More reviews

I saw 3 more movies before returning to Toronto. I am at work now, taking a breather from catching up on emails.

"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" - Another film festival flick. The more I watch film festival stuff, the more I'm realizing that most of them suck. Before, I thought it was an artistic thing, these indie films were good because we were only watching the good ones. But when you've seen them all and start digging to find them, that is when you run into awful movies. This is a british movie starring Clive Owens. It's a story about this drug dealer, a nice kid, who is raped by another guy and then commits suicide because he felt so ashamed after having ejaculated during the rape. Clive Owens plays the older brother of the kid, who has a dark (gangsta!) past and returns to the town where he once ruled and gets his revenge on the rapist.

What I didn't like about the movie -- too much character development. This stage of the movie lasted about an hour and the movie was only around 90 minutes. For a movie called "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", I expected more action, less talking. What's worse, is that the ending didn't make any sense. He ended up killing the rapist, but then his mom gets murdered. So then you think he'll seek out revenge for that too, but no. The movie ends there. 4/10.

"I Heart Huckabees" - This was supposed to be a good movie. Even at the store, someone walking by who had seen it commented that it was the funniest movie they had ever seen. I'll admit it had it's moments. The movie was about existentialism. A guy who hired a couple of nuts to spy on him and figure out whether or not 3 coincidences in his life had any meaning (he kept running into a big tall black guy).

If you just read the above, you're probably thinking "what the..?". Don't worry, I was thinking the same thing, and well into the movie and after the movie, the same thing. It was a quirky movie that made very little or no sense. It tried to provide some meaning at the end, but it failed.

Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman were funny. Mark Wahlberg was annoying. New guy Jason Schwartzman was also annoying but I think he did a decent job. Jude Law and Naomi Watts put on good performances. The girl from Wedding Crashers was in it (the crazy one). I'd give this movie 5.5/10.

"Hitch" - I saw this movie and then 10 minutes later I was on my way to the airport to fly back to Toronto. Hitch was a funny movie and I would love to see it again. The movie is about a guy named Alex Hitchens (Will Smith) who "empowers" men into meeting and persueing the woman of their dreams. He gives them advice and ideas, and the do's and don'ts of dating. Eventually he finds a woman for himself (played by Eva Mendes) and tries to woo her. He goes through a series of disastrous dates but she falls for him anyway, but then she finds out about his business, and because one of her friends was negatively affected by one of his non-clients, she exposes him as a womanizing date doctor and ruins him (she writes for a tabloid).

A very typical romantic comedy. Completely and totally predictable. Will Smith is one funny dude, and Kevin James (a fat lawyer who wants a supermodel) was also hilarious. I will never forget the sequence when Hitch tries to teach Albert (James) how to kiss. It had me rolling on the floor laughing!

I give this movie an 8/10. I would see it again because of the fun I had. I felt like it had a positive message. It was very funny and romantic in some points. It had me laughing and also crying. Good times..

More movies

I've been wanting to blog about my camping trip but I won't have pictures to back them up until I return to Toronto so..

I saw another 3 movies. My parents have this deal with Hollywood Video (it's like Blockbuster here), they pay $10/month and get unlimited rentals for a month. It's $10 for the first 3 months and $15 thereafter. $15 is insane, if you ask me. I'd pay $30. Anyway, it's called the "MVP" deal, it's only for movies that have been around for like a month or more -- they have a "MVP" sticker when that time comes. We walked up and down the aisle for movies and almost every movie I suggested my brother said he'd seen it already.

So.. we grabbed movies that were a little more obscure. This time we saw "Primer", "Mean Creek", "The Pacifier". Pacifier just turned MVP a few days ago.

I made a lot of noise about "The Pacifier" with my friends, wanting to see it but no one else wanted to. I figured it was a breakout performance for Vin Diesel, like Kindergarten Cop was for Arnold. Arnold was great in Kindergarten Cop because of the awkwardness of having such a huge guy taking care of kids. Vin isn't nearly as big as Arnold was, but you get the idea.

Let's be clear -- Vin Diesel is as bad an actor as Arnold, if not worse. I think we are less forgiving because Arnold was one of a kind while Vin is like many other "big guys" out there these days. I'd give this movie 7/10. It was funny and cute. The kids were great, especially the younger ones -- very cute.

"Primer" was a Sundance Film Festival winner.. best drama in 2004. They must have had some really bad movies that year because Primer wasn't very good. (SPOILER -- as if you'll actually see this movie ever) The idea of the time travel was good.. The concept of only being able to travel back one day was cool. It wasn't like "Back To The Future" -- it wasn't about changing the time, it was more about the moral issues of it. They were engineers and were more concerned about the consequences if breaking the time continuum than about what actually happened. They tried to play it safe. But then when they started putting a time machine inside another one, then I got totally confused. By the end of the movie, the 4 of us looked at eachother and none of us had any idea what had just happened, what time they were in, who was still alive, and who was the "real time" person left. 5/10.

We saw the preview for "Mean Creek" while watching "The Machinist", so that's why we rented it. It was in the Cannes Film Festival and also the Sundance Film Festival. Anyway, Mean Creek is about these kids who plan a revenge on a fat bully (George), because the guy beat up one of the kids. They trick him into getting on a boat with them and the plan is to dare him to strip naked and swim home naked. Later on they find out he's kinda nice, and change their minds.. But things go awry and to make a story short, he gets pushed out of the boat and drowns because he couldn't swim.

The main character "Sam" was played by Rory Culkin, the younger of the Culkin (Macaulay, Kieren) boys. He has some talent..

Overall the movie plot wasn't spectacular but the kids did the right thing in the end by coming clean. One of the boys got scared and ran away, which I could see happening to certain "less stable" individuals. A little accident like this can completely ruin your life.. It's kinda scary because I do think the boy would have died if I had been on that boat. George got what he deserved -- I would have pushed him out of the boat too, and since I can't swim well I wouldn't have been able to save him. George, upon finding out about this grand scheme of embarrasing him, became defensive and started hurling expletives at each of the kids in the boat. He attacked each one personally. He was extremely offensive and hit people hard, picking on one kid's gay parents, calling the girl a slut. Ultimately he verbally attacked the biggest kid on the boat (the unstable one, "Marty") and made fun of the guy's father who had killed himself when he was younger. Marty was pushed to his limit and pushed George in. Anyway, I give this movie a 8/10 based on an average plot but one that makes you think, and based on the excellent performance of all of the kids.

4 Stitches

My brother was cutting wood this morning. He was chopping away with the dull axe that my dad brought along.

Anyway, at some point he swung through the wood (missed) and it hit his foot. At first he just kept going cuz he didn't feel anything. Then he decided to check his foot and noticed that there was a hole through his shoe. He went down to feel the hole and there was blood all over his fingers. So he took off his shoe and ---- yikes! his sock was soaked red. I was really scared. He took off his sock and blood was gushing out of his foot. There was a hole about an inch long. So we dressed it up as well as we could and took him to the medical clinic about 15 minutes away. Then waited cuz the clinic didn't open til 10am (it was 9:30).

The nurse gave him 4 stitches. He was pretty brave for the whole thing, actually he didn't feel anything until the nurse was giving him the anesthetics. Those needles stung a bit :P

The South Hills people were all told of it somehow so whenever they saw him they asked him about it. It was really nice.

Las Vegas

It's hot here in Vegas. It rained the day before I got here, and that made the weather turn humid. Not has humid as Toronto, but when you have 40C without humidity in the first place, you can imagine how hot it is now WITH humidity.

I spent about 4 hours working on the Longlac slideshow, not nearly enough time. I wanted to spend more but.. well.. I'm on vacation =]

Didn't do much the past two days. Every afternoon I've gone swimming in my parents' pool. This has been really fun and has got me thinking about going swimming more often when I get back. It's just so relaxing, not to mention really good exercise.

My stomach problems have continued despite having my mom's cooking which makes me think that perhaps there really is something wrong with me.

My family has a monthly deal with the local video store, they pay a fee and get unlimited rentals. Yesterday I watched The Machinist (Christian Bale) and today I saw The Jacket (Adrian Brody). "The Machinist" was a really messed up movie, the entire story was about guilt. The plot was kinda nuts, like a psychological thriller type movie. I don't like these kinds of movies.

"The Jacket" was a very good movie. It's the first movie starring Kiera Knightly that I actually liked. Adrian Brody is really good in this film too. You have to watch it to find out what it's about. I don't want to give it away.

I give The Machinist a 7/10 and The Jacket a 10/10. I actually really liked Jacket, it's among one of my favorites this year, with Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Millions.

Anyway, I've got a really bad headache from too much swimming (lol) and I'm going to bed now, even though it's only 9pm (12am jetlag).

Tomorrow we are going to drive to Wyoming for camping. Turns out it's a 13 hour drive which will take two days. And the park has bears. Apparently lots of them, we're all bring whistles and bear bells. Haha.. should be fun!

Random thoughts

Some random tidbits before my vacation:

- I am getting tired of World of Warcraft. I played for 4 hours last night, and wasn't even paying attention. I had a fantasy football draft at the same time and wasn't even paying attention to that. I was packing as well, chatting with my brother, and even in between I had a friend come and drop something off.

- The significance of the above statement is that I've always felt like WoW would be the last game I played...

- Just tried "sport socks" for the first time. Such a weird feeling of not having my ankles covered up. I feel like the socks are only half on.. or half off. Very, very weird..

- Why Anita hasn't been updating her site: No more dorkisms to share because they've all become "cute things", or "cuteisms".

- Longlac kids keep asking me for my phone number.. hard to turn them away.

- I hate packing for this trip because of the camping aspect of it. I have to pack so much more than usual which means I can't go shopping afterwards because I won't have any room.

- I've really been feeling like I want to leave my profession (not just my job) and do something else. I notice how when people talk about what they do they are often quite passionate about it. Whereas I'm pretty nonchalent about it. It's been something I've half-jokingly thought about since March but am thinking more and more about it. Hopefully God will say something to me during my vacation and give me a chance to reflect on what I should do.

Not enough..

Time.

I haven't packed at all. Normally this wouldn't worry me because I could easily just bring nothing and buy everything there. But we're going camping so there are so main essentials that I *need* to pack.

I need to finish the Longlac slideshow before I leave. I got the pics on Thursday at midnight. Friday was busy because of fellowship. Saturday, all day Stan & Yee Lee's wedding. Which leaves Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

But what I really wanted to post about was about Longlac -- not enough time spent there. Jasmine basically hit the nail right on the head, on what I've been thinking about the most over the past week, about Longlac. One week was not enough time. One week is nothing.

Alf and I talked extensively about the topic of missions and how one week wasn't enough to do anything. From the missionaries standpoint, 1 week is a small taste, like many say -- an "eye-opener", but in terms of doing something significant from his/her point of view, kinda useless. I look at it this way: Did we accomplish anything? Yes. Did we do God's work? Yes. Will it make a difference? Unsure.

Case in point, Anita and Gladys are travelling to China to teach business stuff to students there. How significant is that? To the person, it may seem like nothing. Your objective is to teach a topic, while your mission is to interact with the people there, build relationships and maybe in a few months you might build a strong enough relationship to share the gospel with them. Unfortunately though, you're only going for 1 week.

The bigger picture though, is that you're part of a large group that is streaming in teachers on a weekly basis, just one of the many faces headed down there, and over those large mass of people, relationships will be developed and opportunities will eventually arise. It's a collective effort. Similarly, Longlac had 3 teams going. We went for a week but 2 other teams went prior to us. The larger picture is the 3 weeks' worth of people coming in to build relationships with the children and adults. The purpose of Longlac was to teach about God, so less time was required -- however, in both cases there is that bigger picture that encourages us to believe that we really did make a difference.

We put the time in, God does the rest.

Alf suggested that if I wanted to make a real impact, I should sell all my belongings and move into the reserve. After a few months of tanning I might be dark enough to pass for a First Nations native.

I guess that moment when he suggested this crazy notion was the first time I've ever considered doing full time ministry.

Kepano chords

I've been thinking about moving all my Longlac posts to another blog -- err.. not moving but copying, just so that people can read them whenever and not have them get lost amongst my non-Longlac related posts.

I emailed Kepano Green to ask about the chords in their songs. Didn't really expect a reply, but I got something similar to the response I received from "Anabret" (boy, that was what, 2 years ago?). Here it is:

Thanks for promoting our stuff in Toronto, Brian. Unfortunately we don't have our songs charted ... There's a lot of wierd chords in the songs with names that probably look like flight locator numbers, so we've just never done it. If you're adventurous then you can do like I do when learning someone else's song: figure out the bass progression and build the chords from there based on if they support the melody/harmony. It's time consuming, but it will really improve your guitar playing. If you have a question about a specific chord in a certain part of a song that's stumping you then I can help you out by email.

Take care,

-- Josh

How exciting it is to be contacted by a superstar ;) I am going to take Josh's advice and try this bass progression thing he talks about. I hope he's right and that I improve my guitar playing.

In all honesty I don't really feel like I've improved much in the past 3-4 months. I've had jamming over my place every weekend for a year now. Lately I've incorporated 'feeling' into my playing. But that's really more showmanship than anything else.. I haven't learned anything new at all.

Some of you have seen me make a fool of myself trying to play Unchained Melody. I am probably the worst guitar plucker there is, for a person who's played guitar for 3-4 years. Sad indeed, but at least it gives people a good laugh when they see me try it. On Thursday I will have a video to prove it :)

Correction: Gosh! The time I featured anabret on this website was actually 3 years ago. This is crazy..! 3 years?? Where has the time gone?!

Team

Romans 12:4-8 says:

"Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully."

Here is a photo of Longlac STM 2005. Top: Mike. Middle row (l to r): Dom, Miriam, me, Jakin, Daniel, Nathan, Shirley. Queena in the middle. Bottom row (l to r): Tiffany, Pamela, Crystal, Elaine.

We did "Golden Bricks" during the trip. Each person had a brown paper bag with their name on it. We hung them up on a wall in the church (where we were staying). The bags were for little notes we could leave for each person, words of encouragement, thanks, verses to remember, things like that.

I think this was really great for me because it made me more aware of the gifts and abilities that each person had. Being forced to think about meaningful things to say in the cards -- gave me a sensitivity towards knowing how complement other peoples' abilities and how they might react to certain situations.

One thing I did overlook until towards the end of the trip was the sacrifices that people made to go. Parents took a huge sacrifice from spending time with their own kids to go off and care for someone else's kids. Most of us took vacations -- for people with families this is a really big deal!

My thoughts are kinda scattered right now because I want to share more but some thoughts are better suited for my next entry. Let me just say that there was a lot of really good bonding and I really feel like I gained 12 new friends.

Booger

We had this ongoing thing during the week about "boogers". The children had excessive amounts of booger and snot, on their faces or streaming out of their noses. At times if you looked at a kid, he may not even have a nostril -- there was so much booger that it was flush with the hole. We saw streams of boogers, booger bubbles, stuff hanging down, up.. you name it, every form of booger you've seen, they had it.

It was on them constantly, we'd wipe it off and more would come.

If a kid approached me in Toronto, covered in booger and filth, I would probably hold my breath and run for it. But these kids -- something about them... in Longlac, we'd just scoop them up and give them a big hug. I don't think there's ever been a time in my life where I was so glad to embrace booger.

There's a stain on my sweatshirt, two splotches of booger, dried and caked on the sleeve. I took a picture of it:

Respond

Jeremiah 29:11 says:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

To answer the question -q- posed: Yes! I made the decision to return to Longlac next year, halfway through the "sign my book!" afternoon. So, barring any life-changing events or family emergencies, I am definitely returning to Longlac next summer.

I know, that the work we do paves the way for God to do His work. Meaning the times I felt like we weren't making significant changes to community were silly thoughts. Every little bit matters. I guess for me I still want to go back because I want to continue what we started. And maybe selfishly I feel like I want to see the results myself, or I want to go back do it some more. I think going back would give me a different perspective on the whole thing. I know that there was some hesitation on my part, since it was my first time. Things will be different next time.

For one thing, at least I'll know what a "debrief" is. :)

I find it ironic, that in all the years past I always felt like I wasn't ready for missions because I felt that spiritually I wasn't ready. As if a missions trip would squeeze out every last ounce of my spirit because I didn't have a whole lot to begin with. Or would take every last ounce for us to get the work we wanted to get done. When in fact I've been refilled by the Spirit. I've gone to the well and I've been replenished.

So in essence, from my point of view and understanding of a missions trip, I was part of the mission.

Called

My body is so sore. I woke this morning and tried to think about what I'd done in the last 8 days. I still have 2 more days of journaling to catch up on. I wish I was still back there. I wish I didn't have to go back to work on Tuesday.

From wiping boogers, to explaining to kids that throwing rocks is bad, to explaining the meaning of forgiveness to a child who only wants to ride on my back, I am tired and weary.. yet completely refreshed. We joking around the dinner table on the final night about how people might think we'd gone on a vacation because we were tanned, had (probably) put on a few pounds, and were refreshed.

The mission field is FUN! Who would have thought that, from all the jitters I had prior to going. To knowing that God's calling would be not just the right thing to do, but feel great in the process. God was so good to us during our trip. So many times we felt discouraged but things would fall into our laps and a disappointment would turn into a joyous occasion.

I have no pictures to share at this time. We got around 2 gigs worth of them, but still in the process of sorting them out. I have the responsibility to put together a slide show sometime between now and August 9, but I won't get them until August 5th. I have no idea how I'll finish it all in 4 days (with Yee Lee's wedding squashed in between) but I'm sure God will provide.

I do have some pics from my own camera (I was not one of the 'official' photographers).



This is Marshall. Everyone calls him Mojo though. Mojo was one of my favorite kids. He has at least 4-5 brothers and sisters that I know of, possibly more. One thing you learn after awhile on the reserve is that almost all the kids are related, either cousins or siblings. Mojo got a bite or something on the back of his head. It never got treated and eventually became infected. That was about 2 years ago. Now it's this gross looking hole in his head, surrounded by scabs, dirt and mold.



This is Kelsey, one of Mojo's little sisters. There was one day when it was really cold, about maybe 10-15 degrees, and we were all wearing our hoodies and fleeces on top. Kelsey came out dressed like it was 30 degrees outside. She was freezing cold so I wrapped her with my fleece. She wanted her mom so we carried her back to her house, but then she came out crying again because no one was home. So we carried her back. Turns out that no one is home until 4pm for those kids, so they basically take care of themselves (5-6 children) between 9-4pm (mom works at a store.. not sure where the dad is).



This is Marty, everyone's favorite little girl. Marty accepted Christ on Day 3. She'd been asking people to pray for her grandmother who was sick, and then we talked to her about Jesus and she decided to accept. Marty is one of 10-11 brothers and sisters. One of her grandmothers is the chief (Chief Veronica). One thing about Marty is that she is always happy, running around, tickling us and asking for hugs and shoulder/back rides. If there's a reason why my shoulders hurt so much right now, it's probably because of her.



This is Junior. He has an older brother named Jayden. Jayden has one arm that doesn't really work -- he gets picked on because of this, but he does his best to protect his little brother. Junior was the first boy I connected with, on the first day that we arrived there. We sat on this big round rug in the middle of the baseball field with a whole bunch of other kids, and I let Junior and Jayden color my shoes with chalk. Junior has this smile that melts your heart when he does it. On the last day I sat with him and made him his necklace with colored beads. I explained him the meanings of each of the colors (black, red, white, green, gold) -- about sin, Jesus' blood, purity, growth and heaven. Afterwards he just looked up at me and said these words that I'll never forget: "Can I get on your back?"

Our team grew together and really started to mesh on Saturday (Day 3). We became this well-oiled machine that helped and supported eachother in times of joy and grief. I think we all realized at some point that God was really working on the reserve, despite the desperation and poverty they live in.

That part hit me when we had a community bbq on Friday, the last day for the previous mission team from Jaffrey and MCPC. We had about 150 burgers and had to go and buy more. Kids ate like they hadn't eaten in days, someone about Mojo's size would eat 2 burgers at least. They were really scarfing them down, and some kids tried to get more to take home. It was then that it hit me how bad it was, how hungry the kids were, how thirsty they were. We brought 160 drink boxes and they were all gone within the first hour.

I'll continue this later..

Wedding Crashers

This was a really funny movie. Given my mood I needed a good laugh and yes, it was a good laugh. It was hilarious!!

However, I do feel embarassed for bringing my brother. This was an R rated movie, and very well close to an X rated movie. I'm ashamed for bringing my brother to see it, and yet it was worth it, in my own selfish way, since I needed the laughs.

I would have to say that as a Christian, I cannot recommend this movie to anyone. It would be completely irresponsible for me to tell someone to go see this movie. The language and sexual themes are completely inappropriate for persons of all ages. On a morality scale where 1 is bad and 10 is good, this movie gets 1. It was a dirty, dirty movie.

Story-wise, it was completely predictable. Well to be honest I wasn't expecting much except a really good laugher. I mean, even Something About Mary had a more creative story than this. Zoolander, even.

Owen Wilson is not a great leading man. He just looks and sounds funny, because o his broken nose and surfer accent. I found Vince Vaughn way funnier. And holy cow, how tall is this guy? He's a giant!

And Rachel McAdams ... when she smiles, it makes me smile. I suppose that if she said nothing in the entire movie and just smiled, that'd be enough for me. Claire Cleary is basically a less adventurous Allie Hamilton (The Notebook). Another girl that the protagonist wants but can't have, but gets her in the end.

Isla Fisher, first time I've seen her. Her character Gloria Cleary was a bit over the top. But hilarious.

Christopher Walken... no "special moments" for Walken.

There's a special cameo appearance towards the end of the film, watch for it. I heard people cheering when she/he appeared.

Oh, and make sure you sit til the end (through the credits). Some funny stuff at the end.

Overall, I give the movie a 6/10 because of the total 'wrongness' of the entire theme, language and nudity. I found Mr. & Mrs. Smith funnier, and that movie was a lot cleaner.

Boo-hoo

I cried all weekend.

First, Friday night I cried from my brother kickin' my arse in Bomberman. Tried as I might I could not beat him.. it was really frustrating, so I switched in GoldenEye so I could teach him a lesson. But we quickly got bored of that cuz I was rocking him so hard, so we played some co-operative Smash Bros, and were able to beat two level 5 CPUs, something Eric and I were never able to pull off. We did it with foreign characters too (not the ones we usually use), to prove we could do it. Level 6 will be tough..

Saturday night I was crying (no seriously, this time was for real), from "Cinderella Man", a movie starring Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger, and directed by Ron Howard.

"Cinderella Man" was a great movie, very very inspirational, and my tears were tears of joy. It was a 'triumphant' movie. Based on the true story of James J Braddock, a boxer who defied odds and gave hope to a nation during the Great Depression. I especially liked their depiction of life during those times, how difficult it was. They painted a pretty grim picture of how bad it was back in those days.

At the end of the movie I wanted to shout and cheer, because it was just so exciting!

Interesting note, 90% of the viewers were old retired people who had trouble walking up the stairs. I noted to my brother that all those people were probably around during the Depression and must've known what it was like. They all came out of the movie glassy-eyed so I assume it must've been pretty accurate. Then again maybe they all had cataracts... :)

Sunday afternoon I attended Edmund & Cecilia's farewell party, and there were some people who expressed words of thanks and praise for having been part of E&C's life. There were some very touching moments, especially when Cecilia's sister Mary went up to speak. I didn't know they were sisters. It was a very heartfelt speech, full of tears of joy and sadness of the impending 4 years of separation. I find that when people talk about things, and if you can picture yourself in that situation, it can be very very moving.

Mary's talk reminded me of the final day 2 years ago when my brother moved away, and how emotional that morning was for me as I left home for work, knowing I wouldn't see Darryl again for at least 6 months. So when she started losing her composure it totally reminded me of that day.

There would be no pie-throwing on this afternoon.

Afterwards everyone gave them words of encouragement and lined up to give them hugs, pictures and cards. Cecilia brought a ton of stuff that they couldn't take with them, so it was a free-for-all. I felt really bad about the whole thing because people were basically rummaging through for freebies -- it felt like robbing a person of their past memories. That said, I picked up a Bryan Adams CD, my mom got some nice scented candles and gift bags.

It was a little funny how everyone was saying their goodbyes, crying and hugging -- even though they're not leaving for another 3-4 weeks.

Book With No Words

Here's one of the secular tracks (track 3) of the cd "Live" by Kepano Green. I'm sure many of us have experienced what Josh Kauffman writes about in this song. I really like the instrumentals in their stuff -- it's simple and yet complex enough to sound really nice, and I really like the harmony -- it's great practice singing along :P

One, two, three o'clock
And I can't sleep
I wonder where you are tonight
Nightmare, fantasies
Trouble me
I wonder where you are tonight

And oh, it could take some time
Til I let you go
Til I lose this feelin'

Like a book with no words with no pages
I'm all out of language
I've nothing to say
And I wonder where you are

Tonight if I saw you again
I would look in the deepest part of your blue eyes
And if only I could find
Love

Church bells break the silence
Across the street
And I wonder where you are tonight

It's a hot southern summer time
And you're not here with me
And I wonder where you are tonight

And oh, it could take some time
Til I let you go
Til I lose this feelin'

Like a book with no words on the pages
I'm all out of language
I've nothing to say
And I wonder where you are

Tonight if I saw you again
I would look in the deepest part of your blue eyes
And if only I could find
Love

noob

Ecstasy

My brother is home!

Darryl and I played some GameCube last night and it was so much fun. And then after gaming, we had Swiss Chalet, and then after that, we played more GameCube. After that I let him play Teller on WoW while I used to his laptop to prepare worship songs for Longlac.

Then after that, I realised I couldn't do it myself so I called him over and he helped me pick songs. Then after that, we jammed. He's learning guitar so fast!

Kepano Green

My brother brought a couple of CDs to show me, since they aren't available here. I'm currently listening to the first one, it's called "Live". The church that my parents go to in Vegas is called South Hills Community Church -- They've invited people to come play for them in the past, and Kepano Green was invited to play in April.

Aside: Cool idea. You pay an up-and-coming artist to come play, and in return they get some exposure to the market and some CD sales. Too bad all the good "new" artists are coming from the southern bible belt and not from Canada.

Kepano Green is an acoustic duo, basically two guys with guitars. One sings, the other harmonizes, and they both play guitar. One of the guys can also play piano. They have other band member that take care of the percussions and strings (if needed), however for their performance and South Hills, my brother said it was just the two of them with guitars.

"Live" was made in 1998, so they're not that new, although still 'unknown'.

I'll post a song up when I get a chance.

Steal of the draft

After 4 games of summer league, I'm so far convinced that Uros Slokar was the steal of the draft. He has thus far outperformed our other draft picks, and considering he was taken #58th overall, that's not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.

In 3 games, CV3 shot 48%, averaging 5.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.7 steawls, and 17.7 points per game. Graham shot just 38%, but avgerage 5.5 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 0.8 steals, and 14.5 points per game in 4 games.

By comparison, Uros Slokar's numbers:
65% from the field, 14.3 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 0.8 assists, 1.0 steals.

Sleepyhead

I've been really sleepy lately. It all started Wednesday night after dinner with Kenric and his family. But at the time, I thought it was the alcohol (red wine). Since then it hasn't really stopped, this feeling of tiredness. It hits me randomly and when it hits.. I can't describe it except that when it hits me it's like a wall. It feels like that groggy sensation you get when someone calls you in the middle of a nap.. after you just pulled an all-nighter.

It hit me Thursday morning, I could not wake up that morning, ended up calling in sick. Then it hit me again while I was at Yee Lee's on Thursday night after worship practice, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to drive home that night.

Then it got me again on Friday and around lunchtime.

On Saturday it got me during the dodgeball tournament, I had to go home to nap after the tourney instead of joining Stan's bachelor party.

Sunday was refreshing though, it never came. My theory is that I'm not getting enough iron. I had a prime rib burger the night before at Stan & Yee Lee's Jack & Jill party (more on that later), and then survived most of Sunday without any "sleep attacks".

Dodgeball

The dodgeball tournament worked out very well. We had a great turnout of people and it wasn't just the participants. People came to watch and support this fundraising event. It was really great. The teens won the whole thing, getting a chance to play against the Pastoral team. Kinson got his pinky dislocated!!

Prizes were hilarious stuff, all donated to us for this event. We had about 25 Schick Quattro razors from someone who worked for Schick. There were autographed Raptor hats. T-Shirts. A folding lawn chair, and a usb pen.

Stan came with his bachelor buddies with a chain tied around his ankle and a heavy ball connected ("Ball and Chain"), which said "Y L 120". I thought that the ball was pretty funny. He had to play with it on, so it he was pretty handicapped.

I ran into some difficulty trying to figure out how the playoffs would work because we had 9 teams entered, but it worked out in the end by eliminating Stan's team. Instead we allowed the pastoral team to warmup against Stan, who was blindfolded for this particular match. It funny seeing the pastors try to lob the ball so that it'd hit Stan in the head.

We ended up raising far more than we had expected. Praise God for the generous hearts of those involved, those who gave well over the $30/team fee. It was an excellent day and I am grateful for those who helped out and participated.

Stan & Yee Lee's Jack & Jill Party

They had the party at a place called Warden House. It was a really nice place, it was a two-story house situated just north of Apple Creek on Warden. It had a nice yard, very quiet, lots of chairs and tables. I was thinking it might have been placed there as a historical thing but then converted into a party/functions house for rent.

The party itself was good, they had invited a lot of their friends and there was good food and conversations going on. It was a happy time for the both of them to see their friends and family mingling and eating together. This was my first Jack & Jill, I didn't really know what to expect. I thought we'd sit around and just bring up stories about the happy couple, like fond or funny memories of them.

It wasn't anything like that though, in fact by the end of it, it turned pretty ugly. But before that, to describe some of the games they played.

I got there late because I didn't read the invitation and had gone to Yee Lee's home instead (oops).

First game (that I saw) was the good ol' flour tower game, where they have an upside-down tower of flour, with a candy at the top. So you attempt to cut as many chunks out of the tower without letting the candy fall. Stan's (groom party) team lost, and Stan had to retrieve it using nothing but his mouth. Stan's best man and brother lifted the table up to ensure that Stan would get a face full of flour.

Second game was putting together a tux/dress out of plastric garbage bags, tissues and toilet paper. Afterwards they blindfolded Stan and had them appear before eachother. They were both pretty good.

I got a chance to talk to Fu about his experiences in London during the bombing. He was pretty non-chalent about the whole thing. London's more "prepared" for this sort of thing because of the constant threat they already have from the IRA. But you can never really be fully prepared.

So anyway, as the night was finally winding down, that's when it got ugly. Ugly, at least, from my point of view. You see, the latest "craze" around here is "pieing". Where you throw this large hunk of whipped cream into someone's face and get a big laugh out of it. Oh, believe me it's a riot, there's nothing like humiliating others for ones own benefit. I'm sure you can sense my sarcasm, but hold on, there's more -- some people decided it'd be a great idea to get the happy couple. Read the following for more fun and entertainment!

Pieing is where you fill this plate full of whipped cream and you throw it in a person's face. Everyone gets a good laugh out of it except the victim, and then years from now they can all say "Hey, do you remember the time when I threw whipped cream in your face? That was fun! Oh.. the memories." (picture now someone reminiscing and then tears well up in their eyes)

Sarcasm aside, what happened was they decided to "celebrate" with Stan first. They got him right in the face as they deceived them into posing for a picture. Woot, good fun.

Then Yee Lee, clearly not wanting to be humiliated and covered in sugar, tried make a break for it when she realized that it was, (apparently) her turn. But luckily for her, her "friends" held her in place, blocking her escape. Then, her "friends" decided to deceive her again, telling her that they weren't going to do it, gave her the pie. And then with one swift motion, turned the tables and smashed it into her face.

Ah, friends. What class. Come celebrate with us!

Someone standing beside me watching this travesty blurted out "Man, you just don't do that to a girl." No sir, you're wrong about that, you just don't do that to *anyone*, period. And yet there it was, in plain view of everyone, it happened. People were snapping pictures, howling in laughter. No I'm not kidding -- people were actually howling.

Anyway, eventually everything settled down and they washed themselves off, and came out and thanked everyone for coming. Aside from the ugliness, it was a good time of fellowshipping.

Praise God for bringing these two together!

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PostSecret

I found this site today. People send postcards to this person and he posts them on his blog. Each postcard reveal a secret that the sender has been keeping about themselves.

PostSecret

It's kind of depressing but also serves as a reminder of how many people there are out there who need God.