15 or 16. It turns out we didn't need all those bonus points, but it was nice insurance for us.
I've also gotta congratulate Mary Helen, who contributed to the perfect 10 in the pop culture category by naming all four of the ghosts from the classic video arcade game Pac-Man.
How many readers know the names of all four Pac-Man ghosts?
How many Division I NCAA team nicknames can you name that do not end in "s"?
:: Andrew 10:15 + ::
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:: Thursday, February 26, 2004 ::
Whatever happened to...?
Reading Steve Knight's recent post about Christianity's celebrity spokespersons got me thinking about some of our faith's spokespersons from the not-too-distant past. Here are a few past celebrity spokespeople for the Christian faith. Be warned, Mel Gibson, you could be in their shoes in a few years.
M.C. Hammer. Who can forget M.C. and his posse doing "Can't Touch This" in those baggy trousers? After burning through his wealth, M.C. turned to God and was occasionally seen on Christian programming. But Hammer's still around; he'll apparently be speaking at a Christian event in Kansas City in April, according to the Kansas City Star (registration required).
Gavin MacLeod. The beloved Murray from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and later Capt. Stubing on that '70s show "The Love Boat," Gavin recently celebrated his 73rd birthday. It's been a stormy post-"Love Boat" sail for Gavin. He and his wife divorced in 1982 then remarried in the mid-1980s. They then hosted a "ministry in marriage" program on TBN. Not sure what Gavin's up to these days, but Happy Birthday to him.
Kurt Warner. Kurt is still around and recently in the news, but not because of his quarterbacking ability. The former football star, who led the St. Louis Rams to the 2000 Super Bowl championship, Warner was in the news most recently for remarks he made alleging that his zealous brand of Christianinty may have caused him to be benched. Maybe it had something to do with his injuries and poor performance on the field, instead? Anyway, he lost his starting job last season and may not be with the Rams much longer.
Deion Sanders. Well, Prime Time is still around, if no longer in his prime. I wonder if he's still getting good financial and auto repair advice from Jesus?
I'm sure I've missed a few other recent celebrity spokespersons for our faith, but these are the few that immediately come to mind.
:: Andrew 09:51 + ::
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Lectio divina
Last year during Lent, I tried my hand at that old spiritual discipline known as lectio divina. Jon Reid also did it last year, and is doing it again this year. After reading my tongue-in-cheek post about giving up blogging about a certain movie for Lent, Jon asked if I planned to practice the discipline again this year. The short answer is, part of me would like to, but I probably won't. I'm not feeling very spiritual these days. Plus, Lent snuck up on me this year (as it did for Jon). Last year, I managed to keep the daily mediations, off and on, throughout Lent , and it was a fruitful exercise. But I think I'll take this year off, or start a bit later. Maybe I'll do something during the latter half of Lent. Think of it as kind of like running a mini-marathon -- it's still a good thing to do, just not as extreme.
:: Andrew 19:56 + ::
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:: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 ::
Product endorsements
Blogging buddy Steve Knight makes some pretty good points about the director of the Movie That Shall Not Be Named, and about contemporary Christianity's seeming need for celebrity spokespeople to endorse our "product." But what will happen when the stir over the P-movie subsides? "[W]hen Mel appears in Mad Max: Fury Road later this year or when Jim Caviezel stars in a creepy sci-fi flick (The Final Cut), how will we (the Christian community currently clamoring into cineplexes for The Passion) react? Will we cut them loose? Or will we still care about them and their careers? ... So let's be real and let's be honest. Because, in the end (if we keep treating these people like we have in the past, disowning them from the family of God), let's face it -- all we're really left with is Kirk Cameron and Willie Aames."
Kirk Cameron and Willie Aames?!? What about Rosey Grier? *Sighs* How quickly we forget.
:: Andrew 10:50 + ::
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Way to go, your alter poet is Jack Kerouac, who is
by FAR the coolest!
Who is Your Alter Poet?
brought to you by Quizilla
Link via Debi, who also favors Jack.
:: Andrew 12:51 + ::
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Maybe next year, when I finally go off Adkins
Via Holy Weblog!, who also is not blogging about the movie that shall not be named, but who gave it up long before Lent. (Oh, and I'm really not on Adkins.)
:: Andrew 12:32 + ::
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Trying a new spiritual discipline
For Lent, I'm giving up blogging about The Passion of the Christ.
Here's how I'm doing it. Clicking on blogroll links, I repeat this mantra:
I will not blog about The Passion
I will not blog about The Passion
I will not blog about The Passion
I will not blog about The Passion
I will not blog about The Passion!
Must...control...fingers...typing....aaaarrrgghhhh!
Obligatory props to: news.google.com, Knightopia, Richard Hall, Relapsed Catholic and Thunderstruck.
:: Andrew 10:45 + ::
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Is Bono the antichrist?
U2 front man Bono, the darling of emerging Christian bloggers everywhere, is the cover boy for the one-year anniversary issue of Relevant. (Headline: "BONO: How Faith Fules His Quest to Save the World.") Imagine my shock yesterday when I opened the mail to see him wearing the mark of the beast on his shirt! Gasp!
Somewhere up north, a certain blogger is probably chortling.
:: Andrew 08:44 + ::
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:: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 ::
I won!
I was one of the lucky buggers to win a free CD in MusicSpectrum's CD giveaway. Pastor Ben Squires, the guy behind MusicSpectrum, is quick to ship out the CDs to the lucky winners. If you like to get free stuff with no strings attached, stop by MusicSpectrum and enter for a chance to win.
(While I'm grateful for the free Neal Morse CD, I must confess that it doesn't do much for me. It is progressive rock, heavy on the synthesizer sounds, and reminds me a lot of Kansas. Of course, I was warned before I joined in on the game. And there's one Kansas album on my list of top 100 tunes: Leftoverture.
:: Andrew 08:22 + ::
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:: Monday, February 23, 2004 ::
Hey, fella. Watch who you're calling 'girls'!
poor Andrew Jones. He's been taking much heat lately for his use of the word girls to describe young teenage females. It all began with a seemingly innocuous comment at the end of this post, but the discussion about the power of language has since spread like kudzu throughout the blogosphere. Andrew has since offered a gracious response to the conversation, and the sound and fury seems to have subsided, so there's no need for me to jump in and continue to flog this thing.
But I do have a thought to contribute, and that thought is this:
Ladies and gentlemen, we exist in a sexist, racist, ageist culture. We are all, regardless of our ethnicity or gender, afflicted by the ills of sexism, racism and ageism (and perhaps a few other "isms") simply because we are born into it, immersed into this culture. It isn't just embodied in rap music, the corporate glass ceiling, athletics, or other more or less "traditional" institutions. It is woven into the fabric of our society. Until we wake up to this fact, we'll continue to make the same mistakes, over and over again. We have a long way to go before we reach that ideal community of believers Paul describes as neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. But we should continue to strive toward that ideal.
:: Andrew 08:44 + ::
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Your long-range forecast: widely scattered food shortages, chance of global anarchy
Quick! Somebody cue REM:
That's great, it starts with an earthquake/birds and snakes, an aeroplane/Lenny Bruce is not afraid...
A secret Pentagon report, covered up for about four months by top-level Defense Department officials, warns that climate change "may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism."
According to this report (via MetaFilter): "The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that 'abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies.' ... The report, quoted in the paper (The Observer), concluded: 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life.'"
The report's authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue. It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern", they were quoted as saying.
Happy Monday, everybody.
:: Andrew 09:25 + ::
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Greatest Pop/Rock Albums Project
Last call. Email me if you're interested in playing.
:: Andrew 09:01 + ::
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Simon Dawes, 
