Archives for December, 2006
The end of a mediocre season
Just a note of thanks to Jake Plummer who managed to regress horribly this year and cost my beloved Denver Broncos some key games. Yes the defence had a lot of injuries but when you give the ball away like Jake Plummer did over and over and over again, you aren’t going to win a lot games.
The search for John Elway’s replacement continues.
Update: Then again, the murder of Broncos QB Darrent Williams puts it all in perspective.
Technorati Tags : Denver+Broncos
Saskatoon Blades vs. Regina Pats
The family bundled up and headed out to Credit Union Centre to watch the Saskatoon Blades beat the Regina Pats last night. Our tickets were a Christmas gift from the Reimers. Not much hitting and a lot of turnovers but it was a fun and close game. Wendy and I worked morning shifts Saturday after working late shifts on Friday so we both were happy the game didn’t go to overtime but it was a good game. Thankfully Credit Union Centre sells cappochinos. Announced attendance was just under 5000 people. We bought Mark a big giant foam #1 hand. When he wasn’t cheering with it, he was using it to try to pick our noses. In hindsight it may not have been the best choice of souveniers.
The only fight of the night was more of a dance with only a couple of punches. Other than a couple of minor scuffles, it was quiet for a back to back game. Then again, Regina’s big rivalry is with Moose Jaw and Saskatoon’s is with the Prince Albert Raiders.
I also found out that Saskatoon has joined the deep south with a “Faith Night” for the Blades. A hockey game, testimony, and a worship band. It seems like a weird combination for me but I’ll just leave that alone.
Contextless Links
- Saddam Hussein’s obituary in The Guardian
- 100 things we didn’t know in 2005 but learned in 2006
- The John Edwards’ campaign has a Flickr account which is great if you are a blogger as it let’s you give some visuals while writing about the campaign. Not only that but the photos that they have posted are great and give one an inside look inside the campaign.
Wendy and I to divorce?
I use Gmail to manage all of my e-mail accounts and was reading my e-mail yesterday when I saw the headline (Gmail has RSS headlines on the top of the page) from ESPN, Jordan, wife to divorce which jarred me for a second. Then I realized that the headline was for Michael Jordan and not Wendy kicking me out. I was rather relieved although disappointed when I realized that it also means I don’t have any basketball game to talk about either.
WWI Debt
So you have probably heard that England has made the last of it’s debt payments back to Canada and the United States for reconstruction after that little incidient called World War II. I think I knew that England hadn’t paid back their WWI debt but I found it interesting that England is neither servicing the debt nor has it been written off (I think by the U.S.) and so it is in limbo. Anyone know why this is. Not that it matters but I am just curious.
Update: O2 Thoughtful offered this link
These loans remain in limbo. The UK Government’s position is this: “Neither
the debt owed to the United States by the UK nor the larger debts owed by other
countries to the UK have been serviced since 1934, nor have they been written
off.”So in a time when debt relief for Third World nations is recurrently in
the news, the UK still has a slew of unresolved loans from a war that finished
88 years ago. HM Treasury’s researchers descended into its archives and were
unable to even establish which nations owe money. The bulk of the sum would
probably have gone to allies such as nations of the Empire fighting alongside
Britain, says Dr Clavin.
In other words you aren’t the only one with a bunch of financial records just shoved into a shoe box in your basement. Apparently Her Majesty’s Treasury did the same thing.
Contextless Links
- The NFL can’t grip their, ummm, new footballs :: “When there’s a humidity problem, what happens is the pebble definition [on the ball] isn’t as great,” he said. “That did occur this summer. There was a big heat wave right when we were producing the footballs. It’s not that it made the balls slick. But the pebble definition wasn’t as great, which makes the ball slicker. Basically, after they brushed them down, they did have a slicker ball.
- The Guardian’s 100 most useful technology websites
- Product Placement in Pews :: “Church pastors last year had a chance to win a free trip to London and $1,000 cash—if they mentioned Disney’s film “The Chronicles of Narnia” in their sermons. Chrysler, hoping to target affluent African Americans with its new luxury SUV, is currently sponsoring a Patti LaBelle gospel music tour through African-American megachurches nationwide. Advertising has begun to seep into churches, and the phenomenon shows no signs of slowing down, say academic, religious and marketing experts. Among the wave of early adopters: the Republican Party, which successfully sold its platform to church-goers in the 2000 and 2004 elections; Hollywood, which discovered the economic power of faith when Mel Gibson’s church-marketed film “The Passion of the Christ” became a blockbuster; and publishing, with Rick Warren’s best-selling The Purpose-Driven Life, heavily marketed by a Christian publishing house.” Here is part 2 of 2 :: “Even business guru Jim Collins, best-selling author of Good to Great and Built to Last, has an opinion on the topic. Growth for the sake of growth is potentially destructive, warns Collins, who spoke this summer to a megachurch leadership conference about his new publication applying Good to Great concepts to “social sector” organizations like churches. The key question for churches, he says, is, “Do they have the discipline to say ‘no’ to any resources that will drive them away from their fundamental mission?”" On a completely unrelated note, the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship is selling premium memberships on their church website which seems to be the 21st century throwback to selling pews.
- A bad Christmas? Here are some ways to turn it around
- Since we are all broke after Christmas, here is 10 ways to save in 2007, 20 ways to save on a shoestring, and 10 easy ways to stash away thousands
Predictions for 2007
Another year, another round of predictions for 2007. Enjoy
- As is our annual custom now in Canada, we will have yet another election with so many candidates bothering me while I try to eat supper, I may snap. It is going to be an interesting writ with the environment being front and center. On one hand you have the Conservative embarrassment of an environment policy up against the empty words of the former environment minister, Stephane Dion who while I am a big fan of, did a horrible job of implementing the Kyoto Accord (the U.S. has cut greenhouse gases more than Canada has). The Liberals win a minority government and we get to do this all again in 2008 and until Jean Chretien comes out of retirement. If there is a new government, a gaggle of American celebrities will travel to Ottawa to lecture the Prime Minister on the evils of the seal hunt and will act hurt and shocked that the Prime Minister of Canada does not clear his calendar for stars from Hollywood.
The weblogs and websites of all the three major Canadian political parties will be awful. Terrible weblogs, podcasts, and nothing to empower other bloggers to get out the message like the Dean campaign in 2004. In other words no one wants to take a risk. This is off topic but probably the best campaign blog I have seen in Canada was former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.
- Warren Kinsella won’t get permalinks in 2007. For the last couple of years I had been predicting he would but I am starting to feel like a Buffalo Bills fan in the 90s (or a Saskatchewan Roughrider fan since I have been alive), after a while you just accept the inevitable. He did get a RSS feed in 2006 so there is progress (even if it is an unofficial one)
- The dominance of the evangelical right in the Republican primaries will finally start a wider discussion in the church that maybe the goal of Christians may not be to elect a Republican president and actually be to live in the ways of Jesus Christ. Yeah, even now I realize that won’t happen.
- General Motors will reinvent themselves again and decide that what Toyota Prius and Yaris buying customers really want is even bigger SUVs setting the stage for even KIA to pass them in 2012. Although those new Super SUV’s will sell well in Alberta.
- Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party will win a large majority government in Saskatchewan in 2007. I think he has 48% of the popular vote right now which in a first past the post system translates to a big majority. Even the diehard NDP are talking about a need for renewal. Hon. Lorne Calvert will resign and Corner Gas will be poorer for it.
- Saskatoon will build another couple of big box malls doing more damage to our downtown core because everyone wants to buy clothes at the same place you buy bulk motor oil. The media will break a scandalous story that says that our city planners have actually been locked in a dungeon in the basement of the Hotel Bessborough.
- Tom Clancy will release another massive novel which my bother and I will buy and at the end of reading 24 hours straight we will both declare that one could have ignored the first half of the book and not missed anything of substance… just like his last several novels.
- Restrictive DRM by mainline studios will force more artists to go independent of risk a large portion of their fan base embracing them like George Steinbrenner embraces losing.
- There will be even more poorly researched books and fundraising appeals by conservative evangelicals about the dangers of the emerging church.
Related links
Technorati Tags : predictions, 2007
Contextless Links
- The secrets of Al Gore’s excellent presentation of an Inconvenient Truth
- Digg uses moderators :: Mostly to fight link spam
- Google tops Yahoo! as second most popular site on the web
- Best (and worst) ads of 2006
- A 5 metre aircraft carrier made entirely out of Lego
- Coming out of a tunnel to make a difference in the world
- The plight of young offenders in Africa
- The Right has a jailhouse conversion
- Are the Yankees showing financial restraint? Steinbrenner has a lot less influence on the Yankees day to day operation.
- Craigslist meets the capitalists :: Business people are freaked out that Craigslist isn’t all about money. This is another reason to get involved and support Saskatchewan’s Craiglist. “Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a “a culture clash of near-epic proportions.” She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. It doesn’t, Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). “That definitely is not part of the equation, he said, according to MediaPost. It’s not part of the goal.?”
- Planting a tree may accelerate global warming :: “What we have found is in the so-called mid-latitude region where the United States is located and majority of European countries are located, the climate benefits of planting will be nearly zero,” said ecologist Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “[In] the seasonally snow-covered regions [at even higher latitudes], planting new trees could be actually counter-productive,” he told BBC News.
Someone found the long tail
I just was linked to from Senator John Edwards’ weblog about some less than flattering things I wrote about Senator Sam Brownback’s worldview. I must have been in a lousy mood that day although I do find the worldview of Sen Brownback to be severely flawed.
I always liked John Edwards and thought he was an excellent choice for Vice President. That being said that down the stretch toward the election when Dick Cheney was getting news coverage every day, I heard very little from Senator Edwards which kind of negates the point of the Kerry campaign selecting such an effective voice for the ticket.
Technorati Tags : Senator+John+Edward, Sam+Brownback
10 Favorite Photos of 2006
I wandered through the photos I took in 2006 and thought I would post my ten favorite shots from the last year. Click on the picture to get a larger version and some context.
Technorati Tags : 2006, best+of, photography
The best bloggers of 2006
I tried to post my ten favorite weblog of 2006 but the list grew to 13 weblogs and today I am posting my ten favorite (or so) weblogs. Tomorrow come my 10 predictions of 2007.
- James Bow :: James is a little more to the left of me but offers well thought out comments on politics, transit, Battlestar Galatica, and a bunch of other stuff that makes me a little smarter after I have read them.
- Rudy Carrasco :: Rudy has photos of him and George W. Bush in his house and is a dedicated free market believer but is a great discussion partner and a fabulous blogger. Rudy balances ideological beliefs with a humbleness to look at all sides of an equation. Along with Karen Ward , Andrew Jones and I, he was one of the first in this little niche we blog in.
- Tony Jones :: Tony has a hard job in that his personal opinions on his personal blog are often taken as the opinions of Emergent and therefore of the entire emerging church. Despite that his opinions are automatically attributed by our critics to many of us, he does a great job dialoguing with Emergent and the rest of the American church on his weblog.
- The Greater Chicago Area theological bloggers. There is Scot McKnight :: Despite the fact that I think that there is several Scot McKnights (His blog features a bunch of well written posts, plus books, plus teaching, researching, and marking, plus he seems to have a family life — there has to be more than one Scot), they work together to write an excellent (team?) blog. Also don’t forget AKMA who offers up a consistently profound and well written weblog. David Fitch is the latest of great theological weblogs with a focus on evangelism, post modernity, and the missional church. All of them get read several times a week.
- Warren Kinsella :: Another year without permalinks but it now does have a RSS feed which is a step forward. Warren wrote less about politics this year and some more about media and personal matters but I still head back every day and enjoy reading it. How influential is his blog? Well, he made me a fan of punk after he wrote Fury’s Hour, he talked former Prime Minister Jean Chretien into posting on his weblog, and from his blogroll, I get several visitors a day from the last three occupants of the Prime Minister’s Office.
- Calgary Grit :: Maybe the best political blog out there from the left or the right or from the north or south side of the border. Even the comments that get left from those that disagree with him are more intelligent then other bloggers.
- Rebecca Blood :: Author of The Weblog Handbook and one of the first bloggers out there, I find myself reading and buying a fair amount of book that she recommends and liking them. Not only that but she is a source of some of the best environmental links on the web.
- True Hoop :: I am not as big of a NBA fans as I am a fan of the NFL and NHL but I love this blog. Eric McErlain publishes my favorite hockey blog
- Jeneane Sessum :: Jeneane has been blogging at allied.blogspot.com since time began and I have been reading her blog for years.
- Rick Bennett :: Yeah he spells my name wrong on his blogroll but he still offers up some excellent political and social commentary. Of course his declaration of support for Mark McGwire in the Hall of Fame almost dropped him from the list
- Pernell Goodyear :: Pastor of the Freeway (which is a great church blog) and an important part of Resonate, Pernell keeps a weblog worth reading. He also blogs the crude phrases that I am afraid to.
- Onehouse :: Published by a friend of mine with a secret identity, many of the good decisions that I make in this world come from ideas, authors, and thoughts from this weblog.
Related: My favorite books of 2006
Technorati Tags : weblog, 2006, best+of
Merry Christmas
After that we went home and joined Lee and Mark for some home made pizza and we watched Over the Hedge. I was suprised how much the movie made in the theatres ($239,307,057 worldwide) as I wasn’t that fond of us but what do I know. Mark on the other hand thought it was great so as long as he had a good time it was worth watching.
Wendy gave me The Great Omission by Dallas Willard and The Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon. After 18 years of asking, I was finally given an NFL Football by Lee. Lee got Mark a Game Boy Advance SP but also managed to get me a game for it. I forgot how much fun those things could be.Santa
I was chatting at work when I remembered that 25 years ago while living in Calgary, a guy dressed up as Santa Claus used to come by every Christmas Eve with snacks and toys for us. I have no idea who that guy was… a neighbor… a person from our church… a friend of the family. I never thought of it from then until we were talking about kids who were scared of Santa and I remembered by sister cried when he came to our house. Now I am really curious to who it was.
On the run in Lebanon
I went to school with Melissa. Unbelievable story. More information here.
Christmas Eve
I hope none of you are reading this and are all hanging out with family and friends. I am working today in a fairly busy shelter. Everyone told me that it would be really quiet and empty but we have a full house right now which is good in that I am glad people have a place to stay.
Last night Mark and I stayed up late watching a plethora of Christmas specials and finished the night strong as we watched a Godzilla movie. Mark slept in front of the Christmas tree and when I went down in the middle of the night, Mark was sleeping on the floor while Maggi had the fold out mattress. I pulled the dog onto the floor and Mark onto the mattress only to come down and find Mark back on the floor and Maggi on the mattress when I went to leave for work this morning.
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Messy Faith: Daring to Live by Grace by A. J. Gregory October 28, 2008
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
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