Not of this World!

Just when I thought that modern Christianity couldn't get any sillier than the "Extreme Teen Bible," (Do yourself a favor and read some of the reviews that Amazon.com has posted for that one) along comes C28, a "Christian Lifestyle Retailer."

My wife was at the mall today, and she brought back a brochure for me from this particular store, which just set up shop at the Sun Valley Mall. On the cover are four HARD-CORE dudes! One has his head tilted and he's got tattoos! Another one is looking off to the side (didn't South Park already make fun of this?) Another one has his arms crossed with a look on his face like he's ready to crack skulls for Jesus - and he's BLACK! The other one is Latino, but he's kinda obscured by the other four dudes.

Here are some ads from their site, the first one has two of the guys I described:







Pretty extreme, huh? And you thought that rules about women covering their heads in church were passe! It's all cutting-edge, baby!

In the brochure, they say that the C:28 stands for Colossians 2:8, which states the following: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

Of course, they don't use that entire quote in their advertising, because it's all, like, gay and Shakespeare-like or something. They just take "Not of this world!" and turn it into a catch phrase. Isn't that totally cooler? It's like The Transformers or something!

Ugh. Ya know, I have a lot of criticisms of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Still, what I find even sadder is how the religion is being dumbed down. I have Christian friends that can speak a great deal on their beliefs and while I don't see it their way, I can tell that they're thoughtful and informed.

One part of the Christian faith that I find interesting is the idea that their belief is "not of this world". Usually, when Christians talk about this, they're referring to how their beliefs transcend the petty and sometimes divisive issues of the world. (For instance - did you know that there are Christians who don't vote Republican! Wow! Who'da thunk it?)

These assholes though, they've completely bastardized something that's actually positive about the religion by using that as their catchphrase. I mean, look at their marketing - Is it any different than the marketing for the clothes you find at more conventional stores? I mean, just glancing at the stuff, can you even tell that it's got a Jesus-theme to it? It's almost like they're trying to hide it - as though they're ashamed of their own faith!

Oh, and get this, on the brochure they ask for donations. Donations! If these guys get tax-exempt status for their little operation, then I'm gonna crap a steamboat.

One of my favorite Jesus stories is the one where he knocks over the tables of the moneylenders. Quick, somebody hand Jesus his whip - he's gonna need it.

Batman movies - The Dark Knight

Considering that I did a whole series of blogs on the Batman movies (yeah, I know, I didn't do the Adam West one, the 1930s serials, or Mask of the Phantasm) I figured that I'd at least write a little something about the latest film - The Dark Knight.

It's hard to write as much on this one as I did the others, considering I just saw it. All of the others I had seen at least a few times, and I had plenty of time to think about them. I don't have that advantage with the latest one, so a Part II will probably be in order, as I hope to see it in the theater at least one more time.

In short - I liked it. Is it possibly the best Batman movie ever? I don't like making those sorts of proclamations in a hasty manner, but I'll definitely say that it has the potential to be the best one ever. It has the potential to be the best superhero movie ever as well. Still, it's just too early for me to make that kind of a statement.

What's good about it?

All of the main characters have something important to do. I didn't feel as though any of the major parts were wasted, as I did with all of the pre-Nolan movies. I was especially pleased that Gordon got to do as much as he did, as he's integral to the mythology of the character.

They keep getting it right. Even though the current series of films aims for a "realistic" tone, they are most definitely true to the spirit of the comics. Sure, the change some story details, but the essence of all the characters is right out of the comics. Two Face is obsessed with random chance. The Joker represents chaos, and he's the total antithesis of Batman. Batman DOES NOT KILL. (Yeah, I know, - he killed in his first appearance and for the first few years of his comic. The fact is, his "no kill" policy has been a part of his mythology for over 65 years now.)

It's about something. It has an actual theme that can be applied to the real world.

The performances - Yes, Ledger is as good as they're saying. Everybody else doesn't feel overshadowed by him though, which is a testament to how good they are.

The action - bigger, better, more intense than the last one.

What was bad about it?

I drank a large iced tea with my minestrone soup before going to the movie, so I had to get up and pee twice. I hate it when I have to do that. Batman should have told me to just stick to the sandwich and a small glass of water.

My grade? Too early to say as of right now. Worst case? B. Best case? A+.

To be continued in the future, no doubt...

Happy birthday to you!

Okay, my birthday was in November. (As luck would have it, it will be in November this year as well.) Basically, the idea for this blog has been swimming in my head since then, but it never occurs to me when I finally sit down to write. Today it finally came to the front of my brain.

On my birthday, I went to EJ Phair's Brewpub. It was a really cool time, as my wife, sister-in law and her boyfriend, my in-laws, and several of my friends showed up to celebrate with me. They have some decent food there (some kinda blah, some downright tasty) and they have some great beers on tap. (Honestly, I think that their beers are only good, but they usually have great guest beers on tap as well.)

I had quite a few beers, and my friends and I got appropriately boisterous. It looked like everybody was enjoying themselves. As coincidence would have it, apparently other people were born on the 24th of November as well. Some of them even like beer. So, there was a table of partiers right next to mine. The friends and family of the other birthday boy sang the Happy Birthday song to him.

On my way home, I noticed something. My friends didn't sing the song to me.

And you know what? I was really glad that they didn't! The truth is, I hate the Happy Birthday song. I hate singing it, and I hate having it sung to me. I always feel like such a tool while I sit there while everybody sings it. I don't know what the hell to do with myself. I try to force a smile, but I just feel awkward. I also hate singing it to others, mainly because I'm not a good singer, but I have a loud voice, and I'm afraid that mine will dominate and everybody will go, "Who the hell is skinning a cat?" (In my own personal hell, I have to work in one of those restaurants where they make the employees sing those really cheesy and stupidly elaborate birthday songs.)

So please, next November 24, wish me a happy birthday, but there's no need to embarass the both of us with that damn song.

To brew or not to brew?

Last weekend, I went to my local homebrew supply shop (Beer, Beer, and More Beer) as they were having a 15% off sale. I figured that I'd stock up on a couple of kits and get some supplies like bottle caps so I could save a little bit of money. I've never seen the place so packed before, as it was almost like a big party with free food and beer samples. (Too bad for me I had just been to the Indian buffet!) I usually go there on the weekends, and there are usually only a couple of other customers in there at a time. On weekdays, there aren't many customers there either, but there's a lot of activity, as employees are going back and forth between the showroom and the back area. From what I understand, they do most of their business online.

I've been homebrewing for just over a year and a half now, and I've tried quite a few of the ale kits. (Why not lagers? I'll get to that later - nothing wrong with lagers.) By now, I have a pretty good sense for what I like, and I'm making some of these for the second time now, and there are some kits (looking at you, Honey Ale) that I just won't bother with again. I bought the American Red Ale kit, which is probably one of the most nicely balanced ales that I've ever had before. My friends also seemed to pick that as a favorite the last time they were over. I also bought a kit for the Blind Pig IPA. I have mixed feelings about IPAs. Oftentimes, all you can taste are the hops, and it's like drinking a pine tree. This one though, while definitely having a prominent hop bite, is really smooth and goes well with spicy food. I just have to watch it when I have a 22 oz. bottle of it - as the 7+% alchohol content tends to make me pretty loopy.

One thing that was cool was that I got to meet Mike McDole. For those of you who don't know, Samuel Adams has a homebrewing contest called LongShot, where the winners get their beers bottled and sold in a special mix pack. Mike won for his Double IPA, and the pack should be available in February, if I remember correctly. Mike also has a kit that he created that I've made, called Mike's American Amber Ale. It's pretty tasty stuff, and my friends liked that one quite a bit as well.

He's obviously a much more experienced homebrewer than I am. The thing is, I was planning on expanding my operation a bit this summer. I was going to get a gas-powered burner so I could boil all five gallons using all-grain kits. Funds turned out a little short, so I'm still doing partial-boils with malt extracts. This is not such a bad thing, because even though that gives me a lot less freedom to experiment and work on my own styles, I still produce some damn tasty beer. What was cool when I talked to Mike was that he told me that he still makes a lot of extract kits, as he thinks that they turn out pretty damn good as well.

Personally, I'm pretty satisfied with the kits that are available. As of right now, there aren't any where I wish that they were more or less hoppy/malty/bitter/yeasty/etc. Maybe the more I get into this, the more I'll want to experiment. There's always time to expand on all this.

Sometimes when I talk to people about homebrewing, they express some interest in starting it up themselves. My advice is this: only do it if you 1) really like beer (and by beer, I'm not talking about American macrobrews - not that there's necessarily anything wrong with them, but what's the point when it's so cheap and readily available?) and 2) like to cook. If you're not intersted in one or the other, then don't bother.

Also, unless you're planning on getting a special fridge just for fermenting your beer, you should probably really like ales. (And if you think that ales are dark and lagers are light, please punch yourself in the face - the only difference is that ales ferment at higher temperatures - and I've made some that were as light as a Budweiser - but, you know, with flavor.) What's nice about ales is that there is a really large range of styles which include Hefeweizens, Porters, Stouts, Belgians, etc.

There's just something special about a homebrewed beer. As I've explained before, you might be able to buy a good marinara sauce in a jar, but nothing beats making your own. Same deal with homebrews. It's also really cool to have friends over for beers and treating all of them while shelling out as much as you would on yourself if you just bought your own beers at a local bar.

But what if you're interested in brewing, but you don't want to do all that work? Well, I have no experience with it myself, but there's a thing out there called Mr. Beer. It seems kind of cheesy, but I've read a lot of positive reviews of it. For one, it seems pretty easy to use. Secondly, the initial cost is only about $40. Third, they have a pretty amazing variety of kits you can buy. Lastly - how bad can it possibly be? It's beer, dammit! (Okay, it could be like Miller Chill - but they don't have a kit called "College Frat Boy Douchebag Lime" from what I can tell.)

I'm hoping that somebody I know will buy one so they can tell me how it turns out. I almost want to buy one so I can find out for myself!

Baby names

Okay, I'm bound to upset some people with this one, but here goes...I think that most people are pretty dumb when it comes to naming their children.

Now, I often joke to my wife that if we ever have a son, we should name him "Fabio Francisco Lando Johnson." Go ahead, say it out loud. Kinda rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Okay, yeah - it's silly. But is it any worse than some of the names that people usually go for?

Of course, I could go on and on about celebrities who name their kids "Apple" or "Rutabega" or whatever. That's too easy. However, I would like to point out that nothing says, "I'm a douche" more than naming your son "Miller Lyte." Apparently, that's what some usually shirtless celebrity's brother named his son. Holy crap. I guess he wanted to let people know that he has shitty taste in both beer and baby names in one fell swoop - oh, and that he's illiterate too. Mission accomplished. To be fair, his parents named him "Rooster." How much hope did he have? What will Rooster's grandson be named? Applebee's? New Coke? Dog shit?

Kirsti and I might have to do some baby naming soon, so don't think that we haven't been discussing this sort of thing. We have a few names in mind, the leading contenders being "MP3", "Spock", and "Taco". Just kidding. The trick is to come up with a name that sounds different, but not so different that people go: "What?" Now, we might wind up with a baby who already has a name - and part of us thinks that we shouldn't rename her - as she should have something from her birth parents that she keeps forever. We might change our minds if her name is something like "AC Adapter" though.

According to the Social Security Administration, the top ten baby girl names are: Emily, Isabella, Emma, Ava, Madison, Sophia, Olivia, Abigail, Hannah, and Elizabeth. Many of those are wonderful, lovely names, but as far as I'm concerned, they are all off the table. See, to me, the whole reason why you'd look at a list of popular baby names is so you know which ones to avoid. Why would you want to call your kid a name that a lot of other people have?

I'm pretty grateful that my parents went for "Lance". It's different, but it's not weird. All throughout school, I was always the only Lance in class. (Except for one year in college, where it was a huge class and there were TWO other people with my name!) Apparently, my mother wanted to call me "Lancelot," which my dad shot down, if I remember the story correctly. I believe that there were some other, more Germanic names floating around as well like "Sven," "Wotan" and "Siegfried and Roy".

Take it from me - I'm a teacher. It gets confusing when there are three Caitlins in the class (but trust me, Caitlin is a lovely name) and it doesn't matter that one spells it "Kaitlin", another spells it "Katelyn", and the third spells it "Gahetluhynx". It also doesn't help that all three of them go by "Katie" for short. Why would you want to do that to your child?

And let's not forget that if I have a son and name him "Lance Christian Johnson, Jr." that I deserve to be bitch-slapped until doomsday. Also, if he winds up having a son named "Lance Christian Johnson, III" then he deserves to be put in the iron maiden. Yeah, I'm saying it - calling your son your name is basically your way of saying, "Not only am I totally full of my own self-importance, but I'm too fucking lazy to think of anything." Look, unless you're the king of a nation, you look like an ass when you do that.

Naming a baby is hard - granted. It's tough to strike that balance between normality and uniqueness. But dammit, at least give it a little effort.

Stupid...or awesome?

I just read an article about a guy in Lima who had to undergo surgery to remove a knife, nails, and other metallic objects. Apparently, the guy is mentally ill. Obviously, eating metal is dumb - especially sharp metal objects.

However, there are always two sides to every story. I think that an argument can be made that swallowing a knife is awesome. Yeah, put aside all of the sensible, logical, and frankly BORING arguments about why you shouldn't do that. How totally rad do you have to be to swallow a knife? And then chase it with some nails? You just might have to be the most awesome person ever.

Just think, if you did that, somebody could threaten you with bodily harm, and you could just reply with, "Back off, buddy! I eat nails!" Then show him the x-ray. That dude will NEVER want to mess with you, because you have proven yourself to be a grade-A badassssssssssss!!!!

This reminds me of a story from a few years ago that I remember about a guy who killed a deer. Oh, he didn't shoot it. He killed it by challenging it to a bout of fisticuffs and totally kicking its ass! It had crashed through the bedroom window, and he decided to take the sucker on mano a hoofo. Not only that, but the fight was interrupted, and then he proceeded to go back into the room to continue the ass-whipping that he had already begun. And he fought it for forty minutes! Forty minutes of sheer awesomeness!

Yeah, you could argue, if you're a total wuss, that the smart thing would have been to wait for qualified individuals to come to the house and subdue the deer in a far less violent manner. You could say that it wasn't worth risking permanent bodily injury, and perhaps even his life, just to fight a deer. And if you're the kind of person who would say that, you might as well move to France, ya pinko! The guy is a hero! Most...awesome...EVER!!!!

I'm gonna go swallow some broken glass and pick a fight with that family of beavers that lives near the Marina. Oh yeah. I shall be awesome too.

What about the baby situation?

A lot of people already know this, but some of you might not. Kirsti (that's my wife) and I decided that we were going to adopt a baby (a girl, to be specific). We're adopting through the county, and we have gone through a long process in order to get ourselves approved for adoption. The thing is, it's been taking a long time, as we've been waiting for over a year now.

If you don't want to read the rest of this, then take this away from this post: We're fine.

We knew going in that it could be a long time until we got our baby. To be honest, we didn't expect it to be quite this long, but we knew it wasn't going to happen overnight. Has it been frustrating? Yes. Does it even make us a bit sad at times? Yes.

I won't speak for Kirsti, but I'll say that I'm okay with all of that. It's most frustrating when people, most of whom mean well, bombard me with questions about it. Luckily, I don't get that very often. I'm assuming that this is because most of my friends are guys, and guys tend to not ask a lot of questions about these sorts of things. It's not like they don't care. I just assume that they're like me, and they figure that I'll tell them something when I'm ready to tell them something. Anyway, the kinds of questions that are annoying are the ones when people ask me why it's taking so long. Or, they ask me why I don't call to figure out what's happening. As if our social worker has a baby girl sitting on her desk, but she's too busy playing solitaire to call us and let us know about it.

I will admit that there was a bit of a fear that we had fallen through the cracks and that our files somehow got shoved to the bottom, never to be seen again. I'll admit that I didn't call our social worker very much. This is mainly because I genuinely have to work up the willpower to use the phone (yes, I'm weird - I know) and have a conversation. I don't like calling somebody unless there's a reason or some sort of a point. As for calling the social worker, there didn't seem to be much of a point. I mean, what would the conversation consist of? "Do you have a baby for us?" "Ummm...no, not yet." "Okay, bye."

Still, I went ahead and called earlier this week, and that was a good decision as it has renewed my faith that we're doing the right thing. The social worker told me that we hadn't fallen between the cracks; it was just simply that there were a lot of people ahead of us. Also, since we're specific about what we want, that narrows down our options (we also want her to be a year or younger). We're also going to be adopting a child who is primarily Caucasian. (This could be the subject of another blog post entirely - it's an issue that I have mixed feelings about, but I can assure that the reason isn't because we somehow don't like people who aren't crackers like us.) She also told me that we're pretty much at the top of the stack, and we already looked like a good choice, but now that we've been waiting so long, we look like an even better one.

So, has this been hard? Yes. But do you know what keeps me holding on? The fact that once I have my child, none of this will matter.