Camp

I am at camp right now.

No matter how anxious I am whenever I head up here, it mostly dissolves away once I arrive. Granted, this is the most wary visit I can ever remember. And I haven't talked to or seen Mr. Director Man yet. And I feel like I'm tiptoeing around people.

But still, these people, collectively, are my favorites.

Movin' Reviewin'

Just to you, my loyal readership that up until recent had not broken 30 individuals know, I am not going to be doing Witwiwo Reviews on this blog any more.

I have already deleted them from this blog and moved them over to my new review blog, What I Thought When It Was Over. Clever title, eh? Didn't see that one coming, did ya?

I will still do some review-ish posts on this blog, but my straight up Witwiwo Reviews and similar things will be located over there.

Enjoy.

The Goods

I found so many of the things I received on Christmas day enjoyable that I thought I would share some of them with you all:

1. The Complete Rhyming Dictionary -- Something I'd been interested in utilizing in some poetry. There's somewhere around a frillion entries for the words ending in the -ation sound. I'm sort of excited to use it.

2. A Rubik's cube. I have never honestly tried my hand at one and after about a half hour of toying around, I'm confusing myself, I'm sure.

3. Trans Siberian Orchestra's latest installment, Night Castle, a 26-track rockestral* piece accompanied by an illustrated storybook.

*this term has been copyrighted by the Timotheus Foundation, for exclusive use by Mr. T.J. Schley, Esquire in reference to the aforementioned band, Trans Siberian Orchestra, and may only be applied to other bands if Mr. Schley deems it appropriate.

4. Serious Drawings by Marc Johns. Someone and something I have mentioned before. It contains such wonderful entries as

his humor is very dry and very enjoyable. To me at least.

5. A crossbow. Not the literal, firing-wooden-arrows-into-your-chain-mail-covered-chest type, but a pretty good one, nonetheless. My roomates are going to love my family for giving me that one.

6. The 19th installment of my Hallmark Keepsake Ornament series, Puppy Love. If my puppy identification skills are still intact (and I believe they are), then it is a chcolate lab, hanging from a Christmas wreath.

7. A sword. Again, not the literal, my-blade-will-be-your-bane-you-evil-oppressor-of-the-innocent-and-enslaver-of-good-things type, but, rather, a Nerf sword.

What's this, you didn't know they made them in claymoresque edition? Well now you know. And knowing is half the battle. The other half being a Nerf sword. Again, I'm sure the Testosterhome's inhabitants are going to be quite thankful to my sister for that gift.

8. Other sundries, including, but not limited to socks (which I have been lacking) various candies, a grow-in-water Spiderman, a cross necklace and a Pillar CD.

So what did you get? Do share.

To You--

A Happy Christmas.

Also: A Christmas Monster of sorts:

Dug Down Deep

This is a short promo video for Joshua Harris' (of I Kissed Dating Goodbye fame) new book Dug Down Deep. I am very interested in what he is talking about it in this book. I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick it up. Sounds similar to stuff I am learning about.

Bears Are Eating My Friends

Have you ever wondered to yourself why there are not more artistic interpretations of the lesser known scenes of the Bible? I have. Especially this one:

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths."

These two young gents have offered up a rather good song about the situation. Not the funniest, but quite entertaining just because I think they've corned the market on songs about this passage.

Although who knows? Maybe the recent interest may spark a whole new artistic renaissance pertaining to Elisha's form of youth ministry.



Here is the chorus:

"Bears are eating my friends! Female bears are ripping off our limbs. When you mock a prophet of the Lord you'll end up dead. Now I'm regretting those last words I said: Go on up, you baldhead."

And in the comments, someone said

Jehovah Loves Java

That's the title of this particular strip of the webcomic Max vs. Max:

Now, this is some funny stuff. If you aren't laughing there is some serious stuff you need to work through. Don't believe me? How can you not think that God, the Living God, showed up in Max's bed to talk to him about their relationship? That's high quality entertainment there.

And God pulling the typical God line of "I'm not bound by your concept of time." That is comedic gold. Right now Max just got out of a relationship and is looking to stay out of the dating game for a while....oh, dating.

I first heard about Wes Molebash and his webcomicing adventures through his role in clothing Zakk, the metrosexual worship leader over at Stuff Christians Like.

30 Second Christmas Story

Just thought I'd share this hilarious and speedy take on the birth of Christ. Pretty funny, I quite enjoy those videos that place a irrelevantly pertinent image to the words being said.

And who know that Joseph, Jesus' Dad looked just like Mr. Stalin? Or that Einstein, Gandhi and MLK were the Wise Men?



[Tip O' The Hat to Crazy Christian Clips]

My Heart, It Keeps Me Broke

An excellent song and one of my perpetual favorites by Jars of Clay. I have to fight to not put it on every single playlist I make. This week, it seems particularly pertinent.

"Mirrors and Smoke" by Jars of Clay, from Good Monsters

[resonating lines in bold, hear the song here]

I'm feeling older than my years
I'm feeling pain inside my chest
It's love that keeps me silent
It's my silence that you detest
Rivers flow into the oceans
And oceans never fill
I want to kiss your lips, but I know I never will

Love's a hard decision to risk impending choke
But love will keep you wishing
And my heart will keep me broke

I blew flowers, gave you candy to even out the guilt
I sent you greeting cards with messages
that I could never write
Rivers flow into the oceans
And oceans never fill
I want to let you know me
But I know I never will

Love's a contradiction
Many mirrors and smoke
Love will keep you wishing
My heart will keep me broke

You will always want me
And I'll always want to leave
Even though I cut your wounds
You still deny they're real
Rivers flow into the ocean
Oceans never fill
I want to lay my life down
But I know you never will

Love's a strange condition
With all the doubts it can invoke
You love keeps me wishing
And my heart keeps me broke

Baby, don't you cry, 'cause I got it all figured out
You always make me sad
But that's what true love is all about
Rivers never fill the oceans
But oceans always feel
The waters reaching deep inside them
I guess they always will

Love's a constant mission to a world you never spoke
Love, it keeps you wishing
My heart, it keeps me broke...
Mirrors and Smoke

M. Ward -- "Requiem"

M. Ward--I don't know much about him. And he seems like he should be a mysterious, cryptic character from the elusive absence of a full first name. I wonder if his friends call him 'M.' That would get confusing at Bond viewing parties.

He is the 'Him' from She & Him, Zooey Deschanel's band, and with that band's second installment Volume Two on the way, I'm pretty stoked. I think I am going to start checking some of his stuff out.

I saw this song posted by someone on Veteran's Day, and it struck me as particularly poetic and insightful. I love extraordinary celebrations of ordinary people's extraordinary lives.



[Tip O' The Hat to Abraham Piper]

Maybe it is Me, Maybe it is Her

Dating is hard. (Some may feel obligated to insert their "No Sh*t, Sherlock" here, a point I am perfectly willing to concede). It is harder than I remember.

Then again, since I've really screwed up my relationships since my last "official" relationship. Maybe it's just been a while. Maybe I'm just missing some key component.

Or maybe I'm just growing up. Maybe I feel "out of it" because the "in it" I am used to is from a younger, less mature, more selfish High School T.J. Maybe what used to be the norm is no longer acceptable. Maybe God wants something else for me.

Maybe it's Maybelline?

Whatever the case. I do remember it sucking this bad when it sucked. I do remember the suck.

Help Portrait

What do you give someone in a time of economic despair, when you are comparably despairing yourself, and you are a mere photographic artist? You give them hope.

But how do you do give someone such an abstract, elusive thing? How about by giving them something they've never had before: a chance to be beautiful, and a picture to remember it by. Sounds good to me.

It also sounds good to Jeremy Cowart, a celebrity photographer and creator of Help Portrait, a movement to call as many photographers as possible to give people something simple, something meaningful.

December 12 they're trying to rally photographers to go do some significant stuff for those around them. Check out the their site or this short promo video:



[Tip O' The Hat to Tyler Stanton]

The World Is Just Awesome

Discovery Channel does some good stuff. I mean, between MythBusters, Dirty Jobs and a plethora of other entertaining and informative shows, you've got some telerevolutionaryness. True story.

This commercial--I can't believe I'd never seen it before, but is hilarious to me--when you have a bunch of people and animals in coordinated song across the globe, you can't get much better than that.



[Tip O' The Hat to Tyler Stanton]

I Got 95 Theses and The Pope Ain't One

Few things entertain me more than a merging of the new and the old. And I'm a big fan of theology. So this video was quite hilarious to me. I mean, the 95 Theses put to Jay-Z's "99 Problems"? Gold.

Plus the authenticish garb adds a great deal of funny to the clip.