*yawn*

I slept about 2-3 hours last night on the plane, then went to work today. It didn't occur to me that I had 2-3 hours and then lost 3 hours until around lunch time when I found myself wandering around downtown in a half-daze. I am 27 years old and today I discovered that I can no longer function with just 3 hours of sleep.

While I was at camp, we went to this Chuckwagon performance/dinner. We sat with the South Hill Church Community group for dinner and then watched a show 4 guys (singing in parts) with guitars. It was a fantastic show, even if it was all hee-haw music. I talked to a woman from church who was from Philly, and she was talking about the experience of living in Las Vegas. My impression from most people is that no one really likes living in Vegas, they are just there whether due to work or family, and all plan to leave whenever it is possible. She talked mostly about the produce and freshness of meat and how none of that is available in Vegas. Oh, and most importantly, she said I looked 21. Looking half a decade younger than you really are rocks! Woot! :)

Well.. I'm about to crash now so I'll just leave you with this.

Obsession

What can I do with my obsession
With the things I cannot see
Is there madness in my being
Is it the wind that moves the trees?
Sometimes You're further than the moon
Sometimes You're closer than my skin
And You surround me like a winter fog
You've come and burned me with a kiss

And my heart burns for You
And my heart burns...for You

And I’m so filthy with my sin
I carry pride like a disease
You know I’m stubborn, Lord, and
I’m longing to be close
You burn me deeper than I know
And I feel lonely without hope
And I feel desperate
Without vision
You wrap around me like a winter coat
You come and free me like bird

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.

Discussion: War of the Worlds (Spoiler)

I had a discussion about the ending of War of the Worlds (WOTW) with my co-worker, an older guy to give me his perspective on both the book and the movie. Basically what he wanted to get across to me was that although it may seem like a cop-out, when you consider when the book was written and what the point of the movie was, it wasn't really a cop-out at all.

After talking to him, I did my own bit of research. The book was written in 1898. This means the story is over a century old. Also consider other Science Fiction movies, they follow a similar "cop-out" ending. I was immediately reminded of the movie "Signs", when aliens attacked and were ultimately defeated by coming into contact with water. That was pretty disappointing. Moreover, the concept of water being their weakness was kind of unbelievable -- why would they invade a planet that is 80% water. They should have died when they travelled through our atmosphere. Or Independance Day, where all it took was to fly into the big gun of each of the big saucers. Also the use of a computer "virus" to "infect" the entire collective.

The narrator for WOTW offers a hint of the eventual demise of the alien invasion -- the images of amoebae in the beginning. Amoebic dysentery, which is essentially food poisoning -- consuming contaminated food that causes severe diarrhea. Now putting the pieces together, the aliens ate the humans by sucking their blood -- so we were their "food", and since many of us carry various 'contaminations', it was the aliens who suffered this amoebix dysentery --- they suffered from food poisoning.

It's interesting actually that after the WOTW I joked with Kenric that the disease that beat the aliens may have been common cold. The fact is in the original book, it *was* the common cold that beat them.

Another key issue is that back in 1898, we are talking about a time before "modern medicine", in which even humanity was suffering from several kinds of diseases that we have found cures, vaccines for since those days. For example, Penicillin wasn't invented/discovered until 1928.

So considering all the of the factors (of the original story, when it was written, and Spielberg's responsibility to preserve the essence of the book) the ending wasn't so bad. We take for granted things that we now have that people in 1898 didn't.

Weekend

I get this rash in the summertime, on my arms and my knees and sometimes thighs. This year is worse than ever, if I scratch it even slightly, little bumps for all over it. It looks pretty gross.

It's like MASS itchy, even right now. Sitting a work all I can think about it not scratching it.

Friday

This past long weekend has been excellent. It was a fun-filled weekend with tons of gaming and hanging out with friends. On Friday, Kev and I helped finish painting Eric and Nic's place.

Funny moment: Before we started painting Kevin told me and Eric that he was going to change into some "girlie clothes". We looked at eachother and were like "did we just hear him say girlie clothes?" and then back at Kev and were like "what?!". He went to the bathroom, changed and came back out. Turns out he said "dirty clothes".

After one coat, we played Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory co-operative mode on Eric's Xbox. After painting, we (Nicole, Eric, Kev, me) went to Congee Wong's for dinner. We also called up akt and Gladys. It was 8pm so we figured it wouldn't be too bad but it was still packed. We ended up having to share the table with two other people, looked like a mother and son, but the son was older than us.

Funny moment: When akt arrived she walked up to us and then for some reason smiled and acknowledged the other two people at our table. Then she sat down between them and Nicole. After sitting down, she turned to them again, smiled and said hi. Then she turned to Nicole and asked her if they were her parents... Nicole explained they were just a couple who were sharing our table. HAHAHA.. we all bursted out laughing at her. She was so embarrassed!! FUN-NY!

After dinner, Gladys, Nicole, Eric and I went to my place to watch fireworks from my mom's room. The Mel Lastman Square fireworks were pathetic compared to ones that were way off in the distance. (Western Toronto).

Saturday

I spent the morning farming Dark Iron Ore with Smee, and managed to make about 140 gold in 4 hours. If I wasn't so darn busy this coming week, I would probably have my epic mount by Friday. Instead it'll probably take a couple weeks at least.

In the afternoon, I went over to Eric's and brought leftover Congee Wong food there as my lunch. After I finished, I was still a little hungry and had pasta made by Nicole. It was soooo good. The sauce was *amazing*..

That night we had jamming. In attendance: Duncan, Jon, Drew, Serena, Nancy, Eric, Nicole.

I got a call at 11pm from Nate, reminding me to get the waiver form for Dodgeball finished up. I stayed up til 1:30am working on it. Something I discovered that night was that OpenOffice (an open source program similar to Microsoft Office) does pretty much the same thing as MS-Office. I had noticed some limitations before but it just takes some learning. Best $0 I ever spent (considering MS Office costs, what, $500?).

Sunday

Technically that last paragraph could go here, since it was Sunday morning. Anyway, I woke up earlier on Sunday to print out the waiver and get the finishing touches on it. Ended up getting to church late because I remembered it was Church Picnic day and had to run back to my room to get a change of clothes.

Pastor Ian spoke about obeying God and despite sacrifices we make to obey, to remember the blessings that come afterwards. I slept through most of it.

We are getting about 4-5 teams in the dodgeball tournament, which is pretty disappointing considering that we had about 3 weeks worth of promoting the event. The Dodgeball Tournament is to raise money for Longlac. We needed about $4500 the last I checked, with less than 3 weeks before we go. 5 teams = $150. Not great considering we made just as much for the bake sale at the ministry fair.

Surely God will provide in the end, but often I feel that people don't put enough emphasis on missions giving. Missions giving isn't like giving $5 to the Cancer/AIDS/UNICEF/United Way who goes door-to-door. First of all those organizations go door-to-door, their market share is every single household in North America. Missions is limited to those in your church congregation. Plus, the cause is *way* more important than that other stuff.

Anyway..

War of the Worlds

I knew this would be a good movie because Tom Cruise = Good movie. This is a well-known fact so I wasn't worried about going to see a stinker, like say, if it was a Ben Affleck or Colin Farrell movie. Btw, I have a new name to add to this list but I will talk about it at a later time.

The movie was frigging exciting. I was on the edge of my seat from pretty much 5 minutes into the movie until 10 minutes from the end. The end seemed like a major cop out but not different from many Sci-Fi movies out there. Science Fiction always like to teach people things and this movie was no different.

Tom Cruise showed a vulnerable side that I had not seen him play before, as a father struggling to earn the respect and love of his kids, a man who had disappointed his children so many times that they no longer looked at him like a father. And the regret of a man who realizes this and knows there's nothing he can do about the past. It was a very convincing performance -- as usual.

Dakota Fanning has a very bright future ahead of her. This little girl can flat out act. After seeing her in this movie, and her role in I Am Sam, I am convinced that she has more acting ability than likely 90% of all performers in America. I can only assume that she'll get better and better.

I give this movie a 10/10. I liked this movie better than Batman. It was as entertaining as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but it different genres are hard to compare.

Charlie Brown

Tonight I went to the Raptors Draft Party. Kenric and I went last year and it was a fairly sparse crowd compared to this year. I think word got around about the free food and booze. The news of free booze travels fast :)

This year we went with a few others, I'm not sure who's friends they were. Anyway, we had a fairly good time. Miller Genuine Draft is pretty good. We lined up for chicken drums that were massive. I mean MASSIVE. They were bigger than the wings from Local Heroes in Ottawa.

Raptors went into the draft looking for a big man and a point guard. They went about it in a round-about way, but ended up with what they wanted.

Tonight confirmed in my mind that the average Raptor fan doesn't have a clue. There were people there who hadn't even heard of Charlie Villanueva, and many fans appeared to want Gerald Green. In fact I'm willing to wager that if we had picked *anyone* other than Green at either of the picks, the fans would have booed the pick.

I won't lie, I wanted Gerald Green too. I don't think he'll be a *great* player, but he'd sell tickets and Raptors need that too. However, a winning team will sell tickets more than a dunker, in the long run. I would have prefered SF Danny Granger though.

There was excessive booing of all sorts when we picked up PF Charlie Villanueva. I'll agree that we took him earlier than expected, however if you look at the way the draft was going, he wouldn't have been available at 16. Teams were drafting big. Anyone who has played fantasy football knows that you don't want to be on the tail end of an RB run.

Btw, I learned that CV has a disease (not rare) which explains his odd look.. the pale skin and no eyebrows, etc.

I'm tired now but will comment further when I get a chance.

Success

Today I succeeded, in not puking.

I woke up this morning with some major discomfort in my stomach, so I headed straight for the bathroom where I made chocolate milk for about 40 minutes. When I was done, I felt light-headed.

I went back to bed and within 10 minutes I was back in the washroom.

It was at this point that I decided it would be best to call in sick. I could barely stand up (and it's not as if sitting down felt so good either). I had some medicine and played some guitar and took a nap.

When I woke I was feeling fine. I went and had some lunch, and afterwards thought about going to work. But then I had this feeling like I had to throw-up. But I didn't.

Went on the computer for a bit, and played some games, chatted with my brother.

Then the power went out. So I took a nap, and was awoken by everything turning back on about an hour later. Still felt like puking.

On and on it went like this, the day is a complete waste. However right now I feel good enough to drive out to church for my Longlac meeting so I'm gonna do that. I'm starving but I don't think it's a good idea to eat anything.

So uh.. not much of a blog here. Sorry.

Peanut butter and WORSHIP

Something that has been on my mind lately is the progression of the weekly jamming time I've been hosting every Sunday over the past year. I've been thinking a lot about what it's purpose is and how we can improve it. And ensuring that it doesn't just become jamming.

I learned in small group last year about the constant communion we should be having with God. Constant, meaning all the time, never ending. Eternal.

A couple of times during jamming, secular music would be played. At first, I thought it was fun, it was fun to reminisce the old songs we used to listen to, and then to play and sing them. That was fun. However at times it becomes excessive. For the guitarists, it might not seem like that big a deal, but I'm often reminded by the others who attend — they aren't there to 'practice', they're here to sing. Moreover, they're here to worship.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't want secular music played during jamming because it's an inconvenience to others. To me it's more like it's an inconvenience to God. And it's an inconvenience to me. Not to sound selfish either, but I want to spend that time worshipping. For me, practicing guitar is the by-product of worship, not the other way around.

Coupled with this concept of worshipping — not just jamming — is that when we worship God, we are on Holy ground. And with that comes a certain amount of understanding that God is with us. It's kind of like how everyone always prays before fellowship or food, that "our discussion and conversations may be pleasing to You". I've found over the past few months that occasionally it stops being about God and more about hanging out or guitar fun.

This is usually when I'll stand up and go back to my room. When the focus is lost, I tend to retreat to the confines of my bedroom. I know — that people come for different reasons. Some probably do come just to hang out.

Help me find this

My co-worker brought this to work. He took it from his daughter, doesn't know where it came from. It's a fairly large flat bag, yellowish white in color. Here's what it says on the package:

Crisp Sweet Potato: Series foods for leisure time

May the breeze bring you The tenderness and
warmth from me Far from each other we may be.
Yet still you are here,At the bottom of my heat.


SERIES FOODS FOR LEISURE TIME - EXOTIC

PROCESSED WITH MODERN TECHNICS.


These things taste great. Find it please.

If there is one thing you could do and you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?

This is question #1 in the Networking class I am attending at church. The purpose of the class is to find your spiritual gifts, and the first part is to find your passion. I could not answer that question for the longest time. I have been pondering the answer to it for about a week and I am slowly reaching an answer.

Alfred and I stood at the elevator waiting to go down. He told me how he had meetings from 9am-1pm today. We both rolled our eyes. We're both sick of work again, and it's not March this time. The two of us have been brainstorming over the last 3-4 months about what we can do so that we can quit our jobs and still make a living, doing something else.

In the subway I read my paper as usual. There was an ad for perfumes and we revisited another one of Alf's brilliant business ideas. There's gotta be something we can do. I wagered a bet with Alf saying that not one single person in the subway car was happy with their jobs. I mean you look at everyone, they've got this gloomy look like they're heading towards impending doom. It's the same look every day. People have these blank looks on their faces in the mornings, and then an exhausted look in the evenings, with a hint of dread because they know they'll just have to go back and do it again tomorrow.

Okay so I might exaggerating slightly. But it is still the truth.

I suggested that maybe we could sell stuff on eBay for a living. Alf suggested getting stuff wholesale from China. It could be anything. Buy something for $1, sell it for $3.. that could work. King. Alf went to work. I switched on my mp3 player. The bridge from "Sing" was playing (Hillsong United).

I'll give my life for You Lord
For all You've done
I'll give my life for You Lord
For all You've done
I'll give my life for You Lord
For all You've done
I'll give my life for You Lord
For all You've done
I'll give my life

It reminded me that the only way to reach the state of pure joy, was to be giving my life to God. And it made me think about my passion again. What's the one thing I would do if I knew I couldn't fail?

I would quit my job. I would take guitar lessons, drum lessons, and voice lessons. And then I would start a band. That's my answer in a nutshell.

What are you doing right *now*?

I had this hilarious thought during Sunday school today. Kinson was talking about communication, about how it's like 10% words, 30% tone of voice, and 60% body language when Stan asked about how the numbers were now that there was telephone, email and chatting.

Anyway the thought I had was what it would be like if you were chatting on MSN with someone and they could see everything that you were doing at the time of your conversation. Please keep in mind that this is just an example and I am not doing all the things nor implying that you are doing the same things when we're chatting.

I pictured a guy and a girl sitting in front of eachother talking. Behind the girl would be 3-4 other people, also talking to her. And the girl would be doing her hair while reading a book, and occasionally another person would walk over and show her some clothing.

Meanwhile the guy would be reading a car magazine while cutting his toenails, sitting in his underwear and have music playing in the background. There'd also be 3-4 other people behind him talking to him as well, and there'd be a FutureShop representative walking in and out showing him things.

I mean let's face it, when we talk to eachother we have no idea what the other person is thinking, doing, or feeling. For all we know, there's no one there and just some machine typing out random messages of "lol" and "hahaha" and "sup?". We may not even be talking to who we think we're talking to.

I used to pose as Lon and talk to his friends on his laptop when he wasn't home. None of them could tell it was me until I started talking about eating poo.

I guess this is a post about communication, and also multitasking. There are definitely times that when I am having a meaningful conversation with someone, or conversing with someone who is important to me, that I stop everything else I'm doing and focus on the conversation. But there are also times when I talk to 4-5 different people at once and find myself having to scroll up to remember what that person was talking about.

Back before MSN/ICQ, if you talked to 4-5 people at once, that would be considered rude. If you cut your toenails while talking to someone, that would be disgusting. Talking with your mouth full was also a no-no. Back then, you couldn't talk to someone while you were naked, or brushing your teeth, picking your nose, q-tipping your ears, plucking your eyebrows, etc etc etc.

Brings new meaning to the expression "ignorance is bliss" doesn't it?

Move aside, Larry

I didn't watch the game. I was about to and then a guildie contacted me to take his place in Molten Core, so I obliged and missed watching the game. My comments below are based on what I think happened based on the boxscore. For some reason the sporting world hasn't released a "recap" of the game yet so this is all I can go by.

Everything that I said Detroit needed to do, didn't happen. The end result -- Spurs win 84-69. Let's compare what I said Detroit needed to do, and what really happened:

- The two Wallaces need to combine for 35-40 points
- Rip needs to take no more than 15 shots
- Neutralize Brent Barry
- "Billups will get his 20-25 points in and Prince his 15."

Here's what happened:

- Wallaces combined for a paltry 11 points on 5 for 11 shooting. This tells me that they weren't being used in the offense. 11 shots by your big men? Come on Larry!
- Rip took 21 shots. Why would you take 21 shots if you're being guarded by Bruce Bowen? The way to neutralize the best one-on-one defender in the league is not to try to score on him! Again I blame Larry because we all know Rip is *not* a ball hog.
- I'm not sure if they did this or not. Spurs barely used him because they appeared to be in command of the game for most of the night. Their guys weren't tired because of their weeklong layoff. Only Horry got lots of minutes and he didn't do much.
- Billups got 25 points. Prince had 11.


I think what happened last night (because I also have utmost respect for Larry Brown), is that he went with the same game style as last series. Larry is one of those guys who sticks with what works. Unfortunately, the Spurs are nothing like the Heat. They are not just a two-star team, although in truth they do only have 2 stars.

So.... Where do we go from here. Larry will make adjustments to the offense to get Rasheed open more often. And Sheed will have to come through for them. Ben Wallace scored well last year but not much this season. He needs to put in 10-15 points, and Rasheed 20-25. This is imperative. Rip has to take less shots. And then everything else is fine.

11 of the past 14 teams who won Game 1 went on to win their series this year. However, they were all 2-2-1-1-1 series' and not the 2-3-2 format for the Finals. I think Detroit can still pull through!

Always

by Hillsong United

Did You rise the sun for me?
Or paint a million start that I might
Know Your majesty?
Is Your voice upon the wind?
Is everything I've known marked
With my maker's fingerprints?

Pre-Chorus:
Breathe on me
Let me see Your face
Forever I will seek You

Chorus:
'Cause all You are, is all I want, always
Draw me close in Your arms
O God, I wanna be with You

Can I feel You in the rain?
Abandon all I am to have You
Capture me again
Let the earth resound with praise
Can You hear as all creation lives
To glorify one name?

This is a song that I've been listening to for the past couple of weeks. I think it just percolates the idea of constant worship, constantly seeking Christ, constantly standing before Him, no matter where we are.

I have been bickering on and off about worship. And this morning as I was singing this song and marching up the escalator to work, it dawned on me that God created us all differently. Each of us worship differently. Some of us need to *feel* something, while others can feel nothing. Some need to exalt Him using long sentences and profess intricate details, while for others, a simple I love You is enough. For some, meditating on lyrics is enough, while others may feel the need to harmonize and sing with a full-scale band or choir.

And what it all comes down to, is just pleasing God.

There are two issues at hand here. One, is pleasing God. The other, is getting yourself to place where you feel like you're communing with God. Both are actually the same thing but as humans, there is a separation between the two because we're all wired differently.

I feel like a worship leader's responsibility, aside from us worshipping too, is to try to take the rest of the congregation closer to that point where they are in tune with the worship at hand. Hmm.. I don't have the words to describe it.

wqotw has an interesting and somewhat related quote this week on this subject.

I'll finish my thoughts later, as they come to me.

NBA Finals

If you wanted to see my Zo post, ask me for it and I can send it to you. I thought it was a bit much :P

The matchup.

I want Detroit to win. I like them because they have no big stars, they're just a bunch of really hard-working guys. And they are fundamentally sound. There's no player on the Pistons who plays unorthodoxically -- they all play their position to the T, the way they were meant to be played. It's like a well-oiled machine and grinding it's way through NBA's finest.

I hated Detroit last year.. but that was only because the beat Kobe. I disliked their playing style because I thought it dulled the game. Now I find it invigorating, watching their carefully planned out defense unfold. It's like a thing of beauty, if you can call it that. You really need to know basketball and understand the game to fully appreciate what they do.

Matchup.

These two teams matchup really well.

In the frontcourt, Detroit has a bunch of hybrid PFs in Wallace, Wallace, Campbell and McDyess. The combination of these guys will match up well against Duncan and Mohammed/Nesterovic. I can see Rasheed Wallace being the primary matchup with Tim Duncan, while Ben kind of hovers between the two. He's one of those guys who makes blocks out of nowhere and he will get his opportunities because Nazr and Rasho are basically decoys in the Spurs offense. From the flip side if Duncan ends up covering Rasheed, it will cause problems for the Spurs because of Rasheed's perimeter abilities. He'll be able to pull Duncan outside, thus allowing Big Ben to clean up on the offensive boards.

The midcourt is the most intriguing matchup. Tayshaun Prince will be assigned to Ginobili, and Prince will not be able to stop Manu. Ginobili is going to score 25+ every game in this series. He's gonna have his way with Detroit. On the flip side there is Bruce Bowen on Rip Hamilton. I have never been a big fan of Rip at all, and I think Bowen will shut him down almost completely.

Here's something interesting that I just thought of. What if they just let Rip guard Manu. Rip is super athletic and won't tire out, although he won't stop Ginobili, it's not like anyone can. Then they can put Prince on Barry and pretty much neutralize that threat. Prince can help Rip at times when Barry isn't in the game. No one needs to cover Bowen, he's a non-factor on offense.

Backcourt -- it all depends on which Parker shows up. I've never liked Parker because he's so inconsistent. He has the skills to put up 20/8 every night, but he doesn't do it. He could easily be as effective as Billups but more often than not he just ends up sucking. He's just one of those guys who is extremely explosive but doesn't know how to do it every night. Also I've found he's really streaky.. if he sucks in one game, it'll take him awhile to get back. He doesn't know how to "turn it back on".

Benchwise, the Spurs will kill them. With Brent Barry and Robert Horry, they have two guys who would start on most teams coming off the bench. There's also Glenn Robinson, although I don't think very highly of him. The Pistons have Arroyo, who has just about every intangible Billups has, minus the mind-boggling clutch shooting. Then there's streaky Lindsey Hunter (can you believe this guy has like 4 rings?), and Antonio McDyess. These guys are not huge impact players.

Detroit will be looking for offense from Rasheed and Big Ben. Billups will get his 20-25 points in and Prince his 15. But they can no longer rely on Rip in this series. I imagine that if Detroit plays like they always do, which is a patient game, Rip will rack up on the assists. If they don't play well, then we'll see awful 4-for-15 nights from Rip, with 5 turnovers and no assists.

Prediction.

I started this post thinking the Spurs would destroy the Pistons, but having written the matchups, I now feel like the Pistons even have a chance to win this whole thing. But it will be hard. Detroit can win this thing in 6 games. In fact they *have* to win it in 6 because the Spurs are such a strong home team.

Everything depends on Detroit's composure. If they can stick to their game, they can win this series. Essentially, this thing is San Antonio's to lose. Like LA, if they can just control Duncan (Shaq) and just let Ginobili (Kobe) go nuts, they can win this. I'll say this again: The two Wallaces need to score. I'm thinking 35+ from the two of them per game for Detroit to pull this off. Or, some miraculous performance from McDyess or Hunter. If one of these guys can score 15 points, it is game over for the Spurs.

You can tell that I'm reaching here in my "if Detroit can..." statements. You can tell that I think it will be a long road and that it will be very difficult. You can tell what my prediction will be. So I'm not going to say it. You know what I'm thinking so there's no point. The important thing is that I enjoy these games and cheer for the team I want to win, rather than who I predicted to win.

Therefore, I say Detroit in 6.

Days of Elijah

Yesterday I found out that many people at my church, not just myself, disliked the song "Days of Elijah" by Robin Mark. Our pastor had actually received complaints about this modern hymn.

For me, it was the fact that the song has too many words and you find yourself being forced to catch up on the lyrics whenever you're singing it. Secondly, I found the words were lacking real meaning, at least to me.

The chorus bothered me because it had pictures God riding through the clouds like Superman would. Airplanes, birds — the things ride through clouds. The idea of that the almighty God sharing the skies with birds, airplanes and Superman. There's nothing pristine about that. True, God is omnipresent — so we could just as easily be singing "Behold He comes, riding on the subway".

And the bridge. "There's no God like Jehovah." I prefer to skip the bridge when I sing this song. There are two things I dislike about it — redundancy and blasphemy. It repeats 4 times, that there is no God like God. Wow, very enlightening. Really? God is God? Wow! The blasphemous part, is that it's almost as if they are saying that there are several gods but that none of them is like our Jehovah. He's saying all the other gods fall short of the Jehovah. There is only one God, period. What we really should have been singing is "You are the One true God and the rest are phonies."

Just my opinion.

I had a discussion with a friend about this and it made me think more about the words and their meaning.

Robin Mark has written an article that sums up why he wrote this song, and its purpose because — apparently I'm not the first to ask: "What's the point of this song?"

Robin's idea was to write about a song of hope. It's the notion of bringing back the OT days as a reminder of these great prophets and leaders who took hold of their own lives to proclaim God's kingdom. That despite any kind of trials or tragedy, God is here and alive, we should also follow in their (Elijah, Moses, Ezekiel, David's) example.

Or a converse way of looking at is, is that we are living in a time where we have never faced the kind of tribulation that those guys did, and thus we should have all the more reason to be shouting from the rooftops.

Regardless, it is an interesting read, and has given me something else to think about the next time we sing it.

Working out

I've worked out about 13 times since my last birthday. I had planned to workout 52 times -- once per week -- this "year", but it hasn't really happened. To workout 52 times I'll have to workout 39 more times before my next birthday.

That's 72 days away, which means I have to workout more often than every other day.

It's impossible. I'm shooting for 26. It's way more reasonable. After all, how could a guy go from working out *NEVER* to once a week. It's way too much to ask. Now once every two weeks, that's not so bad. This means I have 13 more times to go with 72 days remaining. I'll have to workout at a pace of once every 5 days to reach this goal. This is certainly attainable. This week I have worked out twice -- Wednesday and Friday. At this pace I will most certainly reach my goal because my co-worker and I are on a 3-day-a-week workout plan. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

I'm also away for a week in July, for about 8 days. That leaves 64 days to work out 13 times. Or, once every 4 days.

Star Wars 3

I wanted to write this the moment I stepped out of the theatre but it has taken awhile to put it all together. At first, all I wanted to do was to track down George Lucas and strangle him to death. But I've calmed down a lot now and have decided a simple blog review of the movie will suffice.

Suffice to say, I hated this movie. Putting aside that it provided some closure to this awful, awful trilogy, I cannot even begin to fathom what Lucas was thinking when he wrote this one. All I can think of is that he knew that he was going to make billions of dollars no matter how good or bad the movie was, so basically just "winged" it.

Many people will say this movie was better than the first two. I will concede, this is true. But saying that Episode Three was better than Episode One and Two, is the same as saying eating a bowl of crap is better than eating two bowls of crap. So although it's true, it doesn't really mean anything.

I have heard some say Episode Three was the best of all 6 Star Wars movies. To those who have thought this, I suggest you go to this site. In the words of my OAC calculus teacher: "You need help. Help is available".

So.. where do I start. The thing I hated most was the plot. I felt like it was "too easy". There were things Lucas put in there that made no sense at all, he put them in there conveniently to complete a nostalgic storyline and hoped we wouldn't notice.

Point #1: The Plot

I'm not even going to go into the plot holes connected to episodes 4-6. I feel those are unfair to judge because the movies were made 20-25 years ago and looking back I'm sure Lucas wishes he could have changed a few things here and there.

In non-force terms, the plot of Episode 3: A youth pastor at *THE* church has a bad dream about his wife dying while giving birth. A satanist convinces the pastor that he can prevent this from happening but he has to start worshipping the devil first. So, he goes for it. Years of seminary, training and discipline goes out the window because after all, he dreamt about something bad and dreams ALWAYS come true. He becomes a satan-lover, and his first task is to kill hundreds of people — including small children — and then tries to kill the senior pastor at his church when he confronts him. He then accuses his wife of cheating on him with the senior pastor, and tries to strangle her to death. The senior pastor defeats him in a battle, and then when he wakes up, he has no legs and has to wear a big mask.

Point #2: The Force

The Force. People with The Force can sense feelings in others. Remember lines like "I sense that the force is strong in you". "You must learn to suppress the anger I sense in you". How about an entire evil plot of the Sith Lord, pretending to be the Senator? No senses on that one? Maybe the Sith Lord could mask his own feelings. But how about hundreds of thousands of clone troopers who were in on it? You'd think that all these Jedi's could sense something more than "something doesn't feel right".

Point #3: It's for kids!

People argue this movie (and all the other Star Wars movies) are for kids. This explains the Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks, Pod Racing, R2D2, and robots who say "ow" when they get their limbs cut off. Lucas even stated on television: "The movies are for children but [the fans] don't want to admit that." Um.. for kids? What about when Darth Maul was sliced in half? Was that suitable for kids? When Anakin's legs were chopped off and the stumps caught fire while his face melted off, was that for kids too?

Continued..

Alias

If you haven't seen the finale yet, don't read any further.





But if you have, how bout that finale, huh?

OH MY GOODNESS!

I've watched that ending about 4 times and each time I am still completely caught off guard by the suddenness of it. It totally blows my mind every single time, even though I'm already expecting it!

NBA: Semi-finals

Well, I predicted everything including the teams who would win and how many games it would take them to win.

My new predictions for this round are Spurs over Suns in 6, and Pistons over the Heat in 6. I truly believe it will be a cakewalk for the Pistons, however, Wade will put out some memorable moments and help the Heat win a couple of games, just like Kobe did in previous years. The only difference this time around is that Shaq is not as good as he used to be. In fact, if he doesn't play, Pistons should take it in 5.

I'm tired.

Unite in Worship, Day 3

I think if I got anything out of this conference, it would be that I finally "let go". Let go of my burdens, my inhibitions, my fears.

I have had about a day of downtime today, to reflect on the conference.

Yesterday morning was led by Brian Doerksen. Brian Doerksen has written a lot of songs. YL attended his songwriting workshop and found out he's only 39, has 6 kids, and has been in the worship songwriting business for 20 years. Its unbelievable the number of songs he has written, notable ones like "Refiner's Fire", "Come and Fill Me Up", "Come, Now is the Time to Worship", "Faithful One", "Humble King", and on and on. I could go on for hours.

I was really tired in the morning but after his worship time I was totally refreshed.

I went to the Vicky Beeching "Intimate Worship" workshop. Throughout the conference there were several of these intimate worship settings where the worship leader just sat and worshipped with the attendees. I think it was at this point, that I developed a boyish crush on Vicky. I guess there's just something about a girl and her guitar, who can sing. She's awesome... <3 <3

The worship time was 1 hour, and it featured an acoustic guitar (Vicky) and some dude on a bongo drum. And we just worshipped God, in our own way. Some people stood, others sat. Some even knelt on the floor. All in all it was the best time of worship I experienced in this conference. It was as if no one was there with me, just me and God.

At lunch time I was determined to get a good seat for the evening Hillsong United concert, so I decided to eat a massive (double leg dinner from Swiss Chalet) lunch. Then proceeded to buy a box of granola bars and a Mello Yello. YL thought I was crazy.

After lunch, worship time was led by a group called LMT. They are part of the Empty Heart Series, and new ministry that consists of new (christian) music that is in cd, that also contains an evangelistic tract. There are 5 of such cd's, one of each of the following genres: Jazz, Rhythm N' Blues, Rock, Pop, Classic. I got one of each, it was $5 for 6 cds. LMT was really good. For the afternoon they sang 3 classic songs (classic gospel), and 3 RnB ones. I fell asleep during the RnB, but the classic ones I really really enjoyed. There was one called Fly Away, it was fantastic. I picked up an extra one of these so I can keep on for myself :)

In the afternoon, we had two workshops to go to. The first one I attended was another Intimate Worship, this time with Something Like Silas. They're a fairly new band from San Diego, CA. The lead singer is asian!! The drummer too, I think. The lead Eric Owyoung is so talented, he can do it all - sing, guitar, piano. And he was really deep, the words he spoke during the presentation were very inspiring. YL can also attest, as she attended a workshop led by him called "The Beauty of Non-Religious Encounters". SLS were good, but I felt like their instruments were too loud and I couldn't really hear what they were singing.

The second workshop. I was tempted to go attend Vicky's songwriting workshop. But I stopped myself realizing that I was taking this "crush" thing too seriously. Instead I attended Noel Richard's seminar on "Worship In The Real World". His talk had nothing to do with the topic though. He talked for about 45 minutes and then realized he hadn't covered a single one of his points.

He spoke of churches that truly worship. Over his career he had been invited to many churches to lead worship for various EMs, fundraisers, Sundays, etc. So he described some of the churches he went to, ones that didn't *worship* God, meaning, they were rigid and overlooked God's commandments, such as love your neighbors, helping people to belong on Christ's home.

Noel Richards has a dream, to fill up the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, on Saturday July 15, 2006. He wants all Christians who are able, to travel there from North America, Australia, and all of Europe, for one massive global gathering. Here's the website. In 1996, Noel organized a "Champion of the World" even with 11,500 people worshipping at London's Wembley Arena. Then in 1997, he had another one at Wembley Stadium, with 45,000 people.

Unite In Worship, day 2

It's Joel Houston!! Spin-out!  


This morning, it was Vicky Beeching leading worship. Hopefully I'll get a picture with her tomorrow during her workshop. Oh, did I mention I bought her cd yesterday which just came out -- you guessed it -- yesterday. I also bought the worshiptogether How-To songbook #1. Now I have all of them :)

In the morning I went to a workshop by Todd Phillips, who spoke about Spiritual CPR. In a nutshell, the workshop focused on the topic evangelism, and why we should do it. Often Christians skip over evangelism, doing it instead out of guilt. The old "bring a friend to church next week" deal. They'll do it, and then that's it. They feel relieved that they don't have to bring a friend every week. I can see what he's talking about, although for different reasons. I wouldn't want to bring a friend to T3C, to be honest. It's just not very seeker friendly.

But I digress. Todd described that we already know the what and the where. The great commission speaks of What we should do Where we should do it. Go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But it doesn't cover the Why. Why should we evangelize, why should we do missions?

1 John 1:4 explains that it will make our joy complete. This is why we do it. Because no matter what else we do to fill in the void, like take on massive responsibilities at church, doing worship, sunday school, bible studies, welcoming, choir, pastoring, counselling, ushering, etc etc. We can do all those things, but without evangelism, our joy will never be complete.

One thing that especially hit me was that the act of evangelism is all it takes. It's not the conversion part -- that's God's doing. Once we have done our part, it's God's turn to do the rest. The act of evangelism is what makes our joy complete.

After lunch I lined up for 30 minutes so that I could get a decent seat for Hillsong United, which was leading the after lunch worship. What can I say other than it was.. moving. I was deeply moved. I find that Hillsong music, the words that they use and the instrumentals.. they awaken something inside me. I feel more aware for the Spirit's presence. I thought for sure I would lose my voice, but it turned out alright.

The speaker for the afternoon was Jason Hildebrand. He is an actor/musician, who is starring in a show called "Blue Like Jazz/Live". It's a monologue of sorts. Very interesting and funny. We got it free of course, but it is travelling from coast to coast (the show) so if you get a chance, I highly recommend it.

In the afternoon I went to a workshop led by Joel Houston (the bloke in the pic). Australians say "spin-out" instead of "crazy". Haha.. I really went there for the fun and because there was nothing else that interested me. He spoke about inspirations that came to he and Marty Sampson when writing the songs they did for the various Hillsong United cd's.

Oh by the way, Marty Sampson is not here. I made that mistake yesterday. The person I mistakenly thought was Marty was actually a guy named Jad Gillies. He's another Hillsong guitarist/singer. A very very VERY good singer, and a very very good guitarist. Well, he's a better singer than Joel, but not sure about the guitar. Probably better too.

The night session was led by Brian Doerksen. I don't think I need to introduce him..

Unite

So there I was, sitting in the 4th row in the Toronto Congress Centre. To the right of me, sat Yee Lee, a worship leader at Toronto Chinese Community Church. In front of me, Phil Dooley, the youth pastor from Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia. Beside him, his wife and their baby. In front of Phil, was Joel Houston a worship leader with Hillsong United, author of songs like "One Way", "Evermore" and "Everyday". To the right of him was Mia Fieldes (okay, so I had to look that one up) singer and songwriter for Hillsong United (the only female in their group). And then beside her to the right, Marty Sampson, worship leader for Hillsong United, author of songs like "All Day", "God is Great" and "King of Majesty".

Wow. I was totally starstruck and yet, not at all because we were all standing their worshipping God and looking at the legendary Noel Richards, rocking it up on stage and leading a congregation of hundreds in raising the roof in God's name.


The night started with the song above, "Above All Else" by Vicky Beeching. Then Tehillah Toronto played a few songs. They are a pretty crazy band, lots of members and they kind of went nuts. The pianist was rocking so hard that the keyboard almost fell over!

After that, Noel Richards joined the band and rocked hard.

More to follow..

The end

Back in the day, I used to blog about events. Things I did, places I went, people I met. I remember posting pictures with captions. This was all before the whole big "blog movement" began. Digital cameras were still fairly new and I was one of the few who had one, so I posted just about anything we (Lon and I) saw. It was the days when you took a picture of *anything* at all — because you could — because we couldn't get over the concept that nothing was a waste of film. And plus you wanted to justify how much you spent on the darned thing.

Blogging came naturally then. When I did something, I posted about it. I didn't post daily because I wanted people to know what I had done, I did it as a personal journal and I didn't feel like I had to update in order to get people to read, because as far as I knew, I didn't have any readers. People would ask me where I posted yesterday's pictures, and I would point them to my IP address.

I don't have a whole lot to blog about anymore. With the daily grind of work — that and living alone, means nothing really happens. I find I have nothing to post about unless I have recently been with someone. No one wants to hear about my gaming experiences, nor do I really want to post about them. Perhaps, I can take photos of the dishes I cook, but what good would that do? It's not interesting.

For this reason I've decided to discontinue my bnyao.blogspot.com blog site, for the simple reason that I have nothing to say there that I can't say here. And I plan to close this one down shortly after if I find I can't become more active here. Nothing is more "ugh" than constantly checking a website that isn't up-to-date. It's a matter of principle — if I can't keep it up to date, then I won't have it.

NBA: Round two

Admittedly this is coming late because the first round has already started. But let's do a quick recap.

Ben Gordon did not win Rookie of the Year.
Ben Gordon won Sixth Man of the Year.
Grant Hill did not win Most Improved Player.
Andrei Kirilenko did not win Best Defensive Player of the Year.
Steve Nash won Most Valuable Player.

Miami swept New Jersey.
Phoenix did not beat Memphis in 5 games. (They swept)
Detroit did not sweep Philadelphia. (Took 5 games)
Washington beat Chicago in 6.
Dallas did not beat Houston in 6. (Took 7 games)
Indiana did not beat Boston in 6. (Took 7 games)
Seattle did not beat Sacramento in 7 (Took 5 games)
San Antonio did not beat Denver in 4 (Took 5 games)

So.. I was wrong on most of the predictions, but at least I got all the teams right. Given some surprising performances, I'd like to revise my next round of predictions:

EAST
Miami over Washington in 4 (no change).
Detroit over Indiana in 6 (I now think that this series could go either way. I realized having watched them play Philly, that Detroit isn't as good as they were last year. Their bench is very thin. Also I think this series will turn out a lot more even than I previously thought, because of these two teams' history.)

WEST
Phoenix over Dallas in 6. (no change)
San Antonio over Seattle in 6. (I didn't know Seattle was as good as they turned out to be. I thought they were all shooting and nothing else, but Jerome James has proven he can put together more than 1 games in a row where he plays really well. I still think they'll lose though.)

The only series worth watching now is Phoenix and Dallas. It'll be quite a matchup, crazy scoring. I suspect every game will total 140 points or more. The Detroit series will be interesting, just to see Reggie Miller's farewell tour.

Motabo

This is the second movie in a row that I've seen, that ended with a tribal african song. I really like that kind of music..

Went to see "The Interpreter" tonight, with Eric & Nicole and Ina. 9:20pm showing @ Rainbow Theatres, Fairview Mall. I love going there because it's so cheap that even if you see a bad movie there, you don't feel ripped off. Except of course, if you went to see "King Arthur" there like I did. *shudder*

When you see Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman, you at least expect a good movie for the simple reason that these two professionals wouldn't pick a bad script. They are both well established and respected in their industry.

The Interpreter was a good movie. It wasn't an 'edge-of-your-seat' thriller but it was definitely very engaging and exciting. You could tell by looking over at Ina who had her hands over her ears for most of the movie, expecting something to happen. (Just a guess, for all I know it could have been because her ears were cold..)

*possible SPOILER*: I was expecting an even bigger twist that didn't happen. Pretty much at some point I clued in that it might be Silvia who would be the assassin. I thought somehow she would be the shooter, and that her flute was a piece of some elaborate make-shift sniper rifle. *end of possible spoiler*

I would say that the actors made an otherwise okay movie into a good movie. Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman gave SUPERB performances. The two of them were brilliant in their roles and in my opinion, carried the film, turning a 7/10 movie into a 9/10.

("Millions" sets the standard for any movie I rate this year. This movie wasn't as good as "Millions", and thus I can only give it a 9/10. With that said though, since "Millions" instantly became my 2nd favorite movie of all time, you might say that 9/10 = 10/10, but you won't hear me say it.)

I'm bustin' Jerry, bustin'!

I like to go places when it fits into my plans.

So anyway, yesterday I had to get my picture taken at church for the new church directory and PLUS there was a sale at Mitchell's, so I was really happy.

Eric came along because he had nothing to do. We went to Mitchell's where I finally picked up my own copy of "Seizing Your Divine Moment" by Erwin McManus. And I also bought another CD, Jeremy Camp's "Stay". This purchase was a long time coming since I had been sampling his CDs off his website for at least 6 months.

Then I had my picture taken, and then.. THEN --- we had PHO!!!!!

--

SPRING CELEBRATION FESTIVAL ONTARIO, CANADA

DETAILS:
May 21, 2005, Early Afternoon
Paramount Canada's Wonderland
Vaughan, Ontario, Canada
Seating: General Admission

TICKETS:
On Sale: Tickets On Sale Now!
Door Price: $35.09 - $55.42
Advance Price: $29.24 - $49.57
Group Price: $2 off per ticket(before tax) plus 1 free ticket per order

http://www.sonshineconcerts.com/showProfile.asp?id=159

Although it says "Early Afternoon", Ticketmaster says 10:00AM.